There could be no greater nor more fatal mistake.
There may have been outbursts of irritation6 like that over the Bengal partition which have passed because the cause was removed; we may be now in the trough and not upon the crest7 of a wave, but that is all that can be said. The discontent has not passed, nor will it, nor can it pass. It is deep-rooted in the very nature of things as they are now. It is not local, nor is it confined to one or two strata8 of society, nor is it directed against one or two acts of Government. It is universal, in all provinces, in all classes, directed not against this act or that act, but against the Government as a whole. This is very evident to those upon the spot, has been evident for many years. The reason more has not been said about it is the absurd notion that talking of the discontent will tend to increase it, as if real discontent ever arose from words, or as if it could be understood unless it were talked about. It should also be evident to those not upon the spot who reflect on causes and effects. For instance, could the partition of Bengal have raised such a sudden flame had there been peace before? People in neither the East nor the West are roused into such sudden and fierce anger by an administrative9 change even if the change is not to their tastes. For there was no real change of government, nor substantive10 hardship. The hardship was sentimental11 hardship at the worst, not the less a real hardship for that.
No. There was discontent before, and the partition only fanned it into flame.
And that discontent is not sudden. It has grown slowly for many years. It is not local; in one province it may be more apparent than in another, but it is universal. It is not temporary, but increases. So much is admitted by those who know. Yet no one thinks of diagnosing it. They shut their eyes, they sit upon the safety-valve, they give measures which they hope will cause relief but which cannot do so; they merely accentuate13 the difficulty and emphasise14 the ignorance that is behind it on both sides. How can you cure a fever unless you diagnose the cause or causes? To administer a drug at random15 is not likely to succeed, yet what are the Councils but a random drug? How can they act? No one knows what the patient suffers from; she herself least of all, I think. No one can truly diagnose his own illness nor prescribe his remedy. India feels uncomfortable, and clamours for anything she can get. The Indian Government gives her what it can, offering profusest condolence, which is sincere; and for the rest sitting upon her chest.
But that will avail nothing—how can it? The fever is deep-seated, it is remittent, it affects the whole system. It is becoming dangerous both to the patient and her physician. For their lots are bound together. India cannot yet do without us. She has not got the organism to govern herself yet. She has no structure, but is an inchoate16 mass of people. Did we part, India could not protect herself against her neighbours by sea or land. She would be a prey17 to any enterprising Power. Internally she would dissolve into anarchy18. No one, I think, doubts this. Some claim to doubt it—do they?
And as to England, what would we be were India reft from us?
Further, there is this: you cannot hold India by force alone. Force has its place, but it cannot stand alone. We conquered and have governed India by the consent of the people. In fact, she conquered herself and gave herself to us. We never had to fight peoples, except in Upper Burma, but only Governments—effete19, discredited20 and weak. The peoples accepted us: if not with gladness, yet they did accept. Without that acquiescence21 we could have done nothing. This must be thoroughly22 realised, for it is an essential truth. Anyone can see it for himself. Given any superiority you like to assume of Englishman over Indian, could a handful of English officials and seventy thousand or less British troops conquer and rule three hundred-and-fifty millions of people, living in a climate suitable to them but deadly to us, against their will? It is impossible, incredible, absurd. There has been always a tacit and generally an active consent. Now that consent is disappearing. Why? And what is to be done? It must be discovered. Therefore what I propose to do in this book is: First, to show what our rule was at first and why it was so successful.
To explain how these factors of success gradually disappeared, while at the same time the people progressed.
To show briefly23 the state of things to-day—how widely Government and the people have drifted apart, and how unsuitable Government has become.
To examine the cures proposed and indicate how useless they must be.
Finally, to show how alone Government and the people can be brought into harmony and the legitimate24 desires of both be fulfilled.
Let us go back on history, and recount the past so that we may explain the present.
Some hundreds of years ago—it varies for different places—there were in India kingdoms that were stable and strong and free. The peoples were enterprising, active and intelligent, and a high degree of civilisation25 was common throughout all classes. I don't think it is generally realised that five or six hundred years ago India was ahead of Europe in most matters.
Gradually all this decayed. How and why it decayed this is not the place to explain; there were several causes, the principal being religion; but these systems of government all crumbled26 into dust. It was not merely dynasties or ruling classes that passed, but that the whole fabric27 of its civilisation became weakened and lifeless. The organisms that held the people together dissolved, and instead of kingdoms India became simply a mass of village communities, with no organism above that.
Into this more or less anarchical country came the Moguls from the north, and established an empire. This Empire was accepted for the same reason that ours subsequently was accepted—because the people wanted first of all peace; and as peace could only be found under a strong government, and the Mogul was the only strong power, they accepted it. They had, moreover, no organisations to enable them to resist.
But this Mogul power had no root in the soil, not in any soil. It had cut itself away from its base, and it could not become rooted in India. It had, therefore, never any real vitality29. The Normans in England coalesced30 with the people after a time, and drew strength from them and their institutions, but the Mogul Empire did not.
Nevertheless, it did to a certain extent enlist31 the people on its side, accept them into its organism. There was in the early Emperors no fanaticism33. "As tolerant as Akbar" almost became a proverb. Hindus and Mussulmans worked together in harmony for the benefit of the Empire. That is why it succeeded at all, because the line of division was almost ignored. Then came the fanatic32 Aurungzebe, who by his zeal34 for religion began the destruction of the Empire, which came very quickly. And when the ruling power was weakened and began to pass, nothing remained. It was simply a government from above. It had built up no system; it was the head of no organism. When its rulers weakened there was nothing to support them. A king in England might be weak or be deposed35, but the nation's life went on because the organism was not dependent entirely36 on the head. Its strength came from below, not above.
Very rapidly the government was dissolved in all but name, became effete, corrupt37, and useless.
Then came the East India Company and overthrew38 it, establishing a new domination. This again was actively39 or passively accepted by the people because they wanted peace and order, which are the first wants of all humanity.
This English government was still more foreign than the Mogul domination, but it had one great advantage, it was rooted in the soil. Not in the soil of India, of course, but in that of England. It was a branch of the English tree of government which had its roots deep down in English life. Therefore it had and has a strong vitality. It established over India such peace and order as had never been known.
To do this it had to establish a complete system of government, for there was none of the old machinery40 left.
It did this on the English fashion. I do not mean that it borrowed the English system. At the beginning it did try this, as the Municipality of Madras and the Permanent Settlement of Bengal show. But so obviously was this absurd that it discontinued transplanting, and framed a system of its own. This was, of course, adapted to the circumstances. Like the Mogul system it was a government from above. It hung, as it were, suspended from the Viceroy and Council. It had no roots in the soil in India; it was not and is not indigenous41 in any way. Its vitality is derived42 from England, transmitted through the Secretary of State and the Viceroy. That is the way its life-blood circulates. Were that artery43 cut, the whole system would die at once. The connection severed44, in a few months there would not be a vestige45 left of the whole great fabric of the Indian Government.
If you follow the current of responsibility you will see that this is so. The lowest official in the Indian hierarchy46 is the Township officer. He is in charge of, say, two or three hundred square miles of country. To whom is he responsible—the people under him? Not in the least. He is responsible to the Subdivisional officer, he to the District officer, and he—either directly or through the Commissioner—to the Local Government. The Local Governments are responsible to the Viceroy in Council, he to the Secretary of State in England, the Secretary to the Prime Minister, he to Parliament, and Parliament to the constituencies. Where do the Indian people come in? Nowhere.
Again, take responsibility of another kind. Suppose India is attacked—who is responsible for its safety—India? Not so. It is the English people, who defend it with ships, with troops, with money. India, for instance, has no credit in herself. The Indian Government gets credit as a branch of the English Government, with English credit behind it. If the Indian peoples pay it is because England makes them pay, not because by the system of government there is any responsibility to pay.
The government of India has no existence apart from England. It is only 'Indian' inasmuch as it governs India, not that it proceeds from India or is composed of Indians. The truth by which it lives is that it is purely47 English.
This is most important; it must never be forgotten. The whole system of the government of India down to the last detail is alien, is exotic. It could not by any possibility be rooted in India. Neither the whole nor any part could be taken over as a going concern by any self-government India might develop. It was created by, and is adapted to, the genius of the English in India governing from above, and to that need only. The reader can see that for himself, and I beg that he will try to see it, because it is an essential truth.
Such was the principle of the English Government, one from above; and such were the people, a heterogeneous48 mass of diverse races, tongues and religions, with no organisation28 above that of the village.
That the people at large accepted our government as not only the best available government, but at the time the best conceivable government, there is no possible doubt. Nor, as I have said, was this acceptance merely passive. The ease with which Sepoy regiments49 were raised in all parts of India shows that the people had no antipathy50 to our government, but were glad to help it to restore and maintain order. For these troops were for internal purposes, and not for foreign service, which has always been most distasteful to them.
But there was more than this. The more you study governments and peoples the more clearly you see that to ensure smooth working there must be some relationship between them. Some emotion or some sentiment must unite the two, and so render their relative position endurable. Laws and restrictions51 are irksome; are never true; are negatives, not positives. There must be some tie between those who impose them and those who bear them to humanise them.
Now, there are two and only two systems of government that have ever been even partially52 successful anywhere in the world—one is self-government in such an organism as will allow the people not only to enforce their will but to form a right judgment53 as to what they should desire; the other is government by personality.
No complete form of either system has ever existed; the nearest to the former were the governments of Athens, Sparta, Rome in its early days, Venice, Florence, and some other self-governing cities. Instances of the latter are the temporary dictatorships of Rome, the rule of Alexander, Julius Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon for the individual form; and the feudal54 system in England and the Continent for the aristocratic form. People in difficulties will trust personalities55 whom they admire and who have shown sympathy to them more than they will trust themselves, conscious that the former are more capable of seeing truly and of acting56 efficiently57.
That which makes either of these systems of government a success is an emotion, a relationship.
With a really self-governing people this relationship is the sense of oneness between government and governed. However much the people may chafe58 under the laws and restrictions placed upon them they can console themselves with the idea that it is their own doing. Government is their own, part of themselves, and to that representative of self they can condone59 many things. Knowing it is their own, they realise that it does its best for them, however hard it may seem. They pardon because they can understand.
With an alien rule this sentiment cannot exist, and therefore another must take its place. That sentiment is personal feeling between the governed and the individual officers of government. Now that in India was very strong. For the soldiers and civilians60 who made India were personalities, and all people East and West admire strong personalities; moreover, they were sympathetic personalities who attracted confidence as well as admiration62. District officers were the fathers of their district and stood up for their people against Law and Government.
The first secret of our success in India was the personality of our officers. Other things helped—the state of the country, the discipline of our English troops, the ability of the Home Government to help; but it was the personality of our officers that gave us India. Read all their records, right from Clive and Warren Hastings to Havelock, Lawrence and Nicholson. It was their personality that won. For personality alone can make bad laws bearable, can make mistakes forgiven and forgotten, can lead and draw men. And remember that it was not only the men at the top who were personalities, but all, right away down to the lowest ranks of both services. What personality is I do not know, but I know that it is the magic power of the world. It is the positive where all else in government is negative. I know it gave us India. I know that with the passing of personality there is coming the passing of the Empire. Read this story that has been given to me:
"An old General, who had served long in India, told me recently as follows: He still hears from time to time from his native subordinates in India. One of them wrote recently an account of his first meeting with the young official lately appointed to his station. As soon as was proper after the arrival of the official, the old Subadar went to pay his respects. He buckled63 on the sword which had descended64 to him from his father, took his father's medals in a packet in his hand, arrayed himself in his best uniform and called.
"After long delay he was introduced into the Presence, where he beheld65 a very untidy youth without coat or waistcoat busily writing at a table, surrounded by papers and stout66 books of reference.
"The great, tall, shy man modestly approached the table and laid his father's sword and his father's medals on it as a token of obeisance67.
"After a while the scribe glanced up with angry and distracted expression, pushed all these tributes away disdainfully, and in a bitter voice complained of interruption.
"'Sir,' said the Subadar, 'these are the medals of my father who fought for you. This sword has been red with the blood of my own fellow-countrymen slain68 by my father in defence of your Raj, but as they do not interest you I will take them away.'"
So he went away.
But why blame the young civilian61? He is as his teachers made him. I doubt not that he too once had a personality before his teachers killed it.
It is a common shibboleth69 amongst English writers on India that the "Oriental understands only personal government," and it is exactly the frame of mind that can invent such sayings that is the great stumbling-block to our understanding India. For neither in this nor in any other fundamental attitude does the East differ from the West. Look at England under Gladstone. There was again government by personality, and the country let him do things it would allow no one else to do. Nowadays in England the personality has gone on both sides, as well as self-government.
We gave India government by personality, that is to say, a government wherein alien laws, alien ideas, alien methods were rendered endurable by the medium through which they reached the people.
Therefore in the beginning, say from a hundred and fifty years ago till fifty years ago, the government and people were well suited to each other. In that time neither changed very greatly. Change there was, of course, but it was slow and slight. Then from the middle of the last century the rate of change was accelerated. Now life is change, and without change you can have only death; therefore there is nothing to regret in this. Had the change been in drawing more nearly together it would have been entirely fortunate. But it was not so. They were more nearly together in the beginning than ever since, and all progress has been away from each other. Instead of time bringing greater community of thought, greater mutual70 respect, and better understanding, with every year that passed, it widened and deepened the gulf71 between them. Instead of government becoming more suited to the people, it has grated on them more and more; instead of its efficiency increasing with the perfection of the machine, it has become less. In development, in intricacy, the government of to-day is to the government of a hundred years ago as a "Mauretania" to a "Great Eastern"; but whereas of old the wheels went easily, now they stick and try to stop; were there not a strong driving power behind them they would stop.
Let us see how this has occurred.
Yet before beginning to read this attempt to diagnose the state of the government of India and the paralysis72 that has come over it, I would ask the reader to remember this:
This book is not a mere12 criticism of government and its methods, nor of the people and their defects. I have a remedy to propose for both. It is a remedy that I have thought over and worked at for years, and I believe it is the only remedy possible.
But before disclosing it I wish the reader to understand the present state of things. If he retains the complacency which says that "all is for the best in the best of all possible governments, it is the people's fault entirely, visit it on them," then he will not realise that any remedy is wanting. Even if he do admit that something is wrong he will not know what it is, and cannot judge if that proposed be of any use.
Therefore I ask him to bear with the diagnosis73 of the earlier chapters. He must get to know first what the constitution of the government of India is, what made its strength in the past, and why that strength has departed from it. Only after a true diagnosis can a true cure be suggested. Therefore I ask him to carefully follow the line of thought in the chapters which show in what way government now fails. He will then see what government should be and must be—and is not. Only then can he judge if the proposed remedies are likely to be successful, and perhaps he will be able to amend74 them or to better them.
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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sporadic
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| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
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repealed
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| 撤销，废除( repeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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sedition
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| n.煽动叛乱 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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substantive
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| adj.表示实在的；本质的、实质性的；独立的；n.实词，实名词；独立存在的实体 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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accentuate
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| v.着重，强调 | |
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emphasise
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| vt.加强...的语气，强调，着重 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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inchoate
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prey
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anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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thoroughly
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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coalesced
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| v.联合，合并( coalesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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entirely
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corrupt
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overthrew
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actively
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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vestige
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| n.痕迹，遗迹，残余 | |
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hierarchy
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| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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heterogeneous
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| adj.庞杂的；异类的 | |
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regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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antipathy
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| n.憎恶；反感，引起反感的人或事物 | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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chafe
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| v.擦伤；冲洗；惹怒 | |
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condone
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| v.宽恕；原谅 | |
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civilians
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| 平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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62
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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63
buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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64
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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65
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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67
obeisance
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| n.鞠躬，敬礼 | |
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68
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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69
shibboleth
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| n.陈规陋习；口令；暗语 | |
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70
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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71
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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72
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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73
diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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amend
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| vt.修改，修订，改进；n.[pl.]赔罪，赔偿 | |
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