The next measure which has insistently1 been pressed on the Government is that far more Indians should be admitted to the Civil Service. It is now composed almost exclusively of Englishmen, and the conditions are such that it is difficult for Indians to enter. This, it is claimed, should be altered, and the Civil Service should be to a great extent Indianised.
Well, as I have said, the Government of India is not Indian, it is English. It is essentially2 English, the more so and the more necessarily so because it is in India. It consists of very few members compared to the work it has to do, and it is of the highest importance therefore that it be completely efficient. England has made herself responsible for India, and she cannot shirk or divide this responsibility. She cannot say: "I will by admitting a few Indians into the service shift some of the responsibility onto them and so onto India." That is unthinkable. The Government of India is English, and until by revolution or devolution it disappears it must remain English. It is the Army and Navy of England which ensure India's safety. Therefore her first duty, not only to herself but to India, is to enlist3 in her superior service such men as will govern most efficiently4.
Now to govern efficiently we must govern in our own way. There are not for us nor any people two ways of doing a thing well; there is one way only possible at the time—one way in which the genius of the governing race can best express itself. That is the one we must follow, and to ensure its success we must have in the service men who are not merely by education, but by what is far more important, by instinct, best fitted to carry out the ideas of government. You must have officers who will know what to do not only when they are told, but when they are not told, who, being one in race and feeling with the Government, will instinctively6 do all in accordance with it.
For it must never be forgotten that the government of India is a very difficult matter, and will always be so. It is not plain-sailing, like the Local Government of any self-governing people, or even of Russia. The administration of India is alien. The system is alien; and though it need not be so much out of touch with the people as it is now, alien it must remain. As long as the government is alien the machinery7 must be so. Englishmen could not work machinery they did not understand.
Even in self-governed countries there is always a feeling against government. Taxes are hard things to bear. This is shown in socialism and many other ways. But in an alien-governed country like India this discontent is much greater. Government has not only to bear the blame for its own faults, but has to vicariously suffer for the shortcomings of the monsoons8 and the inroad of plague. It is responsible, in the people's ideas, for everything. The internal peace which is taken for granted in most European countries cannot be so assumed in India. We are very often within measurable distance of riot, and an unchecked riot may quickly develop into an insurrection. The first essential, therefore, of government is the maintenance of peace and the immediate9 suppression of any symptom of unrest.
Now the forces at the disposal of the authorities are not large. For the whole province of Burma, as large as France and England, and with a thousand miles of wild frontier and ten millions of people, there are only four British and eight Indian regiments10. There are, or were, besides (I have not the latest figures) some ten thousand military police, who are men recruited in India and officered by English officers from Indian regiments. The Burmese police are only for civil duty and detection. They are not for "keeping the peace" purposes. For the whole of India there are but 70,000 British troops and 140,000 native for a population of 350,000,000, with a difficult and turbulent frontier. There is manifestly no margin11 to waste; the resources available must be used with the utmost efficiency. There must be direct understanding and co-operation between the military officers who command the forces and the District Officers who supply the information, the intelligence and the direction. Now if the District Officer were an Indian this could not be. It is no reflection on either the courage or the capacity of the Indian to say this, for the quality necessary is neither of these. It is one which he does not and cannot have, but which is essential for the proper carrying out of his duties. It is camaraderie13 with the other officers.
Official relations between civil and military are always difficult. It is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules defining their respective responsibilities. There is a certain antagonism14 between the objects each wishes to attain15 and the way to attain them. The civilian16 wishes as far as possible to avoid bloodshed; to soothe17, not irritate, nor threaten. Fighting is the last thing he wants. The soldier, on the other hand, wants to get at his enemy and have it over; to stir him up if he be not already stirred up enough. He wishes action that is short, sharp, and decisive. The civilian is long-suffering. Therefore disagreements arise, and that these conflicts of official opinion should be minimised, something more is necessary than that the men on both sides be good officers. They must be friends. The rubs of official intercourse18 must be effaced19 over the mess-table, the card-table, the camp fire; must be forgotten in talks of home, of mutual20 friends. How often has it not happened that it has been the mutual appreciation21 of a poet, the remembrance of a charming woman, the admiration22 of an opera, that has rendered possible that co-operation which is the soul of work. There must be the continual consciousness on both sides that theirs is not a temporary official relationship. They will meet continually hereafter at other stations, at head-quarters, at dinners, races, clubs—in the East and at home. They must be friends all through; there must be a mutual understanding.
Now if the civilian were an Indian gentleman all this could not occur. That Indians are often honourable23 and cultured gentlemen I know; that in essence all humanity is one I am never tired of affirming. But there are differences of race, real differences, important differences, differences that the Indian himself should be the last to try to ignore. Every nation is given by nature the qualities peculiar24 to it and which it is its duty to cultivate for the world's sake. To attempt to sink your individuality in that of another is an injury not only to yourself but to the whole world. An Indian gentleman cannot be an Englishman. It is no use his trying. He only makes himself absurd. He can be something quite as good if he will cultivate his own talent; but he has not our talent. He is not an Englishman, and only an Englishman by birth has that camaraderie with other Englishmen that is essential. Even a Frenchman or a German would not have it. Therefore it would be impossible to place Indian civilians25 in places where co-operation with military or military police-officers would be essential.
Further, it is not the English officers alone who create the difficulty. It is the men—English and native. Men of fighting races in India will not acknowledge the authority of Indians of other nationalities, even if supported by Government.
I will tell a story in illustration.
I was stationed nearly twenty years ago at a district head-quarters in Burma where there was a battalion26 of Military Police recruited in Upper India. There was also a young Mohammedan civilian who had passed into the Civil Service in London and been posted to Burma. He was an excellent fellow in his way.
It happened one morning that I rode down to the Battalion Commandant's house to see him on some matter. We discussed our business, and after it was finished the Subadar of the battalion, a great soldierly Sikh, came in. He and the Commandant talked for a while, and when he was leaving E. said:
"By the by, Subadar Sahib, we are coming up this evening to the range to do a little firing. Send up the marker and four rifles."
"Four rifles?" queried27 the Subadar.
E. nodded.
"For whom?"
"For the four Sahibs," said E.
The Subadar counted. "The Deputy Sahib, Huzoor (E.), Hall Sahib, and who else?'
"Oh," said he, "Mahommed V. Sahib," naming the Indian civilian.
The Subadar turned away with a gesture of scorn.
"A sahib? he?" he growled28.
Now suppose this Indian civilian had grown up into charge of a district and had to direct or go with these men into action? What would happen?
But it may be said that matters could be so arranged that civilians who were Indians were not posted to troublesome or frontier districts, or that they were given judicial29 and not executive appointments. They make, it is said, good judges. Why keep them out of duties they do well?
But have those who advocate this ever considered what it would mean? It would be the creation of a class within a class. The civilian who was an Indian would be differentiated30 from the English civilians; he would be ear-marked as "not for executive duties." Is that a possibility, and if it were, would not this differentiation31 be worse than entirely32 excluding them? The corps33 d'élite would still remain English and the grievance34 be where it is.
Let us look facts in the face. The Civil Service of India is a peculiarly English service; it is efficient exactly in so far as it is English; when Indians enter it they must be inefficient35 more or less. Not only are they not good for the service, but the service is not good for them. They would be better and happier out of it, and they feel that themselves. They have gained their ambition and regret it all their lives. I have known several Indians who were civilians and all were unhappy. One was very much so. This is his story. It all happened a long time ago now, not in Burma, and I do not think any susceptibilities can be hurt by recalling it.
He was a Madrassi of the race and caste of Chettis, not the money-lending Chettis, but another branch who always seek Government service. His people were well off and he was sent to England to school; then to Wren's to study for the Civil Service, into which he passed high up, and after two years at Oxford36 he came to Madras and was posted to a district on the west coast. He was a nice fellow, clever, agreeable, and most people liked him. In England he had been given access to good society, and no difference had been made between him and his English fellow-students. He expected it would be the same in India. He was a member of the Indian Civil Service and would be accepted as such.
He was not. The first thing that happened was that the Club refused to admit him as a member. Now to the home-staying Englishman this may seem a small matter. It is no essential in England to a man's efficiency, or even to his happiness, that he be member of a social club. It can make no real difference to his career.
In India it is different. The Club in a country station is the centre of everything. Practically every European belongs to it. He does not go occasionally, but every day. At five o'clock, when Courts and offices close, there is a general resort to the Club, for golf, tennis, cards, billiards37. Most clubs have a women's wing as well, so that the whole of society is centred in the Club. It is there that matters are arranged and informally discussed. Work is done at Court, but the preliminaries of work are often arranged at the Club; or, if not, the annoyances38 of work are there removed. You forget over a drink and a cigar what happened between you at Court. Women, too, use their influence at the Club, and women's influence is never negligible. The Club is the real heart of the station's life, and if a man do not belong to it he is outside the organism, so to speak. I am quite sure that no senior officer would do his work if he were outside the Club, and even a junior officer would find it difficult.
Every effort was made to elect Chetty to the Club. The other officials stood by him loyally, but it was no use. The unofficial Englishmen refused to allow an Indian to be a member of the Club. Now it is no use characterising such exclusiveness as wrong, or mischievous39, or narrow, and saying it should not exist. It does exist. It always will exist. It is very strong, and it is based on instincts that are good in themselves and cannot be ignored. Club life is only possible to people of one nationality. You cannot mix in a Club. In Rangoon do not the Germans have their own club?
The unofficials threatened if Chetty were proposed to overwhelm him with black-balls, and so his name had to be withdrawn40. I may say I do not think his nominal41 admission as a member would have made much difference. Merely allowing a man to enter a club does not admit him to the intimacy42 of the Club, and that alone counts. However, Chetty was refused admittance at all.
There were, of course, other troubles. An Indian who has entered the Civil Service is really in an impossible position. Socially he belongs to no world. He has left his own and cannot enter the other. And you cannot divorce social life from official life. They are not two things, but one. In the end Chetty shot himself. It was a sad end for a man gifted and likeable.
And although such an end was unusual, the causes which led to it are universal. I have known several civilians who were Indians, and, as I said before, I think they were all unhappy. They felt that fate had put them in an impossible position. If they married their fellow-country-women they by this act divorced themselves still further from European society; if they married an Englishwoman they did no better; the other Englishwomen would not receive her, and inherent differences of civilisation43 rendered married life difficult. I think that if individuals realised what their ambition would lead to they would choose any other walk in life than to enter an alien service. Their ideals are wrong. It is no true ideal for an Indian or Burmese to wish to be an Englishman. Fate has allotted44 to him a different field of usefulness quite as great in its way. An Indian gentleman may be quite as true a gentleman as an English gentleman and be not in the least like him. By blind imitation they attempt to attain virtues45 not inherent in them, and they ignore other virtues which are inherent and necessary to the world. They seek after impossibilities and so negative the achievement of possibilities. They deny their own natures.
It may be that this desire of Indians to enter the Civil Service has arisen from the desire to begin local self-government—a proper ambition. But the end cannot be attained46 in this way. Like all other edifices47, local self-government is built up from below. It is built on its own foundation. You cannot begin replacing an edifice48 by removing the top or middle stones and replacing them with others. Self-government is not to be attained by gradually altering the roof.
Therefore the claim that they would influence Government is untenable. Government must do its work in its own way, and that is the English way. No Indian can tell what this is.
The further claim that it would satisfy the people is equally untenable. To put a native of one part of India over natives of another part of India would not please them; it would exasperate49 them. And even to put an official over his own people would not please those under him, though it might please his class. This is a well-known fact; and if you look below the surface it is not difficult to see the reasons. The Government is English; a native official is not English. The people have no confidence in him for that reason. They know that he is not in intimate touch with Government. In the innumerable acts of official life which are not bound by rigid50 rules he is very likely to be wrong. When an English official says a thing they know he speaks with authority because his mind is one with that of Government; not so with a native official. They know it and he knows it, and he knows they know it. That makes matters difficult to begin with. Moreover, they are jealous of him. When all high officials are English, natives are all together; put a native in as an official, and to the general native mind he is rather like a traitor51. They have lost him and gained nothing. They are not proud of him but angry with him. He is as they are—why then should he have this power over them? It is not a power delegated by themselves but by an alien Government. This is quite a simple fact in psychology52 and shows itself everywhere. Does a "ranker," unless under exceptional circumstances and an exceptional personality, hold the same authority over his former equals as a class officer does? And there the difference is slight. I am sure that no greater cause for discontent among the people could be found than by having Indians as civilians.
And last but not the least, there is the domiciled European population to be considered. What effect would it have on them if a large number of Indians were admitted to the administration? The answer is quite simple and was effectually given during the agitation53 over the Ilbert Bill in 1885—they would not stand it.
They are not too pleased with the present state of affairs, with the great power that lies in one man's hand, that of the head of the district. They chafe54 at it and are continually feeling and resenting its imperfections and limitations. They only submit to it because they see no way out of it and because he is English. Were he to be often an Indian they would resent it and make their resentment55 felt. They would lose the feeling of security they now have and they would not submit to this; they would make government impossible. To those who doubt their power to do this I would recommend a study of the agitation against the Ilbert Bill, more especially in its latest stages. It is no longer secret history that a disaster unequalled in Indian history was only saved at the last minute by the surrender of Government.
And the feelings which caused this are as vital now as then. It may be taken as an axiom that whatever Government might decree, the great British mercantile and other interests in India would refuse to allow any appreciable56 transfer of authority to the hands of Indians, and in face of their opposition57 it could not be done. That an Indian should rule Indians they would not mind perhaps, but that an Indian should rule Europeans, and that it should be to an Indian they looked for the maintenance of peace and order and for the administration of justice, criminal and civil, is unthinkable. The stability of the administration is due to its being English, and any threat to that stability would not be borne.
Besides, to what would it lead? Suppose, by a wild stretch of the imagination, all the Civil Service in India could be composed of Indians, what then? That is not self-government. The orders would still come from Downing Street, the responsibility rest with Parliament and the English people. The Government would not and could not so be Indianised; all that would have happened would be that a few hundred Indian gentlemen had been imperfectly Anglicised. Is that an ideal? Where would the three hundred and fifty million come in? No more than they do now. But in any self-government worth the name these people must come in; they must be the base on which the self-government is erected58.
Government does not see its way. It must do something, and it has no idea what to do. A wise statesmanship would hold its hand till it saw clearly. But there is the danger that a hasty statesmanship may in despair do something for the mere5 sake of saying it is not standing12 still.
There is a way out of the present trouble, but I think it can be seen clearly enough that admitting Indians to the Civil Service is not that way. It might, in fact, be a very serious obstacle to following the right course.
India is lost, and will be regained59 by no such measures as those proposed. They will only deepen the gulf60 and accelerate the final rupture61.
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insistently
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| ad.坚持地 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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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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efficiently
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| adv.高效率地，有能力地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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monsoons
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| n.（南亚、尤指印度洋的）季风( monsoon的名词复数 )；（与季风相伴的）雨季；（南亚地区的）雨季 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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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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margin
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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camaraderie
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| n.同志之爱，友情 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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appreciation
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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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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battalion
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queried
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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differentiation
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entirely
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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annoyances
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| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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edifices
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| n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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exasperate
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| v.激怒，使（疾病）加剧，使恶化 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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chafe
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| v.擦伤；冲洗；惹怒 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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regained
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| 复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地 | |
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60
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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61
rupture
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| n.破裂；(关系的)决裂；v.(使)破裂 | |
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