India Under Ripon: A Private Diary

“Then, with some apologies, I mentioned the report about the draft treaty. At this Lord Ripon laughed, and said it was the first he had heard of it. He certainly would never consent to taking any such treaty from the young Nizam. It would be a fraud, and I might dismiss it from my mind; all that might possibly be asked of him would be some limitation of his absolute power for a couple of years or so until they saw how he got on with his Government. As to a treaty concerning the Berar claim, he, Lord Ripon, was incapable of proposing it.⁷ I said I was sure it was so, and would dismiss it from my mind. Lord Ripon’s manner, though reserved at first, was very cordial to me in the latter part of this conversation, and he shook hands warmly with me and said he was glad I had spoken to him on these matters, and hoped to see me again. Since my famous interview with Mr. Gladstone in March, 1882, I have not been so favourably impressed by any statesman that I have conversed with. Absit omen.

“20th Dec.– Looked in on Knight, Editor of the ‘Statesman,’ who gave me his views on the decadence of English morality, which he dates from the first Afghan war. He has been useful as exposing many of the official iniquities here, and takes, as it seems to me, generally just views. He would not, however, admit that the finances were in any danger, but looks rather to a revolution to end the present system.

“From him I went to Sir Stewart Bailey, and, as the conversation led up to it, told him something of the state of things at Hyderabad. He seemed surprised that Cordery was actually supporting the Peishkar and Kurshid Jah; said he thought he had been weak in letting things go on so far unchecked; repudiated all idea of its being done on policy; did not think that Trevor really influenced Cordery; Trevor was not nearly as clever a man, but very likely he had been too long at Hyderabad. Sir Stewart, however, spoke with great sympathy of Laik Ali, and said his was a waiting game, and it was only a matter of time his becoming Minister. We discussed his age, and he asked me, as Lord Ripon had done, whether I thought him capable of being now at the head of affairs. I said of course it was a very responsible position for a youth of twenty-one, but I believed him capable of it if really supported and rightly advised at the Residency. He was very popular in Hyderabad on his father’s account and his own, and would find no opposition except from the old Mogul nobles.

“We then discussed the north-west men. Sir Stewart does not like Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami, says his letters are flippant, but agreed with me that Salar Jung’s system, to be carried out at all, must be so through people who had received a modern education. Of Gough he spoke highly, but not of Clerk. On the whole I am satisfied with our conversation. It is evident Sir Stewart meant to have Laik Ali supported when he made the arrangement which left him co-administrator, and will do what he can for him now. At leaving he said it was a question whether it might not be better to let things go on a little longer and then interfere, or to interfere now on the Nizam’s coming of age. I said I considered they had gone quite far enough. In any case he promised to talk the whole matter over with Laik Ali, and I shall be surprised if Trevor is not removed and a change of attitude insisted on with Cordery. Talking of past affairs at Hyderabad, Bailey said that Sir Richard Meade’s alliance with the late Emir el Kebir against Sir Salar Jung had been most unfortunate, and had ‘dragged the Indian Government through a deal of mud.’ He did not wish to be quoted in this opinion, but such was the fact.

“21st Dec.– Mulvi Seyd Amir Huseyn, deputy collector and magistrate at court, a friend of Amir Ali’s, came. We discussed the Bengal Rent Bill, and he told me he had been one of the original supporters of a scheme to relieve the ryots, and had sent in a memorandum on the subject to the Government, but now the Bill had been drafted he had changed his mind about it. He considered that it would not really relieve the ryots, and would most certainly be made a precedent for further spoliation of landlords by the Government, and eventually for increased assessments. The breach of faith with the Zemindars was glaring, and it was not proposed to compensate them in any way. [I remember Lytton complaining to me at Simla in 1879 of the Bengal Land Settlement as an injustice to Indian Finance, and saying that it would be necessary to break it.] With regard to the condition of the Bengali Mohammedans, the Mulvi explained that they were an oppressed community, the Hindus having it all their own way, and there was very little courage among them, though the antiquated Mohammedans and Hindus lived on excellent terms. They dared not take any prominent part against the Government. He himself was a magistrate and deputy collector, but he had five English superiors, one above the other over him from the Collector to the Lieutenant-Governor, who, on the complaint of any one of them, would be down on him if he expressed his opinions. I told him India needed martyrs, and until they learned to have the courage of their convictions nothing would be done for them; reforms were only granted to the importunate, and on compulsion.

“Next came Kristo Das Pal, a member of the Legislative Council, and editor of the ‘Hindu Patriot.’ He is looked up to as the most prudent, yet independent of the Bengali Hindus, and I found him sensible, and with a very accurate knowledge of the forces with which he had to deal, both here and in England. He, too, opposed the Rent Bill, on the ground that it is not a bona fide measure of relief to the ryot, but the thin end of the revenue wedge which grudges the comparative immunity of Bengal from rack-renting. ‘If they were in earnest,’ he said, ‘they would first relieve their own ryots, who are starving in Madras and Bombay, instead of doing so out of the pockets of the Zemindars here. It was robbing Peter to pay Paul.’ The ryots of Bengal, though poor, were rich compared with those of the other two Presidencies, and needed far less relief. That this is so would seem to be proved from the fact that they do not here complain of the salt tax. They are rich enough not to feel the burden, for it is only hard upon the very poor. Talking about Lord Ripon, he said Lord Ripon had wished the Indians well, but with very little practical result, though he was the best viceroy they had ever had. He was of opinion that, before anything could be done, the Civil Service must be thrown open and reorganized. The present civilians had no sympathy with India or its people. They came and went like birds of passage. They must also have representation of some sort. At present they had none except through chance travellers like myself: I promised to do what I could to make the matter known. He asked me whether I was in Parliament and could ask questions, and I explained to him my position and promised, though I could not do it personally, to get his questions asked in proper form if he would provide me with the materials. This he agreed to do, and I gave him my address, and the necessary instructions. But the more I see and hear of the state of things in India, the more convinced I am that Gordon is right. ‘Nothing will be done without a revolution.’

“In the afternoon we called on Mr. Manockji Rustemji, and found Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy with him. He being rich and an old man talks very freely. It is absurd to suppose that the Parsis do not sympathize with the rest of the natives. He has known every viceroy since Lord William Bentinck, and likes Canning the best. Canning stood up bravely after the mutiny, and prevented innocent blood being shed. The English wanted martial law proclaimed in Calcutta, and he refused. Where it was proclaimed, any man who had a grudge could write an anonymous letter to his neighbour of a treasonable character. The letter was opened by the police, and the man to whom such might be addressed would be brought up, condemned without trial, and hanged. A good old man.

“Called also on Sir Jotendro, who lamented Mr. Gladstone’s apostasy from the principles he had proclaimed in Midlothian. He said his speech on the question of making India pay the expense of the Egyptian campaign had destroyed all confidence in him in India, and he wondered that any man should be so base. I told him that in England words said out of office bind no statesman in office, an explanation which seemed to surprise him. We afterwards talked poetry, Byron, Moore, Tennyson. He did not understand Tennyson, preferred Moore infinitely. Sir Jotendro has a handsome old-fashioned house in the centre of the town, one of the first houses, he says, that were built in Calcutta; the city had grown up round it.

“22nd Dec.– The ‘Englishman’ announces a concordat on the Ilbert Bill, which Seyd Amir Ali who called this morning declares is ten times worse than withdrawing the Bill. The English are to be tried by a jury composed in majority of their own countrymen. This will make them quite independent of the law, and he talks of getting up meetings to protest. Mr. Rustemji also called, and Mrs. Ilbert to ask condolence. She says her husband has been abandoned by every one, and now by Lord Ripon. She blames Lord Ripon for his weakness, not the people at home. Lord Kimberley had written to her husband urging him to stand firm, but the members of council were frightened out of their wits, and Lord Ripon has followed them. Her husband is broken-hearted at it all, and they are going away for a week to hide in some country district. It is all very disgraceful. I told her I could not understand any one paying a moment’s attention to the Anglo-Indians. The Viceroy should have been absolutely indifferent to them and their noise. She said ‘If you had been Viceroy, I have no doubt it would have been so,’ which I take as a compliment.

“At last Mulvi Abd-el-Latif, the head of the older-fashioned Mohammedans, has called. I had a letter for him from Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din, but I feared he would not come. He is a judge, and much occupied or would have called before. I found him all, and more than all I could have expected. He began by telling me people were afraid here of coming to see me, partly because I was looked ill on by the Government, partly because they knew I was taking notes on all I saw or heard, and they were not sure but what I might compromise them, or compromise their cause by telling too much. He knew, however, that I had the Mohammedan cause at heart, for he had heard from Sheykh Jemal-ed-Din what I had done, and he thought it best to tell me all frankly, and put me on my guard. Also it would explain to me why the Mohammedans had not come forward to welcome me. He then sketched the position of the two parties among the Mohammedans. Amir Ali and his friends had broken with the mass of the community by affecting English dress and ways, and posing as reformers, although they were in no way qualified in a religious sense for such a position. Amir Huseyn they even considered to be an unbeliever. In any case, Amir Ali did not represent the Mussulman community in Bengal, for he was a Shiah, and they were Sunnis. He, Abd-el-Latif, was a reformer too, though working on other lines. He wished to improve the religious education of the people, and had been labouring for the last twenty years to get the Government to establish proper schools. Reform must be introduced by religious, not irreligious persons, or it would take no hold on the people. These young men were out of all sympathy with the mass of the Mohammedans. They knew nothing even of the religious language, Arabic, or Persian which was the language of good society. How could they serve as a medium between the English Government and them?

“In all this I sympathized, but discouraged him from hoping that the Government would do much to help Mohammedan education as such, for the tendency was towards merely secular education, and would hardly be reversed. I hoped, however, that they might be able to found something in the way of a University which should be within their means, a University where, as in the Azhar at Cairo, the students lived on their own resources, and merely attended lectures. He promised to introduce me to some of the Ulema to talk these matters over, but he was afraid to have the meeting at his own house. In fact, he had already arranged that it should be at that of Dr. Hörnli, the Swiss director of the Madrasa, so that the Government should not take umbrage. We also talked about Amir Ali’s letter repudiating Arabi during the war, which Abd-el-Latif was very angry at. It did not represent their opinions. Now, with the Afghan War, he said, it was different. They had approved of that, because they looked on it as an attack on Russia, which was the greatest of all the enemies of Islam. Thus, I suppose, it had been explained to them. I told him, however, that I hoped in future the Mohammedans of India would set their faces against all wars waged against Mohammedans on whatever pretext.

“I like this man much. He is of the sort I like far better than Amir Ali and Seyd Huseyn, and yet I fear the others are more likely to succeed. They represent the future, he the past. He himself has a son who wears coats and hats and boots to his father’s great grief, but he said the son complained that in Indian dress he could not enter the Anglo-Indian houses, such are the difficulties put in the way of social intercourse. Abd-el-Latif wears eastern robes and head-dress. It appears that he did not personally know Jemal-ed-Din, for he was afraid of compromising himself with one under Government ban. ‘I refrained purposely,’ he said, ‘from asking any official about you, for I should have found it impossible to see you if they had spoken ill of you. Fortunately they have said nothing yet, at least not to me.’ This visit has been a pleasing and a valuable one.

“We dined with Dr. Johnstone the Bishop, a good specimen of his class, with more liberal views than nearly any Englishman I have talked to in India. He does not want to convert anybody or Anglicize them. He was interested in Mohammedan education, wished them to study their own language, and described a college he had seen at Lahore. I shall put him into communication with Abd-el-Latif, as he may be able to help him, having, I suppose, some interest in official quarters.

“23rd Dec.– The Nizam arrived yesterday with his suite, and I went to see Salar Jung and tell him the result of my interview with Lord Ripon. He seemed very grateful for what I have done, and I gave him some advice about his relations with the ultra liberal party among the Mohammedans here. I recommended him to conciliate Abd-el-Latif and not to be too intimate with Amir Ali, as, though Amir Ali might be right in the line he took, he, Salar Jung, would run the risk of sharing his unpopularity with old-fashioned people. If he was to be minister of a Mohammedan State, he must show himself truly a Mohammedan. Any suspicion of impiety would diminish his influence. This was a mere matter of prudence. I think he is sensible enough to see this. He is coming again this evening to talk further. I left cards on the Nizam, Peishkar, and the rest.

“In the course of the morning Seyd Nur-el-Huda, a Mohammedan from Patna, called with his friend, a Christian Brahmin. Nur-el-Huda is one of the new school, having been educated at Cambridge, but seems a good sort of fellow. The Hindu, Dr. Sandwal, or, as he writes it, ‘Sandel,’ is a doctor. He, the doctor, was born a Christian, as his father was converted many years ago, and I asked him how it affected his social position. He said it cut him off from all Hindus, and the English would not receive him either. He had studied medicine in England, hoping to get practice here on his return, but it was impossible for a native doctor to compete with the English official doctors, and though he had had the highest recommendations from Sir Ashley Eden and others, he could get no Government appointment either here or in the Mofussil on account of his race. They are both very angry at the Ilbert Bill compromise, and the doctor gave me particulars about the pressure which had been put lately on native officials respecting it. A friend of his, holding a minor post under Government, had received a ‘demi-official’ letter from his English superior, warning him that if he attended meetings in favour of the Bill he should suffer for it. This I can well believe, when I remember the pressure that was put on officials, even in England, to prevent them from subscribing to the Arabi Defence Fund last year.

“At 11 o’clock we started driving for Uttarpara, a village some eight miles up the Hugli, where we spent the afternoon most profitably with our Zemindar. He is the son of one of the greatest landholders in the district. His father’s rent roll amounts to about £50,000 a year. Of this, however, he touches but a small portion, for the real owner of two-fifths of the property is the Maharajah to whom he pays £15,000, while he pays another £15,000 in round figures to the Government for the rest. Considerable reductions on account of bad debts, and the cost of collection must again be made. Still it leaves him a very rich man as things go here. Nor has he at all neglected his duties as a landlord. He lives on his estate, and is the father of the municipality of Uttarpara. He received us in a public library he built some years ago, a handsome Palladian house, well supplied with books and newspapers. They take in the ‘Illustrated,’ ‘Saturday Review,’ and all the Calcutta newspapers; and he intends now to use the upper part of the building as a college for fifty young men. The Government has given him nothing in this matter up to now, but offers £100 a year towards the college. The father is a venerable old man, reminding me vaguely of Cardinal Newman. He is blind and very infirm – but talks with vigour. He lamented the growing ill feeling between the English and themselves, and confirmed what all old men declare, that the new class of civilian officers is inferior in every quality, except cleverness, to the old Haileybury men. With regard to the Ilbert Bill, he said it was an attempt to reform justice in the country, which greatly needed reforming. The administration of the criminal as well as the civil law was very bad. The English did not now understand the ways of the natives; and those natives, who owed their position to competition, did not inspire respect from their countrymen, being mostly chosen from the lower castes. He talked with great feeling, and evidently sincere regret for the better days which were gone.

“We then drove to some villages with the son, and put our usual series of questions. It is very evident from the answers that the Bengal ryots, at least in this district, are far better off than those of Madras. Our Zemindar estimated the cost of living for them at about three rupees a month, instead of two as at Bellari, and they eat rice and fish instead of only raghi. I have promised to attend a meeting on the 29th respecting the Rent Bill, when the whole question of the state of the peasantry will be threshed out. Next we saw a village school for boys and a genteel school for little girls, at which some of the family were learning with the rest. All this is due to the care of the landlord, and far different from anything that can be seen in the whole Madras Presidency, where the Government is the universal absentee proprietor. On the village green, when we came back from our inspection, we found an awning put up, and a meeting being held of the municipality and others – perhaps a hundred people – to protest against the Ilbert compromise. The proceedings were quite up to the level of such things in England; resolutions were passed and speeches made. Surendra Nath Banerji, a Calcutta orator, had been expected, but did not turn up. But the local speechifying was not bad, part in English, for our benefit I suppose, and part in Bengali.

“We did not get home till late.

“24th Dec.– Mail day, so stayed at home writing letters. To our great pleasure the Mulvi Sami Ullah of Aligarh (Hamid Ullah’s father) called with two of his nephews. He arrived here two days ago to see the exhibition, but will be back at Aligarh to receive us by the time we get there. We had an animated discussion about the ‘Concordat,’ the old man explaining that the proper conduct for the Mohammedans here was being debated, some being for expressing themselves satisfied, others for making common cause with the Hindus. All, however, were at heart vexed and angry at what had been done, and recognized in the Ilbert Bill a matter of common interest. He had seen Amir Ali yesterday, who had changed his mind and was now on the Government side. He wants, the Mulvi explained naïvely, to get promotion, and that is why he supports the compromise. He himself was for a moderate attitude. I spoke my mind very plainly, and told them that, if they deserted the Hindus in this instance, they would never have any reform given or justice done them for another twenty years. They must sink their differences and their little private interests if they wanted to force the Government’s hand. The Bill was the battle-ground on which the whole principle of legislation for India was being fought; and the Mohammedans could turn the scale by their attitude one way or the other. The young men warmly applauded this, and I think, too, the Mulvi was partly convinced. I told them, if the Mohammedans only knew their power they would not be neglected and ill-treated by the Government as they now were. In England we were perpetually scared at the idea of a Mohammedan rising in India, and any word uttered by a Mohammedan was paid more attention to than that of twenty Hindus. But, if they sat still, thanking Providence for the favours which were denied them, the English public would be only too happy to leave them as they were. The Mulvi promised to make my opinion known at a Conference which had been summoned for this evening to consider the action of the Mohammedans, and so I trust I may have done some good, at least with the Liberal party. Of Abd-el-Latif I feel more doubtful, for there is great ill-feeling in Calcutta between the old-fashioned Mohammedans and the Hindus.

“They were hardly gone when another Mohammedan called, Mulvi A. M., to whom I had had a letter from Seyd Abd-el-Rahman. This is a man of the type I like best, of the school, in fact, of Jemal-ed-Din, who here, as elsewhere, laid the foundation of a liberal religious movement. He gave me a clearer account of the parties in Calcutta than I have yet received. Amir Ali and his friends have put themselves out of the pale of Mohammedan society by their English dress and ways, while Abd-el-Latif and the body of the Mulvis (Ulema) are too strictly conservative. He had been converted to the large idea of a Mohammedan reform and Mohammedan unity by Jemal-ed-Din, and there were many now of his way of thinking who held a middle position between the rival parties. I urged him too to join the Hindus in their protest against the compromise, and he said that if one of the prominent leaders would call a meeting, he could promise to bring a hundred men to it, but he was only translator to the High Court, and could not commence the movement. He then spoke with great sympathy of the work I had done in Egypt, and of my writings. He speaks good English, but in no other way affects European manners, wearing his own dress, a little white skull cap and a long frock. (Sami Ullah and his nephews wear the fez.) I like A. M. greatly, and have promised to dine with him on Thursday, and meet the men of his way of thinking. He reminds me of Rasul Yar Khan, and looks like an Arab of the South, though he assures me he is a pure Bengali, as far as he knows his genealogy. He has all the signs of breeding an Arab should have, his thumb going well beyond the forefinger joint, his complexion clear and dark and his features regular. Also he is thin and has the eager frank manner of an Arab, and the lack of reserve. He told me Jemal-ed-Din had been disappointed with the Mohammedans of Calcutta, who were afraid of listening to him on account of the Government. He had found them selfish and unpatriotic. Of Amir Ali he has a poor opinion. Abd-el-Latif he thinks timid, and the rest of the Mulvis are intensely ignorant.

“Then I called on Dr. Hörnli, a Swiss, who showed me the Madrasa, an institution which educates eight hundred boys and young men from eight to twenty-two years old. There are five hundred English and Persian students, three hundred Arabic. They pay twelve annas a month, and most find even that too expensive. There are rooms for about sixty, who have bedsteads, chairs, and tables, while the rest board in town. He did not know what became of the students in after life. He believed the Arabic scholars became Mulvis in the country towns. There were twenty professors, at from thirty to one hundred and fifty rupees a month; the head master got three hundred. It was holiday time unfortunately, and only half a dozen boarders were left in college.

“Walter Pollen tells us the Viceroy told the Nizam at his reception that he hoped to see him soon assume the duties of his rank. This looks well.

“25th Dec., Christmas Day.– The ‘Indian Mirror’ has a leading article exhorting all classes to receive us with honour, and to show their gratitude for our sympathy with the Egyptians and with themselves. I think we have come at the right time.

“We have had three visits to-day, first from Sambhu Chandra Mukerji, formerly Minister to the Rajah of Tippara, an independent prince on the Assam frontier, a very superior Hindu, handsomely dressed in shawls and a huge shawl turban. He asked me many questions about Arabia and the Mohammedans in various parts of the world, and seemed to know their history well, as also the state of modern affairs everywhere. We discussed Mr. Gladstone’s character. He had followed his career closely from the day of his article on ‘Church and State’ downwards, and was of opinion that he had always been shifty and insincere. He had not been surprised at his repudiation of the Midlothian doctrines, nor at his conduct in Egypt. He has evidently a poor opinion of morality as an element in English statecraft, and rates our party professions exactly at their worth. How absurd it is to talk of the Hindus as intellectually inferior to ourselves – indeed as anything but far our superiors.

“Secondly, Kebir-ed-Din, the joint editor of the one Mohammedan journal published in Calcutta, a Jewish looking person with a turban and dyed beard. He said he belonged to the Amir Ali faction, but except that he talks English, he has nothing of the modern school about him. I tried to impress upon him the necessity of supporting the Hindus in the matter of the Ilbert Bill, but found him exceedingly pigheaded. He seemed quite unable to get beyond the idea that there were no Mohammedans in the Civil Service who would benefit by the Bill, or to see that the principle of legislating in native interests was at stake. I think this was as much from stupidity as ill will.

“After this we paid a round of visits, but only saw the Lyalls, who are staying at Belvidere, the Lieutenant-Governor’s official residence, a really beautiful place. I had some political sparring with Lyall, which was amusing, as he is very light in hand. Rivers Thompson, the Lieutenant-Governor, we did not see, he being seriously ill.

“Ate our Christmas dinner in absolute silence at the table d’hôte, feeling rather ‘like Jews at a christening,’ but received an agreeable note from Mr. Ghose, the President or Secretary of the Indian National Association, recording a vote addressing us a welcome on our arrival, and a hope that our stay in Calcutta would be for the advantage of India.

“26th Dec.– A busy morning. Our earliest visitor was Mulvi A. M., with whom I talked over the whole range of Mohammedan prospects. He asked me what I thought of the ultimate fate of India, and I explained my view that it should be put on the same footing as Australia, that is to say, that each province should have its English Government, supported by English troops, but that the whole civil administration, legislation, and finance should be left to native hands; that the effect of this would be to put Northern India practically under Mohammedan, Southern India under Hindu Government, a solution which pleased him much. He said that none of the Mohammedans wished to do away altogether with English government, as it would only lead to fighting, as there was no chance of Mohammedans and Hindus agreeing for a century to come, but of course they did not like English administration. It favoured the Hindus unduly. But, left to themselves, they should be able to hold their own in all Northern India. The English policy, however, had been to suppress them, and throw obstacles in the way of their educating themselves and learning their own power. The Mulvis of Calcutta were terribly ignorant of politics, and of all that was going on in the world. At the time of the Egyptian War they had not known whether Egypt lay North or South or East or West. I am to dine with him to-morrow, to meet Jemal-ed-Din’s disciples.

“We then talked about education, and discussed the possibility of getting up a University. The difficulty, of course, is money. All the great Mohammedan landlords were ruined at the time of the Permanent Settlement, when their lands were confiscated; and the other rich men who lived on Government employment were ousted from it in 1862 by the change of the language of the Courts. Now there are hardly any rich Mohammedans in Bengal. The masses are living on daily wages, and cannot even afford the rupee a month necessary for their sons’ education. While we were talking, Nawab Mir Mohammed Ali was announced, one of the few remaining Zemindars, a little old man, very small and wizened, wearing a handsome dress, with a fine emerald in his cap. We continued our conversation, and I rather took his breath away by suggesting him as a possible contributor to the University. A more congenial subject to him was the Bengal Rent Bill, on which he was eloquent, and he invited me to attend the meeting on Saturday. Then Abd-el-Latif’s son, in European clothes, joined us, and we got on the Ilbert Bill, as to which I exhorted them all strongly to make a concordat with the Hindus, helping them this time on a promise of help from them when their own interests were at stake. The old man was rather frightened at this and went away. I had it out, however, with Abd-el-Rahman, and hope he will influence his father. Unless the Mohammedans show their teeth on an occasion of this sort, they will never get attention paid to their wrongs.