Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (231 page)

“Those carpenters!” said Bishen Singh. “Black apes were more efficient workmates, and as for the Bengali babu-tchick!” The guttural click needed no interpretation, but Orde translated the rest, while Pagett gazed with in.. terest at the wood-carver.

“He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali,” said the M.P.

“Yes, it’s very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should be so bitter a prejudice. Pride of race, which also means race-hatred, is the plague and curse of India and it spreads far,” pointed with his riding-whip to the large map of India on the veranda wall.

“See! I begin with the North,” said he. “There’s the Afghan, and, as a highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan-with the exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates him. The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput — that’s a little lower down across this yellow blot of desert — has a strong objection, to put it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way, poisonously hates the Afghan. Let’s go North a minute. The Sindhi hates everybody I’ve mentioned. Very good, we’ll take less warlike races. The cultivator of Northern India domineers over the man in the next province, and the Behari of the Northwest ridicules the Bengali. They are all at one on that point. I’m giving you merely the roughest possible outlines of the facts, of course.”

Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still quivering, watched the large sweep of the whip as it traveled from the frontier, through Sindh, the Punjab and Rajputana, till it rested by the valley of the Jumna.

“Hate — eternal and inextinguishable hate,” concluded Orde, flicking the lash of the whip across the large map from East to West as he sat down. “Remember Canning’s advice to Lord Granville, ‘Never write or speak of Indian things without looking at a map.’”

Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. “And the race-hatred is only a part of it. What’s really the matter with Bisben Singh is class-hatred, which, unfortunately, is even more intense and more widely spread. That’s one of the little drawbacks of caste, which some of your recent English writers find an impeccable system.”

The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to the business of his craft, and his eyes shone as he received instructions for a carved wooden doorway for Pagett, which he promised should be splendidly executed and despatched to England in six months. It is an irrelevant detail, but in spite of Orde’s reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work was finished. Business over, Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his leave, and at last joining his hands and approaching Orde with bated breath and whispering humbleness, said he had a petition to make. Orde’s face suddenly lost all trace of expression. “Speak on, Bishen Singh,” said he, and the carver in a whining tone explained that his case against his brothers was fixed for hearing before a native judge and — here he dropped his voice still lower till he was summarily stopped by Orde, who sternly pointed to the gate with an emphatic Begone!

Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of discomposure, salaamed respectfully to the friends and departed.

Pagett looked inquiry; Orde with complete recovery of his usual urbanity, replied: “It’s nothing, only the old story, he wants his case to be tried by an English judge-they all do that-but when he began to hint that the other side were in improper relations with the native judge I had to shut him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make insinuations about, may not be very bright; but he’s as honest as day-light on the bench. But that’s just what one can’t get a native to believe.”

“Do you really mean to say these people prefer to have their cases tried by English judges?”

“Why, certainly.”

Pagett drew a long breath. “I didn’t know that before.” At this point a phaeton entered the compound, and Orde rose with “Confound it, there’s old Rasul Ah Khan come to pay one of his tiresome duty calls. I’m afraid we shall never get through our little Congress discussion.”

Pagett was an almost silent spectator of the grave formalities of a visit paid by a punctilious old Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian official; and was much impressed by the distinction of manner and fine appearance of the Mohammedan landholder. When the exchange of polite banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly visitor’s opinion of the National Congress.

Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a smile which even Mohammedan politeness could not save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ah Khan intimated that he knew nothing about it and cared still less. It was a kind of talk encouraged by the Government for some mysterious purpose of its own, and for his own part he wondered and held his peace.

Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and wished to have the old gentleman’s opinion on the propriety of managing all Indian affairs on the basis of an elective system.

Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain the visitor was bored and bewildered. Frankly, he didn’t think much of committees; they had a Municipal Committee at Lahore and had elected a menial servant, an orderly, as a member. He had been informed of this on good authority, and after that, committees had ceased to interest him. But all was according to the rule of Government, and, please God, it was all for the best.

“What an old fossil it is!” cried Pagett, as Orde returned from seeing his guest to the door; “just like some old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain. What does he really think of the Congress after all, and of the elective system?”

“Hates it all like poison. When you are sure of a majority, election is a fine system; but you can scarcely expect the Mahommedans, the most masterful and powerful minority in the country, to contemplate their own extinction with joy. The worst of it is that he and his co-religionists, who are many, and the landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are frightened and put out by this election business and by the importance we have bestowed on lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the like, who have, up to now, been in abject submission to them. They say little, hut after all they are the most important fagots in the great bundle of communities, and all the glib bunkum in the world would not pay for their estrangement. They have controlled the land.”

“But I am assured that experience of local self-government in your municipalities has been most satisfactory, and when once the principle is accepted in your centres, don’t you know, it is bound to spread, and these important — ah’m people of yours would learn it like the rest. I see no difficulty at all,” and the smooth lips closed with the complacent snap habitual to Pagett, M.P., the “man of cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows.”

Orde looked at him with a dreary smile.

“The privilege of election has been most reluctantly withdrawn from scores of municipalities, others have had to be summarily suppressed, and, outside the Presidency towns, the actual work done has been badly performed. This is of less moment, perhaps-it only sends up the local death-rates-than the fact that the public interest in municipal elections, never very strong, has waned, and is waning, in spite of careful nursing on the part of Government servants.”

“Can you explain this lack of interest?” said Pagett, putting aside the rest of Orde’s remarks.

“You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every

thousand af our population can spell. Then they are infinitely more

interested in religion and caste questions than in any sort of politics.

When the business of mere existence is over, their minds are occupied by

a series of interests, pleasures, rituals, superstitions, and the like,

based on centuries of tradition and usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to

conceive of people absolutely devoid of curiosity, to whom the book, the

daily paper, and the printed speech are unknown, and you would describe

their life as blank. That’s a profound mistake. You are in another

land, another century, down on the bed-rock of society, where the family

merely, and not the community, is all-important. The average Oriental

cannot be brought to look beyond his clan. His life, too, is naore

complete and self-sufficing, and less sordid and low-thoughted than you

might imagine. It is bovine and slow in some respects, but it is never

empty. You and I are inclined to put the cart before the horse, and to

forget that it is the man that is elemental, not the book.

     ‘The corn and the cattle are all my care,

     And the rest is the will of God.’

Why should such folk look up from their immemorially appointed round of duty and interests to meddle with the unknown and fuss with voting-papers. How would you, atop of all your interests care to conduct even one-tenth of your life according to the manners and customs of the Papuans, let’s say? That’s what it comes to.”

“But if they won’t take the trouble to vote, why do you anticipate that Mohammedans, proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by majorities of them?”

Again Pagett disregarded the closing sentence.

“Because, though the landholders would not move a finger on any purely political question, they could be raised in dangerous excitement by religious hatreds. Already the first note of this has been sounded by the people who are trying to get up an agitation on the cow-killing question, and every year there is trouble over the Mohammedan Muharrum processions.

“But who looks after the popular rights, being thus unrepresented?”

“The Government of Her Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, in which, if the Congress promoters are to be believed, the people have an implicit trust; for the Congress circular, specially prepared for rustic comprehension, says the movement is ‘for the remission of tax, the advancement of Hindustan, and the strengthening of the British Government.’ This paper is headed in large letters —

‘MAY THE PROSPERITY OF THE EMPIRE OF INDIA ENDURE.’”

“Really!” said Pagett, “that shows some cleverness. But there are things better worth imitation in our English methods of — er — political statement than this sort of amiable fraud.”

“Anyhow,” resumed Orde, “you perceive that not a word is said about elections and the elective principle, and the reticence of the Congress promoters here shows they are wise in their generation.”

“But the elective principle must triumph in the end, and the little difficulties you seem to anticipate would give way on the introduction of a well-balanced scheme, capable of indefinite extension.”

“But is it possible to devise a scheme which, always assuming that the people took any interest in it, without enormous expense, ruinous dislocation of the administation and danger to the public peace, can satisfy the aspirations of Mr. Hume and his following, and yet safeguard the interests of the Mahommedans, the landed and wealthy classes, the Conservative Hindus, the Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, Rajputs, native Christians, domiciled Europeans and others, who are each important and powerful in their way?”

Pagett’s attention, however, was diverted to the gate, where a group of cultivators stood in apparent hesitation.

“Here are the twelve Apostles, by Jove — come straight out of Raffaele’s cartoons,” said the M.P., with the fresh appreciation of a newcomer.

Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impatiently toward the villagers, and their leader, handing his long staff to one of his companions, advanced to the house.

“It is old Jelbo, the Lumherdar, or head-man of Pind Sharkot, and a very’ intelligent man for a villager.”

The Jat farmer had removed his shoes and stood smiling on the edge of the veranda. His strongly marked features glowed with russet bronze, and his bright eyes gleamed under deeply set brows, contracted by lifelong exposure to sunshine. His beard and moustache streaked with grey swept from bold cliffs of brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees drawn by Michael Angelo, and strands of long black hair mingled with the irregularly piled wreaths and folds of his turban. The drapery of stout blue cotton cloth thrown over his broad shoulders and girt round his narrow loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculptured folds, and he would have made a superb model for an artist in search of a patriarch.

Orde greeted him cordially, and after a polite pause the countryman started off with a long story told with impressive earnestness. Orde listened and smiled, interrupting the speaker at ‘times to argue and reason with him in a tone which Pagett could hear was kindly, and finally checking the flux of words was about to dismiss him, when Pagett suggested that he should be asked about the National Congress.

But Jelloc had never heard of it. He was a poor man and such things, by the favor of his Honor, did not concern him.

“What’s the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in earnest?” asked Pagett, when he had left.

“Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next village, who have had smallpox and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of a wizard, a currier, and several pigs have passed it on to his own village. ‘Wants to know if they can’t be run in for this awful crime. It seems they made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary, threw a quantity of spell-bearing objects over the border, a buffalo’s skull and other things; then branded a chamur — what you would call a currier — on his hinder parts and drove him and a number of pigs over into Jelbo’s village. Jelbo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard directing these proceedings, who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft, arson, cattle-killing, perjury and murder, but would prefer to have him punished for bewitching them and inflicting small-pox.”

“And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic?”

“Lunatic I the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some ground of complaint against those Sansis. I asked if he would like a native superintendent of police with some men to make inquiries, but he objected on the grounds the police were rather worse than smallpox and criminal tribes put together.”

“Criminal tribes — er — I don’t quite understand,” said Paget.

“We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack anti-British days became robbers, in various kind, and preyed on the people. They are being restrained and reclaimed little by little, and in time will become useful citizens, but they still cherish hereditary traditions of crime, and are a difficult lot to deal with. By the way what; about the political rights of these folk under your schemes? The country people call them vermin, but I sup-pose they would be electors with the rest.”