India Under Ripon: A Private Diary

“While we were talking, Mohammed Yusuf joined us and asked me where he should send his children to school in England, and I answered him with the story of the advice to those about to marry. This pleased Seyd Mohammed amazingly, and Mohammed Yusuf also promised to follow my advice. We agreed that there was no objection to young men visiting England when their ideas and their principles were formed, but to send a Mohammedan boy to an English school was simply to sacrifice his religion. I then explained to the new comer the university scheme, and I hope his boys may join it later. It was Seyd Mohammed who sent Abd-el-Gaffar to me yesterday about the ‘Wind and the Whirlwind,’ and no better proof could be given of the feeling of this section of Mohammedans towards the English Government. I told them of my intention to visit Constantinople and to try and induce the Sultan to head a reformation, and they warmly approved.

“Mulvi A. M. called to say good-bye. He was under the impression, not having been there, that my speech about the university had not been well received, and this is probably the view taken by Amir Ali’s party, but I am certain the contrary is the case. A young university student, Seyd M., who came, also assured me all the Mohammedan students would take up the idea, especially if I could get Jemal-ed-Din as a professor. These students are an independent body between the two great parties, and they worship Jemal-ed-Din. It is, therefore, to them that the direction of religious thought will fall as they grow older. Thus has the persecution in Egypt spread the doctrine of reformation far and wide.

“While we were talking, Cordery was announced, and the others went away. Poor Cordery! I am sorry for him, as he is terribly down on his luck about all this business. I told him at once that I had seen Lord Ripon, and spoken to him about the state of things at Hyderabad, for I thought it unfair, as I had stayed in his house, to leave him ignorant of this. He said he was sure it was Laik Ali who had had the thing published in the ‘Statesman’; but I assured him that to the best of my belief it was not so. I cannot conceive that Laik Ali should have done anything so foolish, especially when he knew from me that Lord Ripon was going to give him a full hearing, and was favourably inclined. But I fear it has done him harm, as some of the information, at least, must have come originally from him, though he probably never meant it to be published, at least not till the last extremity. There the matter, however, stands. I forgot to say that Mrs. Clerk told us yesterday, as a great secret, that the Nizam had asked for Laik Ali as Diwan from Lord Ripon, and that they considered the matter as settled. I have a fancy, from things I have noticed in Salar Jung’s manner the last few days, and also in Vikar-el-Omra’s, that they have been talked to, probably by Stewart Bailey, about me, as a dangerous acquaintance, and one in whose company the Government of India might not like them to show themselves. This struck me after going to the railway station this afternoon to wish the Nizam good-bye. Vikar-el-Omra was certainly odd in his manner. I missed seeing Salar Jung, or I should have spoken to him on the subject, and as it is I shall write to him before deciding to go back to Hyderabad. There were a couple of thousand poor Mohammedans come to see the Nizam off. One of them rushed after the carriage, and, in spite of outriders and aides-de-camp, climbed up and touched the Nizam’s knee, the old Peishkar poking at him meanwhile with his stick. We had agreed to stay at the Clerks while at Hyderabad; but Cordery has asked us to go to the Residency if we do go, so I have made excuses to Mrs. Clerk. Hyderabad is such a nest of intrigue, that, unless I can do good to the university scheme by so doing, I shall not go back there. I attended a Debating Club meeting at Maharajah Krishna’s at 4 o’clock, and heard Dr. Ghose lecture, and Bannerji speak. The latter is certainly a wonderful speaker. He took up each point of the lecture, and treated each in masterly fashion. Otherwise the proceedings were uninteresting.

“Dined at home with Walter Pollen.

“6th Jan.– Our last day at Calcutta. Abd-el-Latif came, and we had a long talk. He urged me strongly to go to Hyderabad to see the university scheme started. He assured me of the goodwill of all the Mohammedans of Calcutta towards me. His tone was cordial, even affectionate. He came to see us off at the railway station, and we arranged that I should send an account of my speech at the Anjuman meeting to the ‘Times,’ so as to show that my ideas were accepted by the Mohammedans of India.

“Later I called on Hunter and argued the land revenue question with him again, and he told me he had given great offence by bringing the matter of over-taxation forward. His book on India was considered so unfavourable to Government that it had cost him his post at the Statistical Office. Lord Ripon has sent for him on more than one occasion, and begged him to moderate his language in Council – this I was not to repeat. On the whole I like Hunter. He is more honest than most of them, but after all he is an official. Going to the station, we stopped at Amir Ali’s to say good-bye, but heard he was ill with fever. I wonder whether this is to avoid voting on the Ilbert Bill. On the whole, I leave Calcutta much satisfied with all I have done, heard and seen, though not sorry to be once more on the move.”

CHAPTER VII

PATNA, LUCKNOW

“7th Jan.

“Arrived at Patna at half-past 9 o’clock, and found about eighty of the leading Mohammedans at the City station awaiting us. Our host, Seyd Rasa Huseyn, drove us in a handsome barouche to his house, where we have been very comfortably lodged, and sumptuously entertained, and have made the acquaintance of, I believe, every Mohammedan of importance in Patna. Patna is one of the Mohammedan strongholds, as they number 50,000 out of a total population of 150,000; and they still have many rich families and noble families of the time of the Empire. The Province of Behar, they tell me, contains also a certain Mohammedan population of ryots, 30,000 or 40,000, who are descended from the Pathan invaders, and are a warlike race, retaining, however, nothing of their former rank but their name Malik, the mass of the ryots being Hindus or converted Hindus. The character of these is quite unwarlike. The Mohammedans, therefore, hold their heads higher here than in most places.

“We received visits all the morning, meeting our old friend Mohammed Ali Rogay from Bombay, Nur-el-Huda, Ferid-ed-Din, and others, also Mohammed Abbas Ibn Huseyn Bafiti, Sheykh es Saadat of Medina, a young Arab, who invited us cordially to come and stay with him in Medina, whither he returns in a few months. He says that if ever we write and tell him we are coming, he will prepare to receive us, and gave us his address and took ours. He repeated this invitation more than once, and I am sure it was sincerely given. The other acquaintance was that of Sirhadé Huseyn, who once wrote to me from Cirencester. After luncheon we were driven out to see something of the town and country. The town is old and picturesque, but we saw no specially fine buildings. We got out and inspected a village by the river side, but it was too near the river to be quite a fair specimen of Behar agriculture. One of the inhabitants, whom we questioned, told us it belonged to a rent-free Zemindar, and he was a tenant on a permanent rent, that is to say, fifteen rupees an acre, for three acres. We calculated the gross produce at thirty-six rupees, so he nets sixty-three rupees a year, or over five rupees a month, a fortune, but it is land of the best quality, and he grows maize and potatoes. It is not irrigated, so does not grow sugar cane. We asked whether he felt the salt tax, and he said ‘No.’ He was in debt twenty rupees this year, though he had never been in debt before. He and his family had held the land for generations.

“We sat down, sixteen or twenty, to dinner, and adjourned at 9 o’clock to the house of Nawab Villayet Ali Khan, the chief nobleman of Patna, where, in a large hall, about one hundred and fifty Mohammedans assembled to hear me give a lecture I had promised on their prospects. I shall not give my speech here, which was almost entirely extempore, because it is to be printed in one of the local papers. Suffice it to say that it included, with other matter, most of what I had said at the Anjuman i Islam, and was extremely well received.

“8th Jan.– We left Patna by the morning train, attended to the station by our host and Nawab Villayet Ali, with some thirty others, and a disagreeable incident occurred, as the train was starting, owing to the violence of a Scotch doctor, who threatened our friends, and especially the old Nawab, with his stick if they remained near his carriage window. I jumped at him, of course, and after calling him a blackguard for his conduct, gave him in charge at the next station, Dinapore. The railway authorities tried hard to screen him, and proposed to me to compromise the matter, but I insisted on having his name, and after about ten minutes he produced his card as Dr. K., Army and Navy Club (in pencil), Sealkote. So I have written a strong letter to Lord Ripon, warning him of the state of things, and of the bitterness of native feeling in consequence of their habitual ill treatment by the English.”

This was a worse case than quite appears from this entry. The Nawab, with his party of friends, were on the platform wishing me good-bye, with all possible decorum, when the Scotchman, who turned out to be Chief Medical Office of the Punjab, put his head and shoulders out of the next compartment and struck with his stick at the Nawab and his friends, bidding them, with an insolent air of authority, to stand back from the neighbourhood of his carriage window. This happened just as the train moved on, and I had to wait till the train again stopped before I could take action. Fortunately, however, Patna has two stations, and in five minutes we came to the second. There I entered the Doctor’s compartment, and insisted upon having his name, which he refused, and it was only by threatening the station-master with reporting the case to Lord Ripon that I got him to intervene. Several of my Patna friends had come on by the train, and supported me, or I doubt if I could have prevailed with him to do his duty. The matter being treated in this way made a prodigious sensation, as it was the first time an Englishman had openly taken part with the natives against his fellow countrymen.

“We arrived at 4 o’clock at Benares, and are the Maharajah’s guests in one of his empty houses, being attended to by one of his head servants. The river at Benares is striking, but less beautiful than I had expected.

“9th Jan.– In the morning I wrote a letter to Lord Ripon about the incident of yesterday, in a tone to compel his attention, and I enclosed it to Primrose with a hint that I should publish it if the matter was not promptly set right.

“We then went out to pay our respects to the Maharajah at Ahmednagar, crossing the river in a boat. The Palace at Ahmednagar is certainly one of the most striking buildings in the world. The Maharajah received us most kindly. He is a really ‘grand old man,’ blind with a cataract, but delighted to ‘see’ us. We had a rather long conversation with him, touching on religion and the disadvantage of a too-English education for men of the East. In which opinion we cordially agreed. He had his little Court of old servants round him, as he sat on the sofa, smoking his hookah, and his son, an amiable youth, sat in front on a chair, translating for him our conversation into Urdu. There was nothing of the new world in all this. He also talked about various Englishmen he had known, Sir John Strachey among others, whom he laughed at for his airs of grandeur. On one occasion he had come to pay a visit and had taken offence because the servants were not all at the door to receive him, and so had gone home. I told him he would laugh more if he could see Sir John Strachey in England, glad of anybody who would take the trouble to say ‘how do you do’ to him. This caused a chorus. Yet the officials fancy the ‘natives’ rate them at their own pretensions.

“After seeing the temple and the tank and the various sights of the Palace, we were rowed down the river in a barge, a really splendid sight, stopping once or twice to be shown the insides of houses. Bagdad must have been like this in its great days. But, what is strange at Benares, there is not a single house south of the river. Holkar’s house, which has slipped bodily into the Ganges, shows how all that is solid on the river front will one day go, leaving, as at Bagdad, only the mud huts they now screen. The temples here are insignificant compared with those of the South. It has been a pleasant day of comparative rest after all the talking we have lately done.

“10th Jan.– Calling accidentally at the Post Office, we found important letters from England; and, amongst other good news, I find my Colombo letter is published in the ‘Times’; also I am informed that orders were sent to Lord Ripon not to receive me at Government House.

“We were taken again on the river, which is a still more wonderful sight in the morning than it was in the evening, and, through the Maharajah, we had arranged to pay a visit, without which our Mohammedan tour would have been incomplete, namely, to the last representative of the Moguls, an elderly gentleman who lives in an old palace on the river, on a pension, he told us, of 649 rupees, 6 annas, and 3 pice a month, paid him in lieu of his Indian Empire by Her Majesty. He had had another 249 rupees with his wife, but she died last year, and now he wanted his case laid before the public. He was immensely pleased with our visit, for it seems no one ever thinks of paying him any attention, because he is poor; but we inundated him with compliments and courtesies, and he was moved to telling us of his descent from Arungzeb through the Emperor of Delhi, whose eldest son was his grandfather, and who, being disinherited by his father, left Delhi and settled at Benares. Sad old relic perched in a half ruinous house, like a sick eagle, looking down on the river and the crescent-shaped city, with his little group of tattered servants. We were pitying him from our hearts, melted at his pedigree, when he suddenly changed his tragic tone, and asked whether we would like to see a cock fight, and, when we assented, jumped briskly on his legs and led the way to the palace yard, where cocks had already been brought in crowing. The cock fight, as a cock fight, was a delusion. The birds were evidently too precious to be allowed to hurt each other, and their spurs were carefully swathed in bandages, so that no harm was done. This innocent amusement kindled him for a minute or two, and then he relapsed into his old listlessness. Wreaths were brought for us and perfumes, and we bade him farewell, and went on our way. I would not have missed this visit to the last of the Moguls for millions.

“We went on to Allahabad in the afternoon, and are staying with Lyall10 at Government House. There were a large number of Mohammedans to meet us at the station; among them Ferid-ed-Din, quite hilarious with the recollection of the row at the Patna station. We were hurried off, however, to Government House, where there was a large dinner of uninteresting officials. How dull Anglo-Indian society is! But when everybody was gone, I unfolded to Lyall my ideas of Mohammedan reform, and the university scheme, which last, to my astonishment, he cordially approved, promising, if it was started in his province, to aid it with a public grant. He also suggested Jonpore or Rampore as suitable places.

“Ferid-ed-Din came to settle about the presentation of the address and the lecture, but, after consultation with Lyall, it has been agreed that the latter is to be abandoned. Ferid-ed-Din suggested asking him to it, but this Lyall declined to do. I don’t quarrel with him for this. But it is painful to see what terror he inspires in the ‘natives.’ Ferid-ed-Din, in spite of his boldness, was struck speechless in his presence, and stood before him barefooted. I told Ferid-ed-Din to put his shoes on, but Lyall said he had better stay as he was. Yet Lyall is very far from being a narrow-minded man, and we have discussed the most burning questions without reserve. Talking of the Ilbert Bill, he said it was, as far as the Anglo-Indians were concerned, a local Bengal measure. It was quite true the Assam planters regarded it as an attempt to do away with their right of beating their own niggers. The jury system could not work there, as it would leave them free to do exactly what they chose. We discussed the chances of revolution. He would not agree that it would come in five years, but perhaps in twenty. But the people of India were a weak race, and would never be able to stand alone. They would be a prey to seafaring nations on their seaboard, and to the Russians and Chinese on their land frontier.

“We played lawn tennis, at which Lyall is good, in the afternoon; and after dinner we went to the Mayo Hall, a public place where about three hundred Mohammedans presented us with an address of an effusively loyal nature, to which I replied in a carefully moderate tone. Everything went off well, but the thing was tame compared with the Patna meeting, for the fact of our being at Government House has raised, in spite of us, a barrier between us and the people. They dare not come to see us there, and dare not talk openly anywhere. I feel suddenly shut out from all light, as when one goes through a tunnel on a railway journey.

“In England all seems going well. Churchill has made a grand speech at Edinburgh about Egypt, and I am glad to see advocates moral principles of government according to the programme I sketched for him. Gladstone’s mantle of righteousness, which has slipped off his shoulders, may be picked up now by anybody. Also I have several letters about my Colombo letter in the ‘Times.’ It was published on the 13th, as Churchill’s speech was made on the 16th. From Egypt, however, there comes news less good. Sherif has indeed resigned, but Nubar is in his place, and there is talk of increasing the staff of English employés, and prolonging the occupation for five years.

“12th Jan.– Akbar Huseyn and his brother came in the morning, and we wrote out an account of the meeting last night, and sent it to the ‘Pioneer.’ In the afternoon there was a garden party, and I talked to Sir Donald Stewart, the High Court Judge, about the Patna business. It surprised him, as it surprises every Englishman, and fails to surprise every native. He said the only similar case he had brought before him in his twelve years of judgeship, was one in which certain native pleaders had been insulted in their robing room in Court. This, however, does not affect the question of such things happening, because it shows only that no native ever dreams of complaining, or would have a chance of having his complaint inquired into if he did. On the other hand they have been settling a case this very day, in which a Hindu railway clerk beat an Englishman, and have sentenced the clerk to ten months imprisonment. Several of our Mohammedan friends were at the party, among them Ferid-ed-Din, but I noticed that they mixed with none of the English, talking only to each other or to certain Hindus.

“At dinner there were several intelligent people, especially a Mr. Patterson, who is on good terms with the natives, and spoke of them as I have not yet heard an Englishman speak. But he served with Garibaldi in Italy, and so has ideas of liberty the rest have not. The other was a young Strachey, son of Sir John, a true chip of the old block, with his father’s way of sitting with his head on one side like a sick raven, and the same spectacles and soft voice, a clever youth. I had another long talk with Lyall about the prospects of a Mohammedan reformation, and he reminded me of our dinner at the Travellers in the summer of 1881, with Morley and Zohrab, and of how I was then looking for a prophet in Arabia to proclaim him Caliph. He thinks Egypt will certainly now be annexed.

“13th Jan.– I was nervous all day yesterday at getting no answer from Lord Ripon. But at dinner last night the post arrived, with a most gracious letter, which makes me feel ashamed of my own violent one. I shall now leave the matter entirely in his hands, and I am glad of it, for it might interfere with my larger plans to have to fight a newspaper battle on such a field.

“Since writing this, Lyall has spoken to me also about the Patna business, and tells me Lord Ripon has sent him a copy of my letter, and begged him to urge on me the excision of such portions of it as treat the general question, because, Lyall says, if it were brought forward in that form just now, there would be a terrible row all over India, and it would upset Lord Ripon altogether. He has had a terribly hard time lately, and another angry question would be too much for him. He said he could promise me on Lord Ripon’s part, that if I would rewrite the letter in this sense, Lord Ripon would see justice done in the matter. He was not a man to do less than justice, and he, Lyall, would advise that Dr. K. be brought down to Patna to apologize to the Mohammedan gentleman, and that an order should be issued to the Railway Company for the better protection of natives. Of course I readily agreed to all this, and have now rewritten the public letter, and posted it, with a private one of thanks, to Lord Ripon. Nothing could have been better. But Lyall charges me I should tell no man – no Englishman that is – for I have already shown my first letter to several Mohammedans, and sent a copy of it to Villayet Ali. Rajah Amir Hassan called on his way to Lucknow, where we are to stay with him.

“In the afternoon we went with Mohammed Kazim, a friend of Ferid-ed-Din, to see some villages across the river, and saw also the Hindu pilgrims encamped in the river bed, at the junction of the waters. I feel in high spirits to-day at things having gone so exactly as I intended them to do in connection with the Patna incident. I could not really have published the first letter at a moment like this, and now Lord Ripon is under an obligation to me, and I shall have a right to speak about the university.

“Another long talk with Lyall. He told me that the Ceylon authorities had telegraphed about me to those of Bengal, and I fancy, though he did not say so, that he has been instructed to look pretty closely after me. It is also evident that Ferid-ed-Din has been warned not to go too far; and Lyall advised me to allow myself to be directed by Rajah Amir Hassan at Lucknow, as to whom to see and not to see, which means that he, too, has been warned to keep me out of dangerous company. I have been very frank with Lyall about my plans and ideas. Government opposition now would only strengthen me with the Mohammedans. They would do far better to help than to hinder me, for my ideas do not really run counter to any liberal interpretation of the continuance of British rule in India. Lyall, as a man, is everything that is charming and sympathetic; as an official he has graduated in a thoroughly bad school. It was he who, more than any one else, ruined Salar Jung’s administration in Hyderabad, and he admitted nearly as much to me. Salar Jung, he said, presumed upon the fact of his good government to claim what he could not get, that is, independence of the Paramount Power. There were certain things which the Government of India would always insist upon advising about, and having its advice followed. But Salar Jung did not see this. He thought he could rely on his own cleverness, and extra-official sympathy in England. But this could not be allowed. On that point he agreed with Lytton that Salar Jung was a dangerous man. It was not part of the Imperial policy that the Berar provinces should ever be restored.

“14th Jan.– The ‘Pioneer,’ instead of publishing the account of the meeting at the Mayo Hall, has printed a vicious little paragraph, saying that the natives of Patna regard me as a paid spy of the English Government. This is too much, and I expostulated with Lyall about it on the ground that the ‘Pioneer’ is a semi-official journal, a fact which, with certain qualifications, he admitted, and sent at once for N., the sub-Editor – Allen, the Editor, being away. After a sermon from Lyall, N. was shown in to me, a lackadaisical youth in a check suit, apparently still in his teens, and so frightened he could hardly speak or find his way to a chair. I was sorry for the boy, and dealt with him mildly when he stammered an excuse that the paragraph had been inserted as a joke, and he promised repentance, and to print the address verbatim as well as my speech, and also to print, when it should arrive, any letter from the Patna Mohammedans. Lyall tells me he is a youth who spends his time playing lawn tennis, and picks up his information in such places. They make use of him, however, to insert communiqués (one of them was Cordery’s explanation a few days ago), and Colvin is thick with Allen, the Editor, lodging, I understand, in the same house with him at Calcutta. Colvin, he says, has always worked the press. He himself has made the rule only to work anonymously to the extent of writing articles he was prepared, if challenged, to avow. But he is of opinion it is best to keep out of it altogether. It is Colvin, no doubt, who has prompted the spiteful tone of the ‘Pioneer’ towards myself. But how ridiculously these newspapers rule the world.