India Under Ripon: A Private Diary

“7th to 15th Jan.– We went to Lucknow, the party here breaking up at the same time, Lyall going on a tour of the province, his wife and daughter to a ball at Lucknow. Mulvi Wahaj-ed-din and about twenty others came to see us off at the station, but we have seen nothing of them, for they won’t come to Government House to be treated like servants. Nothing happened on the journey except that at Cawnpore about one hundred Mohammedans had assembled to see us while the train stopped. One of them recited some verses in Arabic, and an address was promised, but they had had no time, they said, to write one. There are not many Mohammedans at Cawnpore, and only one can speak a little English, so our interview was limited to compliments, bowings, and hand shakings.

“At Lucknow we were received by all the great people, two of the Oude princes, and our host, Rajah Amir Hassan, who drove us to his house in a state carriage and four. He made many apologies to us for the poorness of his abode, which was, in fact, a small palace, and explained that his own palaces had been burned down at the time of the Mutiny, and this house was given him in exchange by the English Government. It was late, and we had no more time than to dine and go to bed, the Rajah dining with us, the first time in his life, he told us, he had ever dined with Europeans, nor had he ever entertained an Englishman in his house.

“16th Jan.– We have had a great deal of conversation with our host, who is a man of much intelligence, though a rather bigoted Shiah. He explained to me the dogmatic differences they had with the Sunnis, the principal of which, he said, was that the Shiahs asserted God’s justice, and that the prophets had been without sin and infallible. He also went through the old discussion about Ali’s succession to the Caliphate with warmth; and told me a number of other curious things connected with his sect. Lucknow is its stronghold in India, as the Court was Shiah during the last eighty years of its existence. We then talked of Hyderabad. Sir Salar Jung had been a great friend of his, and he had recommended Seyd Huseyn to him.

“In the afternoon he drove us round the town and showed us the Imambara, where he said a prayer on the tomb, touching it with his right hand. Also to the Residency ruins, while he told us the history of the Mutiny from his own point of view. His father had sided with the mutineers and been the chief leader of the Shiah faction among them, till the massacres occurred, when he left them in disgust and went to his own fort, at Mahmudabad, where he took ill and died. Twelve of Amir Hassan’s brothers and cousins were shot, blown up, or hanged by the English, and he alone was left, a boy of ten, to be educated by them. All the family property in Lucknow was confiscated and destroyed, for the English destroyed one third of the city, and so he comes in for an inheritance of woe. Looking, however, at the ruins, which are very beautiful, he said: ‘We have agreed to forget our history, and the days of our glory. But the English refuse to forget it. They leave their ruins standing to perpetuate the memory of bloodshed. If I could do it, I would persuade the Lieutenant-Governor to have them razed or rebuilt.’

“The Rajah is only thirty-six years old, but his hair is very gray, and he looks fifty. He complains of his liver, and I have strongly advised him, for the good of his soul and body, to make the land pilgrimage from Kerbela to Mecca, and he says he will certainly do so. He does not go into English society, because he dislikes being disrespectfully treated. The officials are very tyrannical. Of General Barrow he spoke very highly, as of one who had saved them from destruction after the Mutiny, and he showed us a statue of him the Talukdars of Oude are going to set up. He is President of the Talukdars’ Association, and takes considerable part in public affairs, besides having started some indigo factories. Altogether he is a superior man.

“17th Jan.– We went to the 10th Hussar ball last night, in the Chotar Menzil, a beautiful room robbed by the Government from the princes of Oude. Wood, the Colonel, is an old friend of mine, and we met Brabazon and Lady Lyall and the Franklins.

“There is a furious article against me in the ‘Pioneer,’ written evidently by Colvin, or inspired by him, to the effect that I am stirring up sedition in Patna and other Mohammedan centres. The text, however, of it is the ‘Wind and the Whirlwind,’ and its tone is exactly what I could most have wished. Good hearty abuse as a revolutionist can do me nothing but good. In the same sheet they publish the text of my Allahabad address.

“I am to give a lecture here and receive an address to-morrow, and have been busy preparing. In the middle of the day we went to a horse sale of the 10th Hussars, and had luncheon with them; and then we drove through the city with the Rajah, he lamenting over the ruins. A great road has been run through the city by pulling down the houses of poor men. Hardly any got compensation, and the ruins make a causeway raised about twenty feet above the general level. This is called Victoria Street.

“We had several visits: First, Mohammed Ibrahim, chief Mujtahed of the Shiahs, a dignified old man who talked good Arabic. He did not fancy a university at Hyderabad, because the Government was Sunni. He lamented the decay of religious institutions here in Lucknow. Secondly, Prince Mirza Mohammed Madhi Ali Khan, a polite and amiable personage who talked no English, but had sent us last night an enormous tray of fruits and sweetmeats. Thirdly, Ihtimam ed Dowlah Nawab Haidar Huseyn Khan, an elderly nobleman of Lucknow. Fourthly, Rajah Tasadak Rasul Khan, a nobleman related to the princes, in very fine clothes. I find, however, that no Sunni has been to see us, nor any of the small people of the town, who are the most interesting. Perhaps our host is carrying out Lyall’s instructions; perhaps he discourages Sunnis. It is tiresome, but cannot be helped.

“We were taken to-day to see the Shiah Madrasa, a poor little place, where seventy pupils, men and boys, are taught religion, logic, and arithmetic up to the rule of three. I was begged to examine them, and asked who was the Mogul leader who had sacked Bagdad, but was told that no one knew history. Then I put the problem of the herring and a half costing three half-pence, and six boys, on slates, worked out the problem, two correctly.

“18th Jan.– We went out in the morning to see the Hoseynabad Imambara, which is certainly the most beautiful thing in Lucknow, though less imposing than the great Imambara. Here we took off our shoes, which pleased the Rajah greatly, and at his suggestion we refused the wreaths offered us by the guardian, this on the ground that, it being a charitable endowment, the money spent on these wreaths given to English visitors was misspent. The way in which this endowment is misappropriated is astonishing. The guardian is a Hindu, appointed by the English trustees with a salary of four hundred rupees a month, and quite recently they have spent £10,000 on building a ridiculous clock tower as a memorial to Sir George Couper, the man most hated by the Mohammedans of Lucknow. These are the things that bring the English name into contempt.

“Prince Mahdi Ali called again and one or two others, but there seem to be few Mohammedans here who know English, except among the younger men, and these did not come to the house. In the afternoon, however, they came to the meeting. We talked with the Rajah about the land assessment, and he gave us the following as the proportion between the ryot, the Talukdar, and the Government. Of a field producing one hundred maunds, the ryot would keep sixty (that is three-fifths, of which fifteen or twenty would represent the seed corn, and forty or forty-five for his profit and labour). Of the remaining forty maunds the Government takes twenty or twenty-five, leaving fifteen or twenty to the Talukdar. He said this would be an average reckoning.

“The meeting in the Kaisar Bagh Hall was the most successful we have yet had. All the religious chiefs, Sunnis and Shiahs, and many of the noblemen of Lucknow, and altogether about one thousand persons were present, as well as about a dozen Englishmen. Three addresses were presented, and I made a long speech of an hour and a half, which, as it is to be printed, I will not give here.

“Lyall has written to apologize for the article in the ‘Pioneer,’ which he says he knows comes from Calcutta, and he will give orders that I am to be well received everywhere in his province. This is good of him, though nobody can do me much good or harm now. My only anxiety is Hyderabad, and I think I shall write to Lord Ripon and ask him whether he wishes me to come or not. Unless he gives me his countenance, my going back there will do more harm than good. We came away by the night train to Aligarh.

“19th Jan.– Mulvi Sami Ullah, Seyd Ahmed, and a number more of the Aligarh Mohammedans, met us at the station, and we are staying in Sami Ullah’s house, a bungalow furnished in extra English taste, and having a certain chill simplicity which savours of the convent. One expects a crucifix and a holy water stoup in every room. The Mulvi’s dress is almost a cassock, and he has something of the manner of a Don. I can understand why the Aligarh men are not liked. I myself feel rather constrained with them, for one does not know whether to treat them as pious Mohammedans, or latter-day disciples of Jowett. Not that they are not extremely amiable, but there is a tone of apology in their talk to me, as much as to say ‘we are not such infidels as you suppose.’

“I am rather disappointed in Seyd Ahmed. He is certainly a beau vieillard, but does not inspire me with entire confidence. His features are coarse, his hands coarse, and I should not be surprised if he turned out to be a faux bonhomme. But this is a first impression, and he speaks very little English. I have not had a real opportunity of judging him even superficially. We went over the College, which is certainly a wonderful work. It is on a large scale, but without pretence, and no money has been wasted on ornament. The boys were out playing cricket, which they did as well as an average lot of English schoolboys, and seemed to take full interest in the game. Among them was the new English Principal of the College, Mr. Beck, a pretty little young man with pink cheeks and blue eyes, certainly not an average Englishman; and an average Englishman certainly could not succeed here. So Beck may succeed. He is probably clever.11

“The Collector, Mr. Ward, and the Judge have called, by Lyall’s orders, and I had some talk with the former about the ill feeling between Englishmen and natives, which he seemed to think could not be helped. I don’t suppose it can. The Judge seems a better sort, but when we went to take tea with his wife, she at once asked Sami Ullah to ‘take a peg,’ and then apologized for her thoughtlessness. A good sort all the same.

“We sat down, a dozen, to dinner, but as no one could speak English well, it was a dull party. There were two Rais in the company who belong to the old-fashioned party, and with them I had a little talk. On the whole Aligarh bores me.

“I forgot to say that Mr. Ward mentioned it, as an instance of rough behaviour on the part of the natives, that a day or two ago an Englishman having accidentally shot a Hindu boy, the native police had arrested the man, made him walk some miles, and detained him two days at the police station, and then brought a charge against him. He said the wound was little more than a skin wound, and that the bullet had glanced from the ground while the Englishman was shooting blue deer.

“20th Jan.– Letters have come from England, and a great number from Patna, strengthening the general case of the insults offered to natives. I shall now write to Lord Ripon again. We paid a visit to the dispensary, where we happened to see the boy wounded in the neck by the bullet, half an inch deep the English doctor said, and within very little of the jugular artery. Also to the Mosque, where we were received with great honour by the chief preacher here. The Mosque has just been restored with excellent taste. I noticed that Sami Ullah did not take off his shoes to go inside. The repairs have cost £10,000, partly paid out of a wakf, partly by subscription. They have made me promise to make a speech to-morrow, but it will be difficult not to give offence, for party feeling runs high.

“We drove to a village and ascertained a few useful facts. The proportion of seed corn to harvest is one to six, and they give their cattle salt twice a week. We dined at Seyd Ahmed’s, a mixed party of Mohammedans and Englishmen. Seyd Ahmed told me he quite agreed with my fifth chapter of the ‘Future of Islam.’

“21st Jan.– The meeting was a failure compared with the others. Most of the old Mulvis would not come, I suppose because it was convened by Seyd Ahmed. But they sent me a very nice address in Arabic, and some of them were there, including one who is a dwarf. I did not know quite what to say between the two parties, and I doubt whether Seyd Ahmed altogether liked my discourse. It was certainly not a success. Still I think it may do good. It will put them on their religious mettle.

“Since writing this, I hear that my speech was immensely appreciated by the greater number of those present, only they did not like to express their feelings strongly in Seyd Ahmed’s presence. I have talked, too, with Seyd Ahmed, and hope no offence has been taken by him. I fancy he has considerable experience of people differing from him, and he tells me he shall lay to heart the suggestions I made. I like him better than I did at first, and have no doubt he is a good and sincere man. But my taking part, in a way, with his enemies cannot of course be agreeable to him, especially as he is just starting on a trip to the Punjaub to collect funds for his college. Ikhram Ullah of Delhi is here, and goes with him, being Seyd Ahmed’s nephew and disciple. It was on him we counted for introductions at Delhi; but he has promised to go back and start us there. I feel a little doubt as to how we shall get on. The ‘Pioneer,’ I hear, has rather frightened people, and Ikhram Ullah tells me we are watched by spies. However, the thing is almost done now, and our reception at Delhi is not of vital importance. I have written to Lord Ripon to ask his leave to be at Hyderabad for the installation. It is evident to me now that the Calcutta Foreign Office has warned Salar Jung and Vikar-el-Omra against intimacy with us, perhaps also the Nizam. With Lord Ripon’s countenance, however, we need not mind that.

“At night there was a dinner at the Aligarh Institute in my honour, at which Seyd Ahmed presided, and the Collector and other English officials were present. I sat between Seyd Ahmed and Mr. Ward. The latter talked about the future of India, and said he wished to see a parliament in India. Anything was better than being governed by the English Parliament. He complained that the English in India were disfranchised. They had no vote in England, and no representation here. Seyd Ahmed read a speech in which he proposed Her Majesty’s health, which was drunk in tea, and then my health and a great many expressions of loyalty, and Sami Ullah also spoke, and then Seyd Ahmed sang, with much spirit, a few Arabic verses in my honour. After which I replied briefly, explaining that I was not come to India to stir up strife, but to help the cause of peace and goodwill. That I should like to see the Indians and English living in harmony together, but the condition of social intercourse was social equality. There were none at this dinner but men of Seyd Ahmed’s school, but about fifty others came in in the evening. Anne came also, but did not dine.

“22nd Jan.– We left for Delhi by the morning train, Mulvi Mohammed Abbas Huseyn, the chief of the Shiahs, presenting me with a separate address before starting. He is one of the old-fashioned ones, and I like him especially. He wears the white turban, and dresses like an Egyptian Alem. At the station everybody was present, Seyd Ikbal Ali had come all the way from Faizabad to see us, Seyd Ahmed and all of them, who started a ‘hip hurray’ as the train moved off, but Mohammedans are not good at cheering. I promised Seyd Ahmed to send him a subscription, and wished him, very heartily, success.”

CHAPTER VIII

DELHI, RAJPUTANA

“22nd Jan. (continued).

“At Delhi we were met by Ikhram Ullah with three of the chief noblemen of the town, Nawab Ala-ed-din, Ahmed Khan, chief of Loharo, a prince Mirza Suliman Jah, of the Mogul family, and Ala-ed-din’s son, Emir-ed-din Feruk Mirza. The Nawab accompanied us to the hotel, where he had taken rooms for us, and, as he speaks English, we had a long conversation, principally about Egypt. But I found him very ignorant as to the state of affairs there. He asked very particularly about the Sultan, and I answered, as I always do, that I believed him to be a good man in private character, and with the wish to improve his Empire, but quite ignorant of the world, and surrounded by a set of avaricious Pashas. I cannot discover any enthusiasm in India about the Turkish Empire, and very little about the Sultan.

“In the afternoon I went out alone to return the visits of the Nawab and princes. The Nawab explained to me that he was a pure Turk (Turcoman) by descent, his family having come only three generations back from Samarcand, and having always married with women of their own blood. He was, till last year, a semi-independent sovereign, and he abdicated in favour of his son, and is now living on a small income at Delhi. He also told me that his uncle, an illegitimate son of his grandfather, had been hanged here in Delhi for the murder of Mr. William Fraser, he says, unjustly, though he evidently thinks it served him right for having usurped the greater part of the family property. He says that he got the property by bribing this Mr. Fraser, and that he was accused of the murder by the Government in order to confiscate the estates, which were very large. He showed me a picture of this uncle as a young man riding out with his attendants, and another of the Mogul Court, in which his father and this very Mr. Fraser figure. The old gentleman is a curious old-world type, with a fair knowledge of English, and the reputation of being a good Arabic and Persian scholar, as well as a sportsman and good rider. He has only one wife, ‘thank God.’

“With the Prince we talked Arabic, which he speaks better than most of the Indians, and he was helped in it by an Alem, his cousin by marriage, who spoke it colloquially. We discussed the Mahdi, whom they were delighted to hear me speak well of, and Arabi, for whom they expressed great respect, and Tewfik’s character, and the Sultan’s. All these things interest them extremely. The Prince is a cousin of our friend at Benares, and enjoys a pension of five hundred rupees a month. He lives in a little old house in the old town, and keeps a little old Court of old servants like his cousin. But he is a much more intelligent man, younger and better educated. He was immensely pleased with my visit, and has promised to take us to see the Kottub on Thursday, which is eleven miles off.

“This hotel stands on the ramparts, and is a really nice place, its proprietor a negro of Algerian extraction, but born in France and a Christian. He knows a few words of Arabic and no more, dresses in ultra English dress, has served as naval engineer on board Her Majesty’s fleet, and is more of a John Bull than anybody I know except Zohrab. His helmet is monumental.

“I may here note that I heard from Akbar Huseyn of a case in which liberties had been taken by an English official with a Hindu woman, whose husband’s relations, finding her ‘no longer of any use to them,’ killed her and laid her outside his tent. The case was taken up, and though there was no kind of doubt as to the facts, those who brought it forward were proceeded against by the Government as having brought a malicious charge, and were sentenced to a fine of one thousand rupees each, and three months imprisonment. My informant added: ‘They will never allow a charge to be substantiated against an official for fear of injuring the British character.’

“23rd Jan.– Ikhram Ullah brought us four Mohammedan gentlemen, with whom we conversed about the political position to be taken up by Mohammedans in India, and their opinion seemed to be that there should be more common action with the Hindus. But one of them was of opinion that the Hindus were impracticable, because they would not permit the killing of cows. He and Kadi Huseyn, a Shiah, talked English, but the Sunnis talked none.

“Later we went with Robinson, our black host, to see the fort and the great mosque, among the few wonders of the world. The mosque is far and away the finest mosque, the palace far and away the finest palace; and, except Madura, they stand together first in the universe. The palace is full of intense interest, for it was here that the great events of the last three hundred years happened, and in modern times that the last Emperor of Delhi, after the retaking of the city by the English, was tried ignominiously for murder. A dentist whom we met to-day tells us he happened to go into the hall of audience during the trial, and saw this last of the Mogul kings crouched before the Military Commission, dressed in a piece of sacking and a coarse turban ‘like a coolie.’ Here, too, the English soldiers slew and destroyed some thousands of innocent men in revenge for the death of about one hundred. The old Loharo chief assures us 26,000 persons were killed by the soldiers or hanged or shot or ‘blown up’ during the eight months following the capture of the city. The city was deserted, and whole quarters and suburbs razed to the ground. Such are the resources of civilization. The dentist says he saw nineteen men hanging together in one spot, and put the number executed at several thousands. I suppose no Englishman will ever dare write the real history of that year.

“We dined with the Nawab, his son, Prince Suliman Jah, and Ikhram Ullah, and had some instructive conversation. The son, Emir-ed-din Feruk Mirza, who is now reigning chief of Loharo, gave me an amusing account of how young princes were brought up by the British Government when it happened to become their guardian. They are taught to ride and play lawn tennis, and the Resident writes that they are enlightened and loyal princes. Then they are placed on the throne, but find it dull, and go to Calcutta where they spend their money. Then they come back and grind their subjects with taxation, and the Resident writes that they are barbarous and unfit to govern. Lastly, the Government intervenes and administers the country for them. He is a very intelligent young man himself, and his father complains of him because he is too old-fashioned. But I expect he knows better than the old man the ins and outs of our modern diplomacy. The old man is a curious type. During the Mutiny, he tells me, he remained in the city because he could not leave it. But he kept up communication with the English, and for this reason he was not hanged, as most people were, or his property entirely confiscated. It is quite evident to me, however, that, while expressing loudly his loyalty, all his sympathies are with the old régime. What he did not like about the mutineers was that most of them were Hindus. But Heaven forgive me if he loves the English. Things, too, have changed mostly since then, and it is my firm conviction that in the case of a new mutiny every man, woman, and child, Mohammedan and Hindu, will join it. The Nawab is a bit of a humbug, but I like him all the same. He belongs to a school which is rapidly passing away, the school which allied itself with the English Government from motives of interest, or sometimes out of a sincere admiration for some individual Englishman. All this is gone. The old men’s loyalty has become lip service, and the young men hardly conceal their thoughts. Nothing is more striking in India than the absolute want, at the present day, of native enthusiasm for any particular man. Lord Ripon had this till lately, but he is the last who will have had it.

“24th Jan.– We were to have gone on an expedition with Prince Suliman to the tombs of his ancestors, and the Kottub; but it has been put off, luckily as it turns out, for Colonel Moore came in to-day to see us from Meerut. I would not have missed him for much, as he is the only Englishman I have met who quite understands the natives, and sympathizes with our ideas. He is acting as bear-leader to the Duke of Connaught, where he lives in an uncongenial atmosphere, for he describes the Duke and Duchess as being of high Tory ideas about English rule in India, quite unsympathetic with the people. Even if they wished to see anything of them it would be impossible, for there is great jealousy on the part of the Indian Government.