“The British Government places no restriction on the legitimate ambition of any individual and so far as Government can be a means of elevating the character of the people, we must thankfully acknowledge that a steady advance is being made. But it is not Government alone that can accomplish this end. It can only remove obstacles and provide facilities, and when this is done the rest is the work of the people themselves”.
APRIL 16, 1894
What is the greatest boon of the British rule?
NO NATION IS RUINED BY TEMPORARY ERRORS OF ITS GOVERNMENT, but it is sure to deteriorate and decay under a Government which is fundamentally despotic and oppressive. A British rule in India has inflicted woeful wrongs on the people, but at its foundation and in its nature it is not despotic and is not oppressive. It is, indeed, slow to recognize the right of the people to be treated with confidence; it is often swayed by self-interest in the administration of their finances; it sometimes enacts bad laws; and treats individuals with harshness. But all these will not retard the progress of the people to the same extent that the freedom and individual liberty that it recognises as its basis and essence will advance it. There can be no hesitation in acknowledging that this freedom, this liberty, this tendency to progress, is the greatest boon for which the Indian people are indebted to the British rule and which more than compensates them for the wrongs and injuries that they have now and again suffered from its measures and policies. Macaulay says in his History of England: “In every experimental science there is a tendency towards perfection. In every human being there is a wish to ameliorate his own condition. These two principles have often sufficed, even when counteracted by great public calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilisation rapidly forward.” To neither of these two tendencies does British rule offer opposition. On the other hand, by its tradition, instinct, and pledges the British nation has been their great promoter and it recognizes its mission in this country to be to advance positive knowledge among the people and to encourage natural desire of the individual to improve his condition. European nations have become so intimately familiar with popular forms of Government that they do not always remember the influence that the methods and principles of Government have on the character of the people. Mr. Gladstone said recently that the greatest aim of every Government should be to enable every individual to live the purest and the most useful life; but no Government that is opposed to the highest education and the utmost freedom of the people can realise this end. On the AngloIndian statesmen that settled the country six years ago in the forms of Western Government as far as it could be done then, the benevolent influences of a free and progressive rule constantly pressed themselves and we thus behold towering figures in the early British Indian history, like Munro, Elphinsione and Metcalfe frequently holding forth in almost impassioned language on the great benefits that it was in the power of British rule to confer on the downtrodden millions of this country. No reader of Sir Thomas Munro’s life can fail to be struck with the fervour with which he pleaded for the advance of these two principles, of freedom and progress, under the benevolent dominance of his nation in the East. In one of those tours of which, while he was Governor of Madras, he was so particularly fond, he met some ryots whom he questioned about the produce of their fields. One of the bearded sages replied that they yielded very little and that it was sometimes difficult to get a return from them equal to the seed they had sown. The reply was of course untrue, but the sympathetic Governor-tourist did not attribute this to any natural disposition of the people to lying, for, in his opinion, “they were simple, harmless, honest and have as much truth in them as any men in the world”. “The hesitation to tell the truth arose from the oppressive and inquisitorial Government, which always prying into their affairs in order to lay new burdens upon them, forces them to deny what they have as the only means of saving their property.” “An excellent book”, Sir Thomas then strikes into a philosophical reflection of great value, but unfortunately not always influencing rulers of mankind, “might be written by a man of leisure, showing the wonderful influence that forms of Government have moulding the disposition of mankind.” He foresaw that the strength of the British Government, by preventing wars and by protecting life and property, will increase the wealth and population of the country. Besides, by the establishment of schools, it would extend among the Hindus a knowledge of their own literature and the literature of England. But all this, Munro thought, would not improve their character; they would be made more pliant and servile, more industrious and perhaps more skilful in the arts; and there would be fewer banditti, but, he added with emphasis, “We shall not raise their moral character”. “Our present system of Government”, he wrote to Lord Canning when he resigned the office of the President of the Board of Control, “by excluding all natives from power and trust and emolument, is much more efficacious in depressing than all our laws and school books can do in elevating their character. We are working against our own designs and we can expect to make no progress while we work with a feeble instrument to improve and a powerful one to deteriorate. The improvement of the character of a people and the keeping them, at the same time, in the lowest state of dependence on foreign rulers to which they can be reduced by conquest, are matters quite incompatible with each other.” Since Sir Thomas Munro thus wrote with the sagacity of genuine statesmanship, a good deal has been done to raise the people from a state of dependence; their ambition has been stirred, and a goal has been provided for the aspiration of the nation as well as the individual. So far as the service of the State is concerned no office is beyond the point to which the acquirements and character of an individual can lead him; and the community too, as a whole, need no longer pine in reflecting on the disabilities of a conquered and incapable people, but is now inspired with hopes of advancement and is encouraged by successes made possible by the sympathies and the wisdom of the ruling race. Sir Thomas rightly attaches little importance to mere books as an instrument of moral elevation. Schools and books can only impart knowledge; but the improvement of character comes from a constant application of knowledge, in a spirit of righteousness and sacrifice, to the promotion of private and public interest. By the establishment of numerous schools and colleges in every part of the country, ample facilities for the acquisition of knowledge have been provided and a very considerable scope for the utilisation of this knowledge and the exercise of the freedom guaranteed to every law-abiding citizen exists in the number of liberal institutions worked wholly or in part by the people themselves. The British Government places no restriction on the legitimate ambition of any individual, and so far as Government can be a means of elevating the character of the people, we must thankfully acknowledge that a steady advance is being made. But it is not Government alone that can accomplish this end. It can only remove obstacles and provide facilities, and when this is done, the rest is the work of the people themselves. If they cannot prosper and rise to an honourable position in the world under the liberal influences of British rule, then there is little chance of the regeneration ever coming at all.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I