Читать книгу British Rule in India - Harriet Martineau - Страница 8

“Thus thou hast seen one world begin and end, And Man as from a second stock proceed. Much thou hast yet to see.”—Milton.

If a merchant from Japan were to land in a European port, on a commercial speculation, and be told in a dream that his countrymen would, within three generations, become possessed of the whole continent, except Russia, he would think it the very wildest dream that had ever visited his sleep. Yet a parallel dream, during Stevens’s first night at Goa, would have been a true prophecy.

Major Rennell first turned our attention to the relative magnitude of Europe and British India. Rectifying his statement, in accordance with recent changes, we find that our Indian empire slightly exceeds in area, while falling little short in population, the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia.[2]

It is a great and marvellous conception, even after a century of such feelings as must be excited by an extension of dominion unmatched (all conditions being considered) in history. This vast territory is the abode of nations as numerous and as different from each other in character and language as the nations of Europe. If we lose sight of this, and lump them together as “natives of India,” declaring ourselves unable to recognise any difference between one and another, we are simply emulating the ignorance of Asiatics in their occasional travels in the west. They do not know an Italian from a German—a Frenchman from an Englishman; and we may conceive what would be the chances of success of an Asiatic government of Europe which should proceed on such a view. The main point of education for Anglo-Indian service is the understanding of the conditions and qualities of the peoples to be governed; but that kind of preparation has never had the advantage of popular intelligence and sympathy at home. Nobody has felt an interest in what Indian officials have had to study; nobody has cared to hear what Anglo-Indians have had to tell; and now, when our great dependency is in a state of serious, though partial revolt, most of us at home have everything to learn, when we ought to have been able to judge, suggest, and insist, through the carefully gathered experience and vigilant observation of a hundred years. It is probably a new idea to most of us that our Indian empire is almost as large and populous as Europe, and including as many nations, with their languages. When Stevens, who had joined a party of Portuguese to reach Goa, saw what he could from thence, he probably formed a more just estimate of the great peninsula than we have hitherto done; but now, stern events are awakening the interest which has slumbered too long.

What made Stevens go to Goa? One of the agents of the Russian trading company to India was a man of English birth, who had seven times gone down the Volga, and by the Caspian and Persia to Hindostan; what he saw of the wealth of India, and of the scope for commercial adventure there, became known to Stevens, who found enough that was wonderful and tempting to make a most stimulating narrative as soon as he got home. Everybody read his book, and the nation became extremely eager to obtain a commercial footing under the shadow of the Moguls. News from other wanderers began to come in. Of a party of four travellers who had gone to see what they could see, one, named Storey, remained as a monk among the Portuguese at Goa; another, Newberry, died on his way back; a third, Leedes, accepted service under the Emperor Akbar; and only the fourth, Fitch, came home. The London merchants began their scheme of a company (from which our East India Company has grown) before the new century came in. They raised money, laid plans, and sought Government aid; but the 16th century closed before they could bring their scheme to bear. While awaiting the founding of our first factory, we must therefore survey the new region of society, thus strangely disclosed, with the eyes of Stevens, at Goa, or of Leedes, at Delhi; perhaps of both, as the one certainly saw Hindostan Proper, and the other, no doubt, more or less of the Deccan—regions as distinct, to say the least, as eastern and western Europe. It ought to be at least as interesting to us as it could be to these early adventurers to know who the inhabitants of India were, and what they were like; because we understand what they could never have dreamed of—that our institutions and methods, as rulers in India, must take shape and colour, more or less, from those which were bequeathed to us by our predecessors. It is but little that can be told in such space as can be spared for the purpose here; but the most superficial retrospect ought to be full of instruction.

Behind the history of the Hindoos lies a dim region in which even speculation gropes, and can make no way. Somebody was there, in that singularly fenced region, before the Hindoos came down (as the learned tell us they did) through the passes from Central Asia: and now and then an ancient monument turns up, or a gem of law or tradition dropped from its setting, or a philological hint sends a flash of disclosure through the darkness of antiquity—all indicating that the predecessors of the Hindoos were wise at a time when the whole earth is supposed to have been barbarous, and that there was at least one great country which swarmed with an organized society in days when we are apt to fancy deep calling to deep, and wildernesses resting in perpetual silence, before Man had appeared to awaken all the voices of Nature. Ascending no higher, it seems to be admitted on all hands that the ancient Hindoos were near the top of the scale of nations in civilization. Their institutions must have been strongly rooted to have stood their ground as they did, under the rule of their Mohammedan conquerors, even so late as Leedes’s residence at the Delhi Court; and it is said to be something singular in the history of nations that an idolatry should have been sustained against a comparatively pure religion, as theirs was against Mohammedanism under the Mogul emperors. However that might be, a good observer could easily point out such modifications as the presence of the conquerors had caused in the ideas and manners of the Hindoos, while the wonder was that those modifications were so few and of such minor importance. The bulk of the population was Hindoo; and the Mohammedan element was almost as distinct as the European is now. This does not imply that Hindoo institutions and manners were not very much changed from their primitive type; but the changes must be imputed much more to the indigenous faults of the antique polity than to the operation of foreign influences. The long duration of the general polity was owing, no doubt, to the large proportion of municipal institutions to the central despotism; but, under a religion which encouraged a passive condition of mind and life, and an institution of caste which obstructed improvement from within, and excluded it from without, deterioration was inevitable, whether it came sooner or later.

Whatever may have been the origin of the Hindoos, and however erroneous their own belief concerning it may be considered, that belief, from time immemorial, has been that Hindostan Proper—the country between the Vindhya mountains and the Himalaya—is their native home. It is to them the “Holy Land;” and they deny that the Deccan has any right to share the title. To say the least, they were nearly at the head of human civilization for a thousand years before our era. Modern scholars are disposed to think that the culminating point of the Hindoo empire, taking all conditions together, was just before the appearance of Alexander the Great on their frontier, though their literature and arts reached a higher perfection afterwards. But little can be alleged with any certainty prior to the invasions which followed the rise of Mohammedanism.

The Prophet’s own wars, and those carried on in his name after his death, were on the whole successful in Persia, and onwards to Cabul, and further eastward still, till they met the thoroughly organized resistance of the Hindoo priesthood. Other faiths and their priests had gone down before the Prophet’s sword and battle cry. Here was one which had the support of the throne on the one hand, and popular devotedness on the other; so that the new proselytising religion was nearer meeting its match in India than it had ever been before. The conservatism of the Hindoo polity was a fair antagonist for Mussulman fanaticism. The thorough amalgamation of the Hindoo faith with the whole national and individual life rendered speedy conversion impossible, and made it clear that by violence alone could any empire over the people of Hindostan be obtained and preserved. Thus was the spread of Mohammedanism in India slower and more difficult than anywhere else, long after it had made a lodgment within the territory; the lapse of time tending, meanwhile, to relax the forces of fanaticism, and to turn the warriors of the Prophet from apostles into politicians and princes.

Existing evidence seems to show that the first onset was made by a Hindoo potentate, the Rajah of Lahore, in the tenth century, from alarm at the encroachments of the Mohammedans established at Ghuznee, under the rule of the father of Sultan Mahmoud. The Ghuznee ruler had the advantage, and Sultan Mahmoud so improved it as to be called the Conqueror of India. While our Canute was blessing England by exalting religion above the clergy, Sultan Mahmoud was making his twelve idol-breaking incursions among the Hindoos, overthrowing their temples, and insulting the idolaters whom he could not convert. He did not establish any regular government in Hindostan, so that the people rushed to their temples as soon as his back was turned; and the dynasty of the intruders was changed, and more than a century and a half had passed, before the conquest became real and permanent. It was not till 1193, when our Cœur-de-Lion was fighting against the children of the Prophet in the Holy Land of Christendom, that the Mohammedans took real possession of the Holy Land of the Hindoos, and set up their banner and their throne at Delhi. Mohammed, the first King of Delhi, stands in Arab history as the founder of the Prophet’s empire in Hindostan. Ghengis Khan swept past the frontiers of Hindostan repeatedly, but did not enter it. Other Mogul chiefs did, however; and then the Affghan princes reigned at Delhi, and, by the hands of one of them, conquered a chief part of the Deccan. At about the time when Bolingbroke was enforcing the abdication of our Richard II., Timur was dethroning the now feeble kings of Delhi. He merely marched through Hindostan to effect this purpose, and left it to his successors to establish a Mogul dynasty there. This was done by his descendant Baber, who took possession of the throne at Delhi in 1526, and founded the Mogul empire in India, extending his dominion to the Ganges, but not improving the condition of his dominions. This was done by Akbar, whose long reign was a blessing to the Hindoos, in comparison with every other since the followers of the Prophet entered their country. His toleration was so great as to contrast favourably with the bigotry of some of the contemporary monarchs of Christendom; for instance, our Queen Mary, whose zeal was waxing and her life waning when Akbar took his seat on the Delhi throne; and the successor of Charles V., who was retiring into his convent just when Akbar was making provision for liberty of opinion among his idolatrous subjects. As always happens in such cases, Akbar was accused of infidelity by his own priests; but his life and his memory were dear to all others. While Wolsey was establishing his influence over our Henry VIII., Akbar, the prince of Mohammedan, as Henry once promised to be of Christian chivalry, was keeping his high clergy at arm’s length, and making himself the protector of the ignorant and the poor against all oppression by all priesthoods. A more gallant monarch, or one more exemplary (when his first wild youth was passed), or more philosophical in his cabinet, while a true knight in the field, is not upon record in the whole course of history. Queen Elizabeth might be proud of her correspondents if she chanced to write to Henri Quatre and to Akbar on the same day. Leedes and his comrades carried a letter from her to the Emperor at Delhi: and it is probable that Akbar was as eager to hear from his English follower all details of our Queen’s good government as the English certainly were to learn from Stevens and Fitch whatever they could tell on their return of the empire and rule of Akbar, the great Mogul.

When Leedes took service at Delhi, Akbar had received the submission of all but one of the princes north of the Vindhya mountains, and on both sides of the Indus; so that he was at liberty to turn southwards, and subjugate the Deccan. Dissensions among the rulers there invited his interposition; but an Indian Joan-of-Arc rendered his task difficult. Chand Bibi, the greatest of Indian heroines, fought in the breach at Ahmednugger, in complete armour, though veiled. Leedes must have heard the Delhi bards tell the stories of her feats at arms on behalf of her infant nephew, which have been the delight of all succeeding generations of listeners; how she loaded her guns first with all her copper coins, then with silver money, and then with gold, and lastly with jewels, before she would make peace; and how she countermined wherever the enemy were approaching, and built up breaches in the night, and so mauled the foe in the ditch that all parties were glad to come to terms. Her murder by treason was the pathetic catastrophe, and it opened Akbar’s way into the Deccan, when he had annexed Candeish by the way. The domestic treason which broke out behind his back, and the long series of family griefs, from the deaths of two sons, and the crimes and quarrels of the others, were matters of public observation; and the Englishman at court could have told his contemporary, Will Shakspeare, some tragedies as deep as any of those exhibited in his historical plays.

Beyond the Court, what was there to be noted? the four Hindoo castes had long been hopelessly confused, so that the accounts given by the members of the lower ones and the histories of the Brahmins were quite irreconcilable. The Brahmins had preserved their lineage; but their occupations and manners had greatly changed. They might be seen engaged in almost every occupation—not only soldiers, but husbandmen—not only expounders of the faith and the Hindoo law, but magistrates and merchants’ clerks. Under Mogul government, public business must necessarily be in Mussulman hands, chiefly; but the Brahmins were more concerned with it than when they attended to Menu’s commands, and admitted only one of their order to power, as counsellor with the judges, according to the code. The two lower castes of Menu’s time, comprehending the working classes, had become so multiplied that nobody outside of them could pretend to understand their distinctions, any further than as they were a sort of guilds corresponding to branches of industry, and arising out of Menu’s assignment of an hereditary occupation to each of the mixed classes. But the members of each of a hundred castes were as strict in preserving their respective frontier lines as the proudest Brahmin ever was in his own case. It had become doubtful whether the lowest, the Sudra caste, was originally a separate tribe; and the intermixture of race had so confused that caste, as that a Brahmin might here and there be found in the service of a Sudra. It could scarcely be said that there was even any servile class remaining; for, though there were slaves, they were not in slavery by caste, but by other circumstances. While some of the phenomena of caste, therefore, met the Englishman’s eye in all directions, he could not have given any clear account of the precise state of the institution in his time. The distinctions between the Mohammedans and Hindoos were much more obvious, though already becoming less definite every day.

The township, an institution still abiding where almost everything else has changed, was then the first object of interest to a stranger. The whole territory was portioned off into little republics, each managing its own affairs, while strictly subject to the central power. The office of Headman was hereditary; and while that officer was called the king’s officer, he was virtually the representative of the people, while changes of dynasty were passing over their heads. Under the headmen were the hereditary accountant, watchman, money-changer, priest, astrologer, and bard, or genealogist, besides all the ordinary trades. In some regions, there was an intermediate body representing the township, or constituting it, holding all the rest as tenants, and calling themselves village landholders. As for the abodes of the villagers, Leedes must have easily distinguished the true Hindoo cottage from the abodes which were assuming a Mohammedan appearance. The Hindoo dwelling of bamboo, with its curved thatched roof, and placed, if possible, apart and under trees, contrasted with the Mohammedan cottage or house of clay, or unburnt brick, or stone, with its terraced roof. The Hindoo swathed himself in two scarfs of white cotton or muslin, rubbed his skin with oil, ate rice, thought his lank hair and moustaches a sufficient covering for his head, was conscious of the grace and suppleness of his carriage, and delighted in conversation and indolent and frivolous amusement, while yet his cast of character was quiet and thoughtful. The Mohammedan, on the other hand, covered his head with a turban, and wore trousers, tunic, ornaments, and arms; tiled his roof; ate wheaten bread (unleavened); shut up the women of his family, and was not much of a talker in society. The Hindoo village had always a bazaar, a market day and an annual fair; one temple and one guest house, where the wayfarer might find shelter. Each hut and each mansion had its mat, its earthen pot and dishes, its pestle and mortar, and baking plate, and its shed for cooking. The husbandman prayed and went forth at dawn with his cattle to the field; his wife brought him his hot dinner at noon, and his evenings were spent in smoking and amusement. The women meantime had been grinding and cooking, washing, spinning, and fetching water. In the towns, the tradesmen and artisans lived in brick or stone houses, with shops open to the streets. The bazaar loungers—mendicant priests, smoking soldiers, and saucy bulls which lorded it over everybody—distinguished the towns where the Hindoos predominated; and so did the festivals in which the townspeople took at one draught the pleasure which the villagers spread over all their evenings. The observances at death and burial were unlike those of the conquering race. The Hindoos burned their dead, except those belonging to religious orders; and they seldom or never set up tombs, except to warriors fallen in battle, or widows burned with their husbands. When Leedes was at Delhi widows were not allowed to sacrifice themselves. In almost every other case, Hindoo observances were carefully cherished by Akbar, and Mohammedan peculiarities were subordinated to them; but in this case he was so resolute (the practice not being authorized by Menu) that he once mounted his horse, and rode a great distance at full speed, to save a woman from the pile. He enabled widows to marry again without any penalty which his countenance could avert; and thus Leedes witnessed a conflict with an interpolated superstition exactly like that which has been conducted by Lord William Bentinck in our day. In the wooded districts, great hunts were going on, especially where military men were stationed; and the highest officers drove their own elephants, in order not to be helpless if their drivers dropped in battle. Spear-matches and races were the amusements in the country, as wrestling and active foot-games were in the towns. The thief-caste, the hereditary hill-robbers, kept in exercise the valour and alacrity of the military class. The monastic orders, another innovation, were conspicuous in Akbar’s time, and must have stirred Leedes’s spirit with some of the ire of Protestant England. The Hindoo women held a low rank theoretically, but practically were like other matrons and maidens in those essential ideas and feelings which are common to all races in all times. The same may be said of the handsome children. The juvenile gentry looked and behaved like little men and women; and the children of the poor (who went to school, however, and learned writing and arithmetic), rolled in the dust, and played in the streets like any Christians.

There is no occasion to draw the contrasting picture, as Akbar’s Mohammedan subjects were very like the Arabs of our own day. Their occupations, dress, manners, and amusements were substantially the same. It is true, they were adopting some Hindoo customs, as the Hindoos were occasionally wearing turbans, and surrounding their houses with gardens, after the fashion of their conquerors. But Leedes could observe these mutual influences better than we can; and where he could have pointed out resemblances, we can only mark the distinctions which must have struck the eye of a stranger arriving at the court of the great Akbar, at the close of the sixteenth century.