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India in the Diamond Jubilee year of 1897—Indian troubles in that year—The famine in several provinces—The plague in Bombay—The sedition in Poona—Rioting in Calcutta—Earthquakes in Calcutta and Assam—Uprising of tribes on North-West frontier—Large military operations—Apprehension of national unrest—General improvement in 1898—Closure of the Mints, and question of silver currency.

I propose to give some account of India in her romantic and picturesque aspects. In no year since the beginning of British rule has she been more prominently before English eyes than in 1897. The Diamond Jubilee of the Queen Empress brought many of the native representatives to England. Though not native Sovereigns of the first rank, many of them were native Princes, others were nobles; and many were soldiers, no doubt carefully chosen by the Government of India for their martial bearing, their war-record, their social status, in addition to military rank. Certainly they represented India handsomely and gracefully. They gave to Englishmen a favourable idea of the inherent manliness and of the true gentility pertaining to the best classes of native society. They doubtless inspired many of our countrymen with a desire to know more, and if possible to see something of the land whence these people came. They suggested by their presence the thought that the birthplace of such picturesque figures must in itself be replete with pictorial effect.

But this ideal mind-picture of India in 1897 has had—like realistic and material pictures—its deep shades as well as its high lights. For few years have seen such long and ever lengthening shadows been cast right across India from end to end as the year just passed, namely, 1897. These sorrows sprang upon her just at the zenith of her strength, her prosperity, and her splendour. This was indeed providentially fortunate, inasmuch as the burden fell upon her at a time when she was fairly able to bear it. The year opened with one of the severest and most widespread famines ever known, extending over various provinces in Northern and Western India, and in several districts elsewhere. India has always been the land of famine, arising from atmospheric causes of a far-reaching character quite beyond human control. For now nearly two generations the British Government has striven to prevent famine by constructing works of irrigation, the finest known in any age or country. But prevention by these means is found to be impracticable though the possible area is contracted. Still during the same era Government has devoted its energies and resources to averting or mitigating the consequences of drought and dearth. On this dread occasion the Indian people faced the calamity with all the old endurance for which, indeed, they have been proverbial. The Government combated the sufferings with all the old resourcefulness and administrative capacity for which it has been famous. The sympathies of England were aroused, and the subscriptions for relief of famine exceeded half a million sterling, the largest sum, or one of the largest sums, ever raised for a charity of this description. These efforts in the British Isles, and in India itself under British auspices, were beginning to prove successful, and were blessed by such improvement in the season as gave hope of a speedy recovery, when a new trouble was added in the shape of plague and pestilence.

During the spring the plague appeared sporadically in Western India, and then became for a while endemic in Bombay, decimating the inhabitants in some quarters of the great city, and causing such an exodus of the busy population as to paralyse for a while the industry of this queen of Asiatic commerce. This was on the coast at the foot of the Western Ghaut Mountains. Then the plague crossed the mountains and appeared at Poona, a great civil and military station, and the capital of the Bombay Deccan. Meanwhile the Government of Bombay had been doing its utmost to check the evil, by internal sanitation in dwellings, by disinfecting processes, by isolation of distressed localities, and so forth. This benevolent work, designed solely to save the lives and to promote the health of the people, was introduced at first in Bombay and soon extended to Poona.

Then at Poona certain persons pretended that this good work was vexatious and oppressive. On this particular ground the people were urged by seditious publications to rebel. Two meritorious English officers were actually murdered on this very pretence, and the murderers were not at the time discovered.

Soon it became evident that the treason went further and deeper. Newspaper articles were published invoking the memory of the national hero Sivaji, who more than two centuries ago raised the standard of Hindu revolt against the Great Mogul. With an eloquence peculiarly appealing to the Hindu mind, the people of to-day were urged to treat the British in the same way. At least to the British understanding this was the substance and tenor of the admonition. All this was done not at all by ordinary natives but by men who had been at our schools and colleges and had studied at our University in Bombay. At first sight it was most discouraging to see such an outcome of Western civilisation. There had been mutterings of the storm for some time in the native press. After long-suffering patience, which had perhaps been too far protracted, the Government acted with its wonted energy. Criminal prosecutions were instituted; several natives of social consequence were brought to the bar and received judicial sentence. These proceedings checked the publication of seditious and treasonable matter. Hardly any overt act of rebellion occurred. But nobody supposed that the inflammable material had been removed, although the rising flame had been stamped out. Indeed those who, like myself, are thoroughly acquainted with that locality and with the people concerned, know well that in and about Poona there resides in some bosoms an inextinguishable hatred against British rule,—implacable notwithstanding humane legislation, just laws and honest administration.

Thus in the summer, just when England was ringing with the Jubilee cheers, when the colonies and dependencies from every clime were swelling the chorus of congratulation, when the inhabitants of the British Isles were giving munificent proofs of sympathy with their Asiatic fellow-subjects, when the Indian Government was signalising itself by immense efforts for the sake of suffering humanity, treasonable symptoms of the worst kind manifested themselves in Western India. Never was mischief of this sort more ill-timed. The people of England were perhaps too much absorbed in the Imperial triumphs of the moment to pay close attention to the matter. But they thought it dangerous, and wondered why this time of all other times should be chosen for such manifestations. This wonderment of theirs is shared indeed by those who are most experienced in these affairs. The truth probably is that in that particular quarter the discontent is abiding, and only awaits any chance event that may seem to promise an opportunity. It was thought by the evil disposed that such an opportunity might be afforded by the dissatisfaction, real or supposed, of the people, at the measures taken for the prevention of the plague. Never was benevolent effort more unjustly misunderstood.

But the apprehension of people in England regarding these events soon became quickened. For rioting, not amounting to rebellion, but still most grave, broke out very soon in Calcutta. A dispute arose about a building and some land claimed for a mosque, regarding which a judicial decree had been issued. The affair was small, but the mob became great, and the rioting spread largely before the authorities were able, by the employment of troops, to put it down. After these events, first on the west, then on the east side of India, rumour came in with its hundred tongues. Insolence of demeanour before Europeans, ominous expressions casually dropped, were commonly reported; and no doubt many Europeans, who ought to be well-informed, did think that an unaccountable spirit of unrest was in the air. As this became known in England some genuine alarm was felt by many Englishmen. It was graphically depicted in an eminent London weekly journal by an illustration of the tiger. I often heard them ask whether there was not going to be another Mutiny, alluding of course to 1857. This would presuppose or imply some sinister signs in the native army. But in truth in 1897 there was not the slightest trace of this. On the contrary, the native army was sorely tried during this very year, and evinced the most gallant loyalty.

Then another physical calamity supervened. Earthquake shook parts of Calcutta, and appeared with still greater force in the valley of the Brahmaputra, underneath the eastern Himalayas, threatening the tea-producing regions. The station of Shillong in Assam was nearly destroyed. India is indeed a buoyant country; still this recurrence of calamity must have caused some gloom to settle down on the public mind.

Immediately, however, a new excitement arose in a widely different and distant part of the country. Far away on the North-West frontier, near Peshawar, and round about the celebrated Khyber Pass that leads towards Caubul, there was an uprising of the independent tribes that occupy a long though narrow belt of mountains between the Indus valley and Afghanistan. It was found that fanatical Moslem priests had been stirring up all these wild and intractable tribesmen to resist, and if possible drive back, what were considered the British encroachments on their territories. Whether this fanaticism had anything to do with current events in Europe relating to the Sultan of Turkey had never been ascertained exactly. At any rate the movement grew and grew, not only in extent, but in vigour and organisation, till it became the biggest affair of its kind ever known on that famous frontier during the half-century of British connection with it, say, since 1849. Uprisings of this kind—attacks really upon British outposts or upon British villages near the base of the mountain-line—have during the half-century been chronic, that is, ever-recurring from time to time, and are expected to be so. The region has long been known favourably in military circles as a capital school for soldiers, both European and native. We have always acknowledged and respected the independence of these tribes within their own borders—that is, their mountains. Practically, they have never been quite satisfied with that, and would like to lord it over the fertile tracts near the foot of the hills—tracts which never were their territories, but which belonged to the Punjab kingdom before us, and to us since 1849. Doubtless we have protected our own ground, and punished invasions of it more effectively than our predecessors ever did. Hence the several frontier expeditions, some twenty-five or thirty in number within the fifty years, always of a punitive character, of which the world has heard from time to time. These have always been short, sharp, and successful, without ever attaining any considerable dimensions. They have generally been settled with our native troops only, and with the employment of Europeans in small numbers or not at all. But this uprising in 1897 was a far larger and more formidable affair, requiring a whole army corps, with a goodly proportion of European troops. Indeed, according to some calculations, the forces employed, including those in the front and those in reserve, amounted to two army corps. It really constituted something like a new departure in frontier history. It was not concluded within the year 1897; but early in the next year, 1898, the conclusion was held to have been attained by the submission of the last of the insurgent tribes. Hereafter this grave case will need thorough examination as regards the past, the present, and the future. Suffice to say that the conflict—though ushered in by fanaticism—raged mainly in reference to the occupation and guardianship of certain passes, notably among them the Khyber Pass, leading from the Indus valley into Afghanistan, which the Government of India claim the right of guarding in the interests of the Empire. At first it was thought that the occupation of Chitral might have been at the bottom of the affair, but this is now found not to be the case. The Chitral tribes have been either friendly or quiescent. The insurgents belong to other tribes with different objects in view. Still the wonder remains as to how these tribes, heretofore separate in their conduct and in their objects, should on this occasion have combined in such large numbers for one or two common objects. Inquiry has probably yet to be completed as to what these objects were. At present I believe they relate mainly to the passes. I will not now pursue this subject, save to remark that nothing could be better than the behaviour of the native troops of the British army throughout these arduous operations. In this work, too, some of the troops of the native Princes of the Empire have had an honourable share.

India always has been a land of peril, of calamity, and of emergency, despite all her splendid advantages. In British history she has gone through two awful years, 1857 and 1858, the like of which we, the witnesses, in part or in whole, hope never to see again. Still for a time of peace, of general prosperity, of political success, the year 1897 has been an annus mirabilis. Famine, plague, earthquake, treasonable sedition, rioting, frontier warfare—occurred one after the other, all within a few months. So to speak, the curtain has fallen on one scene only to rise on another. But in the following year, 1898, a large part, though not the whole, of these clouds passed away from the political sky. The seasonable rains not only relieved famine, but even ensured plenty. Quiet was restored on the North-West frontier. The plague-stricken population of Bombay did indeed resume their industries with renewed health. But in the spring of 1898 there was a recrudescence of the plague, and soon the pestilence appeared in Calcutta, in Kurrachee, and other places. The consequences of this devastation are still severely felt.

With all these extraordinary occurrences India failed to share fully in the Jubilee joyousness which reigned in all other parts of the British Empire. Still, in the following year, 1898, she retrieved much of her passing misfortunes, and she still stands socially erect.

Besides these actual dangers or misfortunes there was one threatened danger from which India has been preserved by the firmness of the Government in India and in England. For some time past, by closing its mints to coinage of silver, the Government of India has sustained the exchange rate of the rupee at a certain standard which is compatible with the safety of the Indian finances and of other great interests connected therewith. Certain proposals came from the United States of America, which were, indeed, designed for improving the value of silver, but which involved the reopening of the Indian mints to coinage. By the rejection of these proposals India was saved from financial peril at a time of exceptional suffering and trouble. But the anxiety was renewed in the following year, 1898, and the whole subject is under inquiry by the Government in England.

I have deemed it necessary to recount these circumstances of 1897, as largely alleviated in 1898, before describing India as she is in all her beauty. They could not, indeed, be properly passed over in silence; if they were, then my survey might be deemed optimistic. A description of India to be true must be bright and cheerful, but the interest is enhanced by remembering that behind the brightness and cheerfulness there ever lurks danger and possible disaster. Still, the dangers are always overcome and the disasters retrieved. On the other hand, any gloomy or pessimistic description of India is sure to be wrong. If my picture shall be rightly painted the lights and the shadows must be duly apportioned, though, as in other bright pictures, the lights will be dominant.