It was not only that this system drained the army of individual zeal
and talent. The professional spirit of the mass could not thrive
under so blighting an influence. The officers present with the corps
gradually ceased to take pride in the conscientious performance of
their regimental duties; for their employment upon those duties was
a standing proof that they were wanting in ability and high official
connexion. It was very difficult to throw much energy and enthusiasm
into such work as escorting treasure, guarding jails, inspecting the
cross-belts and listening to the grievances of sepoys, while a junior
lieutenant in the same battalion was coercing refractory Rajahs, or
scouring the border at the head of five hundred wild Pathan horsemen.
What wonder if, under these circumstances, men became sick at heart?
Disgusted at their position, they no longer made the welfare and
happiness of their soldiers an all-important object: and neglect
often deepened into aversion and contempt. The cadets, as was only
too natural, caught the prevailing tone. Young men fresh from home
are so shocked at the apparent deficiency of the Hindoo character of
manliness, honesty, and self-respect, the qualities which Englishmen
most regard, that, so to speak, their better impulses are apt to
render them careless of the rights and sentiments of the native
population. "Do I not well to be insolent?" is a question asked daily,
in a more or less logical form, by the majority of our countrymen in
India. It requires a larger stock of philosophy than generally falls
to the share of a lad of nineteen in a new red coat, with his first
month's pay in the pocket, to realize the conviction that an imperial
people, who undertake to govern others, must first govern themselves;
and that it is the height of folly and cruelty to subjugate a hundred
millions of men, and then abuse them because they are as God made them,
and not as we would fain have them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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