Education -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1857-1919; India -- Social conditions
he appoints or promotes, belongs to this or to that caste. The people
know this, and because they have learned to trust the Englishman's sense
of fair play, they appeal, whenever they get the chance, to the European
official rather than to one of their own race. But it is especially in
times of stress, in the evil days of famine or of plague, that they turn
to him for help. Nowhere is the "sun-dried bureaucrat" seen to better
advantage than in the famine or plague camp, where the "bureaucrat"
would come hopelessly to grief, but where the English civilian, not
being a "bureaucrat," triumphs over difficulties by sheer force of
character and power of initiative. It is just in such emergencies, for
which the most elaborate "regulations" cannot wholly provide, that the
superiority of the European over the native official is most
conspicuous. If "Padgett, M.P.", would go out to India in the hot rather
than in the cold weather, and instead of either merely enjoying the
splendid hospitality of the chief centres of Anglo-Indian society, or
borrowing his views of British administration from the Indian
politicians of the large cities, would spend some of his time with a
civilian in an up-country station and follow his daily round of work
amidst the real people of India, he would probably come home with very
different and much more accurate ideas of what India is and of what the
relations are between the Anglo-Indian official and the natives of the
country.
Far from having flooded India, as is often alleged, with a horde of
overpaid officials, we may justly claim that no Western nation has ever
attempted to govern an alien dependency with a smaller staff of its own
race, or has admitted the subject races to so large a participation in
its public services. The whole vast machinery of executive and judicial
administration in British India employs over 1,250,000 Indians, and only
a little more than 5,000 Englishmen altogether, of whom about one-sixth
constitute what is called _par excellence_ the Civil Service of India.
Not the least remarkable achievement of British rule has been the
building up of a great body of Indian public servants capable of rising
to offices of great trust. Not only, for instance, do Indian Judges sit
on the Bench in the High Courts on terms of complete equality with their
European colleagues, but magisterial work all over India is done chiefly
by Indians. The same holds good of the Revenue Department and of the
much, and often very unjustly, abused Department of Police; and, in
fact, as Anglo-Indian officials are the first to acknowledge, there is
not a department which could be carried on to-day without the loyal and
intelligent co-operation of the Indian public servant. There is room for
improving the position of Indians, not only, as I have already pointed
out, in the Educational Department, but probably in every branch of the
"Provincial" service, which corresponds roughly with what was formerly
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account