Education -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1857-1919; India -- Social conditions
called the "Un-covenanted" service. As far back as 1879 Lord Lytton laid
down rules which gave to natives of India one-sixth of the appointments
until then reserved for the "Covenanted" service, and we have certainly
not yet reached the limit of the number of Indians who may ultimately
with advantage be employed in the different branches of the public
service; but few who know the defects as well as the good qualities of
the native will deny that to reduce hastily the European leaven in any
department would be to jeopardize its moral as well as its
administrative efficiency. The condition of the police, for instance, is
a case in point, for any survival of the bad old native traditions is
due very largely to the insufficiency of European control. Mr. Gokhale
has himself admitted as one of the reasons for founding his society of
"Servants of India" the necessity of "building up a higher type of
character and capacity than is generally available in the country." For
the same reason we must move slowly and cautiously in substituting
Indians for Europeans in the very small number of posts which the latter
still occupy. That the highest offices of executive control must be very
largely held by Englishmen so long as we continue to be responsible for
the government of India is admitted by all but the most "advanced"
Indian politicians, and it is to qualify for and to hold such positions
that the Indian Civil Service--formerly the "Covenanted" service--is
maintained. It consists of a small _elite_ of barely I,200 men, mostly,
but not exclusively, Englishmen, for it includes nearly 100 Indians. It
is recruited by competitive examinations held in England, and this is
one of the chief grievances of Indians. But in order to preserve the
very high standard it has hitherto maintained, it seems essential that
Indians who wish to enter it should have had not only the Western
education which Indian Universities might be expected to provide, but
the thoroughly English training which India certainly does not as yet
supply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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