Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877Kennedy, James
History
Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877
Kennedy, James
India -- Description and travel; India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Biography; Missionaries; Missions -- India
With a few exceptions the Governor-General has been an English nobleman
who has filled some important office at home; but Lieutenant-Governors,
and not infrequently Governors, have been persons of large Indian
experience, who have passed with honour through all the grades of the
Civil Service. These, assisted by the Commissioners of Provinces,
exercise a strict supervision over the entire administration. Officials
have continually to report their doings, and irregularities are quickly
discovered. We know of no class who have more onerous duties to
discharge than magistrates of districts and their subordinates. They
have long hours in crowded courts in an exhausting climate, decide many
intricate cases, maintain order within the bounds of their jurisdiction,
receive reports of what is being done and give directions, prepare
reports for the Government, and they are expected to give a courteous
reception to native gentlemen when they call, however long these
gentlemen may be inclined to prolong their visit. We have been at times
in a position to see the daily life of some of these men, and have been
struck with the amount of work devolving on them, and the patience they
have shown where there was strong temptation to impatience.
[Sidenote: INCIDENTAL EVILS OF OUR RULE.]
As strangers, it is difficult for us to understand the people, and the
result is that with the best intentions we have at times adopted
measures utterly unsuited to them. Our very attempt to secure the rights
of all classes by the careful drawing up of civil and criminal codes,
and by the institution of courts where they are administered, has
fostered the litigiousness of the people, and has led to a fearful
amount of perjury. Litigiousness got no play where courts did not exist,
and perjury could not show itself where witnesses were not examined. It
is said that in one of our most recent acquisitions, the Punjab, the
people have deteriorated under our rule. Runjeet Singh had no prisons.
Thieves caught in the act were maimed and allowed to go their way.
Murderers and other great offenders were at once put to death. We can
scarcely adopt this primitive mode of maintaining order, and by our
codes, courts, judges, and witnesses we have no doubt opened the door to
evils of which the Punjab knew nothing in Runjeet Singh's time. If the
early colonists of New York and Boston had retained their primitive
simplicity, those cities would not now be disgraced by the slums, with
their vice, crime, and misery, which make them too closely resemble the
cities of the old continent. When society makes progress, new, social,
and political, arrangements are indispensable, the countervailing good
being much greater than the incidental evils which come in their train.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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