The government of India has no existence apart from England. It is
only 'Indian' inasmuch as it governs India, not that it proceeds from
India or is composed of Indians. The truth by which it lives is that
it is purely English.
This is most important; it must never be forgotten. The whole system
of the government of India down to the last detail is alien, is exotic.
It could not by any possibility be rooted in India. Neither the whole
nor any part could be taken over as a going concern by any
self-government India might develop. It was created by, and is adapted
to, the genius of the English in India governing from above, and to
that need only. The reader can see that for himself, and I beg that he
will try to see it, because it is an essential truth.
Such was the principle of the English Government, one from above; and
such were the people, a heterogeneous mass of diverse races, tongues
and religions, with no organisation above that of the village.
That the people at large accepted our government as not only the best
available government, but at the time the best conceivable government,
there is no possible doubt. Nor, as I have said, was this acceptance
merely passive. The ease with which Sepoy regiments were raised in all
parts of India shows that the people had no antipathy to our
government, but were glad to help it to restore and maintain order.
For these troops were for internal purposes, and not for foreign
service, which has always been most distasteful to them.
But there was more than this. The more you study governments and
peoples the more clearly you see that to ensure smooth working there
must be some relationship between them. Some emotion or some sentiment
must unite the two, and so render their relative position endurable.
Laws and restrictions are irksome; are never true; are negatives, not
positives. There must be some tie between those who impose them and
those who bear them to humanise them.
Now, there are two and only two systems of government that have ever
been even partially successful anywhere in the world--one is
self-government in such an organism as will allow the people not only
to enforce their will but to form a right judgment as to what they
should desire; the other is government by personality.
No complete form of either system has ever existed; the nearest to the
former were the governments of Athens, Sparta, Rome in its early days,
Venice, Florence, and some other self-governing cities. Instances of
the latter are the temporary dictatorships of Rome, the rule of
Alexander, Julius Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon for the individual form;
and the feudal system in England and the Continent for the aristocratic
form. People in difficulties will trust personalities whom they admire
and who have shown sympathy to them more than they will trust
themselves, conscious that the former are more capable of seeing truly
and of acting efficiently.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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