OUR GREAT DEPENDENCY:

A GENERAL VIEW OF INDIA AND ITS PEOPLE

BY J. A. BAINES, C.S. I.

(Late Census Commissioner)

THE first and main object of this paper, which deals
with a subject of almost unlimited scope and variety,
is to present a general view of Indian civilisation in
some of its leading features, more especially those in
which our Dependency differs most widely from the
conditions with which we are familiar in our own
country. In some respects, no doubt, long experience
is, for the task in question, a drawback rather than
a qualification, because impressions which were vivid
enough when first received get deadened or obliterated
in the course of detailed and comparatively intimate
acquaintance. The points of contrast which would
be most striking to a stranger become, after a quarter
of a century, a matter of course to the man living in
their midst, so that the much-abused globe-trotter,
provided he maintains a modest reserve as to what
lies below the surface, is in a position to bring the
scene before his fellow-countrymen in the same colours
and perspective as it might have appeared to their
own eyes.
An endeavour to emulate his treatment
of the subject will accordingly be apparent in what
follows this prologue.

Of all the general features of India the most striking is not its size or even its vast population. Its area is scarcely greater than that of Arabia. Comparing it

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with a standard with which we are familiar, we may call it about twenty-five times that of England and Wales, a mere speck on the map by the side of the great peninsulas of Africa or South America. More respect is due, certainly, to its population, which is not less than a fifth of the estimated number of inhabitants of the world, and ten times that of this country. But in this respect, again, what is most worth notice is not the mass, but the extraordinary variety found within the country. Looking at the range of climate, the different geographical features, the number of different races inhabiting India and the Babel of languages they speak, we can well say that India is not so much a country as a small continent. As regards physical differences, though all India is either tropical or sub-tropical, in the south and along the coasts the people are certain of a hot but equable climate, with a more or less heavy rainfall once or at most twice a year. In the north, on the other hand, there is a fiercely hot season divided from a piercingly cold one by a few months of rain of uncertain intensity and duration. One part of India consists of vast plains of rice, another of small patches of arable land cleared out of the forest or terraced out of the steep hillside. Here, we find acre after acre of wheat, there, long stretches of prairie upland producing little but scanty crops of millet. In one tract nothing will come up except under canal irrigation; in another, canal water brings to the surface latent stores of alkaline matter which sterilise the soil. The life and customs of the people vary accordingly. In the matter of race, too, we range from the comparatively high type represented by the martial tribes of Upper India and by the Brahmans and chieftains of the central tracts, to the dark-coloured denizens of the hills and forests which divide the continental part of the country from the peninsula. All along the mountain belt, again, which

bounds India on the north, and in the lower ranges which separate it from China on the east, the predominant type is that of the yellow or Mongolian races, which is slow in blending with any of the rest. A very brief study of these types will serve to indicate the wide gaps which exist between the different sections of the community in their original purity of race, and also the extent to which the types have in many parts of the country been blended, to the disadvantage, of course, of the numerically smaller group.

A further cause of the want of unity in the population is the extraordinary variety of language, which of itself is a serious obstacle to the obliteration of social distinctions. In the census of 1891 no less than 150 different tongues were sifted out of the number returned as current in India, and recognised as worthy of individual mention in the tables. By grouping these under the heads of a wider classification, the formidable array was reduced to a more manageable compass. Nevertheless the fact remains that, what with real differences of language and local dialects of peculiar vocabulary or pronunciation, the native of any part of India cannot go many miles beyond his birthplace without finding himself at a loss in communicating with his fellows. Finally, India lacks that important factor in human cohesion-cominunity of religion. It is true that, on paper, at all events, three-fourths of the people are nominally of one creed-that which we call Hinduism. This, however, is but a convenient term, covering any amount of internal difference, which deprives it of its most material weight as a "nation-inaking" characteristic. Then, again, the remaining quarter of the popula tion left outside the general designation is not confined to certain localities, except in the case of the Buddhists, who affect Burma and the Himalayas, and

the Sikhs, who remain in the Punjaub, their birthprovince. The bulk of those who are not Hindus acknowledge the creed of Islam, and are scattered all over the country to the number of nearly sixty millions. Our Empress, accordingly, owns the allegiance of the largest Musalman population in the world, and it is not irrelevant, in view of the present state of the Ottoman Empire, to remind those interested in India that the relations between Islam and Brahmanism in the latter country are much the same as those between Islam and Eastern Christianity in Armenia, though, fortunately, neither creed being in political power in our Dependency, the tension between the two is not made so unpleasantly apparent as in Asia Minor. Incidents, all the same, are constantly occurring which, though local and comparatively of a trifling character, are quite enough to make manifest to us in England what is a constant source of apprehension to those responsible for the peace of India in the country itself, namely, the smouldering fire of religious animosities, which is only awaiting a favourable opportunity to burst into open violence. Looking to the fact that two of the three parts of India where the two creeds are the nearest to numerical equality are the homes of the most manly and warlike peasantry of the Empire, it is to be regretted that, in connection with the unhappy condition of Armenia of late, language has been used by writers and speakers of some rank which may be construed, and not without reason, as implying a rooted hostility to Islam in general on the part of the Christianity which, without forcing itself upon its subjects, holds the scales even between Islam and Brahmanism in India. If a notion got abroad that this attitude of neutrality was about to be abandoned, or that the protection of the Musalman minority was to be diminished or withdrawn, there would be an end to confidence in British power

and good-will, and sectarian strife would be excited on both sides, from Comorin to Kashmir.

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In order to appreciate fully the separative influence of religious distinctions in India, one must realise that religion is not there a matter of dogma or doctrine, or even of worship, as we understand the term. It enters into everyday life to an extent inconceivable to an Englishman of our day, and of which no adequate explanation can be given on the present occasion. It must suffice to mention that every detail of social intercourse, from the most important to the most trivial, is regulated by custom, which is enforced under a religious sanction. caste system, in which this tendency is most easily perceived, is not confined to the religion of the Brahmans, out of which it was evolved and of which it is still the principal support. It exists in practice, though shrouded under different conditions, in other communities also. The excessive reverence for externals and customs which it inculcates tends to the isolation of the different divisions formed under it, and to a great extent prevents co-operation or the aggregation of these divisions into larger units. On the other hand, it gives no chance to the individual, since its essence is the exaction of conformity from all alike. Obviously, moreover, wherever the sanction of the popular creed is invoked, the inclination to change is at a considerable discount, and all institutions show a tendency to become stereotyped. The position, and in most cases the occupation, of each individual is settled by hereditary, not personal, qualifications, and lest there should be any innovation, every change proved to be really inevitable is justified before being carried into effect by reference to precedent, often imaginary, and evoked for the occasion. The prominence of the religious element in the life of the Indian masses is one of the most striking features of the country, and evidence of