Part 2

We learn from European records that Cyrus made conquests in India in the sixth century B.C., and the famous inscription of his successor Darius includes Sind and the modern Afghanistan amongst his possessions. But when Alexander entered India two centuries later he found no trace of Persian sway, but powerful Indian princes. Taxiles, Abisares, and the celebrated Porus ruled over large kingdoms in the Panjab. The latter monarch, whose family name Paura is recorded in the Mahabharat, is described by the Greek writers to have ruled over 300 cities, and he brought into the field against Alexander more than 2,000 elephants, 400 chariots, 4,000 cavalry, and 50,000 foot. Against this force Alexander was only able to bring 16,000 foot and 5,000 horse; but the bulk of the troops were Macedonians, and the leader was the greatest general whom the world has seen. We have full particulars of the celebrated battle which ensued, and which ended in the complete discomfiture of Porus. The conduct of this Indian king, however, in the battle extorted the admiration of the Greek historians. He received nine wounds during the engagement, and was the last to leave the field, affording, as Arrian remarks, a noble contrast to Darius the Second, who was the first to fly amongst his host in his similar conflict with the Greeks. Alexander, as in the Macedonian conquests generally, left satraps in possession of his Indian acquisitions. But a very few years ensued before we find a native of India had raised up a mighty kingdom, and all trace of Greek rule in the Punjab disappears. Chandragupta, or Sandracottus, is said by a Greek writer to have seen Alexander in person on the Hydaspes. Justin relates that it was he who raised the standard of independence before his fellow-countrymen, and successfully drove out Alexander's satraps. He founded the Maurya dynasty, and the vast extent of the kingdom ruled over by his grandson Asoka is testified by the edicts which the latter caused to be engraved in various parts of his dominions. They also record the remarkable fact of his close alliance with the Greek rulers of Syria, Egypt, Macedon, Cyrene and Epirus. We next find that one of the Greek princes who had established an independent dynasty in Bactria, Euthydemus, invaded India, and made several conquests, but he also was met in the field and overcome by Galoka, son of Asoka, who for some time added Cashmir to his possessions. The Bactrian dynasty was put an end to by Mithridates, 140 B.C., and consequently the Greeks were driven eastwards, and they planted themselves in various parts of India. We find clear traces of them in Guzerat, where the town of Junaghur (Javanaghur) still records the name of the Greeks who founded the city. The coins and inscriptions of the Sinha rulers of Guzerat furnish us with some particulars as to the Greek holdings at this period, and they seem to have extended from the Jumna on the east to Guzerat and Kutch on the west. The Macedonians seem here, as elsewhere, to have placed natives at the head of their district administrations, and the Sinha rulers call themselves Satraps and Maha Rajahs, and use Greek legends on their coins, but evidently they soon acquired complete independence. Simultaneously or nearly so with these Indo-Greek principalities, we find invasions of India by the race commonly called Scythians, but more accurately Jutchi, Sacae, and White Huns. These also formed independent kingdoms. But again native leaders of enterprise arose who put an end to foreign dominion. Vikramadit, who founded an era 57 B.C., and whose exploits have made a deep impression upon the native mind, is thought to be one of the Hindu leaders who succeeded in expelling a foreign dynasty. And it would appear that towards the middle of the third century after Christ all foreign dominion had disappeared from the soil of India, except perhaps some small settlements of Jutchi, on the banks of the Indus; and except the temporary conquest of Sind by the Arabs in the seventh century, from which they were soon expelled by the Sumea Rajputs[3]. Thus, during a period of 600 years, we have encountered a series of invasions and conquests of portions of India by foreign rulers, but all successively driven out by the energy of native leaders. Thereupon followed the establishment of native dynasties all over India. It was chiefly during the 700 years that now ensued, up to the invasion of India by Mahmud of Ghazni, that the great works of Sanscrit literature in poetry, grammar, algebra, and astronomy, appeared. During this period also the Rajputs, who have been well called the Normans of the East, seem to have found their way to nearly every throne in India. Their acquisition of power has never been fully traced, and probably the materials are wanting for any full or accurate account of it; but the subject is well worthy the attention of an Indian student.

The Mahomedan conquests which, with the fanaticism and savage intolerance introduced by them, commenced A.D. 1001, seem to have exercised most depressing effects on the Hindu mind. But here again we meet with the same phenomenon. So soon as the Mussulman rule becomes enfeebled, a native chief rises up who is enabled to rally his countrymen around him and form a dynasty. Sivaji in 1660-80 established an independency which his successors, as mayors of the palace, enlarged into a kingdom, out of which arose the native powers of Sindia, of the Gaekwar, and of the Bhonslas of Berar. Exactly the same occurrence has been witnessed in the present century by the success of Ranjit Sing in forming an independent principality in the Panjab. This remarkable man, who was absolutely illiterate, by his own energy of character raised himself from the head of a small Sikh clan to the head of a kingdom with a revenue of two and a half millions sterling.[4] We may be sure that, if the British had not been in force, natives of soldierly qualities like Jung Bahadar of Nepal, or Tantia Topi of the mutinies, would have carved out in the present day kingdoms for themselves in other parts of India.

II.

It may be thought that in the preceding sketch I have been aiming at the conclusion that British dominion is in danger of extinction either by foreign invasion or internal insurrection. Nothing is more foreign from my views. I firmly believe that British rule in the East was never so strong, never so able to protect itself against all attacks from without or from within, as at the present moment. In a foreign dominion such as ours, where unforeseen contingencies may any day arise, and where a considerable amount of disaffection must always exist, constant watchfulness on the part of Government is no doubt required; but this position is thoroughly recognised by all statesmen who occupy themselves with Indian affairs. I do not for a moment delude myself with the idea that we have succeeded in gaining the affections of the natives. No foreign rulers who have kept themselves apart as a separate caste from the conquered nation have succeeded in accomplishing this feat. There is something of incompatibility between the European and Asiatic, which seems to forbid easy amalgamation. Lord Stowell, in one of his fine judgments, has pointed out the constant tendency of Europeans in the East to form themselves into separate communities, and to abstain from all social intercourse with the natives around them, and he illustrates his position with the happy quotation--

Scyllis amara suam non intermiscuit undam.

The English perhaps are distinguishable among all European nations by the deep-rooted notions of self-superiority which their insular position and great success in history have engendered. The southern races of Europe, the Spanish and Portuguese, have shown no reluctance to intermix freely with the native races of America, India, and the Philippines, such as has always been exhibited by inhabitants of the British Isles when expatriated to the East or West. But where race, color, religion, prejudice intervene to prevent social intercourse between the English in India and the natives, what a wide gulf is placed between them!

In justice, however, it must be stated that, although the haughtiness of demeanour and occasional brutality in manners which the _aristocratie de peau_ sometimes engenders in our countrymen are much to be deprecated, the estrangement which exists in India between the English and the natives is not wholly, nor even principally, attributable to the former. A Hindu of very humble caste would think himself polluted if he sat down to dinner with the European governor of his Presidency. In this instance, as in so many others, Hindu opinions have permeated the whole native community; and other races transplanted to India, such as Mahomedans and Parsis, are equally exclusive in their social life. When I was in Bombay I made an attempt to break through the barrier which the latter caste had voluntarily erected for themselves. Sir Jamshedji Jijibhai, an able, self-raised man, was then the acknowledged head of the Parsi community, and was distinguished for his benevolence and enlightened views. I endeavored to persuade him to set his countrymen an example, and to come to a dinner at which I would assemble the chief authorities of the island; and I proposed to him as an inducement that he should send his own cook, who should prepare for him his wonted fare. But the step was too startling a one for him, though I was glad to find that his son, the second baronet, was able to get over his prejudices on his visit, some years after, to London. A ludicrous example of the same exclusive feeling has been related in connection with a Governor-General. His lordship, desirous to break down any notion of social inferiority on the part of a distinguished native who was paying him a visit, placed his arm round his neck as they walked up and down a verandah engaged in familiar conversation. The high-bred Oriental made no sign, but as soon as he could extricate himself from the embraces of his Excellency, he hastened home to wash away the contamination of a Mlecha's touch.

It may also be observed that the mutual repugnance of the two races to such close social intercourse as intermarriage, for example, would produce, gives rise to two excellent results. First, there is every reason to suppose, judging by what we see of the native Portuguese in India, that the English and Hindu would make, in the language of breeders, a very bad cross; and it is therefore satisfactory to find that English rulers in India, unlike the Normans in England, or the Moguls in India, have never intermarried with the natives of the country. The second result is closely connected with the first. What has led to the downfall of previous foreign dynasties has been that the invaders of the country had become effeminate by their long possession of power, and had lost the original energy and vigour which had enabled their predecessors to gain a throne. The constant recruitment of English rulers from their fatherland wholly prevents this cause of internal decay from making its appearance among the British.

It is not, then, by our hold on the affections of the people that we maintain our dominion in India. The strength and probable endurance of our rule are based on our real power, on our endeavours to do justice, on our toleration. The memory of the excesses committed under Mussulman rule has probably become dim with the great bulk of the people, but it is very vivid among educated Hindus. A strong conviction prevails among them that if British rule were to disappear in India, the same rise of military adventurers, the same struggles for power, and the same anarchy as prevailed during the first half of the last century would again appear. The latest expression of Hindu opinion on this subject which I have met with is contained in a pamphlet published in the present year by Mr. Dadoba Pandurang.[5] He is an aged scholar, and though not a Brahmin, well versed in the Vedas, but, above all, he is distinguished by his devout views and by his desire to elevate and improve his fellow-countrymen. He writes:--

If there is a manifestation of the hand of God in history, as I undoubtedly believe there is, nothing to my imagination appears more vivid and replete with momentous events calculated for the mutual welfare and good of both countries than this political union of so large, important, rich, and interesting a country as Hind in the further south-east with a small but wisely governed island of Great Britain in the further north-west.... Let us see what England has done to India. England, besides governing India politically, has now very wisely commenced the important duty of educating the millions of her Indian children, and of bringing them up to the standard of enlightenment and high civilization which her own have obtained. She has already eradicated, I should add here, to the great joy of Heaven, several of the most barbarous and inhuman practices, such as Sutti,[6] infanticide, Charak Puja,[7] and what not, which had for ages been prevalent among a large portion of the children of this her new acquisition. These practices, which had so long existed at the dictation of an indigenous priesthood, except for the powerful interference of England could not have been abolished.

Opinions like these, I am persuaded, prevail throughout the educated community, and the presence of British rule amongst them is recognised as indispensable in the present state of Hindu society.

III.

With respect to a successful invasion of India, it must be confessed that the English mind has always been keenly susceptible of alarm. The wide plains of Hisdustan, which offer so ready an access to aggressive armies, the absence of fortified places, and the frequency with which India has been won and lost in a single pitched battle, all tend to encourage the belief that some day or other British domination will be in danger from some incursion of this sort. It may be observed that for nearly a century past the English nation has been subjected to periodic fits of Indian panic. Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Afghan War," states that in 1797 the whole of India was kept "in a chronic state of unrest" from the fears of an Afghan descent upon the plains of Hindustan. In 1800 the Emperor Paul of Russia and Napoleon conceived "a mad and impracticable scheme of invasion," which greatly increased local alarm. In 1809 these fears assumed even larger proportions when an alliance between Napoleon and Persia was on foot with a view to the proposed invasion; and the mission to Persia under Sir John Malcolm was inaugurated. In 1838 Russia took the place which Zeman Shah, Persia, and Napoleon had previously occupied, and the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan was commenced by Lord Auckland from his mountain retreat at Simla.

Since that period the suspicions of the nation have been continually directed against Russia by a small but able party, who, from their chiefly belonging to the Presidency of Bombay, have been termed the Bombay school. The late General John Jacob was the originator of the anti-Russian policy inculcated by them. He was a man of great ability and original views, and, if he had moved in a wider sphere, he might have left a name equal to that of the most illustrious of his countrymen in India. But he passed the greater part of his life on the barren wastes of Sind, and rarely came in contact with superior minds. In 1856 General Jacob addressed a singularly able paper to Lord Canning, then Governor-General, and which Sir Lewis Pelly afterwards published to the world.[8] This was just at the close of the Crimean War, when England was about to undertake an expedition against Persia to repel her aggression on Herat. It was Jacob's firm conviction that, unless India interposed, Russia, having Persia completely under her control, could, whenever she pleased, take possession not only of Herat, but of Candahar, and thus find an entrance to the plains of India, on which our dominion was to disappear. To thwart this contingency, and render the approach of a European army towards our frontier impossible, he would, as an ultimate measure, garrison Herat with twenty thousand troops, but in the first instance would occupy Quetta. These proposals were carefully considered by Lord Canning's Government, but were rejected.

The same arguments were brought forward eleven years later by Sir Bartle Frere, whilst Governor of Bombay, and were laid before the Government of India. That Government was then remarkably strong, consisting of Lord Lawrence, Sir William Mansfield (Lord Sandhurst), Sir Henry Maine, Mr. Massey, and Major-General Sir Henry Durand; but the proposals to improve our frontier by extending our dominions westward, and by the annexation of independent foreign territory, were unanimously disapproved of.

About the same time that Sir Bartle Frere was endeavouring to stimulate the Government of India to occupy Quetta, my distinguished colleague and friend, Sir Henry Rawlinson, published two articles in the "Quarterly Review,"[9] in which he called the attention of the public to the rapidly increasing extension of the Russian dominions in the direction of our Indian frontier, and to the necessity of maintaining outworks such as Herat and Candahar for the protection of our Eastern Empire. But he raised the question in a more solemn form in the confidential memorandum which he transmitted to the Government of India in 1868, and which he afterwards published in 1875,[10] with additional matter, forming a complete conspectus of the aggressive policy to be adopted to guard against a Russian invasion. The views of the Government of India on these papers have not, I believe, been given to the world, but it is well known in Indian circles that the masterly activity therein advocated did not find acceptance.

At the present moment Russophobia is raging to a greater extent than at any previous period; but this is ground on which for the present I am precluded from entering. It is gratifying to observe, however, that in the great conflict of opinion which, as it will be seen, has thus been raging for the last forty years, as to the best method of protecting our north-western frontier from an invading foe, both schools have ultimately agreed on one conclusion, namely, that a successful invasion of India by Russia is in nowise probable. The one side would avert any possibility of an attack by the occupation of Afghanistan, the Suleiman mountains, and probably the Hindu Kush; the other would husband the resources of India, and not waste blood and treasure in anticipation of a conflict that may possibly never occur, and that certainly never will occur without years of warning to the nation.

I cannot pursue this interesting question further at a moment when the whole question of our policy on the Indian frontier is ripening for discussion, and when the materials on which a sound conclusion can be drawn are not yet laid before the public. It is sufficient for my present purpose to repeat that the probability of British dominion in the East being terminated by a Russian invasion is rejected on all sides.

IV.

If the views which have been now put forward are at all sound, we may perhaps conclude that whilst our Indian empire requires on the part of its rulers the utmost watchfulness to guard against dangers and contingencies which may at any moment arise, yet that with ordinarily wise government we may look forward to a period of indefinitely long duration during which British dominion may flourish. That sooner or later the links which connect England with India will be severed, all history teaches us to expect; but when that severance occurs, if the growing spirit of philantrophy and increasing sense of national morality which characterise the nineteenth century continue, we may fairly hope that the Englishman will have taught the Hindus how to govern themselves. It is England's task, as heretofore, "to teach other nations how to live." A very long period, however, is required before the lesson can be fully learned, and the holders of Indian securities need not fear that the reversionary interests of their grandchildren will be endangered. Our rule in India dates back little more than a century; and although from the first a wise spirit of toleration and an eminent desire to do justice have prevailed, it is only within the last thirty or forty years that any serious attempts to elevate the character of the nation have been manifested.

The educational movement, which is silently producing prodigious changes in India, received its first impulse from England, and the clause in the Act of Parliament[11] which recognised the duty of educating the masses, enabled men like Lord Macaulay, Sir Edward Ryan, and others, to lay the foundations of a system which has since established itself far and wide. But the Court of Directors never took heartily to this great innovation of modern times, and it was only under the direction of English statesmanship that the Indian authorities were induced to act with vigour in this momentous undertaking. Sir Charles Wood's celebrated minute on education, in 1858, laid the foundation of a national system of education, and the principles then inculcated have never since been departed from. Some generations will require to pass before the Oriental mind is enabled to substitute the accurate forms of European thought for the loose speculations that have prevailed through long centuries. But already happy results are appearing, and in connection with the subject of this article it may be noticed as a most hopeful sign of the future that our English schools are turning out native statesmen by whom all our best methods of government are being introduced into the dominions of native princes.