THE LIBRARY MAGAZINE of SELECT FOREIGN LITERATURE VOLUME 1 by Various

THE LIBRARY MAGAZINE OF SELECT FOREIGN LITERATURE VOLUME 1 By Various THE LIBRARY MAGAZINE JANUARY, 1879. THE FUTURE OF INDIA. Speculation as to the political future is not a very fruitful occupation. In looking back to the prognostications of the wisest statesmen, it will be observed that they were as little able to foresee what was to come a generation or two after their death, as the merest dolt amongst their contemporaries. The Whigs at the beginning of the last century thought that the liberties of Europe would disappear if a prince of the House of Bourbon were securely fixed on the throne of Spain. The Tories in the last quarter of that century considered that if England lost her American provinces she would sink into the impotence of the Dutch Republic. The statesmen who assembled at the Congress of Vienna would have laughed any dreamer to scorn who should have suggested that in the lifetime of many of them Germany would become an empire in the hands of Prussia, France a well-organized and orderly republic, and the "geographical expression" of Italy vitalised into one of the great powers of Europe. Nevertheless, if politics is ever to approach the dignity of a science, it must justify a scientific character by its ability to predict events. The facts are too complicated, probably, ever to admit the application of exact deductive reasoning; and in the growth of civilised society new and unexpected forms are continually springing up. But though practical statesmen will not aim at results beyond the immediate future, it is impossible for men who pass their lives in the study of the difficult task of government to avoid speculations as to the future form of society to which national efforts should be directed. Some theory or other, therefore, is always present, consciously or unconsciously, to the mind of politicians. With respect to British India it may be observed that very different views of policy prevail. Native writers in the Indian press view their exclusion from all the higher offices of Government, and the efforts of Manchester to transfer 800,000l. per annum raised on cotton goods to increased taxation in India, as a policy based on mere selfishness; and a Russian journal, apparently in good faith, assured its readers the other day, that India pays into the British treasury an annual tribute of twenty to twenty-five millions sterling. On the other hand, some advanced thinkers amongst ourselves hold that India is a burden on our resources, and the cry of "Perish India!" so far as relates to its dependence on England, is considered to be not unsupported by sound reasoning. One of the ablest publicists of India, in a published letter to Sir George Campbell, has declared his conviction, after twenty years' experience in that country, that good government by the British in India is impossible. It may be admitted that exaggerated notions as to the pecuniary value of India to England prevail, and it must also be confessed that, with all our self-complacency as to the benefits of British rule, we have to accuse ourselves of several shortcomings. Nevertheless, it may be affirmed with confidence that the national instinct as to the value of our possessions in the East coincides with the views of our most enlightened statesmen. My colleague, Colonel Yule, has pointed out, I think with entire justice, that the task which we have proposed to ourselves in India, unlike that of the Dutch in Java, is to improve and elevate the two hundred millions under our charge to the utmost extent of our powers. The national conscience is not altogether satisfied with the mode in which some of our possessions have been acquired, but impartial inquiry demonstrates that unless a higher morality had prevailed than has ever yet been witnessed amongst the sons of men, the occasions for conquest and acquisition of territory that have presented themselves to the British during the last hundred years would not have been foregone by any nation in the world. But the feeling I allude to quickens the sense of our obligations to the inhabitants of India. Having undertaken the heavy task of their government, it is our duty to demonstrate to posterity that under British rule we have enabled them to advance in the route of civilization and progress. We recognise that in all probability so distant and extensive an empire cannot permanently remain in subjection to a small island in the West, and therefore our constant task is to render the population of India at some day or other capable of self-government. Is such a problem susceptible of a favourable solution? I propose to discuss this question in the following pages. I. The late Sir George Lewis once observed to me that in his opinion, it was labour lost to endeavour to make anything of the Hindus. They were a race doomed to subjection whenever they came into collision with peoples more vigorous than themselves. They possessed, in short, none of the elements which are requisite for self-government. Any opinion of that philosophic observer is entitled to grave consideration, and undoubtedly there is much in the history of the past that tends to justify the above desponding conclusion. The Persians, the Greeks, the Parthians, the Huns, the Arabs, the Ghaznivides, the Afghans, the Moguls, the Persians a second time, and the British have successfully entered India and made themselves masters of the greater part of it. But Sir George had never been called upon to make any particular study of Indian history, nor indeed was it open to him during the earlier period of his life, which was devoted exclusively to study, to acquire the knowledge of India which later erudition and research have brought to light. It is possible that a closer attention to what has occurred in the past may enable us to regard the future in a more favourable aspect. It will, I think, be found, after such a study, that more intrinsic vitality and greater recuperative power exist amongst the Hindu race than they have been generally accredited with. Unfortunately the ancient and copious literature of the Hindus presents extremely little of historic value. The tendency of the Indian mind to dreamy speculations on the unseen and the unknown, to metaphysics, and to poetry, has led to a thorough disregard of the valuable offices of history. Accordingly, we find in their great epic poems, which date back, according to the best orientalists, at least seven centuries before Christ, the few historical facts which are mentioned so enveloped in legends, so encumbered with the grossest exaggerations, that it requires assiduous scholarship to extract a scintilla of truth from their relations. Our distinguished countrymen, Sir William Jones and Mr. Colebrooke, led the way in applying the resources of European learning to the elucidation of the Sanscrit texts. And the happy identification, by the former, of the celebrated Chandragupta of the Hindus with the monarch of Pataliputra, Sandracottus, at whose court Megasthenes resided for seven years in the third century before Christ, laid the first firm foundation for authentic Indian history. Since that period the researches of oriental scholars following up the lines laid down by their illustrious predecessors; the rock inscriptions which have been collected from various parts of India, the coins, extending over many ages, of different native dynasties—all these compared together enable a student even as sceptical as Sir George Lewis to form a more favourable idea of the Hindus in their political capacity than he was disposed to take. Early European inquirers into Hindu antiquity, with the natural prejudice in favour of their studies in a hitherto unknown tongue, were disposed to lend far too credulous an ear to the gross exaggerations and reckless inaccuracies of the "Máhabhárat" and kindred works. James Mill on the other hand, who was a Positivist before Auguste Comte had begun to write, rejected with scorn all the allusions to the past in these ancient writers as entirely fabulous. Careful scholarship, however, working on the materials of the past which every day's discoveries are increasing, demonstrates that much true history is to be gathered from the works of the Sanscrit writers. The celebrated granite rock of Girnar in the peninsula of Guzerat presents in itself an authentic record of three distinct dynasties separated from one another by centuries. And we owe to what may be justly called the genius of James Prinsep the decipherment of those inscriptions of Asoka which have brought to the knowledge of Europe a Hindu monarch of the third century before our era, who, whilst he has been equalled by few in the extent of his dominions, may claim superiority over nearly every king that ever lived, from his tender-hearted regard for the interests of his people, and from the wide principles of toleration which he inculcated. Horace Wilson, who may be safely cited as the most calm and judicious oriental scholar of our times, asserts that there is nothing to shock probability in supposing that the Hindu dynasties, of whom we trace vestiges, were spread through twelve centuries anterior to the war of the Máhabhárat. This leads us back to dates about 2600 years B.C. We have, therefore, the astounding period of over four thousand years during which to glean facts relating to the Hindu race and their capacity for government, such as may form foundation for conclusions as to the future. The characteristics which have most impressed themselves on my mind after such study of Indian records as I have been able to bestow are, first, the very early appearance of solicitude for the interest and welfare of the people, as exhibited by Hindu rulers, such as has rarely or never been exhibited in the early histories of other nations; secondly, the successful efforts of the Hindu race to re-establish themselves in power on the least appearance of decay in the successive foreign dynasties which have held rule among them.

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