Tales of Bengal - S. B. Banerjea
TALES OF BENGAL
by
S. B. Banerjea
Edited by
Francis Henry Skrine.
Contents.
I. The Pride of Kadampur
II. The Rival Markets
III. A Foul Conspiracy
IV. The Biter Bitten
V. All's Well That Ends Well
VI. An Outrageous Swindle
VII. The Virtue of Economy
VIII. A Peacemaker
IX. A Brahman's Curse
X. A Roland for His Oliver
XI. Ramda
XII. A Rift in the Lute
XIII. Debenbra Babu in Trouble
XIV. True to His Salt
XV. A Tame Rabbit
XVI. Gobardhan's Triumph
XVII. Patience is a Virtue
Introduction.
That "east is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet,"
is an axiom with most Englishmen to whom the oriental character seems
an insoluble enigma. This form of agnosticism is unworthy of a nation
which is responsible for the happiness of 300,000,000 Asiatics. It is
not justified by history, which teaches us that civilisation is the
result of the mutual action of Europe and Asia; and that the advanced
races of India are our own kinsfolk.
The scene of Mr. Banerjea's tales has been won from the sea by
alluvial action. Its soil, enriched by yearly deposits of silt, yields
abundantly without the aid of manure. A hothouse climate and regular
rainfall made Bengal the predestined breeding-ground of mankind; the
seat of an ancient and complex civilisation. But subsistence is too
easily secured in those fertile plains. Malaria, due to the absence
of subsoil drainage, is ubiquitous, and the standard of vitality
extremely low. Bengal has always been at the mercy of invaders. The
earliest inroad was prompted by economic necessity. About 2000 B.C. a
congeries of races which are now styled "Aryan" were driven by the
shrinkage of water from their pasture-grounds in Central Asia. They
penetrated Europe in successive hordes, who were ancestors of our
Celts, Hellenes, Slavs, Teutons and Scandinavians. Sanskrit was the
Aryans' mother-tongue, and it forms the basis of nearly every European
language. A later swarm turned the western flank of the Himalayas,
and descended on Upper India. Their rigid discipline, resulting from
vigorous group-selection, gave the invaders an easy victory over the
negroid hunters and fishermen who peopled India. All races of Aryan
descent exhibit the same characteristics. They split into endogamous
castes, each of which pursues its own interests at the expense of
other castes. From the dawn of history we find kings, nobles and
priests riding roughshod over a mass of herdsmen, cultivators and
artisans. These ruling castes are imbued with pride of colour. The
Aryans' fair complexions differentiated them from the coal-black
aborigines; varna in Sanskrit means "caste" and "colour". Their
aesthetic instinct finds expression in a passionate love of poetry,
and a tangible object in the tribal chiefs. Loyalty is a religion
which is almost proof against its idol's selfishness and incompetence.
Caste is a symptom of arrested social development; and no community
which tolerates it is free from the scourge of civil strife. Class
war is the most salient fact in history. Warriors, termed Kshatriyas
in Sanskrit, were the earliest caste. Under the law of specialisation
defence fell to the lot of adventurous spirits, whose warlike prowess
gave them unlimited prestige with the peaceful masses. They became
the governing element, and were able to transmit their privileges by
male filiation. But they had to reckon with the priests, descended
from bards who attached themselves to the court of a Kshatriya
prince and laid him under the spell of poetry. Lust of dominion is a
manifestation of the Wish to Live; the priests used their tremendous
power for selfish ends. They imitated the warriors in forming a
caste, which claimed descent from Brahma, the Creator's head, while
Kshatriyas represented his arms, and the productive classes his less
noble members.
In the eleventh century B.C. the warrior clans rose in revolt against
priestly arrogance: and Hindustan witnessed a conflict between the
religious and secular arms. Brahminism had the terrors of hell fire
on its side; feminine influence was its secret ally; the world is
governed by brains, not muscles; and spiritual authority can defy the
mailed fist. After a prolonged struggle the Kshatriyas were fain to
acknowledge their inferiority.
When a hierocracy has been firmly established its evolution
always follows similar lines. Ritual becomes increasingly
elaborate: metaphysical dogma grows too subtle for a layman's
comprehension. Commercialism spreads from the market to the sanctuary,
whose guardians exploit the all-pervading fear of the unknown to
serve their lust of luxury and rule.
Brahminism has never sought to win proselytes; the annals of ancient
India record none of those atrocious persecutions which stained
mediaeval Christianity. It competed with rival creeds by offering
superior advantages: and the barbarous princes of India were kept
under the priestly heel by an appeal to their animal instincts. A
fungoid literature of abominations grew up in the Tantras, which are
filthy dialogues between Siva, the destroying influence in nature,
and his consorts. One of these, Kali by name, is the impersonation
of slaughter. Her shrine, near Calcutta, is knee-deep in blood,
and the Dhyan or formula for contemplating her glories, is a tissue
of unspeakable obscenity. Most Hindus are Saktas, or worshippers of
the female generative principle: happily for civilisation they are
morally in advance of their creed. But it is a significant fact that
Kali is the tutelary goddess of extremist politicians, whose minds
are prepared for the acceptance of anarchism by the ever-present
ideal of destruction.
It was Bengal's misfortune that its people received Brahminism in
a corrupt and degenerate form. According to legend, King Adisur,
who reigned there in the ninth century of our era, imported five
priests from Kanauj to perform indispensable sacrifices. From this
stock the majority of Bengali Brahmins claim descent. The immigrants
were attended by five servants, who are the reputed ancestors of
the Kayasth caste. In Sanskrit this word means "Standing on the
Body," whence Kayasths claim to be Kshatriyas. But the tradition
of a servile origin persisted, and they were forbidden to study the
sacred writings. An inherited bent for literature has stood them in
good stead: they became adepts in Persian, and English is almost their
second mother-tongue to-day. Kayasths figure largely in Mr. Banerjea's
tales: their history proves that the pen is mightier than the sword.
Economic necessity was the cause of the first invasion of India: the
second was inspired by religion. The evolution of organised creeds is
not from simple to complex, but vice versa. From the bed-rock of magic
they rise through nature-worship and man-worship to monotheism. The
god of a conquering tribe is imposed on subdued enemies, and becomes
Lord of Heaven and Earth. Monotheism of this type took root among
the Hebrews, from whom Mohammed borrowed the conception. His gospel
was essentially militant and proselytising. Nothing can resist a
blend of the aesthetic and combative instincts; within a century of
the founder's death his successors had conquered Central Asia, and
gained a permanent footing in Europe. In the tenth century a horde
of Afghan Moslems penetrated Upper India.
The Kshatriya princes fought with dauntless courage, but unity of
action was impossible; for the Brahmins fomented mutual jealousies and
checked the growth of national spirit. They were subdued piecemeal;
and in 1176 A.D. an Afghan Emperor governed Upper India from Delhi. The
Aryan element in Bengal had lost its martial qualities; and offered
no resistance to Afghan conquest, which was consummated in 1203. The
invaders imposed their religion by fire and sword. The Mohammadans
of Eastern Bengal, numbering 58 per cent., of the population,
represent compulsory conversions effected between the thirteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Eight hundred years of close contact have
abated religious hatred; and occasional outbursts are due to priestly
instigation. Hindus borrowed the Zenana system from their conquerors,
who imitated them in discouraging widow-remarriages. Caste digs a
gulf between followers of the rival creeds, but Mr. Banerjea's tales
prove that a good understanding is possible. It is now imperilled by
the curse of political agitation.
In 1526 the Afghan dynasty was subverted by a Mongol chieftain lineally
descended from Tamerlane. His grandson Akbar's reign (1560-1605) was
India's golden age. Akbar the Great was a ruler of the best modern
type, who gave his subjects all the essentials of civilisation. But
he knew that material prosperity is only the means to an end. Man,
said Ruskin, is an engine whose motive power is the soul; and its
fuel is love. Akbar called all the best elements in society to his
side and linked them in the bonds of sympathy.
Religion in its highest phase is coloured by mysticism which
seeks emblems of the hidden source of harmony in every form of
life. Anthropomorphic conceptions are laid aside; ritual is abandoned
as savouring of magic; hierocracy as part of an obsolete caste system;
metaphysical dogma because the Infinite cannot be weighed in the
balances of human reason. The truce to fanaticism called by Akbar
the Great encouraged a poet and reformer named Tulsi Dasa (1532-1623)
to point a surer way to salvation. He adored Krishna, the preserving
influence incarnate as Rama, and rehandled Valmiki's great epic, the
Ramayana, in the faint rays of Christian light which penetrated India
during that age of transition. Buddha had proclaimed the brotherhood of
man; Tulsi Dasa deduced it from the fatherhood of God. The Preserver,
having sojourned among men, can understand their infirmities, and
is ever ready to save his sinful creatures who call upon him. The
duty of leading others to the fold is imposed on believers, for we
are all children of the same Father. Tulsi Dasa's Ramayana is better
known in Bihar and the United Provinces than is the Bible in rural
England. The people of Hindustan are not swayed by relentless fate,
nor by the goddess of destruction. Their prayers are addressed to a
God who loves his meanest adorer; they accept this world's buffetings
with resignation: while Rama reigns all is well.
If the hereditary principle were sound, the Empire cemented together by
Akbar's statecraft might have defied aggression. His successors were
debauchees or fanatics. They neglected the army; a recrudescence of
the nomad instinct sent them wandering over India with a locust-like
horde of followers; Hindus were persecuted, and their temples were
destroyed. So the military castes whose religion was threatened, rose
in revolt; Viceroys threw off allegiance, and carved out kingdoms
for themselves. Within a century of Akbar's death his Empire was a
prey to anarchy.
India had hitherto enjoyed long spells of immunity from foreign
interference. Her people, defended by the Himalayan wall and the
ocean, were free to develop their own scheme of national life;
and world-forces which pierce the thickest crust of custom, reached
them in attenuated volume. Their isolation ended when the sea was no
longer a barrier; and for maritime nations it is but an extension of
their territory. A third invasion began in the sixteenth century,
and has continued till our own day. The underlying motive was not
economic necessity, nor religious enthusiasm, but sheer lust of gain.
In 1498 Vasco da Gama discovered an all-sea route to India, thus
opening the fabulous riches of Asia to hungry Europe. Portuguese,
Dutch, French and English adventurers embarked in a struggle for
Indian commerce, in which our ancestors were victorious because they
obtained the command of the sea, and had the whole resources of the
mother-country at their back.
Westerners are so imbued with the profit-making instinct that they
mentally open, a ledger account in order to prove that India gains
more than she loses by dependence on the people of these islands. It
cannot be denied that the fabric of English administration is a
noble monument of the civil skill and military prowess developed by
our race. We have given the peninsula railways and canals, postal
and telegraph systems, a code of laws which is far in advance of our
own. Profound peace broods over the empire, famine and pestilence are
fought with the weapons of science. It would be easy to pile up items
on the debit side of our imaginary cash-book. Free trade has destroyed
indigenous crafts wholesale, and quartered the castes who pursued
them on an over-taxed soil. Incalculable is the waste of human life
and inherited skill caused by the shifting of productive energy from
India to Great Britain, Germany and America. It cannot be said that
the oversea commerce, which amounted in 1907-8 to L241,000,000, is an
unmixed benefit. The empire exports food and raw materials, robbing
the soil of priceless constituents, and buys manufactured goods which
ought to be produced at home. Foreign commerce is stimulated by the
home charges, which average L18,000,000, and it received an indirect
bounty by the closure of the mints in 1893. The textile industry of
Lancashire was built upon a prohibition of Indian muslins: it now
exports yarn and piece goods to the tune of L32,000,000, and this
trade was unjustly favoured at the expense of local mills under the
Customs Tariff of 1895. But there are forces in play for good or evil
which cannot be appraised in money. From a material point of view
our Government is the best and most honest in existence. If it fails
to satisfy the psychical cravings of India there are shortcomings on
both sides; and some of them are revealed by Mr. Banerjea's tales.
Caste.--As a Kulin, or pedigreed Brahmin, he is naturally prone to
magnify the prestige of his order. It has been sapped by incidents
of foreign rule and the spread of mysticism. Pandits find their
stupendous lore of less account than the literary baggage of a
university graduate. Brahmin pride is outraged by the advancement of
men belonging to inferior castes. The priesthood's dream is to regain
the ascendancy usurped by a race of Mlecchas (barbarians); and it keeps
orthodox Hindus in a state of suppressed revolt. One centre of the
insidious agitation is the fell goddess Kali's shrine near Calcutta;
another is Puna, which has for centuries been a stronghold of the
clannish Maratha Brahmans. Railways have given a mighty impetus to
religion by facilitating access to places of pilgrimage; the post
office keeps disaffected elements in touch; and English has become
a lingua franca.
While Brahminism, if it dared, could proclaim a religious war,
it has powerful enemies within the hierarchy. A desire for social
recognition is universal. It was the Patricians' refusal to intermarry
with Plebeians that caused the great constitutional struggles of
Ancient Rome. Many of the lowest castes are rebelling against Brahmin
arrogance. They have waxed rich by growing lucrative staples, and a
strong minority are highly educated. Mystical sects have already thrown
off the priestly yoke. But caste is by no means confined to races of
Indian blood. What is the snobbery which degrades our English character
but the Indo-German Sudra's reverence for his Brahmin? The Europeans
constitute a caste which possesses some solidarity against "natives,"
and they have spontaneously adopted these anti-social distinctions. At
the apex stand covenanted civilians; whose service is now practically
a close preserve for white men. It is split into the Secretariat,
who enjoy a superb climate plus Indian pay and furlough, and the
"rank and file" doomed to swelter in the plains. Esprit de corps,
which is the life-blood of caste, has vanished. Officers of the
Educational Service, recruited from the same social strata, rank as
"uncovenanted"; and a sense of humiliation reacts on their teaching.
The Land.--In 1765 Clive secured for the East India Company the
right of levying land-tax in Bengal. It was then collected by
zemindars, a few of whom were semi-independent nobles, and the
rest mere farmers of revenue, who bid against one another at the
periodical settlements. Tenant right apart, the conception of private
property in the soil was inconceivable to the Indian mind. Every one
knows that it was borrowed by English lawyers from the Roman codes,
when commercialism destroyed the old feudal nexus. Lord Cornwallis's
permanent Settlement of 1793 was a revolution as drastic in its degree
as that which Prance was undergoing. Zemindars were presented with
the land for which they had been mere rakers-in of revenue. It was
parcelled out into "estates," which might be bought and sold like
moveable property. A tax levied at customary rates became "rent"
arrived at by a process of bargaining between the landlord and ignorant
rustics. The Government demand was fixed for ever, but no attempt was
made to safeguard the ryot's interests. Cornwallis and his henchmen
fondly supposed that they were manufacturing magnates of the English
type, who had made our agriculture a model for the world. They were
grievously mistaken. Under the cast-iron law of sale most of the
original zemindars lost their estates, which passed into the hands
of parvenus saturated with commercialism. Bengal is not indebted to
its zemindars for any of the new staples which have created so vast
a volume of wealth. They are content to be annuitants on the land,
and sub-infeudation has gone to incredible lengths. Most of them
are absentees whose one thought is to secure a maximum of unearned
increment from tillers of the soil. In 1765 the land revenue amounted
to L3,400,000, of which L258,000 was allotted to zemindars. A century
afterwards their net profits were estimated at L12,000,000, and
they are now probably half as much again. The horrible oppression
described by Mr. Banerjea is impossible in our era of law-courts,
railways and newspapers. But it is always dangerous to bring the sense
of brotherhood, on which civilisation depends, into conflict with
crude animal instincts. In days of American slavery the planter's
interest prompted him to treat his human cattle with consideration,
yet Simon Legrees were not unknown. It is a fact that certain zemindars
are in the habit of remeasuring their ryots' holdings periodically,
and always finding more land than was set forth in the lease.
The Police.--A pale copy of Sir Robert Peel's famous system was
introduced in 1861, when hosts of inspectors, sub-inspectors and
head constables were let loose on Bengal. The new force was highly
unpopular, and failed to attract the educated classes. Subaltern
officers, therefore, used power for private ends, while the masses
were so inured to oppression that they offered no resistance. There
has been a marked improvement in the personnel of late years;
and Mr. Banerjea's lurid pictures of corruption and petty tyranny
apply to a past generation of policemen. The Lieutenant-Governor
of Eastern Bengal does justice to a much-abused service in his
Administrative Report for 1907-8. His Honour "believes the force to be
a hard-working body of Government servants, the difficulties, trials,
and even dangers of whose duties it is impossible for the public at
large really to appreciate". He acknowledges that "India is passing
through a period of transition. Old pre-possessions and unscientific
methods must be cast aside, and the value of the confession must be
held at a discount." Bengal policemen fail as egregiously as their
British colleagues in coping with professional crime. Burglary is
a positive scourge, and the habit of organising gang-robberies has
spread to youths of the middle class.
Education.--Though Mr. Banerjea has no experience of the inner working
of our Government offices, he speaks on education with an expert's
authority. Lord Macaulay, who went to India in 1834 as legal member of
Council, was responsible for the introduction of English as the vehicle
of instruction. He had gained admission to the caste of Whigs, whose
battle-cry was "Knowledge for the People," and his brilliant rhetoric
overpowered the arguments of champions of oriental learning. Every one
with a smattering of Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian, regrets the fact that
those glorious languages have not been adequately cultivated in modern
India. Bengali is a true daughter of the Sanskrit; it has Italian
sweetness and German capacity for expressing abstract ideas. No degree
of proficiency in an alien tongue can compensate for the neglect of the
vernacular. Moreover, the curriculum introduced in the "thirties" was
purely academic. It came to India directly from English universities,
which had stuck fast in the ruts of the Renaissance. Undue weight
was given to literary training, while science and technical skill
were despised. Our colleges and schools do not attempt to build
character on a foundation of useful habits and tastes that sweeten
life; to ennoble ideals, or inspire self-knowledge, self-reliance,
and self-control. Technical education is still in its infancy; and
the aesthetic instinct which lies dormant in every Aryan's brain is
unawakened. A race which invented the loom now invents nothing but
grievances. In 1901 Bengal possessed 69,000 schools and colleges,
attended by 1,700,000 pupils, yet only one adult male in 10 and
one female in 144 can read and write! The Calcutta University is an
examining body on the London model. It does not attempt to enforce
discipline in a city which flaunts every vice known to great seaports
and commercial centres, unmitigated by the social instinct. Nor is the
training of covenanted civilians more satisfactory. In 1909 only 1 out
of 50 selected candidates presented himself for examination in Sanskrit
or Arabic! Men go out to India at twenty-four, knowing little of the
ethnology, languages or history, of the races they are about to govern.
Agriculture.--Seventy-two per cent. of the Bengalis live by cultivating
the soil. The vast majority are in the clutches of some local Shylock,
who sweeps their produce into his garners, doling out inadequate
supplies of food and seed grain. Our courts of law are used by these
harpies as engines of oppression; toil as he may the ryot is never
free from debt. The current rates of interest leave no profit from
agriculture or trade. Twelve to 18 per cent. is charged for loans on
ample landed security; and ordinary cultivators are mulcted in 40 to
60. A haunting fear of civil discord, and purblind conservatism in the
commercial castes, are responsible for the dearth of capital. India
imports bullion amounting to L25,000,000 a year, to the great
detriment of European credit, and nine-tenths of it is hoarded in the
shape of ornaments or invested in land, which is a badge of social
rank. Yet the Aryan nature is peculiarly adapted to co-operation. If
facilities for borrowing at remunerative rates existed in towns,
agricultural banks on the Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen systems
would soon overspread the land. Credit and co-operative groupings for
the purchase of seed, fertilisers and implements, are the twin pillars
of rural industry. Indian ryots are quite as receptive of new ideas as
English farmers. They bought many thousands of little iron sugar mills,
placed on the market a generation back by some English speculators,
and will adopt any improvements of practical value if the price is
brought within their slender means.
The revolution which began a decade ago in America has not spread to
Bengal, where the average yield of grain per acre is only 10 bushels
as compared with 30 in Europe. Yet it has been calculated that
another bushel would defray the whole cost of Government! Bengalis
obey the injunction "increase and multiply" without regard for
consequences. Their habitat has a population of 552 per square mile,
and in some districts the ratio exceeds 900. Clearly there is a
pressing need of scientific agriculture, to replace or supplement
the rule-of-thumb methods in which the ryot is a past master.
The Bengali Character.--Mr. Banerjea has lifted a corner of the veil
that guards the Indian's home from prying eyes. He shows that Bengalis
are men of like passions with us. The picture is perhaps overcharged
with shade. Sycophants, hustlers and cheats abound in every community;
happily for the future of civilisation there is also a leaven of true
nobility: "The flesh striveth against the spirit," nor does it always
gain mastery. Having mixed with all classes for twenty eventful years,
and speaking the vernacular fluently, I am perhaps entitled to hold
an opinion on this much-vexed question. The most salient feature in
the Indian nature is its boundless charity. There are no poor laws,
and the struggle for life is very severe; yet the aged and infirm,
the widow and the orphan have their allotted share in the earnings of
every household. It is a symptom of approaching famine that beggars
are perforce refused their daily dole. Cruelty to children is quite
unknown. Parents will deny themselves food in order to defray a son's
schooling-fees or marry a daughter with suitable provision. Bengalis
are remarkably clannish: they will toil and plot to advance the
interests of anyone remotely connected with them by ties of blood.