SEETHING INDIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2676, 4 December 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

SEETHING INDIA.

CAUSE ■OF THE PRESENT TROUBLE. •/ ,

“I sleep with 600 cartridges under my bed. It is l the only safe place for them,” wrote a civilian living in Mussoorie, in the North-West provinces. This was just after the British troops suffered a .series of disastrous defeats' by the' Boers on the Tugela. It was those' -disasters ..which wore the main cause of the present native unrest in India. Every one of the .natives knew all about the results of the British fighting in South Africa. The very poorest and most ignorant fallahs and coolies heard of the English’ defeats. “The Belattee sahibs,” they said to one another, “are defeated. Can there bo some nation greater than they ? And, if some can beat them, cannot we regain our own Land?” How they got their information is one of those- puzzles which Western science cannot cope with. Call it brain messages, or anything you please, the facts remains that news travels in India in an utterly mysterious fashion, and -reaches distant points more rapidly than the telegraph can spread it. “RUMOR’S WINGS OF WIND.” Any number of instances might be quoted. Here is one. On February 8, 1872, the Lieut.-Governor of Bengal •was giving a dinner at Simla. Durng the meal the Pathan servant- of a wellknown colonel who was one of the guests, leant over, and whispered in his master’s ear. The officer started isliarply; then scribbled a- line on a page of his pocket book, and passed it up to the Lieut.-G-overnor: “Lord Mayo is murdered, were the words. The telegraphic news of tho assassination of the Viceroy, which .had just occurred, nearly a thousand miles away, in the Andaman Islands, did not arrive till some hours later. It is xierfect-ly well-known, too, that the fall of Delhi, during the Mutiny, was known in Hyderabad many hours before telegraphic news reached the British Resident in that city. The worst of India is that we understand as little of the Indian mind as the Indian does of the British way of looking at things. . When an Indian of birth visits England he is invited everywhere. He goes to the best houses, and is received in society on equal terms with white people. He returns home, and finds that, whereas in England Lord —— asked him to dine, in India Deputy Assistant Adjutant : flatly refuses to sit at meal with him. This seems, on- the face of it, hard and -unjust. It is not so in reality. The whole white population of India is about a quarter of a million. Tlie colored outnumber them eleven hundred to one. If the ruling race fail to keep their prestige, if they mix on equal terms with the colored, good-bye to British rule in India. ETERNAL WOMEN. You might -as well tr\ T to mix oil with water as brown man and white. The impassable barrier is the “purdah.” The ludian, Whether Mussulman or Hindu, regards woman from a point of view totally different to English ideals. Briefly, women in India are secluded, and the* higher the rank of the head of the familv the more carefully are his woman-kind kept from public gaze. If they travel, it is in closed and curtained vehicles. To ask the wife of an Indian prince to a dance would be tlie most horrible insult conceivable. The point- of view is best explained by the perfectly true story of the Eastern potentate, who, visiting England at the Jubilee of 1897, offered to buy the wife of his titled host-, and was bitterly offended when the offer was somewhat sharply refused. STRONG IDEAS ON THE S.UBJEOT OF PRECEDENCE. Your Indian is always jealous of precedence, beyond anything which can be conceived elsewhere. Every single native prince—and there are 93 of them —is entitled to a certain artillery salute. Eight of the first rank are entit.ed to 21 guns on British territory—nine guns is the lowest salute. It is an absolute fact that when the salute of the Maharajah of K-hota was reduced from 17 to 13 guns for disloyalty during the Indian Mutiny that ruler went to bed and nearly died of a broken heart. On the other hand, when the Maharajah of Jaypur had his raised from 17 to 19 for the good work he did in the famine of 1868 lie feasted his whofe court on champagne for a week. Later on, at the Durbar of 1871, there was a most desperate quarrel between the rulers of Jaypur and Mewar, because the former refused to sit below 1 the latter at the ceremony. It ended in Jaypur refusing to attend the Durbar at all. By way of punishment, he was docked his two extra guns for a twelvemonth. In spite of their curiously strong ideas ou tlio subject of precedence, the native chiefs are Britain’s great stand-by. Even in the dark days of the Mutiny many—such as the Maharajah of Jodhpur—stood by the British in unswerving loyalty. During the South African war, Jodhpur, who is not (rich as Indian Princes go, offered to send 700 splendidly mounted men to tho Cape. THE CASTE SYSTEM. Again, only a few months ago, when a wretched young Bengali attempted to assassinate Sir Andrew Fraser, it was the Maharajah of Burdwan, premier noble of Bengal, and a magnificently built young man, who flung himself between the Governor and the assassin. If the pistol had not faded to go off, ho would certainly liavo paid for his splendid pluck with his life. _ _ The caste system in India is another bar to the mixture, not only of white and colored, but of native races among themselves. Originally there werfe only four castes. Now, owing to inter-marriage and other causes, there are scores. Even the “pariahs,” or outcasts, have caste among themselves. In. Travancore, with a population of only two and a-half millions, there are said to be 420 castes! As is well-known, no member of one caste may eat food prepared by another. Ho may even bo defiled by tho shadow of a man, of another caste falling upon him. English- people in India have to keep many servants. Tho man who sweeps 'your, room wi.l, on no account, wash the teacups: your groom would lot the horses starve rather, than mow a little grass! -and so casta affects every servant. The. Jew' is not more particular about the preparation of his food that the, high-caste Indian. In a September last his Highness Sherc Jung, Prime Minister of Nepanl. visited England, and two cows had to bo procured from a farm and milked by a member of the Prince’s own suite, before their master could eh joy. a meal. . •••• Iwnii I I-II I»'i i m!■ ~ .