The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir Part 7

The districts in the eastern part of the Central Plains where they const.i.tute more than one-fifth of the population are indicated in the map. In six districts, Lah.o.r.e, Montgomery, Gujranwala, Lyallpur, Hoshyarpur, and Ambala the proportion is between 10 and 20 p.c.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 37. Raghunath Temple, Jammu.]

~Growth and Decline in numbers.~--There was a slight rise in the number of Muhammadans between 1901 and 1911. Their losses in the central districts, where the plague scourge has been heaviest, were counterbalanced by gains in the western tract, where its effect has been slight. On the other hand the decrease under Hindus amounts to nearly 15 p.c. The birth-rate is lower and the death-rate higher among Hindus than among Musalmans, and their losses by plague in the central and some of the south-eastern districts have been very heavy. A change of sentiment on the part of the Sikh community has led to many persons recording themselves as Sikhs who were formerly content to be regarded as Hindus. It must be remembered that one out of four of the recorded Hindus belongs to impure castes, who even in the Panjab pollute food and water by their touch and are excluded from the larger temples. Since 1901 a considerable number of Chuhras or Sweepers have been converted to Islam and Christianity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 38. Golden Temple, Amritsar.]

~Sikhs.~--Notwithstanding heavy losses by plague Sikhs have increased by 37 p.c. A great access of zeal has led to many more Sikhs becoming _Kesdharis_. _Sajhdharis_ or _Munas_, who form over one-fifth of the whole Sikh community, were in 1901 cla.s.sed as Hindus. They are followers of Baba Nanak, cut their hair, and often smoke. When a man has taken the "_pahul_," which is the sign of his becoming a _Kesdhari_ or follower of Guru Govind, he must give up the _hukka_ and leave his hair unshorn. The future of Sikhism is with the _Kesdharis_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 39. Mosque in Lah.o.r.e City.]

~Muhammadans.~--In the eastern districts the conversions to Islam were political, and Hindu and Muhammadan Rajputs live peaceably together in the same village. The Musalmans have their mosque for the wors.h.i.+p of Allah, but were, and are still, not quite sure that it is prudent wholly to neglect the G.o.dlings. The conversion of the western Panjab was the result largely of missionary effort. _Piri muridi_ is a great inst.i.tution there. Every man should be the "_murid_" or pupil of some holy man or _pir_, who combines the functions in the Roman Catholic Church of spiritual director in this world and the saint in heaven. The _pir_ may be the custodian of some little saint's tomb in a village, or of some great shrine like that of Baba Farid at Pakpattan, or Bahawal Hakk at Multan, or Taunsa Sharif in Dera Ghazi Khan, or Golra in Rawalpindi. His own holiness may be more official than personal. About 1400 A.D. the Kashmiris were offered by their Sultan Sikandar the choice between conversion and exile, and chose the easier alternative. Like the western Panjabis they are above all things saint-wors.h.i.+ppers. The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns used to stimulate effort show this. The embankment builder in the south-western Panjab invokes the holy breath of Bahawal Hakk, and the Kashmiri boatman's cry "Ya Pir, dast gir," "Oh Saint, lend me a hand," is an appeal to their national saint.

~Effect of Education.~--The Musalmans of the western Panjab have a great dislike to Sikhs, dating from the period of the political predominance of the latter. So far the result of education has been to accentuate religious differences and animosities. Both Sikhs and Musalmans are gradually dropping ideas and observances retained in their daily life after they ceased to call themselves Hindus. On the other hand, within the Hindu fold laxity is now the rule rather than the exception, and the neglect of the old ritual and restrictions is by no means confined to the small but influential reforming minority which calls itself arya Samaj.

~Christians.~--The number of Christians increased threefold between 1901 and 1911. The Presbyterian missionaries have been especially successful in attracting large numbers of outcastes into the Christian Church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 40. G.o.d and G.o.ddess, Chamba.]

~Hinduism in the Panjab.~--Hinduism has always been, and to-day is more than ever, a very elastic term. The Census Superintendent, himself a high caste Hindu, wrote: "The definition which would cover the Hindu of the modern times is that he should be born of parents not belonging to some recognised religion other than Hinduism, marry within the same limits, believe in G.o.d, respect the cow, and cremate the dead." There is room in its ample folds for the arya Samajist, who rejects idol wors.h.i.+p and is divesting himself of caste prejudices and marriage restrictions, and the most orthodox Sanatan dharmist, who carries out the whole elaborate daily ritual of the Brahmanical religion, and submits to all its complicated rules; for the ordinary Hindu trader, who is equally orthodox by profession, but whose ordinary religious exercises are confined to bathing in the morning; for the villager of the eastern districts, who often has the name of Parameshvar or the Supreme Lord on his lips, but who really wors.h.i.+ps the G.o.dlings, Guga Pir, Sarwar or Sultan Pir, Sitla (the small-pox G.o.ddess), and others, whose little shrines we see round the village site; and for the childish idolaters of Kulu, who carry their local deities about to visit each other at fairs, and would see nothing absurd in locking them all up in a dungeon if rain held off too long.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 41. A Kulu G.o.dling and his attendants.]

CHAPTER XI

THE PEOPLE (_continued_): EDUCATION

~Educational progress.~--According to the census returns of 1911 there are not four persons per 100 in the province who are "literate" in the sense of being able to read and write a letter. The proportion of literacy among Hindus and Sikhs is three times as great as among Muhammadans. In 1911-12 one boy in six of school-going age was at school or college and one girl in 37. This may seem a meagre result of sixty years of work, for the Government and Christian missionaries, who have had an honourable connection with the educational history of the province, began their efforts soon after annexation, and a Director of Public Instruction was appointed as long ago as 1856. But a country of small peasant farmers is not a very hopeful educational field, and the rural population was for long indifferent or hostile. If an ex-soldier of the _Khalsa_ had expressed his feelings, he would have used words like those of the "Old Pindari" in Lyall's poem, while the Muhammadan farmer, had he been capable of expressing his hostility, might have argued that the teaching his son could get in a village school would help him not at all in his daily work. Things are better now. We have improved our scheme of teaching, and of late raised the pay of the teachers, which is, however, still hardly adequate. Till a better cla.s.s of teachers can be secured for primary schools, the best educational theories will not bear fruit in practice. The old indifference is weakening, and the most hopeful sign is the increasing interest taken in towns in female education, a matter of the first importance for the future of the country.

~Present position.~--The present position is as follows:--The Government has made itself directly or indirectly responsible for the education of the province. At the headquarters of each district there is a high school for boys controlled by the Education Department. In each district there are Government middle schools, Anglo-vernacular or Vernacular, and primary schools, managed by the Munic.i.p.al Committees and District Boards. Each middle school has a primary, and each high school a primary and a middle, department. For the convenience of pupils who cannot attend school while living at home hostels are attached to many middle and high schools. Fees are very moderate. In middle schools, where the income covers 56 p.c. of the expenditure, they range from R. 1 (16 pence) monthly in the lowest cla.s.s in which they are levied to Rs. 4 (5 s.h.i.+llings) in the highest cla.s.s. In rural primary schools the children of agriculturists are exempt because they pay local rate, and others, when not exempt on the score of poverty, pay nominal fees. Besides the Government schools there are aided schools of the above cla.s.ses usually of a sectarian character, and these, if they satisfy the standards laid down, receive grants. There is a decreasing, but still considerable, cla.s.s of private schools, which make no attempt to satisfy the conditions attached to these grants. The _mullah_ in the mosque teaches children pa.s.sages of the Kuran by rote, or the shopkeeper's son is taught in a Mahajani school native arithmetic and the curious script in which accounts are kept. A boys' school of a special kind is the Panjab Chiefs' College at Lah.o.r.e, intended for the sons of princes and men of high social position.

~Technical Schools.~--In an agricultural country like the Panjab there is not at present any large field for technical schools. The best are the Mayo School of Art and the Railway Technical School at Lah.o.r.e. The latter is successful because its pupils can readily find employment in the railway workshops. Mr Kipling, the father of the poet, when princ.i.p.al of the former, did much for art teaching, and the present princ.i.p.al, Bhai Ram Singh, is a true artist. The Government Engineering School has recently been remodelled and removed to Rasul, where the head-works of the Lower Jhelam ca.n.a.l are situated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 42. A School in the time preceding annexation.

(_From a picture book said to have been prepared for the Maharaja Dalip Singh._)]

~Female Education.~--Female education is still a tender plant, but of late growth has been vigorous. The Victoria May School in Lah.o.r.e founded in 1908 has developed into the Queen Mary College, which provides an excellent education for girls of what may be called the upper middle cla.s.s. There is a separate cla.s.s for married ladies. Hitherto they have only been reached by the teaching given in their own homes by missionary ladies, whose useful work is now being imitated by the Hindu community in Lah.o.r.e. There is an excellent Hindu Girls' Boarding School in Jalandhar. The Sikhs and the body of reformers known as the Dev Samaj have good girls' schools at Ferozepore. The best mission schools are the Kinnaird High School at Lah.o.r.e and the Alexandra School at Amritsar. The North India School of Medicine for Women at Ludhiana, also a missionary inst.i.tution, does admirable work. In the case of elementary schools the difficulty of getting qualified teachers is even greater than as regards boys' schools.

~Education of European Children.~--There are special arrangements for the education of European and Anglo-Indian children. In this department the Roman Catholics have been active and successful. The best schools are the Lawrence Asylum at Sanawar, Bishop Cotton's School, Auckland House, and St Bede's at Simla, St Denys', the Lawrence Asylum, and the Convent School at Murree.

~The Panjab University.~--The Panjab University was const.i.tuted in 1882, but the Government Arts College and Oriental College, the Medical College and the Law School at Lah.o.r.e, which are affiliated with it, are of older date. The University is an examining body like London University. Besides the two Arts Colleges under Government management mentioned above there are nine private Arts Colleges aided by Government grants and affiliated to the University. Four of these are in Lah.o.r.e, two, the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic and the Dial Singh Colleges, are Hindu inst.i.tutions, one, the Islamia College, is Muhammadan, the fourth is the popular and efficient Forman Christian College. Four out of five art students read in Lah.o.r.e. Of the Arts colleges outside Lah.o.r.e the most important is the St Stephen's College at Delhi. The Khalsa School and College at Amritsar is a Sikh inst.i.tution. The Veterinary College at Lah.o.r.e is the best of its kind in India, and the Agricultural College at Lyallpur is a well-equipped inst.i.tution, which at present attracts few pupils, but may play a very useful role in the future. There is little force in the reproach that we built up a super-structure of higher education before laying a broad foundation of primary education. There is more in the charge that the higher educational food we have offered has not been well adapted to the intellectual digestions of the recipients.

~Education in N.W.F. Province, Native States, and I Kashmir.~--The Panjab Native States and Kashmir are much more backward as regards education than the British Province. As is natural in a tract in which the population is overwhelmingly Musalman by religion and farming by trade the N.W.F. Province lags behind the Panjab. Six colleges in the States and the N.W.F. Province are affiliated to the Panjab University.

CHAPTER XII

ROADS AND RAILWAYS

~Roads.~--The alignment of good roads in the plains of the Panjab is easy, and the deposits of calcareous nodules or _kankar_ often found near the surface furnish good metalling material. In the west the rainfall is so scanty and in many parts wheeled traffic so rare that it is often wise to leave the roads unmetalled. There are in the Panjab over 2000 miles of metalled, and above 20,000 miles of unmetalled roads. The greatest highway in the world, the Grand Trunk, which starts from Calcutta and ends at Peshawar, pa.s.ses through the province from Delhi in the south-east to Attock in the extreme north-west corner, and there crosses the Indus and enters the N.W.F. Province. The greater part of the section from Karnal to Lah.o.r.e had been completed some years before the Mutiny, that from Lah.o.r.e to Peshawar was finished in 1863-64. A great loop road connects our a.r.s.enal at Ferozepore with the Grand Trunk Road at Lah.o.r.e and Ludhiana. The fine metalled roads from Ambala to Kalka, and Kalka to Simla have lost much of their importance since the railway was brought to the hill capital. Beyond Simla the Kalka-Simla road is carried on for 150 miles to the s.h.i.+pki Pa.s.s on the borders of Tibet, being maintained as a very excellent hill road adapted to mule carriage.

A fine tonga road partly in the plains and partly in the hills joins Murree with Rawalpindi. From Murree it drops into the Jhelam valley crossing the river and entering Kashmir at Kohala. It is carried up the gorge of the Jhelam to Baramula and thence through the Kashmir valley to Srinagar. A motor-car can be driven all the way from Rawalpindi to Srinagar. In the N.W.F. Province a great metalled road connects Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 43. Poplar lined road to Srinagar.]

~Railways. Main Lines.~--It is just over fifty years since the first railway, a short line joining Lah.o.r.e and Amritsar, was opened in 1862.

Three years later Lah.o.r.e was linked up with Multan and the small steamers which then plied on the Indus. Amritsar was connected with Delhi in 1870, and Lah.o.r.e with Peshawar in 1883. The line from Peshawar to Lah.o.r.e, and branching thence to Karachi and Delhi may be considered the Trunk Line. The railway service has been enormously developed in the past thirty years. In 1912 there were over 4000 miles of open lines.

There are now three routes from Delhi to Lah.o.r.e:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 44. Map showing railways.]

(_a_) The N.W. Railway _via_ Meerut and Saharanpur (on east of Jamna), and Ambala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar;

(_b_) The Southern Panjab Railway _via_ Jind, Rohtak, Bhatinda, and Ferozepore;

(_c_) The Delhi-Ambala-Kalka branch of the East Indian Rallway from Delhi through Karnal to Ambala, and thence by the N.W. Railway. This is the shortest route.

The Southern Panjab Railway also connects Delhi with Karachi through its junction with the N.W. Railway at Samasata to the south of Bahawalpur.

Another route is by a line pa.s.sing through Rewari and the Merta junction. Karachi is the natural seaport of the central and western Panjab. The S.P. Railway now gives an easy connection with Ferozepore and Ludhiana, and the enormous export of wheat, cotton, etc. from the new ca.n.a.l colonies is carried by several lines which converge at Khanewal, a junction on the main line, a little north of Multan.

~Railways. Minor Lines.~--The Sind Sagar branch starting from Lala Musa between Lah.o.r.e and Amritsar with smaller lines taking off further north at Golra and Campbellpur serves the part of the province lying north of the Salt Range. These lines converge at Kundian in the Mianwali district, and a single line runs thence southwards to points on the Indus opposite Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan, and turning eastwards rejoins the trunk line at Sher Shah near Multan. There are a number of branch lines in the plains, some owned by native States.

Strategically a very important one is that which crossing the Indus by the Khushalgarh bridge unites Rawalpindi with Kohat. The only hill railway is that from Kalka to Simla. A second is now under construction which, when completed, will connect Rawalpindi with Srinagar. All these lines with the exception of the branch of the E.I. Railway mentioned above are worked by the staff of the N. W. State Railway, whose manager controls inside and outside the Panjab some 5000 miles of open line. The interest earned in 1912 was 4-1/2 p.c., a good return when it is considered that the parts of the system to the north of the Salt Range and the Sind Sagar railway were built primarily for strategic reasons.

CHAPTER XIII

Ca.n.a.lS

~Importance of Ca.n.a.ls.~--One need have no hesitation in placing among the greatest achievements of British rule in the Panjab the magnificent system of irrigation ca.n.a.ls which it has given to the province. Its great alluvial plain traversed by large rivers drawing an unfailing supply of water from the Himalayan snows affords an ideal field for the labours of the ca.n.a.l engineer. The vastness of the arid areas which without irrigation yield no crops at all or only cheap millets and pulses makes his works of inestimable benefit to the people and a source of revenue to the State.

~Ca.n.a.ls before annexation.~--In the west of the province we found in existence small inundation ca.n.a.ls dug by the people with some help from their rulers. These only ran during the monsoon season, when the rivers were swollen. In 1626 Shahjahan's Persian engineer, Ali Mardan Khan, brought to Delhi the water of the ca.n.a.l dug by Firoz Shah as a monsoon channel and made perennial by Akbar. But during the paralysis of the central power in the eighteenth century the channels became silted up.

The same able engineer dug a ca.n.a.l from the Ravi near Madhopur to water the royal gardens at Lah.o.r.e. What remained of this work at annexation was known as the Hasli.

~Extent of Ca.n.a.l Irrigation.~--In 1911-12, when the deficiency of the rainfall made the demand for water keen, the ca.n.a.ls of the Panjab and the N.W.F. Province irrigated 8-1/2 millions of acres. The figures are:

_Panjab_

A. Permanent Ca.n.a.ls Acres Interest earned %