Twenty-One Days in India Part 14

WITH THE ARCHDEACON

In this article Ali Baba has pourtrayed with infinite skill and geniality the many-sided character of the late Joseph Baly, M.A., who was Archdeacon of Calcutta from 1872 until he retired from India in 1883. Appointed to the Bengal Ecclesiastical establishment in 1861, Mr. Baly served as Chaplain at Sealkote, Simla, and Allahabad until 1870, when, while on furlough in England, he acted as Rector of Falmouth until 1872. In 1885 he was appointed chaplain at the church in Windsor Park, built by Queen Victoria, in which appointment he died in 1909, aged eighty-five.

From the commencement of his Indian career the Reverend gentleman interested himself in that burning question of the employment of the Anglo-Indian and Eurasian community of India; a large indigenous and permanent element in the population, the disposal of which is still a question of very great public importance, and its practical solution a pressing necessity. The Archdeacon had this question, paraphrased by Ali Baba as that of the "Mean Whites," greatly at heart, and the conclusions he arrived at and suggestions made by him from time to time, ably and vigorously summarized in a paper he read before the Bengal Social Science a.s.sociation on May 1st, 1879, in Calcutta, were productive of considerable good.

Archdeacon Baly's predecessor was the Venerable John Henry Pratt, an attached friend of Aberigh-Mackay's father, to whom his book, _From London to Lucknow_, published in 1860, was "affectionately inscribed."

Certain traits in the character of this Archdeacon known to Ali Baba by tradition are pourtrayed in the concluding portion of the paper.

No. 5

WITH THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT

This article is of a composite nature. At the time it was published in 1879, the foreign policy of Lord Lawrence was a burning question, and in connection with the Afghan War then running its course, renewed attention was directed to the two essays, "Masterly Inactivity" and "Mischievous Activity," first published in _The Fortnightly Review_ in December 1869, and March 1870, respectively, by a comparatively young Bengal Civilian, the late J.W.S. Wyllie, C.S.I. (1835-1870). Beyond the fact that these essays and certain other papers by the same brilliant author on the subject of the policy of the Indian Government with independent princ.i.p.alities and powers beyond the bounds of India were probably in Ali Baba's mind, the character of the supercilious Secretary was very remote from that of Mr. Wyllie.

The typical person held up to derision by Ali Baba has been oft times decried as one very detrimental to good government in India, where a personal and absolute rule must needs obtain for some time to come. By none more pointedly than by the present Secretary of State for India when addressing his const.i.tuents at Arbroath on October 21, 1907, when he informed them that "India is perhaps the one country--bad manners, overbearing manners are very disagreeable in all countries--India is the only country where bad and overbearing manners are a political crime." Or, as a prominent Mohammedan in India very well said, "When the English govern from the heart they do it admirably; when they try to be clever, they make a mess of it."

In the restored pa.s.sage on p. 35 there is delineated a Secretary in striking contrast to the other. The Secretary in the Foreign Department referred to was the late Mr. le Poer Wynne, under whom Aberigh-Mackay had worked at Simla in 1870.

No. 6

H.E. THE BENGALI BABOO

Ali Baba avowedly treats the Bengali Baboo merely as a being "full of inappropriate words and phrases ... and the loose shadows of English thought." Such being the case, it must never be forgotten that he is the product, in every sense of the word, of British modes of purely secular education. Modes which, eminently at the present time, are being gravely called in question.

All of which has been more lately elaborated by "F. Anstey," _i.e._ Mr. Thomas Anstey Guthrie, in the persons of "Baboo Jabberjee, B.A."

and "A Bayard from Bengal."

The broad results of purely secular and mainly literary education might in fact be quite fairly summed up in the reproachful words of Caliban--

"You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse."

Aberigh-Mackay devoted his life in India to counteract the effects of purely literary instruction, which he persistently deprecated; and the last thirty years have undoubtedly witnessed many advances in the same direction, tending to the material progress of India.

Ali Baba trembled for the future of Baboodom, that its tendencies as he depicted them might infect others who might pa.s.s, through various stages, into "trampling, hope-bestirred crowds, and so on, out of the province of Ali Baba and into the columns of serious reflection."

No. 7

WITH THE RAJA

In this article we have a vivid picture--mainly--of a type of Indian n.o.ble it was Aberigh-Mackay's aim and life's work in India to avoid creating. That too from the beginning of his career, but more especially in the training, and that not merely in book-learning, he initiated and earned on up to the last days of his life within and without the Residency College at Indore. To paraphrase the language of the then recently appointed Agent to the Governor-General for Central India--Sir Lepel Griffin--in his first Administrative Report, that for 1880-1881, the happy effects of the training some of the leading Chiefs of Malwa received under Aberigh-Mackay were visible in the improved administration of their States. The most notable instance, the Governor-General's Agent points out, being observable in Rutlam.

His Highness the "Rajah Saheb having conducted the Government with such ability and success as would do credit to the ablest administrators."

It is well worthy of special notice that the Rajah of Rutlam had been, from a period several years antecedent to Aberigh-Mackay's coming to Indore, his special ward.

Most effectually did Aberigh-Mackay, one of the best all-round sportsmen that Modern India ever saw, counteract the "prodigiously fat white horse with pink points" tendencies of any of his _alumni_. The description of the kingly cavalcade in this article, _vide_ p. 52, calling forth from John Lockwood Kipling _(Beast and Man in India_, p.

196), a most competent and discriminating authority, the following eulogy:--

"The late Mr. Aberigh-Mackay (Ali Baba of _Vanity Fair_), one of the brightest and most original, as well as one of the most generous spirits who ever handled Indian subjects, has drawn a picture in his _Twenty-one Days in India_ of a Raja and his Sow[=a]ri [Cavalcade] which could not be bettered by a hair's breadth."

Aberigh-Mackay in his earliest writings--_e.g._ when, in describing _The Great Native Princes_ in his "Handbook of Hindustan," published in 1875, he enters the "Remark" against the Nawab of Bahawalpur, "A smart boy of fourteen; a good polo-player"--laid great stress on the desirability of training all Indian n.o.blemen's sons in horsemans.h.i.+p of all kinds. That his efforts in this direction were crowned with an abiding and ever-increasing success is well borne out by the testimony contained in an article, by Lieutenant E.R. Penrose, 23rd Bengal N.L.

Infantry, accompanying his pictures of "Incidents in the Career of a Polo-Pony," which appeared in _The Graphic,_ April 10, 1886.

Lieutenant Penrose then wrote:--

"Polo is such an inst.i.tution now in this country, that even in the remotest station a couple of enthusiasts may be found who will work heaven and earth to get a game of some sort. I have lately been stationed at Indore, where there is a collegiate school for the sons of native Princes and gentlemen. The head of the college was Mr. Aberigh-Mackay, the author of that popular book 'Twenty-one Days in India.'

He was a keen polo-player, and quite imbued his pupils with his ardour, so that, though he is now dead, his memory is green throughout the whole of Central India. The impetus he gave the game has lasted, and consequently, with a few of the senior boys in the school, and some of the men of the troop of Central Indian Horse (who begin to play almost as soon as they can sit a horse), we could always get up a game. Some of the boys are not great riders, but like most natives they have wonderfully good 'eyes,' and rarely miss the ball. Polo-ponies come in very usefully in other ways--such as pig-sticking, for their training makes them so handy that it is easier to tackle a boar on a polo-pony than when mounted on a horse. Besides, they are cheap, and the men can afford a pony where they could not stand the expense of a horse."

Another very notable point in this article is the expression of confidence in the loyalty, as a general rule, of the n.o.bles of India.

This same belief--nay more, _conviction_--is expressed all through the writings of Ali Baba.

At the same time, voice is given to the thought that "they have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British Rule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling below," _vide_ p.

48.

Reuter, in a telegram from Calcutta dated Friday, February 11, 1910, and printed in but _few_ of the London newspapers of the 14th, informs us that:--

"The leading n.o.bles and Gentry of Bengal have formed an Imperial League for the promotion of good feeling between Indians and the Government, the denunciation of anarchy and sedition, and the education of the people by means of lectures and pamphlets in the views of the Government.

"The Maharajah of Burdwan is president, and Maharajah Sir Pradyat Tagore secretary of the new league."

It must of course be borne in mind that since this article was written by Ali Baba, the formation of the Imperial Service troops, and the Imperial Cadet corps, furnished and in some cases officered by Indian n.o.bles and their sons, many of whom were educated at Delhi and Indore by Aberigh-Mackay, surely warrants us in believing that more than a mere "pannikin of water" is _now_ available, if need be.

No. 8

WITH THE POLITICAL AGENT

The position of Political Agent, important though it was in 1879, is much more so now. The territories of the Indian Princes are being daily opened up more and more by railways; many of them contain coal, iron, gold, and other minerals in payable quant.i.ties, and the development of these resources call for very delicate handling in the matter of friendly advice by Political Agents.

In recent years, nay, at the present time, loud complaints have been published, emanating from experienced and unbia.s.sed sources, that the position of many of the great feudatories of India, who by their treaty rights are much more allies than subjects of His Majesty the King-Emperor, has been reduced to that of a mere figure-head, with no real authority except when they meekly obey the dictation of the British Resident.