Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

R >> Rudyard Kipling >> The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition




"You mean to say, then, it's not a spontaneous movement?"

"What movement was ever spontaneous in any true sense of the
word? This seems to he more
factitious than usual. You seem to know a great deal about it; try it
by the touchstone of
subscriptions, a coarse but fairly trustworthy criterion, and there is
scarcely the color of money
in it. The delegates write from England that tney are out of pocket
for working expenses, railway
fares, and stationery~the mere pasteboard and scaffolding of their
show. It is, in fact, collapsing
from mere financial inanition."

"But you cannot deny that the people of India, who are, perhaps,
too poor to subscribe, are
mentally and morally moved by the agitation," Pagett insisted.

"That is precisely what I do deny. The native side of the movement
is the work of a limited class,
a microscopic minority, as Lord Dufferin described it' when
compared with the people proper,
h~it still a very interesting class, seeing that it is of our own
creation. It is composed almost
entirely of those of the literary or clerkly castes who have received
an English education."

"Surely that's a very important class. Its members must be the
ordained leaders of popular
thought."

"Anywhere - else they might be leaders, but they have no social
weight

2~2
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

appointed dog-cart turned into the compound gates, and Orde rose
saying:

"Here is Edwards, the Master of the Lodge I neglect so diligently,
come to talk about accounts, I
suppose."

As the vehicle drove up under the porch Pagett also rose, saying
with the trained effusion born of
much practice:

"But this is also my friend, my old and valued friend Edwards. I'm
delighted to see you. I knew
you were in India, but not exactly where."

"Then it isn't accounts, Mr. Edwards," said Orde, cheerily.

"Why, no, sir; I heard Mr. Pagett was coming, and as our works
were closed for the New Year I
thought I would drive over and see him."

"A very happy thought. Mr. Ed-wards, you may not know, Orde,
was a leading member of our
Radical Club at Switebton when I was beginning p0litical life, and
I owe much to his exertions.
There's no pleasure like meeting an old friend, except, perhaps,
making a new one. I suppose,
Mr. Edwards, you stick to the good old cause?"

"Well, you see, sir, things are different out here. There's precious
little one can find to say
against the Government, which was the main of our talk at home,
and them that do say things are
not the sort 0' people a man who respects himself would like to be
mixed up with. There are no
politics, in a manner of speaking, in India. It's all work."

"Surely you are mistaken, my good friend. Why I have come all
the way from England just to
see the working of this great National movement."

"I don't know where you're going to find the nation as moves to
begin with,
and then you'll be hard put to it to find what they are moving
about. It's like this, sir," said
Edwards, who had not quite relished being called "my good
friend." "They haven't g~t any
grievanc~nothing to hit with, don't you see, sir; and then there's not
much to hit against, because
the Government is more like a kind of general Providence,
directing an old-established state of
things, than that at home, where there's something new thrown
down for us to fight about every
three months."

"You are probably, in your workshops, full of Er~g'ish mechanics,
out of the way of learning
what the masses think."

"I don't know so much about that. There are four of us English
foremen, and between seven and
eight hundred native fitters, smiths, carpenters, painters, and
such like."

"And they are full of the Congress, of course?"

"Never hear a wnrd of it from year's end to year's end, and I speak
the talk too. But I wanted to
ask how things are going on at home-old Tyler and Brown and the
rest?"

"We will speak of them presently, but your account of the
indifference of your men surprises me
almost as much as your own. I fear you are a backslider from the
good old doctrine, Ed wards."
Pagett spoke as one who mourned the death of a near relative.

"Not a bit, Sir, but I should be if ~ took up with a parcel of baboos,
pleaders, and schoolboys, as
never did a day's work in their lives, and couldn't if they tried. And
if you was to poll us English
railway men, mechanics, tradespeople, and the like of that all
THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M.P.

253
up and down the country from Peshawur to Calcutta, you would
find us mostly in a tale together.
And yet yo'J know we're the same English you pay some respect to
at home at 'lection time, and
we have the pull o' knowing something about it."

"This is very curious, but you will let me come and see you, and
perhaps you will kindly show
me the railway works, and we will talk things over at leisure. And
about all old friends and old
times," added Pagett, detecting with quick insight a look of
disappointment in the mechanic's
face.

Nodding briefly to Orde, Edwards mounted his dog-cart and drove
off.

"It's very disappointing," said the
Member to Orde, who, while his friend
discoursed with Edwards, had been
looking over a bundle of sketches drawn
~n grey paper in purple ink, brought
~o him by a Chuprassee.

"Don't let it trouble you, old chap," 'said Orde, sympathetically.
"Look here ~ moment, here are
some sketches by the man who made the carved wood screen you
admired so much in the
dining-room, and wanted a copy of, and the artist himself is here
too."

"A native?" said Pagett.

"Of course," was the reply, "Bishen Siagh is his name, and he has
two brothers to help him.
When there is an important job to do, the three go 'ato partnership,
but they spend most of their
time and all their money in litigation over an inheritance, and I'm
afraid they are getting
involved, Thoroughbred Sikhs of the old rock, obstinate, touchy,
bigoted, and cunning, but good
men for all that. Here is Bishen
Singn -shall we ask him about the Congress?"

But Bishen Singh, who approached with a respectful salaam, had
never heard of it, and he
listened with a puzzled face and obviously feigned interest to
Orde's account of its aims and
objects, finally shaking his vast white turban with great
significance when he learned that it was
promoted by certam pleaders named by Orde, and by educated
natives. He began with labored
respect to explain how he was a poor man with no concern in such
matters, which were all under
the control of God, but presently broke out of Urdu into familiar
Punjabi, the mere sound of
which had a rustic smack of village smoke-reek and plough-tail, as
he denounced the wearers of
white coats, the jugglers with words who filched his field from
him, the men whose backs were
never bowed in honest work; and poured ironical scorn on the
Bengali. He and one of his
brothers had seen Calcutta, and being at work there had Bengali
carpenters given to them as
assistants.

"Those carpenters!" said Bishen Singh. "Black apes were more
efficient workmates, and as for
th~ Bengali babu
-tchick!" The guttural click needed no interpretation, but Orde
translated the rest, while Pagett
gazed with in.. terest at the wood-carver.

"He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali,"
said the
M.P.

"Yes, it's very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should he so
bitter a prejudice. Pride of
race, which also means race-hatred, is the plague and curse of
India and it spreads far," Orde

25~
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

pointed with his riding-whip to the large map of India on the
veranda wall.

"See! I begin with the North," said he. "There's the Afghan, and, as
a highlander, he despises all
the dwellers in Hindoostan-with the exception of the Sikh, whom
he hates as cordially as the
Sikh hates him. The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the
Rajput-that's a little lower down
across this yellow blot of desert-has a strong objection, to put it
mildly, to the Maratha who, by
the way, poisonously hates the Afghan. Let's go North a minute.
The Sindhi hates everybody I've
mentioned. Very good, we'll take less warlike races. The
cultivator of Northern India domineers
over the man in the next province, and the Behari of the Northwest
ridicules the Bengali. They
are all at one on that point. I'm giving you merely the roughest
possible outlines of the facts, of
course."

Bishen Singh, his clean cut nostrils still quivering, watched the
large sweep of the whip as it
traveled from the frontier, through Sindh, the Punjab and
Rajputana, till it rested by the valley of
the Jumna

"Hate~ternal and inextinguishable hate," concluded Orde, flicking
the lash of the whip across the
large map from East to West as he sat down. "Remember
Canning's advice to Lord Granville,
'Never write or speak of Indian things without looking at a map.'"

Pagett opened his eyes, Orde resumed. "And the race-hatred is
only a part of it. What's really
the matter with Bisben Singh is class-hatred, which, unfortunately,
is even more intense and
more widely spread. That's one of the little drawbacks of caste,
which some of your recent
English writers find an impeccable system."

The wood-carver was glad to be recalled to the business of his
craft, and his eyes shone as he
received instruc~ tions for a carved wooden doorway for Pagett,
which he promised ~hould be
splendidly executed and despatched to England in six months. It is
an irrelevant detail, but in
spite of Orde's reminders, fourteen months elapsed before the work
was finished. Business over,
Bishen Singh hung about, reluctant to take his leave, and at last
joining his hands and
approaching Orde with bated breath and whispering hum. bleness,
said he had a petition to
make. Orde's face suddenly lost all trace of expression. "Speak on,
Bishen Singh," said he, and
the carver in a whining tone explained that his case against his
brothers was fixed for hearing b&
fore a native judge and-here he dropped his voice still lower tid
he was summarily stopped by
Orde, who sternly pointed to the gate with an emphatic Begone!

Bishen Singh, showing but little sign of discomposure, salaamed
respectfully to the friends and
departed.

Pagett looked inq~ry; Orde with complete recovery of his usual
urbanity, replied: "It's nothing,
only the old story, he wants his case to be tried by an English
judge-they all do that-but when he
began to hint that the other side were in improper relations with
the native judge I had to shut
him up. Gunga Ram, the man he wanted to make insinuations
about, may not be very bright; but
he's as honest as day-

THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M.P.
255

light on the bench. But that's just what one can't get a native to
believe."

"Do you really mean to say these people prefer to have their cases
tried by English judges?"

'Why, certainly."

Pagett drew a long breath. "I ~idn't know that before." At this
point a phaeton entered the
compound, and Orde rose with "Confound it, there's old Rasul Ah
Khan come to pay one of his
tiresome duty calls. I'm afraid we shall never get through our little
Congress discussion."

Pagett was an aimost silent spectator of the grave formalities of a
visit paid by a punctilious old
Mahommedan gentleman to an Indian official; and was much
impressed by the distinction of
manner and fine appearance of the Mohammedan landholder.
When the exhange of polite
banalities came to a pause, he expressed a wish to learn the courtly
visitor's opinion of the
National Congress.

Orde reluctantly interpreted, and with a smile which even
Mohammedan politeness could not
save from bitter scorn, Rasul Ah Khan intimated that he knew
nothing about it and cared still
less. It was a kind of talk encouraged by the Government for some
mysterious purpose of its
own, and for his own part he wondered and held his peace.

Pagett was far from satisfied with this, and wished to have the old
gentleman's opinion on the
propriety of managing all Indian affairs on the basis of an elective
system.

Orde did his best to explain, but it was plain the visitor was bored
and bewilder~d. Frankly, he
didn't think much of committees; they had a Mu-
nicipal Committee at Lahore and had elected a menial servant, an
orderly, as a member. He had
been informed of this on good authority, and after that, committees
had ceased to interest him.
But all was according to the rule of Government, and, please God,
it was all for the best.

"What an old fossil it is!" cried Pagett, as Orde returned from
seeing his guest to the door; "just
like some old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain. What does he really
think of the Congress after all,
and of the elective system?"

"Hates it all like poison. When you are sure of a majority, election
is a fine system; but you can
scarcely expect the Mahommedans, the mast mas terful and
powerful minority in the country, to
contemplate their own extinction with joy. The worst of it is that
he and his co-religionists, who
are many, and the landed proprietors, also, of Hindu race, are
frightened and put out by this
electiop business and by the importance we have bestowed on
lawyers, pleaders, writers, and the
like, who have, up to now, been in abject submission to them.
They say little, hut after all they
are the most important fagots in the great bundle of communities,
and all the glib bunkum in the
world would not pay for their estrangement. They have controlled
the land."

"But I am assured that experience of local self-gov~rnment in your
municipalities has been most
satisfactory, and when once the principle is accepted in your
centres, don't you know, it is bound
to spread, and these ~mportant--ah'm
people of yours would learn it like the rest. I see no difficulty at
all," and the smooth lips closed
with the complacent

256
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

snap habitual to Pagett, M.P., the "man of cheerful yesterdays and
confident to-morrows."

Orde looked at him with a dreary smile.

'~Tbe privilege of election has been most reluctantly withdrawn
from scores of municipalities,
others have had to be summarily suppressed, and, outside the
Presidency towns, the actual work
done has been badly performed. This is of less moment, perhaps-it
only sends up the local
death-rates-than the fact that the public interest in municipal
elections, never very strong, has
waned, and is waning, in spite of careful nursing on the part of
Government servants."

"Can you explain this lack of interest?" said Pagett, putting aside
the rest of Orde's remarks.

'~You may find a ward of the key in the fact that only one in every
thousand af our population
can spell. Then they are infinitely more interested in religion and
caste questions than in any
sort of politics. When the business of mere existence is over, their
minds are occupied by a
series of interests, pleasures, rituals, superstitions, and the like,
based on centuries of tradition
and usage. You, perhaps, find it hard to conceive of people
absolutely devoid of curiosity, to
whom the book, the daily paper, and the printed speech are
unknown, and you would describe
their life as blank. That's a profound mistake. You are in another
land, another century, down on
the bed-rock of society, where the family merely, and not the
community, is all-important. The
average Oriental cannot be brought to look beyond his clan. His
life, too, is naore complete and
self-sufficing, and
less sordid and low-thoughted than you might imagine. It is
bovine and slow in some respects,
but it is never empty. You and I are inclined to put the cart before
the horse, and to forget that it
is the man that is elemental, not the book.


'The corn and the cattle are all my care, And the rest is the will of
God.'

Why should such folk look up from their immemorially appointed
round of duty and interests to
meddle with the unknown and fuss with voting-papers. How would
you, atop of all your interests
care to conduct even one-tenth of your life according to the
manners and customs of the
Papuans, let's say? That's what it comes to."

"But if they won't take the trouble to vote, why do you anticipate
that Mohammedans,
proprietors, and the rest would be crushed by majorities of them?"

Again Pagett disregarded the closing sentence.

"Because, though the landholders would not move a finger on any
purely political question, they
could be raised in dangerous excitement by religious hatreds.
Already the first note of this has
been sounded by the people who are trying to get up an agitation
on the cow-killing question,
and every year there is trouble over the Mohammedan Muharrum
processions.

"But who looks after the popular rights, being thus unrepresented?"

"The Government of Hcr Majesty the Queen, Empress of India, in
which, if the Congress
promoters are to be believed, the people have an implicit trust; for
the Congress circular,
specially pre

THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M.P.
257

pared for rustic comprehension, says the movement is 'for the
remission of tax, the advancement
of Hindnstan, and the strengthening of the British Govemment.'
This paper is headed in large
letters-'MAV THE PROSPEEITY OF TH~ EMPIRE OF INDIA
ENDURE."'

"Really!" said Pagett, "that shows some cleverness. But there are
things better worth imi'ation in
our Englisb methods of-er-political statement than this sort of
amiable fraud."

"Anyhow," resumed Orde, "you perceive that not a word is said
about elections and the elective
principle, and the reticence of the Congress promoters here shows
they are wise in their
generation."

"But the elective principle must triumph in the end, and the little
difficulties you seem to
anticipate would give way on the introduction of a well-balanced
scheme, capable of indefinite
extension."

"But is it possible to devise a scheme which, always assuming that
the people took any interest
in it, without enormous expense, ruinous dislocation of the
administ:ation and danger to the
public peace, can satisfy the aspirations of Mr. Hume and his
following, and yet safeguard the
interests of the Mahommedans, the landed and wealthy classes, the
Conservative Hindus, the
Eurasians, Parsees, Sikhs, Rajputs, native Christians, domiciled
Europeans and others, who are
each important and powerful in their way?"

Pagett's attention, however, was diverted to the gate, where a
group of cultivators stood in
apparent hesitation.

"Here are the twelve Apostles, hy
Jove -come straight out of Raffaele's cartoons," said the M.P., with
the fresh appreciation of a
newcomer.

Orde, loth to be interrupted, turned impatiently toward the
villagers, and their leader, handing
his long staff to one of his companions, advanced to the house.

"It is old Jelbo, the Lumherdar, or head-man of Pind Sharkot, and a
very' intelligent man for a
villager."

The Jat farmer had removed his shoes and stood smiling on the
edge of the veranda. His strongly
marked features glowed with russet bronze, and his bright eyes
gleamed under deeply set brows,
contracted by lifelong exposure to sunshine. His beard and
moustache streaked with grey swept
from bold cliffs of brow and cheek in the large sweeps one sees
drawn by Michael Angelo, and
strands of long black hair mingled with the irregularly piled
wreaths and folds of his turban. The
drapery of stout blue cotton cloth thrown over his broad shoulders
and girt round his narrow
loins, hung from his tall form in broadly sculptured folds, and ~e
would have made a superb
model for an artist in search of a patriarch.

Orde greeted him cordially, and after a polite pause the
countryman started off with a long story
told with impressive earnestness. Orde listened and smiled,
interrupting the speaker at '~mes
to argue and reason with him in a tone which Pagett could hear
was kindly, and finally checking
the flux of words was about to dismiss him, when Pagett suggested
that he should be asked about
the National Congress.

But Jelloc had never heard of it.

258
WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING

He was a poor man and such things, by the favor of his Honor, did
not concern him.

"What's the matter with your big friend that he was so terribly in
earnest?" asked Pagett, when
he had left.

"Nothing much. He wants the blood of the people in the next
village, who have had smallpox
and cattle plague pretty badly, and by the help of a wizard, a
currier, and several pigs have
passed it on to his own village. 'Wants to know if they can't be run
in for this awful crime. It
seems they made a dreadful charivari at the village boundary,
threw a quantity of spell-bearing
objects over the border, a buffalo's skull and other things; then
branded a chamur-what you
would call a currier-on his hinder parts and drove him and a
number of pigs over into JelIno's
village. Jelbo says he can bring evidence to prove that the wizard
directing these proceedings,
who is a Sansi, has been guilty of theft, arson, rattle-killing,
perjury and murder, but would
prefer to have him punished for bewitching them and inflicting
small-pox."

"And how on earth did you answer such a lunatic?"

"Lunatic I the old fellow is as sane as you or I; and he has some
ground of complaint against
those Sansis. I as~ed if he would likc a native superintendent of
police with some men to make
inquiries, but he objected on the grounds the police were rather
worse than smallpox and
criminal tribes put together."

"Crimin~ tribes-er-I don't quite understand," said Paget~

"We have in India many tribes of people who in the slack
anti-British days became robbers, in
various kind. and preye~ on the people. They are being restrained
and reclaimed little by little,
and in time will become uscfu; citizens, but they still cherish
hereditar~ traditions of crime, and
are a difficul lot to deal with. By the way wh~; about the political
rights of these folk under your
schemes? The country people call them vermin, but I sup-pose
they would be electors with th~
rest."

"Nonsens~speaal provision would be made for them in a
well-considered electoral scheme, and
they would doubtless be treated with fitting severity," said Pagett,
with a magisterial air.

"Severity, yes-but whether it would be fitting is doubtful. Even
those poor devils have rights,
and, after all, they only practice what they have been taught."

"But criminals, Ordel"

"Yes, criminals with codes and rituals of crime, gods and
godlings of crime, and a hundred
songs and sayings in praise of it. Puzzling, isn't it?"

"It's simply dreadful. They ought to be put down at once. Are
there many of them?"

"Not more than about sixty thousand in this province, for many of
the trlbes broadly described as
criminal are really vagabond and crimlnal only on occasion, while
others are being settled and
reclaimed. They are of great antiquity, a legacy from the past, the
golden, glorious Aryan past of
Max Muller, Birdwood and the rest of your spindrif~
philosophers."

An orderly brought a card to Orde


THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M.P.
2SQ

who took it with a movement of irritation at the interruption, and
banded it to Pagett; a large
card with a ruled border in red ink, and in the centre in schoolboy
copper plate, Mr. Dma Nath.
"Give salaam," said the civilian, and there entered in haste a
slender youth, clad in a closely
fitting coat of grey homespun, tight trousers, patent-leather shoes,
and a small black velvet cap.
His thin cheek twitched, and his eyes wandered restlessly, for the
young man was evidently
nervous and uncomfortable, though striving to assume a free and
easy air.

"Your honor may perhaps remember me," he said in Englisb, and
Orde scanned him keenly.

"I know your face somehow. You belonged to the Shershah
district I think, when I was in charge
there?"

"Yes, Sir, my father is writer at Shershah, and your honor gave me
a prize when I was first in the
Middle School examination five years ago. Since then I have
prosecuted my studies, and I am
now second year's student in the Mission College~"

"Of course: you are Kedar Nath's son
-the boy who said he liked geography better than play or sugar
cakes, and I didn't believe you.
How is your father getting on?"

"He is well, and he sends his salaam, but his circumstances are
depressed, and be also is down
on his luck."

"You learn English idiom". at the Mission College, it seems."

"Yes, sir, they are the best idioms, and my father ordered me to ask
your honor to say a word for
him to the present incumbent of your honor's shoes, the latchet of
which he is not
worthy to open, and who knows not Joseph; for things are different
at Sher shah now, and my
father wants promotion."

"Your father is a good man, and I will do what I can for him."

At this point a telegram was handed to Orde, who, after glancing at
it, said he must leave his
young friend whom he introduced to Pagett, "a member of the
English House of Commons who
wishes to learn about India."

Orde bad scarcely retired with his telegram when Pagett began:

"Perhaps you can tell me something of the National Congress
movement?"

"Sir, it is the greatest movement of modern times, and one in
which all edvcated men like us
must join. All our students are for the Congress."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.