Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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In the ordinary civil tribunals of Europe and America a man commonly
feels that, though he is removed far from the immediate presence of
those whose esteem is necessary for him, their eyes are still upon
him, because the statements he may give will find their way to them
through the medium of the press. This he does not feel in the civil
courts of India, nor in the military courts of Europe, or of any
other part of the world, and the man who judges of the veracity of a
whole people from the specimens he may witness in such courts, cannot
judge soundly.

Shaikh Sadi, in his _Gulistan_, has the following tale: 'I have heard
that a prince commanded the execution of a captive who was brought
before him; when the captive, having no hope of life, told the prince
that he disgraced his throne. The prince, not understanding him,
tumed to one of his ministers and asked him what he had said. "He
says," replied the minister, quoting a passage from the Koran, "God
loves those who subdue their passions, forgive injuries, and do good
to his creatures." The prince pitied the poor captive, and
countermanded the orders for the execution. Another minister, who
owed a spite to the one who first spoke, said, "Nothing but truth
should be spoken by such persons as we in the presence of the prince;
the captive spoke abusively and insolently, and you have not
interpreted his words truly". The prince frowned and said, "His false
interpretation pleases me more than thy true one, because his was
given for a good, and thine for a malignant, purpose; and wise men
have said that 'a peace-making lie is better than a factious or anger
exciting truth'."'[22]

He who would too fastidiously condemn this doctrine should think of
the massacre of Thessalonica, and how much better it would have been
for the great Theodosius to have had by his side the peace-making
Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, than the anger-exciting Rufinus, when
he heard of the offence which that city had committed.[23]

In despotic governments, where lives, characters, and liberties are
every moment at the mercy, not only of the prince but of all his
public officers from the highest to the lowest, the occasions in
which men feel authorized and actually called upon by the common
feelings of humanity to tell 'peacemaking lies' occur every day--nay,
every hour, every petty officer of government, 'armed with his little
brief authority', is a little tyrant surrounded by men whose all
depends upon his will, and who dare not tell him the truth--the
'point of honour' in this little circle demands that every one should
be prepared to tell him 'peace-making lies'; and the man who does not
do so when the occasion seems to call for it, incurs the odium of the
whole circle, as one maliciously disposed to speak 'anger-exciting or
factions truths'. Poor Cromwell and Anne Boleyn were obliged to talk
of _love_ and _duty_ toward their brutal murderer, Henry VIII, and
tell 'peace-making lies' on the scaffold to save their poor children
from his resentment. European gentlemen in India often, by their
violence surround themselves with circles of the same kind, in which
the 'point of honour' demands that every member shall be prepared to
tell 'peace-making lies', to save the others from the effects of
their master's ungovernable passions--falsehood is their only
safeguard; and, consequently, falsehood ceases to be odious.
Countenanced in the circles of the violent, falsehood soon becomes
countenanced in those of the mild and forbearing; their domestics
pretend a dread of their anger which they really do not feel; and
they gain credit for having the same good excuse among those who have
no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the real character of the
gentlemen in their domestic relations--all are thought to be more or
less _tigerish_ in these relations, particularly _before breakfast_,
because some are _known_ to be so.[24]

I have known the native officers of a judge who was really a very
mild and worthy man, but who lived a very secluded life, plead as
their excuse for all manner of bribery and corruption, that their
persons and character were never safe from his violence; and urge
that men whose tenure of office was very insecure, and who were every
hour in the day exposed to so much indignity, could not possibly be
blamed for making the most of their position. The society around
believed all this, and blamed, not the native officers, but the
judge, or the Government, who placed them in such a situation. Other
judges and magistrates have been known to do what this person was
merely reported to do, otherwise society would neither have given
credit to his officers nor have held them excused for their
malpractices.[25] Those European gentlemen who allow their passions
to get the better of their reason among their domestics do much to
lower the character of their countrymen in the estimation of the
people; but the high officials who forget what they owe to themselves
and the native officers of their courts, when presiding on the bench
of justice, do ten thousand times more; and I grieve to say that I
have known a few officials of this class.

We have in England known many occasions, particularly in the cases of
prosecutions by the officers of Government for offences against the
State, where little circles of society have made it a 'point of
honour' for some individuals to speak untruths, and for others to
give verdicts against their consciences; some occasions indeed where
those who ventured to speak the truth, or give a verdict according to
their conscience, were in danger from the violence of popular
resentment. Have we not, unhappily, in England and among our
countrymen in all parts of the world, experience of a wide difference
between what is exacted from members of particular circles of society
by the 'point of honour', and what is held to be strict religions
truth by the rest of society? Do we not see gentlemen cheating their
tradesmen, while they dare not leave a gambling debt unpaid? The
'point of honour' in the circle to which they belong demands that the
one should be paid, because the non-payment would involve a breach of
faith in their relations with each other, as in the case of the
members of a gang of robbers; but the non-payment of a tradesman's
bill involves only a breach of faith in a gentleman's relations with
a lower order. At least, some gentlemen do not feel any apprehension
of incurring the odium of the circle in which they move by cheating
of this kind. In the same manner the roue, or libertine of rank, may
often be guilty of all manner of falsehoods and crimes to the females
of the class below him, without any fear of incurring the odium of
either males or females of his own circle; on the contrary, the more
crimes he commits of this sort, the more sometimes he may expect to
be caressed by males and females of his own order. The man who would
not hesitate a moment to destroy the happiness of a family by the
seduction of the wife or the daughter, would not dare to leave one
shilling of a gambling debt unpaid--the one would bring down upon him
the odium of his circle, but the other would not; and the odium of
that circle is the only kind of odium he dreads. Appius Claudius
apprehended no odium from his own order--the patrician--from the
violation of the daughter of Virginius, of the plebeian order; nor
did Sextus Tarquinius of the royal order, apprehend any from the
violation of Lucretia, of the patrician order--neither would have
been punished by their own order, but they were both punished by the
injured orders below them.

Our own penal code punished with death the poor man who stole a
little food to save his children from starvation, while it left to
exult in the caresses of his own order, the wealthy libertine who
robbed a father and mother of their only daughter, and consigned her
to a life of infamy and misery. The poor victim of man's brutal
passions and base falsehood suffered inevitable and exquisite
punishment, while the laws and usages of society left the man himself
untouched. He had nothing to apprehend if the father of his victim
happened to be of the lower order, or a minister of the Church of
Christ; because his own order would justify his refusing to meet the
one in single combat, and the other dared not invite him to it, and
the law left no remedy.[26]

Take the two parties in England into which society is politically
divided. There is hardly any species of falsehood uttered by the
members of the party out of power against the members of the party in
power that is not tolerated and even applauded by one party; men
state deliberately what they know to be utterly devoid of truth
regarding the conduct of their opponent; they basely ascribe to them
motives by which they know they were never actuated, merely to
deceive the public, and to promote the interests of their party,
without the slightest fear of incurring odium by so doing in the
minds of any but their political opponents. If a foreigner were to
judge of the people of England from the tone of their newspapers, he
would say that there was assuredly neither honour, honesty, nor truth
to be found among the classes which furnished the nation with its
ministers and legislators; for a set of miscreants more atrocious
than the Whig and Tory ministers and legislators of England were
represented to be in these papers never disgraced the society of any
nation upon earth.

Happily, all foreigners who read these journals know that in what the
members of one party say of those of the other, or are reported to
say, there is often but little truth; and that there is still less of
truth in what the editors and correspondents of the ultra journals of
one party write about the characters, conduct, and sentiments of the
members of the other.

There is one species of untruth to which we English people are
particularly prone in India, and, I am assured, everywhere else. It
is this. Young 'miss in her teens', as soon as she finds her female
attendants in the wrong, no matter in what way, exclaims, 'It is so
like the natives'; and the idea of the same error, vice, or crime,
becomes so habitually associated in her mind with every native she
afterwards sees, that she can no more separate them than she can the
idea of ghosts and hobgoblins from darkness and solitude. The young
cadet or civilian, as soon as he finds his valet, butler, or groom in
the wrong, exclaims, 'It is so like blacky--so like the niggers; they
are all alike!' And what could you expect from him? He has been
constantly accustomed to the same vicious association of ideas in his
native land--if he has been brought up in a family of Tories, he has
constantly heard those he most reverenced exclaim, when they have
found, or fancied they found, a Whig in the wrong, 'It is so like the
Whigs--they are all alike--there is no trusting any of them.' If a
Protestant, 'It is so like the Catholics; there is no trusting them
in any condition of life.' The members of Whig and Catholic families
may say the same, perhaps, of Tories and Protestants. An untravelled
Englishman will sometimes say the same of a Frenchman; and the idea
of everything that is bad in man will be associated in his mind with
the image of a Frenchman. If he hears of an act of dishonour by a
person of that nation, 'It is so like a Frenchman--they are all
alike; there is no honour in them.' A Tory goes to America,
predisposed to find in all who live under republican governments
every species of vice and crime; and no sooner sees a man or woman
misbehave than he exclaims, 'It is so like the Americans--they are
all alike; but what could you expect from republicans?' At home, when
he considers himself in relation to the members of the parties
opposed to him in religion or politics, they are associated in his
mind with everything that is vicious; abroad, when he considers the
people of other countries in relation to his own, if they happen to
be Christians, he will find them associated in his mind with
everything that is good, or everything that is bad, in proportion as
their institutions happen to conform to those which his party
advocates. A Tory will abuse America and Americans, and praise the
Austrians. A Whig will, _perhaps_, abuse the Austrians and others who
live under paternal or despotic governments, and praise the
Americans, who live under institutions still more free than his own.
This has properly been considered by Locke as a species of madness
to which all mankind are more or less subject, and from which hardly
any individual can entirely free himself. 'There is', he says,
'scarce a man so free from it, but that if he should always, on all
occasions, argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, would not
be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here
mean when he is under the power of an unruly passion, but in the
steady, calm course of his life. That which thus captivates their
reason, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from common sense will,
when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of. Some
independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are, by education,
custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in their
minds, that they always appear there together, and they can no more
separate them in their thoughts than if they were but one idea, and
they operate as if they really were so.' (Book II, Chap. 33.)

Perjury had long since ceased to be considered disgraceful, or even
discreditable, among the patrician order in Rome before the soldiers
ventured to break their oaths of allegiance. Military service had,
from the ignorance and selfishness of this order, been rendered
extremely odious to free-born Romans; and they frequently mutinied
and murdered their generals, though they would not desert, because
they had sworn not to do so. To break his oath by deserting the
standards of Rome was to incur the hatred and contempt of the great
mass of the people--the soldier dared not hazard this. But patricians
of senatorial and consular rank did not hesitate to violate their
oaths whenever it promised any advantage to the patrician order
collectively or individually, because it excited neither contempt nor
indignation in that order. 'They have been false to their generals,'
said Fabius, 'but they have never deceived the gods. I know they
_can_ conquer, and they shall swear to do so.' They swore, and
conquered.

Instead of adopting measures to make the duties of a soldier less
odious, the patricians tumed their hatred of these duties to account,
and at a high price sold an absolution from their oath. While the
members of the patrician order bought and sold oaths among themselves
merely to deceive the lower orders, they were still respected among
the plebeians; but when they began to sell dispensations to the
members of this lower order, the latter also, by degrees, ceased to
feel any veneration for the oath, and it was no longer deemed
disgraceful to desert duties which the higher order made no effort to
render less odious.

'That they who draw the breath of life in a court, and pass all their
days in an atmosphere of lies, should have any very sacred regard for
truth, is hardly to be expected. They experience such falsehood in
all who surround them, that deception, at least suppression of the
truth, almost seems necessary for self-defence; and, accordingly, if
their speech be not framed upon the theory of the French cardinal,
that language was given to man for the better concealment of his
thoughts, they at least seem to regard in what they say, not its
resemblance to the tact in question, but rather its subserviency to
the purpose in view.' (Brougham's _George IV._) 'Yet, let it never be
forgotten, that princes are nurtured in falsehood by the atmosphere
of lies which envelops their palace; steeled against natural
sympathies by the selfish natures of all that surround them; hardened
in cruelty, partly indeed by the fears incident to their position,
but partly too by the unfeeling creatures, the factions, the
unnatural productions of a court whom alone they deal with; trained
for tyrants by the prostration which they find in all the minds which
they come in contact with; encouraged to domineer by the unresisting
medium through which all their steps to power and its abuse are
made.' (Brougham's _Carnot_.)

But Lord Brougham is too harsh. Johnson has observed truly enough,
'Honesty is not necessarily greater where elegance is less'; nor does
a sense of supreme or despotic power necessarily imply the exercise
or abuse of it. Princes have, happily, the same yearning as the
peasant after the respect and affection of the circle around them,
and the people under them; and they must generally seek it by the
same means.

I have mentioned the village communities of India as that class of
the population among whom truth prevails most; but I believe there is
no class of men in the world more strictly honourable in their
dealings than the mercantile classes of India. Under native
governments a merchant's books were appealed to as 'holy writ', and
the confidence in them has certainly not diminished under our rule.
There have been instances of their being seized by the magistrate,
and subjected to the inspection of the officers of his court. No
officer of a native government ventured to seize them; the merchant
was required to produce them as proof of particular entries, and,
while the officers of government did no more, there was no danger of
false accounts.

An instance of deliberate fraud or falsehood among native merchants
of respectable station in society is extremely rare. Among the many
hundreds of bills I have had to take from them for private
remittances, I have never had one dishonoured, or the payment upon
one delayed beyond the day specified; nor do I recollect ever hearing
of one who had. They are so careful not to speculate beyond their
means, that an instance of failure is extremely rare among them. No
one ever in India hears of families reduced to ruin or distress by
the failure of merchants or bankers; though here, as in all other
countries advanced in the arts, a vast number of families subsist
upon the interest of money employed by them.[27]

There is no class of men more interested in the stability of our rule
in India than this of the respectable merchants; nor is there any
upon whom the welfare of our Government and that of the people more
depend. Frugal, first upon principle, that they may not in their
expenditure encroach upon their capitals, they become so by habit;
and when they advance in life they lay out their accumulated wealth
in the formation of those works which shall secure for them, from
generation to generation, the blessings of the people of the towns in
which they have resided, and those of the country around. It would
not be too much to say that one-half of the great works which
embellish and enrich the face of India, in tanks, groves, wells,
temples, &c., have been formed by this class of the people solely
with the view of securing the blessings of mankind by contributing to
their happiness in solid and permanent works.[28] 'The man who has
left behind him great works in temples, bridges, reservoirs, and
caravanserais for the public good, does not die,' says Shaikh
Sadi,[29] the greatest of Eastern poets, whose works are more read
and loved than those of any other uninspired man that has ever
written, not excepting our own beloved Shakspeare.[30] He is as much
loved and admired by Hindoos as by Muhammadans; and from boyhood to
old age he continues the idol of the imaginations of both. The boy of
ten, and the old man of seventy, alike delight to read and quote him
for the music of his verses, and the beauty of his sentiments,
precepts, and imagery.[31]

It was to the class last mentioned, whose incomes are derived from
the profits of stock invested in manufactures and commerce, that
Europe chiefly owed its rise and progress after the downfall of the
Roman Empire, and the long night of darkness and desolation which
followed it. It was through the means of mercantile industry, and the
municipal institutions to which it gave rise, that the enlightened
sovereigns of Europe were enabled to curb the licence of the feudal
aristocracy, and to give to life, property, and character that
security without which society could not possibly advance; and it was
through the same means that the people were afterwards enabled to put
those limits to the authority of the sovereign, and to secure to
themselves that share in the government without which society could
not possibly be free or well constituted. Upon the same foundation
may we hope to raise a superstructure of municipal corporations and
institutions in India, such as will give security and dignity to the
society; and the sooner we begin upon the work the better.[32]

Notes:

1. Johnson says: 'Mountaineers are thievish because they are poor;
and, having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow rich only by
robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their
neighbours are commonly their enemies; and, having lost that
reverence for property by which the order of civil life is preserved,
soon consider all as enemies whom they do not reckon as friends, and
think themselves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to
protect.' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from _A Journey to the Western
Islands of Scotland_.

The observations in the text apply largely to the settled Hindoo
villages, as well as to the forest tribes.

2. _Ficus religiosa_ is the Linnaean name for the 'pipal'. Other
botanists call it _Urostigma religiosum_. In the original edition the
botanical name is erroneously given as _Ficus indicus_. The _Ficus
indica_ (_F. Bengalensis_, or _Urostigma B._) is the banyan. A story
is current that the traders of a certain town begged the magistrate
to remove a pipal-tree which he had planted in the market-place,
because, so long as it remained, business could not be conducted.
They knew 'the value of a lie'.

3. The red cotton, or silk-cotton, tree, when in spring covered with
its huge magnolia-shaped scarlet blossoms, is one of the most
magnificent objects in nature. Its botanical name is _Salmalia
malabarica_ (_Bombax malabaricum; B. heptaphyllum_). This is the tree
referred to in the text. The white silk-cotton tree (_Eriodendron
anfractuosum; Bombax 'pentandrum; Ceiba pentandra; Gossampinus
Rumphii_) has a more southern habitat. (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd
ed., s.v. 'Salmalia' and 'Eriodendron'.)

4. The pipal is usually regarded as sacred only to Vishnu, the
Preserver. The _Ficus indica_, or banyan, is sacred to Siva, the
Destroyer, and the _Butea frondosa_ (Hind. 'dhak', 'palas', or
'chhyul ') to Brahma, the Creator, or [Greek text].

5. The sacred trees and plants of India are numerous. 'Balfour
(Cyclop., 3rd ed., s.v. 'Sacred') enumerates eighty, and the list is
by no mean complete. The same author's article, 'Tree', may also be
consulted. The minor 'deities' alluded to by the author are the real
gods of popular rural Hinduism. The observations of Mr. William
Crooke, probably the best authority on the subject of Indian popular
religion, though made with reference to a particular locality, are
generally applicable. 'Hinduism certainly shows no signs of weakness,
and is practically untouched by Christian and Muhammadan proselytism.
The gods of the Vedas are as dead as Jupiter, and the Krishna worship
only succeeds from its marvellous adaptability to the sensuous and
romantic side of the native mind. But it would be too much to say
that the creed exercises any real effect on life or morals. With the
majority of its devotees it is probably more sympathetic than
practical, and ranks with the periodical ablutions in the Ganges and
Jumna, and the traditional worship of the local gods and ghosts,
which really impress the rustic. He is enclosed on all sides by a
ring of precepts, which attribute luck or ill-luck to certain things
or actions. These and the bonds of caste, with its obligations for
the performance of marriage, death, and other ceremonies, make up the
religions life of the peasant. Nearly every village and hamlet has
its local ghost, usually the shrine of a childless man, or one whose
funeral rites remained for some reason unperformed. In the expressive
popular phrase, he is 'deprived of water' (_aud_). The pious make
oblations to his cenotaph twice a year, and propitiate his ghost with
offerings of water to allay his thirst in the lower world. The
primaeval serpent-worship is perpetuated in the reverence paid to
traditional village-snakes. Of the local ghosts some are beneficent.
Sometimes they are only mischievous, like Robin Goodfellow, and will
milk the cows, and sour the milk, or pull your hair, if you wander
about at night in certain well-known uncanny places. A more dangerous
demon is heard in the crackling of the dry leaves of the date-tree in
the night wind; and some trees are haunted by a vampire, who will
drag you up and devour you, if you venture near them in the
darkness.' (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. vii. _Supplement_, p.
4.) See also the same author's work _Popular Religion and Folklore of
Northern India_, 2nd ed., 2 vols. Constable, 1896.