Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

W >> William Sleeman >> Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68

36. Vegetius, _De Re Militari_, Lib. iii, cap. 4, If corporal
punishment be retained at all, it should be limited to the two
offences I have already mentioned; [W. H. S.] namely, (l) mutiny or
gross insubordination, (2) plunder or violence in the field or on the
march. (_Ante_, chapter 76, note 6.)

37. Polybius says that 'as the human body is apt to get out of order
under good feeding and little exercise, so are states and armies.'
(Bk. II, chap. 6.)--Wherever food is cheap, and the air good, native
regiments should be well exercised without being worried.

I must here take the liberty to give an extract from a letter from
one of the best and most estimable officers now in the Bengal army:
'As connected with the discipline of the native army, I may here
remark that I have for some years past observed on the part of many
otherwise excellent commanding officers a great want of attention to
the instruction of the young European officers on first joining their
regiments. I have had ample opportunities of seeing the great value
of a regular course of instruction drill for at least six months.
When I joined my first regiment, which was about forty years ago, I
had the good fortune to be under a commandant and adjutant who,
happily for me and many others, attached great importance to this
very necessary course of instruction, I then acquired a thorough
knowledge of my duties, which led to my being appointed an adjutant
very early in life. When I attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel I
had, however, opportunities of observing how very much this essential
duty had been neglected in certain regiments, and made it a rule in
all that I commanded to keep all young officers on first joining at
the instruction drill till thoroughly grounded in their duties. Since
I ceased to command a regiment, I have taken advantage of every
opportunity to express to those commanding officers with whom I have
been in correspondence my conviction of the great advantages of this
system to the rising generation. In going from one regiment to
another I found many curious instances of ignorance on the part of
young officers who had been many years with their corps. It was by no
means an easy task to convince them that they really knew nothing, or
at least had a great deal to learn; but when they were made sensible
of it, they many of them turned out excellent officers, and now, I
believe, bless the day they were first put under me.'

The advantages of the System here mentioned cannot be questioned; and
it is much to be regretted that it is not strictly enforced in every
regiment in the service. Young officers may find it irksome at first;
but they soon become sensible of the advantages, and learn to applaud
the commandant who has had the firmness to consult their permanent
interests more than their present inclinations. [W. H. S.]

38. Among the many changes produced in India by the development of
the railway system and by other causes one of the most striking is
the abolition of small military stations. Almost all these have
disappeared, and the troops are now massed in large cantonments,
where they can be handled much more effectively than in out-stations.
The discipline of small detached bodies of troops is generally liable
to deterioration.

39. Many instances of semi-religious honour paid by natives to the
tombs of Europeans have been noticed.

40. There are, I believe, many Jemadars who still wear medals on
their breasts for their service in the taking of Java and the Isle of
France more than thirty years ago. Indeed, I suspect that some will
be found who accompanied Sir David Baird to Egypt. [W. H. S.] Such
old men must have been perfectly useless as officers. Sir David
Baird' s operations took place in 1801.

41. The rate of pay of Jemadars in the Bengal Native Infantry now is
either forty or fifty rupees monthly. Half of the officers of this
rank in each regiment receive the higher rate. The grievance
complained of by the author has, therefore, been remedied. The pay of
a Havildar is still, or was recently, fourteen rupees a month.

CHAPTER 77

Invalid Establishment.

I have said nothing in the foregoing chapter of the invalid
establishment, which is probably the greatest of all bonds between
the Government and its native army, and consequently the greatest
element in the 'spirit of discipline'. Bonaparte, who was, perhaps,
with all his faults, 'the greatest man that ever floated on the tide
of time', said at Elba, 'There is not even a village that has not
brought forth a general, a colonel, a captain, or a prefect, who has
raised himself by his especial merit, and illustrated at once his
family and his country.' Now we know that the families and the
village communities in which our invalid pensioners reside never read
newspapers,[1] and feel but little interest in the victories in which
these pensioners may have shared. They feel that they have no share
in the _eclat_ or glory which attend them; but they everywhere admire
and respect the government which cherishes its faithful old servants,
and enables them to spend the 'winter of their days' in the bosoms of
their families; and they spurn the man who has failed in his duty
towards that government in the hour of need.

No sepoy taken from the Rajput communities of Oudh or any other part
of the country can hope to conceal from his family circle or village
community any act of cowardice, or anything else which is considered
disgraceful to a soldier, or to escape the odium which it merits in
that circle and community.

In the year 1819 I was encamped near a village in marching through
Oudh, when the landlord, a very cheerful old man, came up to me with
his youngest son, a lad of eighteen years of age, and requested me to
allow him (the son) to show me the best shooting grounds in the
neighbourhood. I took my 'Joe Manton' and went out. The youth showed
me some very good ground, and I found him an agreeable companion, and
an excellent shot with his matchlock. On our return we found the old
man waiting for us. He told me that he had four sons, all by God's
blessing tall enough for the Company's service, in which one had
attained the rank of 'havildar' (sergeant), and two were still
sepoys. Their wives and children lived with him; and they sent home
every month two-thirds of their pay, which enabled him to pay all the
rent of the estate and appropriate the whole of the annual returns to
the subsistence and comfort of the numerous family. He was, he said,
now growing old, and wished his eldest son, the sergeant, to resign
the service and come home to take upon him the management of the
estate; that as soon as he could be prevailed upon to do so, his old
wife would permit my sporting companion, her youngest son, to enlist,
but not before.

I was on my way to visit Fyzabad, the old metropolis of Oudh,[2] and
on returning a month afterwards in the latter end of January, I found
that the wheat, which was all then in ear, had been destroyed by a
severe frost. The old man wept bitterly, and he and his old wife
yielded to the wishes of their youngest son to accompany me and
enlist in my regiment, which was then stationed at Partabgarh.[3]

We set out, but were overtaken at the third stage by the poor old
man, who told me that his wife had not eaten or slept since the boy
left her, and that he must go back and wait for the return of his
eldest brother, or she certainly would not live. The lad obeyed the
call of his parents, and I never saw or heard of the family again.

There is hardly a village in the kingdom of Oudh without families
like this depending upon the good conduct and liberal pay of sepoys
in our infantry regiments, and revering the name of the government
they serve, or have served. Similar villages are to be found
scattered over the provinces of Bihar and Benares, the districts
between the Ganges and Jumna, and other parts where Rajputs and the
other classes from which we draw our recruits have been long
established as proprietors and cultivators of the soil.

These are the feelings on which the spirit of discipline in our
native army chiefly depends, and which we shall, I hope, continue to
cultivate, as we have always hitherto done, with care; and a
commander must take a great deal of pains to make his men miserable,
before he can render them, like the soldiers of Frederick, 'the
irreconcilable enemies of their officers and their government'.

In the year 1817 I was encamped in a grove on the right bank of the
Ganges below Monghyr,[4] when the Marquis of Hastings was proceeding
up the river in his fleet, to put himself at the head of the grand
division of the army then about to take the field against the
Pindharis and their patrons, the Maratha, chiefs. Here I found an old
native pensioner, above a hundred years of age. He had fought under
Lord Clive at the battle of Plassey, A.D. 1757, and was still a very
cheerful, talkative old gentleman, though he had long lost the use of
his eyes. One of his sons, a grey-headed old man, and a Subadar
(captain) in a regiment of native infantry, had been at the taking of
Java,[5] and was now come home on leave to visit his father. Other
sons had risen to the rank of commissioned officers, and their
families formed the aristocracy of the neighbourhood. In the evening,
as the fleet approached, the old gentleman, dressed in his full
uniform of former days as a commissioned officer, had himself taken
out close to the bank of the river, that he might be once more during
his life within sight of a British Commander-in-Chief, though he
could no longer see one. There the old patriarch sat listening with
intense delight to the remarks of the host of his descendants around
him, as the Governor-General's magnificent fleet passed along,[6]
every one fancying that he had caught a glimpse of the great man, and
trying to describe him to the old gentleman, who in return told them
(no doubt for the thousandth time) what sort of a person the great
Lord Clive was. His son, the old Subadar, now and then, with modest
deference, venturing to imagine a resemblance between one or the
other, and his _beau ideal_ of a great man, Lord Lake. Few things in
India have interested me more than scenes like these.

I have no means of ascertaining the number of military pensioners in
England or in any other European nation, and cannot, therefore, state
the proportion which they bear to the actual number of forces kept
up. The military pensioners in our Bengal establishment on the 1st of
May, 1841, were 22,381; and the family pensioners, or heirs of
soldiers killed in action, 1,730; total 24,111, out of an army of
82,027 men. I question whether the number of retired soldiers
maintained at the expense of government bears so large a proportion
to the number actually serving in any other nation on earth.[7] Not
one of the twenty-four thousand has been brought on, or retained
upon, the list from political interest or court favour; every one
receives his pension for long and faithful services, after he has
been pronounced by a board of European surgeons as no longer fit for
the active duties of his profession; or gets it for the death of a
father, husband, or son, who has been killed in the service of
government.

All are allowed to live with their families, and European officers
are stationed at central points in the different parts of the country
where they are most numerous to pay them their stipends every six
months. These officers are at-- 1st, Barrackpore; 2nd, Dinapore; 3rd,
Allahabad; 4th, Lucknow; 5th, Meerut. From these central points they
move twice a year to the several other points within their respective
circles of payment where the pensioners can most conveniently attend
to receive their money on certain days, so that none of them have to
go far, or to employ any expensive means to get it--it is, in fact,
brought home as near as possible to their doors by a considerate and
liberal government.[8]

Every soldier is entitled to a pension when pronounced by a board of
surgeons as no longer fit for the active duties of his profession,
after fifteen years' active service; but to be entitled to the
pension of his rank in the army, he must have served in such rank for
three years. Till he has done so he is entitled only to the pension
of that immediately below it. A sepoy gets four rupees a month, that
is, about one-fourth more than the ordinary wages of common
uninstructed labour throughout the country.[9] But it will be better
to give the rate of pay of the native officers and men of our native
infantry and that of their retired pensions in one table.

TABLE OF THE RATE OF PAY AND RETIRED PENSIONS OF THE NATIVE OFFICERS
AND SOLDIERS OF OUR NATIVE INFANTRY.

_Rank_ _Rate of Pay_ _Rate of_
_per_ _Pension per_
_Mensem._ _Mensem._

_Rupees._ _Rupees._

A Sepoy, or private soldier. (Note.--
After sixteen years' service eight
rupees a month, after twenty years
he gets nine rupees a month) . . 7.0 4.0
A Naik, or corporal . . . . 12.0 7.0
A Havildar, or sergeant . . . . 14.0 7.0
A Jemadar, subaltern commissioned officer 24.8 13.0
Subadar, or Captain . . . . 67.0 25.0
Subadar Major . . . . . 92.0 0.0[a]
A Subadar, after forty years service . 0.0 50.0
A Subadar Bahadur of the Order of British
India, First Class, two rupees a day
extra; Second Class, one Rupee a day
extra. This extra allowance they
enjoy after they retire from the
service during life.[b]

a. I presume this means that no special rate of pension was fixed for
the rank of Subadar Major.

b. The monthly rates of pay and pension now in force for native
officers and men of the Bengal army are as follows:

_Rank_ _Pay._ _Pension._

_Ordinary._ _Superior._ _Ordinary._ _Superior._
_Rs._ _Rs._ _Rs._ _Rs._

Subadar 80 100[c] 30 50
Jemadar 40 50[c] 15 25
Havildar 14 -- 7 12
Naick (naik) 12 -- 7 12
Drummer or Bugler 7 -- 4 7
Sepoy 7 -- 4 7

c. Half of this rank in each regiment receive the higher rate of pay.

The circumstances which, in the estimation of the people, distinguish
the British from all other rulers in India, and make it grow more and
more upon their affections, are these: The security which public
servants enjoy in the tenure of their office; the prospect they have
of advancement by the gradation of rank; the regularity and liberal
scale of their pay; and the provision for old age, when they have
discharged the duties entrusted to them ably and faithfully.[l0] In a
native state almost every public officer knows that he has no chance
of retaining his office beyond the reign of the present minister or
favourite; and that no present minister or favourite can calculate
upon retaining his ascendancy over the mind of his chief for more
than a few months or years. Under us they see secretaries to
government, members of council, and Governors-General themselves
going out and coming into office without causing any change in the
position of their subordinates, or even the apprehension of any
change, as long as they discharge their duties ably and faithfully.

In a native state the new minister or favourite brings with him a
whole host of expectants who must be provided for as soon as he takes
the helm; and if all the favourites of his predecessor do not
voluntarily vacate their offices for them, he either turns them out
without ceremony, or his favourites very soon concoct charges against
them, which causes them to be tumed out in due form, and perhaps put
into jail till they have 'paid the uttermost farthing'. Under us the
Governors-General, members of council, the secretaries of state,[11]
the members of the judicial and revenue boards, all come into office
and take their seats unattended by a single expectant. No native
officer of the revenue or judicial department, who is conscious of
having done his duty ably and honestly, feels the slightest
uneasiness at the change. The consequence is a degree of integrity in
public officers never before known in India, and rarely to be found
in any other country. In the province where I now write,[12] which
consists of six districts, there are twenty-two native judicial
officers, Munsifs, Sadr Amins, and Principal Sadr Amins;[13] and in
the whole province I have never heard a suspicion breathed against
one of them; nor do I believe that the integrity of one of them is at
this time suspected. The only one suspected within the two and a half
years that I have been in the province was, I grieve to say, a
Christian; and he has been removed from office, to the great
satisfaction of the people, and is never to be employed again.[14]
The only department in which our native public servants do not enjoy
the same advantages of security in the tenure of their office,
prospect of rise in the gradation of rank, liberal scale of pay, and
provision for old age, is the police; and it is admitted on all hands
that there they are everywhere exceedingly corrupt. Not one of them,
indeed, ever thinks it possible that he can be supposed honest; and
those who really are so are looked upon as a kind of martyrs or
penitents, who are determined by long suffering to atone for past
crimes; and who, if they could not get into the police, would
probably go long pilgrimages on all fours, or with unboiled peas in
their shoes.[15]

He who can suppose that men so inadequately paid, who have no
promotion to look forward to, and feel no security in their tenure of
office, and consequently no hope of a provision for old age, will be
zealous and honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very
imperfectly acquainted with human nature--with the motives by which
men are influenced all over the world. Indeed, no man does in reality
suppose so; on the contrary, every man knows that the same motives
actuate public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted
successfully upon this knowledge in all other branches of the public
service, and shall, I trust, at no distant period act upon the same
in that of the police; and then, and not till then, can it prove to
the people what we must all wish it to be, a blessing.

The European magistrate of a district has, perhaps, a million of
people to look after.[16] The native officers next under him are the
Thanadars of the different subdivisions of the district, containing
each many towns and villages, with a population of perhaps one
hundred thousand people. These officers have no grade to look forward
to, and get a salary of _twenty-five rupees a month each_.[17]

They cannot possibly do their duties unless they keep each a couple
of horses or ponies, with servants to attend to them; indeed, they
are told so by every magistrate who cares about the peace of his
district. The people, seeing how much we expect from the Thanadar,
and how little we give him, submit to his demands for contribution
without a murmur, and consider almost any demand venial from a man so
employed and paid. They are confounded at our inconsistency, and say,
where they dare to speak their minds, 'We see you giving high
salaries and high prospects of advancement to men who have nothing on
earth to do but to collect your revenues and to decide our disputes
about pounds, shillings, and pence, which we used to decide much
better among ourselves when we had no other court but that of our
elders to appeal to; while those who are to protect life and
property, to keep peace over the land, and enable the industrious to
work in security, maintain their families and pay the government
revenue, are left without any prospect of rising, and almost without
any pay at all.'

There is really nothing in our rule in India which strikes the people
so much as this glaring inconsistency, the evil effects of which are
so great and so manifest. The only way to remedy the evil is to give
the police what the other branches of the public service already
enjoy--a feeling of security in the tenure of office, a higher rate
of salary, and, above all, a gradation of rank which shall afford a
prospect of rising to those who discharge their duties ably and
honestly. For this purpose all that is required is the interposition
of an officer between the Thanadar and the magistrate, in the same
way as the Sadr Amin is now interposed between the Munsif and the
Judge.[18] On an average there are, perhaps, twelve Thanas, or police
subdivisions, in each district, and one such officer to every four
Thanas would be sufficient for all purposes. The Governor-General who
shall confer this boon on the people of India will assuredly be
hailed as one of their greatest benefactors.[19] I should, I believe,
speak within bounds when I say that the Thanadars throughout the
country give at present more than all the money which they receive in
avowed salaries from government as a share of indirect perquisites to
the native officers of the magistrate's court, who have to send their
reports to them, and communicate their orders, and prepare the cases
of the prisoners they may send in for commitment to the Sessions
courts.[20] The intermediate officers here proposed would obviate all
this; they would be to the magistrate at once the _tapis_ of Prince
Husain and the telescope of Prince Ali--media that would enable them
to be everywhere and see everything.

I may here seem to be 'travelling beyond the record', but it is not
so. In treating on the spirit of military discipline in our native
army I advocate, as much as in me lies, the great general principle
upon which rests, I think, not only our _power_ in India, but what is
more, the _justification of that power_. It is our wish, as it is our
interest, to give to the Hindoos and Muhammadans a liberal share in
all the duties of administration, in all offices, civil and military,
and to show the people in general the incalculable advantages of a
strong and settled government, which can secure life, property, and
character, and the free enjoyment of all their blessings throughout
the land; and give to those who perform duties as public servants
ably and honestly a sure prospect of rising by gradation, a feeling
of security in their tenure of office, a liberal salary while they
serve, and a respectable provision for old age.

It is by a steady adherence to these principles that the Indian Civil
Service has been raised to its present high character for integrity
and ability; and the native army made what it really is, faithful and
devoted to its rulers, and ready to serve them in any quarter of the
world.[21] I deprecate any innovation upon these principles in the
branches of the public service to which they have already been
applied with such eminent success; and I advocate their extension to
all other branches as the surest means of making them what they ought
and what we must all most fervently wish them to be.

The native officers of our judicial and revenue establishments, or of
our native army, are everywhere a bond of union between the governing
and the governed.[22] Discharging everywhere honestly and ably their
duties to their employers, they tend everywhere to secure to them the
respect and affection of the people. His Highness Muhammad S'aid
Khan, the reigning Nawab of Rampur, still talks with pride of the
days when he was one of our Deputy Collectors in the adjoining
district of Badaon, and of the useful knowledge he acquired in that
office.[23] He has still one brother a Sadr Amin in the district of
Mainpuri, and another a Deputy Collector in the Hamirpur District;
and neither would resign his situation under the Honourable Company
to take office in Rampur at three times the rate of salary, when
invited to do so on the accession of the eldest brother to the
'masnad'. What they now enjoy they owe to their own industry and
integrity; and they are proud to serve a government which supplies
them with so many motives for honest exertion, and leaves them
nothing to fear, as long as they exert themselves honestly. To be in
a situation which it is generally understood that none but honest and
able men can fill[24] is of itself a source of pride, and the sons of
native princes and men of rank, both Hindoo and Muhammadan,
everywhere prefer taking office in our judicial and revenue
establishments to serving under native rulers, where everything
depends entirely upon the favour or frown of men in power, and
ability, industry, and integrity can secure nothing.[25]