Tales of Bengal | Page 4

in a state of suppressed revolt. One centre of the insidious
agitation is the fell goddess Káli's shrine near Calcutta; another is Puna,
which has for centuries been a stronghold of the clannish Máráthá
Brahmans. Railways have given a mighty impetus to religion by
facilitating access to places of pilgrimage; the post office keeps
disaffected elements in touch; and English has become a lingua franca.
While Brahminism, if it dared, could proclaim a religious war, it has
powerful enemies within the hierarchy. A desire for social recognition
is universal. It was the Patricians' refusal to intermarry with Plebeians
that caused the great constitutional struggles of Ancient Rome. Many
of the lowest castes are rebelling against Brahmin arrogance. They have
waxed rich by growing lucrative staples, and a strong minority are

highly educated. Mystical sects have already thrown off the priestly
yoke. But caste is by no means confined to races of Indian blood. What
is the snobbery which degrades our English character but the
Indo-German Sudra's reverence for his Brahmin? The Europeans
constitute a caste which possesses some solidarity against "natives,"
and they have spontaneously adopted these anti-social distinctions. At
the apex stand covenanted civilians; whose service is now practically a
close preserve for white men. It is split into the Secretariat, who enjoy a
superb climate plus Indian pay and furlough, and the "rank and file"
doomed to swelter in the plains. Esprit de corps, which is the life-blood
of caste, has vanished. Officers of the Educational Service, recruited
from the same social strata, rank as "uncovenanted"; and a sense of
humiliation reacts on their teaching.
The Land.--In 1765 Clive secured for the East India Company the right
of levying land-tax in Bengal. It was then collected by zemindars, a few
of whom were semi-independent nobles, and the rest mere farmers of
revenue, who bid against one another at the periodical settlements.
Tenant right apart, the conception of private property in the soil was
inconceivable to the Indian mind. Every one knows that it was
borrowed by English lawyers from the Roman codes, when
commercialism destroyed the old feudal nexus. Lord Cornwallis's
permanent Settlement of 1793 was a revolution as drastic in its degree
as that which Prance was undergoing. Zemindars were presented with
the land for which they had been mere rakers-in of revenue. It was
parcelled out into "estates," which might be bought and sold like
moveable property. A tax levied at customary rates became "rent"
arrived at by a process of bargaining between the landlord and ignorant
rustics. The Government demand was fixed for ever, but no attempt
was made to safeguard the ryot's interests. Cornwallis and his
henchmen fondly supposed that they were manufacturing magnates of
the English type, who had made our agriculture a model for the world.
They were grievously mistaken. Under the cast-iron law of sale most of
the original zemindars lost their estates, which passed into the hands of
parvenus saturated with commercialism. Bengal is not indebted to its
zemindars for any of the new staples which have created so vast a
volume of wealth. They are content to be annuitants on the land, and
sub-infeudation has gone to incredible lengths. Most of them are

absentees whose one thought is to secure a maximum of unearned
increment from tillers of the soil. In 1765 the land revenue amounted to
£3,400,000, of which £258,000 was allotted to zemindars. A century
afterwards their net profits were estimated at £12,000,000, and they are
now probably half as much again. The horrible oppression described by
Mr. Banerjea is impossible in our era of law-courts, railways and
newspapers. But it is always dangerous to bring the sense of
brotherhood, on which civilisation depends, into conflict with crude
animal instincts. In days of American slavery the planter's interest
prompted him to treat his human cattle with consideration, yet Simon
Legrees were not unknown. It is a fact that certain zemindars are in the
habit of remeasuring their ryots' holdings periodically, and always
finding more land than was set forth in the lease.
The Police.--A pale copy of Sir Robert Peel's famous system was
introduced in 1861, when hosts of inspectors, sub-inspectors and head
constables were let loose on Bengal. The new force was highly
unpopular, and failed to attract the educated classes. Subaltern officers,
therefore, used power for private ends, while the masses were so inured
to oppression that they offered no resistance. There has been a marked
improvement in the personnel of late years; and Mr. Banerjea's lurid
pictures of corruption and petty tyranny apply to a past generation of
policemen. The Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal does justice to
a much-abused service in his Administrative Report for 1907-8. His
Honour "believes the force to be a hard-working body of Government
servants, the difficulties, trials, and even dangers of