Tales of Bengal | Page 5

whose duties it is
impossible for the public at large really to appreciate". He
acknowledges that "India is passing through a period of transition. Old
pre-possessions and unscientific methods must be cast aside, and the
value of the confession must be held at a discount." Bengal policemen
fail as egregiously as their British colleagues in coping with
professional crime. Burglary is a positive scourge, and the habit of
organising gang-robberies has spread to youths of the middle class.
Education.--Though Mr. Banerjea has no experience of the inner
working of our Government offices, he speaks on education with an
expert's authority. Lord Macaulay, who went to India in 1834 as legal
member of Council, was responsible for the introduction of English as
the vehicle of instruction. He had gained admission to the caste of

Whigs, whose battle-cry was "Knowledge for the People," and his
brilliant rhetoric overpowered the arguments of champions of oriental
learning. Every one with a smattering of Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian,
regrets the fact that those glorious languages have not been adequately
cultivated in modern India. Bengali is a true daughter of the Sanskrit; it
has Italian sweetness and German capacity for expressing abstract ideas.
No degree of proficiency in an alien tongue can compensate for the
neglect of the vernacular. Moreover, the curriculum introduced in the
"thirties" was purely academic. It came to India directly from English
universities, which had stuck fast in the ruts of the Renaissance. Undue
weight was given to literary training, while science and technical skill
were despised. Our colleges and schools do not attempt to build
character on a foundation of useful habits and tastes that sweeten life;
to ennoble ideals, or inspire self-knowledge, self-reliance, and
self-control. Technical education is still in its infancy; and the aesthetic
instinct which lies dormant in every Aryan's brain is unawakened. A
race which invented the loom now invents nothing but grievances. In
1901 Bengal possessed 69,000 schools and colleges, attended by
1,700,000 pupils, yet only one adult male in 10 and one female in 144
can read and write! The Calcutta University is an examining body on
the London model. It does not attempt to enforce discipline in a city
which flaunts every vice known to great seaports and commercial
centres, unmitigated by the social instinct. Nor is the training of
covenanted civilians more satisfactory. In 1909 only 1 out of 50
selected candidates presented himself for examination in Sanskrit or
Arabic! Men go out to India at twenty-four, knowing little of the
ethnology, languages or history, of the races they are about to govern.
Agriculture.--Seventy-two per cent. of the Bengalis live by cultivating
the soil. The vast majority are in the clutches of some local Shylock,
who sweeps their produce into his garners, doling out inadequate
supplies of food and seed grain. Our courts of law are used by these
harpies as engines of oppression; toil as he may the ryot is never free
from debt. The current rates of interest leave no profit from agriculture
or trade. Twelve to 18 per cent. is charged for loans on ample landed
security; and ordinary cultivators are mulcted in 40 to 60. A haunting
fear of civil discord, and purblind conservatism in the commercial
castes, are responsible for the dearth of capital. India imports bullion

amounting to £25,000,000 a year, to the great detriment of European
credit, and nine-tenths of it is hoarded in the shape of ornaments or
invested in land, which is a badge of social rank. Yet the Aryan nature
is peculiarly adapted to co-operation. If facilities for borrowing at
remunerative rates existed in towns, agricultural banks on the
Schulze-Delitzsch and Raiffeisen systems would soon overspread the
land. Credit and co-operative groupings for the purchase of seed,
fertilisers and implements, are the twin pillars of rural industry. Indian
ryots are quite as receptive of new ideas as English farmers. They
bought many thousands of little iron sugar mills, placed on the market a
generation back by some English speculators, and will adopt any
improvements of practical value if the price is brought within their
slender means.
The revolution which began a decade ago in America has not spread to
Bengal, where the average yield of grain per acre is only 10 bushels as
compared with 30 in Europe. Yet it has been calculated that another
bushel would defray the whole cost of Government! Bengalis obey the
injunction "increase and multiply" without regard for consequences.
Their habitat has a population of 552 per square mile, and in some
districts the ratio exceeds 900. Clearly there is a pressing need of
scientific agriculture, to replace or supplement the rule-of-thumb
methods in which the ryot is a past master.
The Bengali Character.--Mr. Banerjea has lifted a corner of the veil that
guards the Indian's home from prying eyes.