It is amazing what wealth of
information one can dig out from the old mines of books written in the bygone
era. It throws some fascinating facts about a culture or people, which one
takes just for granted.
The study of the bureaucratic government
run by Indian Civil Service (ICS) during the British Raj, the predecessor of
the present Indian Administrative Service (IAS), throws such interesting insights
that today for an Indian living or governing in India, it would occur as if it
is a myth created by a ‘foreign hand!’
One has always wondered how and why
the District Collector (Collector Sahib) in Indian administration has become
such an important personnel. See it from the perspective of the writers of
yesteryear, it will become clear why.
Bernard Houghton, an ICS officer
writes in 1913[1] that
the Collector was the keystone of administration and exercised unchecked power.
They ruled like kings and could have been arrogant. For there was no possible
appeal against his orders. Without roads and the impossibility of reaching the
next higher officer, the people learnt to live with the devil at hand.
It makes sense for the people to keep
the man on the field happy by obeying him, especially as he represented the
Government for the poor village man. Only when railway tracts were laid in and
telegraphic poles were set, around 1853 and 1870 respectively, communication
between distant places became possible in India.
Higher officers also supported the
man on the spot and went with the recommendations of the Collector, for
inspection tours were at the most painful and time-consuming. As long as the
Collector kept the peace, administered justice and collected the revenues, he
was left free to govern!
In the late 70s and 80s, when we were
collectors in the districts, such respect and freedom were still evident.
However, the situation today in the field has undergone drastic changes.
Collectors have become, with exceptions, the tools of powerful politicians in
the district headquarters or the State capitals.
The young recruits to ICS had a
problem. The deference and adulation of even the educated Indians, ‘the cringing
obsequiousness of the baser sort,’ made him think he was really a great man!
People around him worshiped him and this could get into anyone’s head. Even
today our people walk behind a man of power or money or authority, hoping for
crumbs to fall from his table.
Bernard noted that Indian religion
had inculcated obedience to a divine authority, which got transcribed to the
earthly rulers. The prevalent religions in India, Bernard says, had created a
habit of mind of docility towards mundane superiors, which was of course
fostered and enjoyed by the British rulers. It was ‘an attitude of passive
obedience.’ It inculcates submission and resignation among the populace.
Even today an Indian will show prompt
obedience to a man of authority, even if that despot was to be in the wrong.
There is not much of a spirit to fight against the evils in the system.
Bernard further goes on to say, the
Hindu religion, through caste, has played havoc in that no personal dignity or
self-respect was shown to the underdogs, the ‘untouchables.’ They were allowed
no human dignity, but were born to servitude and to subjugation. “It really
cuts away manhood from the nation.”
True, isn’t it? Doesn’t it reflect
the reality even today? When research scholars like Rohit Vemula committed
suicide, (in January 2016), not able to bear the discrimination in the
education institutions, has things changed very much even after some 100 years
and after independence? Not really.
The other observation that Bernard
makes is that the family system of India emasculates and perverts the
self-respect of both the sexes. I have covered this in many of my earlier
blogs.
An individual’s rights or desires or
aims or goals or ambitions for his or her life are not given importance to, but
almost always sacrificed at the altar of parental desires or the community’s wishes.
With the result no individual is able to progress beyond a limit. To defy the
parents and the caste regulations, it takes a lot of guts and mostly it is not
forthcoming.
Though through mass media, Western
concepts of importance of individuality for progress is filtering in, the
majority in India still wallow under parental and caste restrictions. Many a
lives are wasted as a result.
This docility is also a reason, the
author points out, why foreign despots and the British themselves found in
India a congenial soil to grow. He says, nations advance and a people become
great, not by being docile and submissive, but by the free play of aspiration
and thought and the liberty to progress in a self-respecting independence of
spirit.
It is a sin against humanity to keep
a people under ignorance and obedience to authority and such a culture can
hardly produce great men and women or become a great nation. That was the
situation in which Gandhi found India, when he entered politics in 1917 and
much of it has not really changed even today in the country.
The day when such fundamental changes
comes to India, will be the day of her liberation, not just politically, but
also culturally and spiritually.
[1] Bernard
Houghton, “Bureaucratic Government: A Study in Indian polity,” London: P.S.
King and Sons, 1913.
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