India Under Ripon: A Private Diary

“In the evening Nawab Rasul Yar Khan, who after all had not been at the breakfast, came to see me, a good little alem of the Azhar type one knows so well in Egypt, liberal, socialistic, and an enthusiastic disciple of Jemal-ed-Din’s. He knows no English, but is learned in Persian, and to some extent in Arabic. In this last we conversed. He tells me the majority of the Mohammedans here are Sunnis, but there is little difference between them and the Shiahs, and no ill-feeling. The mass of the people are quite ignorant of all that goes on outside the Deccan, but they had heard of the Egyptian War, and had sympathized with Arabi. Of Lord Ripon and the disputes in India only those who knew English and could read the English papers had heard anything. He himself knew very little. There was no religious learning here, nor any body of learned men. In all India you would not find a teacher like Jemal-ed-Din. He produced with reverence out of his pocket a photograph of the Afghan Sheykh, and also a copy of the ‘Abu Nadara,’ in which my portrait had appeared, and he read out to us the poetry written under it. I asked him if there was no Mohammedan newspaper published here, and he said there was one. But when I gave him a copy of my Colombo speech for it, he was frightened, and asked whether the English Government would not be very angry. I like this little man extremely. He promised to call again on Monday.

“2nd Dec.– Ik Balet Dowlah (Vikar-el-Omra) called; he is of Salar Jung’s party, and a liberal, opposed to his brother Kurshid Jah (Shems-el-Omra), a conservative, and the directing spirit of the Peishkar party. The Residency, of course, supports the Peishkar party, as they get more power by working through the reactionaries opposed to reform, – precisely as in Egypt. Cordery is doing what he can to get rid of the clever young Mohammedans introduced from the north by the late Salar Jung. The ablest of these is Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami. Cordery sent for him this morning to tell him that he should leave Hyderabad as soon as possible, such was the Resident’s will. The arbitrary power of the Resident here is beyond belief. I notice that Ik Balet Dowlah trembled before the little red-faced Cordery like a boy. Seyd Huseyn does not tremble, but he will be obliged to go all the same. We had luncheon with him and his brothers to-day, all very clever men, as also with Mulvi Cheragh Ali, who is looked upon here as a member of the sect nicknamed ‘of nature’ by the old-fashioned Mohammedans, because they advocate a reformation political, social, and religious, on the lines described in my ‘Future of Islam’ three years ago. Only he thinks the present Sultan and Caliph might carry it into operation. This is because he has never visited Constantinople, and so does not know how hopeless that hope is. With these young men – and we discussed all these questions – one can talk as freely as with Englishmen. And I am not surprised at Cordery’s being afraid of them. The excuse for getting rid of them is that they are strangers here, which is true, for they are Delhi men. I doubt if Cordery is pleased at our going to their house.

“We went this evening at sundown to see the flying fox rookery in the Residency grounds. It was the most curious sight imaginable. All day long they hang, many hundreds of them together, head downwards from the branches, making the whole of the great tree look as if it were infected with some horrible blight. They are very large, having a spread of nearly three feet across the wings, but in the day time these are folded up. As the sun goes down and it begins to darken, they one by one awaken and stretch and scratch themselves, and at last one lets down a wing and a leg, and drops from his perch, and flaps away just like a great crow, and is followed by another and another, till there are thousands in the air, all going off in the same direction to some fruit garden which they know, and which they spend the night in pillaging.

“We dined with Major Clerk, already mentioned as the Nizam’s tutor. Cordery is trying to get rid of him, too, as he is an independent man, and is honest in looking to the Nizam’s interests instead of those of the Calcutta Foreign Office.

“3rd Dec.– Breakfast in the city with Sultan Nawaiz Jung, another of the Arabs resident here, who is, I find, actual Prince of Shehr Makalla in Hadramaut. Nearly all the Arabs at Hyderabad have come originally from the south-east coast of Arabia. He received us with great pomp, having soldiers of his own in chocolate uniforms, and sent a smart carriage with an escort of lancers to fetch us from the Residency. His house is in the City, a very pretty one, with palm trees growing in an inner court, painted carving, and a fountain. The dinner, however, was disappointing, being in the Anglo-Indian style, which is one of the worst schools of cookery in the world. Sultan Nawaiz is known in Arabia as El Kaiti, and has a poor reputation there, having gained his wealth and present principality with British aid by money-lending. Here, too, he is a money-lender, and at the Residency they say that the Hyderabad Government owes him thirty lakhs of rupees. He belongs to the Peishkar party, and talked at breakfast in terms of great ‘loyalty’ to the British Empire. This he may well do, as our Government supported his claims at Makalla, deporting his rival and victim to Zanzibar. He is not a pure bred Arab, and talks Arabic with some difficulty.

“In the afternoon we were taken by Cordery to the races, where we were presented to the Nizam, a shy little young man of sixteen, with a rather awkward manner. Salar Jung, who is twenty-two and over six feet high, stood imposingly beside him. The races were of a gymkhana sort, elephant, camel and pony races, over which Salar Jung’s younger brother presided with the master of the horse, Mohammed Ali Bey.

“Dined with the Keays. A young man Vincent, brother to Howard and Edgar, has arrived at the Residency from Madras. Like all these ‘politicals’ he is clever, and affects liberal ideas.

“4th Dec.– At half-past seven we went to the Palace, and saw all the Nizam’s horses. There were several good Arabs among them. They gave us an exhibition of tent-pegging, in which the Nizam, who is a good rider, distinguished himself considerably. Mohammed Ali Bey, however, who is a really splendid horseman, surpassed all the rest, and performed the feat a cutting a sheep in two with a single stroke, using a Japanese sword. We found the Peishkar there, and were introduced to him, a very old man, bent nearly double, whom we were surprised to find, for he is a Hindu, able to talk Arabic. Salar Jung and his brother and many others were there. We breakfasted in a kiosk out of doors. After the entertainment in the afternoon, Vikar-el-Omra showed us his horses, and Anne paid a visit to his Zenana. He has two handsome Arabs, besides others of less note. He also had an exhibition of tent-pegging, and a performance of Deccan horsemanship. The Deccan horses are very like the old-fashioned Spanish horses, and are trained much in the same way.

“Coming home Mrs. Clerk gave us an interesting account of Hyderabad politics. She says the young Nizam’s extreme shyness and frightened manner are due to an accident which happened in his Zenana. While playing with a pistol he accidentally shot a child, and he has been made to believe that the English Resident has power at any time to imprison him for this. He is, however, she says, talkative enough with her, and declares his intention of managing everything at Hyderabad himself as soon as he gets on the throne. He likes young Salar Jung, and respects him because he speaks frankly to him, but is afraid of Cordery, who supports Kurshid Jah and has placed one of Kurshid Jah’s sons to be always with him. Cordery is under Trevor’s influence. Cordery is angry with Major Clerk because he has opposed a guarantee of the Northern Railway which the Indian Government for strategical reasons supports. Cordery wants to get rid of Clerk and Gough and all the former friends of the late Salar Jung, and to isolate young Salar Jung from such liberal advisers as Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami. The policy seems to be to keep the Hyderabad nobles in ignorance of modern thought, and it also looks as if the Indian Government encourages the bad administration purposely. It is precisely what they are doing in Egypt.

“5th Dec.– We received from our friend Rasul Yar Khan this morning a little compliment, consisting of thirty ‘cups of sweetness,’ that is to say of that number of dishes of whipped cream. In acknowledgement, Anne wrote in Arabic, ‘The sweetness of your gifts delights us, but we are grieved at the absence of the giver.’ This seems to have been much appreciated, and he now sends to ask us to dinner, calling me in his note, ‘The defender of the Moslems.’ Rasul Yar Khan is the chief of the Ulema here, and is, moreover, a magistrate, and much respected.

“We breakfasted with Ali Abdullah, the Arab superintendent of the Nizam’s breeding establishment, and met there Salar Jung and his brother, Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami and others, and went on to drink tea with them at Salar Jung’s country house at Serinagar. They talked freely about social and political matters. We discussed the drinking of wine, which is common among the Mohammedans of Hyderabad, where there are drinking shops even in the City. I told them that in England we did not respect Mohammedans who drank wine, and that very few drank in Egypt, and none in Arabia. I begged Seyd Huseyn to advise Salar Jung most strongly to speak to Lord Ripon when he is at Calcutta, and tell him the whole state of things here.

“Dined with Bushir-ed-Dowlah, a rather dull entertainment of about forty people, mostly English, our only new native acquaintance being the chief of the Shiah Ulema, Seyd Ali, a native of Shustar, with whom we conversed in Arabic. He, too, is a friend of Jemal-ed-Din’s, he says, but has the name of being ‘a great fanatic.’ He is a thorough Iraki, and I confess I do not like him. He remembers Layard at Mosul, when he was a boy. Bushir-ed-Dowlah speaks very little English. After dinner we were entertained rather lugubriously with a magic lantern representing the Afghan War.

“6th Dec.– Anne went with the rest on a long expedition to Golconda, but I stayed at home, being tired with the constant gaieties, going only to Seymour Keay’s.

“Dined at Vikar-el-Omra’s, a handsome house – gold plate, nautch, and illuminations, but no native guests. Vikar-el-Omra is out of favour with the Residency on account of the quarrel with his brother Kurshid Jah. Cordery, however, was there and about twenty English. Major Gough, who is one of the Nizam’s people, was among them, and begged me to speak to Lord Ripon in support of Salar Jung when I see him at Calcutta, which I most certainly will do.

“7th Dec.– Received a visit from a native teacher at the Moslem school, and we had some interesting talk. He told me the Mohammedans here were far from happy. They were isolated and without knowledge of what happened in the outer world. They wanted knowledge and education; schools there were, but no superior instruction. They had had a great Minister in Salar Jung, but he was dead. The men now in power had never left the walls of Hyderabad. They were in the hands of the English, who were destroying all the good work that Salar Jung had done. His son was a good and able young man, who had large ideas because he had travelled. But the Peishkar knew nothing, and he made a circle on the table with his finger, signifying the walls of the city. I asked him about Kurshid Jah, and he made the same sign. The Government, he said, is in the hands of two or three ignorant men. Men of learning are being driven from the country. The teacher had with him a friend who knew Persian. They were both much pleased to hear that Anne had read the Koran through three times. This is an old-fashioned man, who evidently hates the English heartily, but I am struck with his liberality as between Mohammedans; and Mohammedan Hyderabad, whether Sunni or Shiah, seems ripe for reform. I had a talk later with Cheragh Ali, mostly about his book. His book contains nothing more than Mohammed Abdu, or any of the Liberal Ulema of Cairo, would subscribe to. Indeed, the reforms it suggests have all been advocated by them, and are defended with much the same reasoning. I showed him, however, that he was leaning on a broken reed if he trusted to Constantinople for a reformation.

“We dined at Salar Jung’s, a very beautiful fête, and Anne had much conversation with him as he took her in to dinner. He has promised her to entrust me with his father’s correspondence as to the disputes of recent years. And he has asked us to a private breakfast for Sunday, when he will tell me everything, and consult me fully. At these big dinners, unless you sit next any one, there is no opportunity of talking to him. Every one is afraid, even if there are no Europeans present, of being overheard by the Residency retainers. Seyd Ali Shustari was there, and Rasul Yar Khan, and we talked in Arabic, and thus we had no such fears. The old Shiah is a poet and a wag, and as such, licensed to be free in his discourse, even a little mejnun, and made great game of the Resident’s hilarity in his cups. He was outspoken, too, about the Peishkar. The Hindus, he says, are pleased at the new régime, but the Mohammedans are all angry. The Peishkar was of the party, but, being a Hindu, he did not dine. He has asked us to a dinner he gives on Monday, but we shall by that time have left Hyderabad. He does not dine at table even in his own house with his guests, but superintends the feast. We cannot stay here longer than until Monday.

“8th Dec.– Saw a Mekkawi, one Seyd Abdullah, a merchant, who gave us a great deal of information both about Meccan and Hyderabad politics. He is a great admirer of the Sherif Abd-el-Mutalleb, whom he remembered as a boy at Mecca, for he has been here thirty years without going home. He told us of the rebellions of Abd-el-Mutalleb against the Turks, and how, when they fired at him in the street, he used to throw his cloak open so as to show he had no fear. The Sherifs used to keep the Arabs in rebellion for fear they should join the Turks against them. In his old age Abd-el-Mutalleb had taken to opium and spent his days in sleep, and so had been deposed. My visitor is himself a pure Arab, and his language is easy to understand. His chief lamentation was at living away from home, and that it was impossible to get Arab wives here. They would not leave Arabia, and the Arabs of Hyderabad, of whom there are a large number, were obliged to marry the women of the place.

“With regard to Hyderabad politics, he spoke with the greatest enthusiasm of the late Salar Jung, who was himself of Arab descent. He described the state of things when he first came here thirty years ago, how people killed each ether openly in the streets, and how the great Minister had established peace everywhere. I asked him about the Shiahs, and he said there was no quarrel here between them and the Sunnis. He himself was a Sunni, but they all prayed together. They were on good terms, too, with the Hindus. The Hindus did not eat with them, but that was all. Of Laik Ali he spoke very highly, said he was a young man of good thought and good language, and would become a great Minister like his father. All the people loved him. As to the Peishkar he neglected public business. He had no energy, and letters of importance were put aside. It was very different from old Salar Jung’s time. I asked him about the Nizam, whom he spoke of as the ‘Pasha,’ and he said he was good, not at all dull, but that he was young, and the nobles about him taught him to be silent in public, and so he seemed lacking in intelligence, but with his own people he talked and was merry enough. I like this Meccan merchant much, and doubt if there are many shop-keepers in London who could give me as sensible an account of their local politics as he has given me. The Hindus in the Deccan are mostly men of the lower castes. There are few nobles or Brahmins among them, and their only rich men are the money-lenders. The rest are shop-keepers, and out of the town peasants. The Peishkar is their only great man.

“The Nizam came to dinner at the Residency, and took Anne in. There was also a large party of Nawabs and dignitaries, the Peishkar, Salar Jung, Kurshid Jah, Bushir-ed-Dowlah, Vikar-el-Omra, and the rest, as well as the Roman Catholic bishop and some English. Kurshid Jah has asked us to dinner for Tuesday, but neither to him, nor to the Peishkar can we go, as we leave on Monday. The Nizam was as usual very silent, but this is etiquette. Trevor tells me the Nizam’s father never spoke at all to the English officials, or even looked at them.

“9th Dec.– The schoolmaster called again. He asked me what the Mohammedans ought to do to better their condition. Every year they were becoming poorer in India. The Government ruined them where they had land with taxes, and they had no employment in the towns. I suggested they should take to trade, learn English, and compete with the Hindus, and he agreed with me that that might be best. He said, however, that in many parts a Mohammedan who learned English was still called a kafr by his fellows. Here at Hyderabad the taxes were not excessive, but the English system surrounded them, and English goods were killing the native industries. He said if nothing were done to help them, the English Government would have every Mohammedan in the country against them.

“He also complained terribly of the tyranny of the English officials and their brutal manners. He asked how it was that I was different from them, that I made him sit down on the same sofa with myself, that I addressed him politely, and did not treat him as a slave. The officials, he said, sit without moving in their chairs and talk to us, while they leave us standing, abruptly in words of command, without any salutation or words of friendship. You treat me, a poor man, as your equal. Why is this? I explained to him there were degrees of good breeding amongst us, and that the better the breeding the greater the politeness. That the men who came out to India as Government servants were, many of them, taken from a comparatively low rank in life, and that, being unused to refined society, or to being treated with much consideration at home, they lost their heads when they found themselves in India in a position of power. I hoped, however, that this might soon be changed. He said the officials made their nation hated by the people; many who were willing to think the English Government was good were estranged by the manners of its officials. He asked me again why I travelled so far to see them, and why I cared to help them, and I explained that in youth I had led a life of folly, and that I wished to do some good before I died, and that I had received much kindness from the Moslems, and learned from them to believe in God, and so I spent a portion of every year among them. I like the man much.

“At ten we went to breakfast with Salar Jung, a farewell visit. We had bargained to have no English with us, and the party consisted of himself, his brother, and his sister’s governess Mdlle. Gaignaud, of Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami, and of our two selves. We talked very freely of the political situation, which is this. In a few weeks the Nizam will come of age, and an attempt is going to be made by the Residency to get his signature to a treaty which, in renewing the alliance existing between the Nizam and the Government of India, contains an article abrogating all previous treaties, thus putting the Berar provinces permanently into English hands.”

The question of the Berars was this. Many years ago, before the time of old Salar Jung, the Hyderabad State was badly governed, and its finances became so involved that the Nizam was obliged to borrow several millions sterling from the Calcutta Government. The Government took in pledge for the debt the provinces in question, which were the richest he possessed, it being agreed that they should be administered by the Government of India until the loan was repaid. This arrangement naturally gave much employment to Englishmen and many highly paid posts to members of the Covenanted Civil Service, and it has consequently been their settled policy to make the resumption of the provinces by the Nizam impossible. In this view the provinces have been exceptionally well administered; the taxation has been light, and everything has been done to make the peasantry satisfied with English rule, so that they form a striking contrast with most parts of British India. It was never expected that the Nizam would be able to repay his debt, but, in case he could, the prosperity of the provinces would then, it was thought, be a reason for refusing. This is precisely what happened. Salar Jung, being a man of great ability, not only restored order in the Deccan, but brought the Hyderabad finances into so prosperous a condition that he was able to come forward with the borrowed millions in his hand, and claimed their repayment and the restitution of the provinces. It was for his insistence on this point that his persecution at the hands of the Imperial Government began, and was carried on relentlessly until his death. The claim, however, still remained, and could not be contested, as it was embodied in a public treaty between the two States, and advantage was being taken of the Nizam’s minority and the death of his powerful Minister to get it annulled.

“Seyd Huseyn is positive that the draft of the proposed new treaty is already at the Residency. He has been shown a copy or précis of it, and believes it will either be forced on the young Nizam as soon as he comes of age, as a condition of his ascending the throne, or that the signature of the Peishkar will be taken before that event. This he thinks could be done legally, as the Council of Regency has sovereign powers. The Council consists of the Peishkar, old and infirm, of Kurshid Jah, the presumptive heir to the throne, both men under the influence of the Residency, and of Bushir-ed-Dowlah, who is without colour or strong character. Young Salar Jung so far is only secretary to the Council, and so without voice in its decisions. I find it difficult, however, to believe that Lord Ripon’s Government would venture to rush so important a treaty through in the last days of the Regency; and I think it far more likely that pressure will be put on the young Nizam, partly by flattery, partly by threats at Calcutta, to get a signature from him simultaneously with his installation. On the other hand, the other important matter insisted upon by the Indian Government, the Railway Convention, has been carried through precisely in this way with the Peishkar, for Cordery told us so himself, and it is possible that Seyd Huseyn may be right, and the attempt on the Berars will be made at once, rather than trust its execution to the Nizam’s subserviency. This decides me to hasten my journey to Calcutta, where I shall lay the whole case before Lord Ripon, and protest against the sharp practice of the Foreign Office diplomacy.

“The existence of the draft treaty at the Residency explains to me what has hitherto seemed inexplicable, the strong support given to the Peishkar, in spite of his misgovernment; the isolation in which Salar Jung is being placed by the dismissal of so many of his father’s best servants; the stories circulated against the character of all those who have advocated the retrocession of the Berar Provinces; Cordery’s words about Laik Ali’s ‘headstrong character’ and that his only chance was to make common cause with the Peishkar; the favour shown to Kurshid Jah as heir to the throne and substitute in case it should be found necessary to get rid of the young Nizam, along with the bad character Cordery attributes to the latter; and the tales of his childishness, of his early corruption with women and other scandals. Cordery at dinner has talked a great deal to Anne on all these matters. It also perhaps explains how the other day, when he had been speaking more severely than usual to Laik Ali, he put his arm paternally on his shoulder and said Laik Ali must forgive him, for he was only following his instructions. He made a sort of apology to Seyd Huseyn, too, when he sent for him the other day. He told him he must leave Hyderabad for six months, but added ‘I am doing you an injustice, but it is necessary in the public interest.’ I exhorted Laik Ali to talk openly of all these things to Lord Ripon when he sees him at Calcutta, and I have promised to urge Lord Ripon to pay full attention to him. As soon as he arrives with the Nizam’s party at Calcutta I will see him and advise him, for none of Laik Ali’s friends are to be allowed to go with him. He has given me printed copies of his father’s private correspondence relating to the Berars and other matters, and will send to me at Bombay a copy of the minute written by his father on the case. It is a curious comment on the little trust placed by the native Government in English administration that he does not send me the minute by post, but will forward it through an agent to be delivered by hand.

“Talking on general matters of government, Laik Ali said that he did not think that the Nizam would be fit to govern the country by himself, as he has thought of doing, but neither is the country fit for self-government. The custom has been that it should be governed by a Minister, and doubtless he intends to be that Minister. I shall do what I can to help him, as he possesses his father’s traditions, and there is no question he is very popular at Hyderabad. His age is his only drawback, as he is little more than twenty-one. I asked him about this particularly, and he said he was born in August, 1862. But he is far older than his years. He has invited us to come back for the Nizam’s installation. The Peishkar’s administration seems to have been signalized by a general round of plunder as in the old time. It is not only from Laik Ali that I know this, but from everybody I have spoken to. When Salar Jung died, Sir Stewart Bailey was sent from Calcutta to settle matters here, and Laik Ali was appointed Co-Administrator with the Peishkar, and as such he ought now to be taking his share in the administration, but this has been prevented. There is no public office at which business is transacted, and the Peishkar will not consult him or let him into his house with any regularity for the discussion of affairs; nor will he send him, as he ought to do, the documents for his signature. The consequence is he is powerless to do or to prevent anything, and he says he will throw up his office if after he has been to Calcutta the position is not altered. He now has the responsibility without the power, and this he refuses to go on with.

“We are beginning to be out of favour at the Residency. Cordery is alarmed at our independent visits to the City. He made a remark two days ago about it to Salar Jung. Perhaps his sudden announcement that he is going to Calcutta may be connected with a suspicion that we know his plans. At four, Rasul Yar Khan came to fetch us to dine with him in the City, a final breach of discipline, as English people going to the City are expected to be bear-led by some one from the Residency. Rasul Yar Khan lives in a little old-fashioned house, with a pretty court surrounded by arches, and we were glad of the opportunity of seeing a bourgeois Hyderabad establishment. He had invited several friends to meet us, Nawaiz Jung, Cheragh Ali, Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami, and Mulvi Mehdy Hassan; and we had some good talk. They told us when Lord Beaconsfield came into office ten years ago, every Mohammedan in India looked to the Conservative party as friendly to them. But Lord Lytton’s policy had undeceived them. The Afghan War had been most displeasing and had estranged every mind, and they had entirely lost confidence in any English party. They talked, too, of a letter Lytton had written to Lord Salisbury, which had been published, explaining how Mohammedans would be excluded from the public service.

“Mehdy Hassan sat next me. He is a native of Lucknow, and told me I should be well received by the Mohammedans there, for they knew my name well, and he has promised to give me letters for some of them. They would be glad to learn the truth about the Egyptian War, for until a few months ago they had all been deceived about it, thinking that the English had really gone to Egypt as the Sultan’s allies. They said I should do well to give a lecture at Calcutta on the subject, but that it would be difficult to get up a public protest against future wars waged with Mohammedans, because, although the thing would be popular, it would be too dangerous for the leaders in it, who would from that moment become marked men. They told me I had no conception of the despotism under which India was held, nor of the danger there was for them in meddling with politics; Jemal-ed-Din’s stories about the deportation of religious Sheykhs to the Andaman Islands were perfectly true. The dinner was a good one, partly European, partly Indian, but we left early in order to appease Mr. Cordery.

“10th Dec.– Left Hyderabad by the early train, many of our friends coming to see us off. The Meccan brought us provisions for the road, and the schoolmaster was there, and Sultan Nawaiz’s son. I made them all three sit down on a bench with me, on which Trevor was also seated, a proceeding English officials are not used to. Then Seyd Huseyn Bilgrami and others of the Northern Mohammedans came, and our good little Rasul Yar Khan with his brother insisted on going with us two hours’ journey on our road. He had gone that distance, he said, with Jemal-ed-Din, and would go with us. He sent us some splendid presents last night, including the finest cashmere shawl I ever saw, which we had some difficulty in sending back, as also a box of ostrich feathers from Sultan Nawaiz, which his son brought to the station. But it would never do for us to take presents, though other English travellers it seems do. The Keays and several English also came to the station, and Trevor, who I suspect wanted to know the names of our native friends.

“The country near Hyderabad is very curious, wild, uncultivated hills, trees and boulders, but beyond there is a rich plain at a lower level, bearing good crops of gholum, flax, and raghi, cotton also, I believe, but I could not distinguish the crop. The villages in this district have all the remains of fine stone walls, with round towers, each a little fortress against the raiding bands which once drew blackmail from them. The largest town, Kalbarga, seemed to have fine buildings. We travelled on through the night, and arrived early at Poona the next morning.

“11th Dec.– Poona is an uninteresting place, without a vestige of Eastern colour. It stands in a bare plain, feebly relieved by a river bordered with acacia trees, and some shapeless hills of trappe formation. Great macadamized roads run everywhere, and modern buildings of debased Gothic with meaningless belfries and inscriptions to Sir Bartle Frere dot the landscape. Barracks, of course, and factory chimneys abound, and institutions of all sorts. The climate, however, is a healthy one. Poona is 2,000 feet above the sea, and at one time it was proposed to remove the seat of Supreme Government here from Calcutta.

“We were taken by Miss Dillon, with whom we are staying, to see the Deccan College, an absurd building, from the tower of which we viewed the scene described. It contains a hundred and twenty boarders, all Hindus but half a dozen, only one Mohammedan. Ninety of the Hindus are Brahmins. I talked to some of the pupils in the reading rooms. They told me they read the ‘Bombay Gazette,’ which represented their views better than any other English paper, but the best native one was the ‘Hindu Prakash.’ The English Director struck us as being rather a weak vessel, contrasting unfavourably in the point of intelligence and knowledge with a learned Brahmin who explained to us the connection of Hindi, Mahratta, and Hindustani with Sanskrit. On the other hand, I noticed this learned man thumbing without ceremony palm leaf manuscripts of the eleventh century in a way which would have made a book collector’s blood run cold. In these two incidents the difference between the East and the West is exemplified.”

In the afternoon a friend of Rangiar Naidu came to see us, and gave us a number of interesting statistics as to the state of agriculture in the Bombay Presidency. It is hardly worth, however, transcribing them here, as they do not differ essentially from those we received elsewhere, and I have incorporated the result of all my agricultural inquiries omitted from my diary in the chapter on “The Agricultural Danger” given at the end of this volume.

On the 12th we went on to Bombay, where we spent a couple of days in the society principally of a Europeanized Mohammedan to whom we had brought letters, Mr. Mohammed Rogay, a wealthy man, advanced and liberal, and the head of the Moslem community. His ideas were all of the most modern type, far too modern on some points quite to please me. “He drove us through the native town, which is most picturesque and cheerful, very unlike Madras. Rogay would like it all pulled down, and built up again in rows of sham Gothic houses.” A more interesting personage was Mr. Malabari, editor of the “Indian Spectator,” a friend of Colonel Osborne’s. “He is a Parsi, but says his sympathies are rather Hindu than of his own people. He is an intelligent, active little man, going about constantly from place to place on philanthropic and political business. He confirms everything we have heard elsewhere as to the agricultural misery, and promises to take us a round of inspection on our return, as well as to get up meetings at which I can express my views, and agrees that there will be no improvement until India has gone bankrupt – bankruptcy or revolution, as Gordon suggested.[4 - This refers to a talk I had had with General C. G. Gordon at the end of 1882 in which he had assured me emphatically that “no reform would ever be achieved in India without a Revolution.” Gordon, it will be remembered, accompanied Ripon, as his private secretary, to India in 1880, but soon after their landing at Bombay had resigned his place. The opposition of the covenanted civil service to any real reform had convinced him that he would be useless to Lord Ripon in an impossible task.] He also described how such English officials as dared to protest against the over taxation were persecuted. If any of them espoused the wrongs of the natives he was bullied out of the service, and then his evidence was scouted on the plea that he was only ‘a man with a grievance.’ Such had been Colonel Osborne’s case. Malabari is only thirty, though he looks eighty. He has written, among other things, certain loyal poems which are sad trash. He is, however, a great admirer of Lord Ripon, and he exhorted me to support him with prudence.”

The rest of our time at Bombay was spent principally in the Arab stables looking at horses, but of this more on the occasion of our second visit.

15th Dec.– Started for Calcutta, and found Gorst[5 - Sir John Gorst.] in the same train, and had a long talk with him. Randolph Churchill is as keen as ever about Egypt, and is going to make a speech about it at Edinburgh. Gorst has come to India professionally ‘to advise the Nizam as to the retrocession of the Berar Provinces,’ but I was in doubt which side he and Churchill took in Indian matters. He told me, however, that up to the present moment the Fourth Party had not committed themselves on the Ilbert Bill, and I advised him strongly to take up the cause of the people. It was going a-begging among statesmen, for the natives trusted neither the Conservatives nor Mr. Gladstone, and though they were grateful to Lord Ripon personally for his sympathy they quite understood he had been able to do next to nothing for them. There was no reason why Churchill should not raise the cry of ‘The Queen and the natives of India,’ as against the official class. It seems that Gorst formerly brought the matter of Berar before Lord Salisbury, and interested him the right way, but Lytton was adverse, and afterwards it was Gorst who prosecuted the ‘Statesman’ newspaper on the part of the Government for its publication of the facts relating to Salar Jung’s attempted arrest, and the bribe taken by Sir Richard Meade. He told me the prosecution was dropped in consequence of representations from the Calcutta Foreign Office that a scandal would be created, and he himself was of opinion that Sir Richard Meade would have come badly out of the affair. I warned him how difficult he would find it to get speech of the Nizam, or to do anything at Hyderabad if staying at the Residency. But I did not tell him all I knew of the politics of the place, or about the Draft Treaty, for I mean to set the facts first before Lord Ripon.

“16th Dec.– Still in the train. Read up the Hyderabad Blue Books (those given me by Laik Ali). They are very instructive.”

CHAPTER V

CALCUTTA

    “17th Dec.

“Arrived at Calcutta, and were met by Walter Pollen [an aide-de-camp of Lord Ripon, and a private friend of ours], who has taken capital rooms for us at 2, Russell Street. Wrote our names down at Government House, and arranged with Primrose, the private secretary, that I am to have an interview with Lord Ripon on Wednesday afternoon. Sent several letters of introduction which had been given us to Hindus of the place. There is notice of a meeting of a thousand persons held under Rangiar Naidu at Madras to protest against the Address presented to T.; I have telegraphed to congratulate him.

“18th Dec.– A very busy day, as I had to write a vast number of letters for the English mail. In the morning Norendro Nath Sen, the editor of the ‘Indian Mirror,’ called, a well-informed man. I asked him about Lord Ripon, and he said he was supporting him all he could in public, but privately he feared Lord Ripon was weak. In point of fact he had done nothing for the Indians though he had shown his sympathy and taken their part in their quarrels with the English. ‘We are thankful,’ he said, ‘for small mercies. If the Ilbert Bill had been given in its original integrity it would have been worth something. Now it is worth nothing except as the recognition of a principle. Still we are thankful.’ ‘As to the local self-government bill,’ he said, ‘people are very suspicious. There are many who looked upon it as likely to be made use of by the officials to impose heavier local rates in the people’s name than they would venture to do in their own.’ I think this very likely, as it is exactly what Ismaïl did with his Chamber of Notables in Egypt. Increased taxation is the aim of all these despotic governments, of the Indian more than any. Nor were they satisfied with regard to the Bengal Rent Bill. I asked him about the Mohammedan community here, and he said they were very timid and time-serving. He had proposed to them to get up a demonstration on my arrival, but they had been afraid of the Government. Amir Ali, the head of the advanced party, was like an Englishman, and he and his followers played into the hands of the Government. He himself had more sympathy with Abd-el-Latif, and the old-fashioned Mohammedans who kept themselves independent, but these were afraid to express their opinions. They looked on Amir Ali as a renegade. I have, fortunately, letters to both these leaders, and one from Jemal-ed-Din to Abd-el-Latif, so I hope I shall be able to gain their confidence.

“Later Sir Jotendro Mohun Tagore called, a Hindu of rank as he has the title of Maharajah. He confirmed much of what Norendro said about Lord Ripon, and was clean against the Rent Bill, but, as he explained, he was prejudiced on this point, being himself a Zemindar. The point of the bill is to break the agreement made by Lord Cornwallis in 1793, by which the absolute ownership of the land was recognized in the Zemindars. The present tenure is briefly this: the Zemindars are the proprietors, and cannot be assessed at more than one-fifth of the gross produce of their estate. They generally let their land to middlemen or farmers, who employ the ryots or labourers, just as we do in England. The effect of the bill will be to transfer the ownership to these occupants, who will then hold them directly from the Government. At present no increasing of the assessment is announced, but the agreement made by Lord Cornwallis being once broken, it seems probable that this will follow. The Zemindars will be reduced to the ownership only of such lands as they occupy. The contention of the Government would seem to be that the land will then be better cultivated and produce more, and their fifth be proportionately increased. But Sir Jotendro is of opinion that the old system of husbandry was safer than any new system is likely to be. The land might be made to produce more by steam ploughing and high farming, but in the end the fertility would be exhausted. Here, again, precisely the same thing has happened in Egypt. He has promised, however, to put us in the way of seeing some villages here and there that we may study the question on the spot, and we are to make him a return call in a day or two.

“Last came Schomberg Kerr, Lord Ripon’s chaplain, who knew my brother and sister so well years ago. He is a very nice fellow, and not unlike his cousin, the other Schomberg Kerr.[6 - The late Lord Lothian.] But he was wary of talking politics, as befits a Jesuit and a private chaplain. I fancy he makes it a rule to confine himself strictly to spiritual advice, but I don’t know.

“19th Dec.– Seyd Amir Ali called, and we talked about Arabi. I taxed him at once with having written that letter to the ‘Times’ just before the war saying that all the Indian Mohammedans supported the action of the English Government, and he said he was sorry for it now, but the Mohammedans had been deceived as to the true state of the case. They now recognized Arabi as an honest man, fighting in defence of his religion. I noticed, however, that he looked rather confused when I charged him with this, but I think we shall get on well together in spite of the pot hat he wears. I told him that Gladstone wanted to restore Arabi, and urged him to protest against any further wars against Mohammedans, whatever the pretext might be. I told him that the only way to get attention paid to the wishes of the Mohammedan community was to inspire a certain amount of fear. By holding their tongues in a crisis like the Egyptian War, or pretending to sympathize with the Government, they threw away their advantages. I trusted that if there should be any serious talk of sending Indian troops to suppress the Mahdi he would call a general meeting of his party to protest against it. Amir Ali is a young man not much over thirty, and evidently very clever, and if he has the courage to take an independent line, may play a great part. But they say his ambition is to be made Chief Justice.

“While we were talking, arrived a dignified old man, Manockji Rustemji, the Parsi Consul-General for Persia, with his son. We talked about the Bengal Rent Bill, to which, like everybody else I have talked with, they are opposed. Sir Jamsetji Jijibhoy is staying with him, and he promises to send him to see us. I like this old man very much. He is a friend of Ragunath Rao’s, and spoke very warmly of him, saying that he was a far cleverer man than his cousin, Sir Madhava Rao, who has more celebrity but less courage. We are to call on his wife next week.

“At a quarter to three I paid my visit to Lord Ripon, feeling rather nervous about it beforehand, but I have every reason to be satisfied with the result. I had a good hour’s conversation, first about the state of the agricultural districts which I described, and afterwards about the really important business of Hyderabad. I set the whole state of the case before him, the reversal by the Peishkar and Kurshid Jah of all Sir Salar Jung’s policy; the dismissal of the skilled administrators; the consequent breakdown of the administration; the return to old practices of corruption and the rest of it; and, lastly, ‘what would seem incredible but for which I could nevertheless vouch’ that the Peishkar’s misgovernment was strongly supported at the Residency. I made no charge against Mr. Cordery, who I considered was merely the responsible person representing the several interests of the official class. But I could only explain the matter to myself by supposing that these officials feared a retrocession of Berar, and so purposely abetted the misgovernment of the State. This had been done without doubt in former years for similar reasons, and I had had sufficient experience of official ways in Egypt to make me very distrustful. Lord Ripon smiled at this and said that official ways were always a little the same everywhere, but he did not commit himself to any opinion as to whether I was correct or not. He said, however, that I must know well how great a difficulty there was in Hyderabad in finding any one competent to carry on Sir Salar Jung’s administration. He had considered Sir Salar’s death a great misfortune, though others, and he believed Lord Lytton, had thought otherwise. It was the more deplorable to himself because he had just had the satisfaction of restoring the good relations which had so long existed between Sir Salar and the Indian Government, but which had latterly been interrupted, and he had personally a high opinion of Sir Salar’s integrity and good faith. But who was there to fill his place?

“I then told him my high opinion of young Salar Jung, both as a good young man, and one with statesmanlike qualities, which only wanted practice to develop into a capacity equal, perhaps, to his father’s. He said that he was glad to hear me say this, for such had also been Sir Stewart Bailey’s opinion. But Laik Ali was very young for so responsible a position. I said that he was twenty-one, and he asked me whether that meant twenty-one according to the Mohammedan or the English reckoning. I said: ‘According to the English, as he was born in August, 1862,’ and so was very nearly as old as his father had been when he first became Prime Minister, for Sir Salar had been only twenty-four according to the Mohammedan reckoning, and, if one considered how troubled and disorganized a State Hyderabad then was and compared it with what it is now, it would be seen that Laik Ali’s position, if he were made Minister to-morrow, would be a more favourable one by a great deal than his father’s had been. Now all the machinery of government was there, and it only required to be kept going, instead of having to be created. I also begged him to see the young man himself privately when he came to Calcutta, and he said he would certainly do so, and as Laik Ali could speak English, they would not want an interpreter, and he would give him every encouragement to explain his position and ideas thoroughly. All Lord Ripon’s manner showed a thorough good will towards young Salar Jung, and I have little doubt that he will give him his support. He then asked me about the character of the Nizam, and I told him I could say nothing for certain, because he had been so silent in our interviews that I had not been able to judge, but it was my opinion that he was far from being without ideas of his own, and very likely a will of his own too. He asked me whether the people of Hyderabad wished him to be proclaimed of age this year or not till two years later, and I said it was not a case of their wishing. They all expected it to be at once, and would be grievously disappointed if it was deferred. There was a strong feeling of loyalty and affection towards the Nizam among the people, and they would resent his being kept out of his right. He also asked about Bushir-ed-Dowlah and to which faction he belonged. I said I could not answer certainly, but I believed Laik Ali considered him to be among his friends. Bushir-ed-Dowlah seemed to be without strong political colour. Lord Ripon remarked, however, that he, Bushir-ed-Dowlah, had been on bad terms with Laik Ali’s father. Of this I knew nothing.

“Then, with some apologies, I mentioned the report about the draft treaty. At this Lord Ripon laughed, and said it was the first he had heard of it. He certainly would never consent to taking any such treaty from the young Nizam. It would be a fraud, and I might dismiss it from my mind; all that might possibly be asked of him would be some limitation of his absolute power for a couple of years or so until they saw how he got on with his Government. As to a treaty concerning the Berar claim, he, Lord Ripon, was incapable of proposing it.[7 - N.B. Precisely this leonine treaty in the form of a perpetual lease was imposed on the Nizam twenty years later by Lord Curzon under circumstances of extreme compulsion.] I said I was sure it was so, and would dismiss it from my mind. Lord Ripon’s manner, though reserved at first, was very cordial to me in the latter part of this conversation, and he shook hands warmly with me and said he was glad I had spoken to him on these matters, and hoped to see me again. Since my famous interview with Mr. Gladstone in March, 1882, I have not been so favourably impressed by any statesman that I have conversed with. Absit omen.

“20th Dec.– Looked in on Knight, Editor of the ‘Statesman,’ who gave me his views on the decadence of English morality, which he dates from the first Afghan war. He has been useful as exposing many of the official iniquities here, and takes, as it seems to me, generally just views. He would not, however, admit that the finances were in any danger, but looks rather to a revolution to end the present system.