PREFACE. In the course of this work it has been requisite to impugn the assertion made by the opponents of missions to India in 1793 and 1808, that any attempt to convert the Hindoos would result in insurrection and massacre. Those morbid apprehensions, the offspring of prejudice and timidity, have been treated with the contempt they appeared to merit: but while the work has been passing through the press an unparalleled tragedy has been exhibited in India; a hundred thousand sepoys have appeared in open revolt, and endeavoured to subvert our dominion and to extirpate our race; and this insurrection is stated by them to have been provoked by our attempts to tamper with their caste and religion. The fearful events of the last eighteen months would thus appear to substantiate those gloomy prognostications, and to countenance the doctrine that any attempt to interfere with the religious prejudices of the natives must be attended with imminent peril, and that if we would maintain our empire in the east, we must leave them for ever under the dominion of their superstitions. It is necessary, therefore, that the question of the mutiny and its motives should be dispassionately investigated. It is important to the interests of the conquerors that the real cause of this tragic event should be clearly ascertained, that we may be enabled to guard against the recurrence of it; it is equally important to the welfare of the natives that it should not be attri buted to the wrong cause, that the prospects of their improvement may not be injured. The former investigation may be left to the politician; the latter belongs more especially to the philanthropist. That the mutiny was not in any measure occasioned by the labours of the missionaries there is the most conclusive evidence. During the revolt diverse manifestos were promulgated by the insurrectionary chiefs, with the view of inflaming the minds of the people, by an exposition of the grievances to which they were subject under the dominion of the Feringees. But in this catalogue of grievances, some of which were merely plausible and others purely imaginary, there was not the most remote allusion to the exertions of the missionaries, and it is manifest that if their labours had been regarded as a popular grievance, which could be turned to account, they would not have been overlooked. But in addition to this negative evidence there is the positive testimony of large and influential bodies of natives who have, of their own accord, come forward and asserted that the endeavours of the missionaries were in no respect connected with the revolt; that their blameless life, their disinterested and benevolent exertions, and their sympathy with the feelings and the griefs of the people, had secured them the respect and admiration even of those whose creed they were endeavouring to subvert. An opinion has been disseminated in England that the government in India has of late years changed its policy, and given encouragement to the missionary cause; and this is said to have created a feeling of alarm among the natives and disposed them to rebellion. But so far from giving any support to the missionaries, government has omitted no opportunity of disavowing all connection with them. In one of the last proclamations, issued a short time before the mutiny, the natives were informed that the missionaries were only labouring in their vocation, and that government had nothing whatever to do with them. The language of that proclamation was calculated to bring them into contempt with the native community, and they had some reason to complain of such unprovoked contumely. About the same time an Act was passed prohibiting the publication of obscene books and pictures in India, but a clause was inserted, especially exempting from the operation of the Act every "representation, sculptured, engraved, or painted on or in any temple, or on any car used for the conveyance of idols." With what colour of truth can it then be affirmed, that there has been any change in the policy of government, either as it regards discouraging missionary efforts, or deferring to the popular idolatry? But it may be affirmed with perfect confidence, that even if the missionaries had received the most open and direct support from the state, and if government had laboured to propagate Christianity by a system of rewards and penalties, there would have been little reason to dread a mutiny, or even an insurrection. Although a contrary opinion be prevalent in England, it has been adopted without investigation, and is contrary to all historical teaching in India. This assertion may at first appear paradoxical, but it is based on truth, and it is fully substantiated by the opinion of the late Sir William Macnaghten, the envoy at Cabul, one of the ablest public men of his day, who, moreover, was never charged with any undue partiality for missionary labours. He was required to give his opinion on the question whether suttees could be abolished consistently with the safety of our dominion. Admitting the sacrifice of suttee to be a religious act of the highest possible merit according to the notions of the Hindoos, "where," he inquires, "is danger to be apprehended from the abolition of it? Look to the genius of the people and their past history; under their Moosulman rulers they tamely endured all sorts of insults to their religion and violation of their prejudices. We have no record of any general or organised disaffection. We read that their temples were polluted and destroyed and that many of them were compelled to become converts to the creed of their oppressors. Neither tyranny nor endurance could well go further than this." Yet the Mahomedans never lost a province or a town in consequence of this bigoted and oppressive course. Nor is there any reason to suppose that if we had pursued the same policy-which we have justly and equitably abstained from doing — the result would have been of a different character. It has been affirmed, however, that the minds of men have been unsettled and disposed to revolt by some of the more recent movements of government. But as these are all measures of improvement, introduced by a civilised and enlightened government among a semibarbarous community, it is necessary to examine with the greatest attention how far they can have contributed to the mutiny. The rapid increase of native schools is adduced as one of these perilous measures. But indigenous schools are among the most ancient and venerable institutions of the country, though they may in some cases have fallen into abeyance; it is difficult then to suppose that the effort to reanimate and improve them, without any attempt or appearance of an attempt at proselytism, can have excited the people to insurrection. If some little disquietude may have been felt from the novelty of the thing, the feeling would gradually have subsided. Far greater excitement has heretofore arisen, from deeper causes, which time had effectually removed, and it is certain that if there had been no military mutiny, excited by the fatal folly of the greased cartridges, there would have been no civil revolt on account of the schools. The second cause to which the mutiny has been attributed is the law which allows a convert to retain his patrimony on changing his creed. But in the seat of the mutiny, in the north-west provinces, in Bundlekund, and in Central India no case has arisen in which it has been necessary to have recourse to this law, and it is questionable whether one man in ten thousand ever heard of its existence. It never came palpably before the people; it was not a practical or even a plausible grievance. |
