Caste and Race in India c12.59

c12.59

It may be argued that, if the British masters of India did not take any comprehensive steps to minimize the evil effects of caste which they openly deplored, it must be said to their credit that they did not at least consciously foster the institution. But in the face of the utterances of some responsible British officers, after the Mutiny of 1857 was quelled, it is not possible to endorse this view. The Mutiny opened the eyes of the administrators of the country as well as of the students of British Indian history to the potentialities of caste. It was almost the unanimous opinion of persons connected with the Government of India that the deep causes of the Mutiny were to be found in the fact that the Bengal Army was composed largely of the higher castes, viz. the Brahmins and the Rajputs. The special Commission presided over by Lord Peel, which was appointed to suggest a reorganization of the Indian Army, took evidence from many high officials who were sometime or other closely connected with India. Lord Elphinstone opined that it was desirable that men of different castes should be enlisted in the Army, while Major-General H. T. Tucker went further and insisted on the necessity of keeping the country under British domination through the policy of dividing and separating into distinct bodies the nationalities and castes recruited to the Army. Such being the general tenor of the main bulk of evidence the Commission recommended that "The Native Indian army should be composed of different nationalities and castes and as a general rule mixed promiscuously through each regiment". Lord Ellenborough advised the same, but clearly pointed out that the recommendation was based solely on the ground of British interests and not on the consideration of efficiency of the Army. He lamented the fact that if the suggested procedure were adopted "we must abandon the hope of ever again seeing a native army composed like that we have lost. It was an army which, under a General that it loved and trusted, would have marched victorious to the Dardanelles".¹ Ever since then the Indian Army has been studiously purged of the higher castes. The lesson of the Mutiny, viz. that the safety of the British domination in India was very closely connected with keeping the Indian people divided on the lines of caste, was driven home to the British rulers. Some officials like Sir Lepel Griffin thought that caste was useful in preventing rebellion,¹ while James Kerr, the Principal of the Hindu College at Calcutta, wrote the following in 1865: "It may be doubted if the existence of caste is on the whole unfavourable to the permanence of our rule. It may even be considered favourable to it, provided we act with prudence and forbearance. Its spirit is opposed to national union."² The maxim of "divide and rule" began to be preached by historians and journalists alike.³ Because the Mutiny was largely the work of soldiers of the high castes of Brahmins and Rajputs, there was a clamour in England that the high-caste sepoys should be exterminated.⁴ Suspicion of high castes therefore dates from the Mutiny. The valuable lesson so dearly purchased was not going to be lost. It being repeated in the form of the general principle of "divide and rule" could not have failed to influence the policy and conduct of later officials. It is well to remember in this connection that even the Roman Church, in its desire to propagate its faith, was prepared to accommodate caste in its practical programme, though it was opposed to the humanitarian principles of the Church. Pope Gregory XV published a bull sanctioning caste regulations in the Christian Churches of India.⁵