Until now the European servants of the British Government have ruled India quite autocratically. The powers delegated to and the discretion vested in them have been so large that they could do almost anything they liked. They could make or mar the fortunes of millions; they could further their happiness or add to their misery by the simple fiat of their will. The only limitation on their power was their own sense of duty and justice. That some of them did let themselves go is no wonder. The wonder is that the instances of unbridled oppression and tyranny were not more numerous than they have actually been. Speaking of the European services generally, we have nothing but admiration for their general character. The particular branch of the Public Services that has been all along entrusted with the general administration of the country is known as the Indian Civil Service. It is recruited in England and is overwhelmingly European in personnel. On April 1, 1913, only forty-six of the 1319 civilians on the cadre were natives of India.

Speaking of the executive organizations that have so far ruled India, the eminent authors of the Report for the reorganization of the Government of India remark that it may “well be likened to a mere system of official posts, actuated till now by impulses of its own, but affected by the popular ideas which impinge on it from three sources—the British Parliament, the legislative councils and the local boards.” The sentence would have been correct if in place of “but affected” the authors had said “and affected but little.” “The system,” they add, “has in the main depended for its effectiveness on the experience, wisdom and energy of the services themselves. It has, for the most part, been represented by the Indian Civil Service which, though having little to do with the technical departments of government, has for over 100 years in practice had the administration entrusted to its hands, because, with the exception of the offices of the Governor General, Governors, and some members of the executive councils, it has held practically all the places involving superior control. It has been in effect much more of a government corporation than of a purely civil service in the English sense. It has been made a reproach to the Indian Civil Service that it regards itself as the Government; but a view which strikes the critic familiar with parliamentary government as arrogant is little more than a condensed truth.” [The italics are ours.]

The Indian Civil Service has thus developed all the characteristics, good and bad, of a caste. It has been a powerful bureaucracy, as exclusive, proud, arrogant and self-sufficient,—if not even more so,—as the original Brahmin oligarchy of the land, except that while the Brahmin oligarchy had ties of race, religion and culture with the rest of the population, the Indian Civil Service is almost entirely composed of aliens. The ancient Brahmins were, however, kept in check by the military caste. The mutual jealousies of these two castes afforded some kind of protection to the people in general. But in the case of the British Indian Civil Service, the military have given entire support to their civilian fellow-countrymen and have been completely under their will.

The Brahmins of India have left a monumental record of their labors. They produced great thinkers, writers, legislators, administrators and organizers. In their own time they were as wise, energetic and resourceful as any bureaucracy in the world has ever been or will ever be. Yet the system of life they devised cut at the roots of national vitality. It dried almost all the springs of corporate national life. It reduced the bulk of the population to a position of complete subservience to their will, of blind faith in their wisdom, of absolute dependence on their initiative. It deprived the common people of all opportunities of independent thought and independent action. It brought about a kind of national atrophy. And this, in spite of the fact that they began by imposing a rigorous code of self-denial on themselves and their class. For themselves they wanted nothing but a life of poverty and asceticism. Their economic interests were never in theory or in practice in conflict with those of the rest of the body politic.

A Brahmin was forbidden to engage in trade or otherwise accumulate wealth. His life was a life of strict self-abnegation. This cannot be said of the Indian Civil Servant. He receives a handsome salary for his services, expects and receives periodic promotion until he reaches a position which, from an economic point of view, is not unenviable. After retirement he is free to engage in trade and otherwise accumulate wealth. But over and above this, what distinguishes an Indian Civil Servant from an old Brahmin bureaucrat is the fact that in India he represents a nation whose economic interest may not always be in harmony with those of the people of India. He is thus supposed to be the guardian of the interests of his countrymen, and is expected to further them as much as he can without altogether endangering the safety of British rule in India. Looked at from this angle, we have no hesitation in saying that the work of the Indian Civil Service, too, has in its way, been monumental. As a rule, they have proved capable administrators, individually honest, hardworking and alert. They have organized and tabulated India in a way, perhaps, never done before. But after all has been said in their praise, it cannot be denied that they have done India even more harm than the Brahmin oligarchy in its time, did, by the support they lent to economic exploitation of the country by men of their own race and religion. Now, in this latter respect, we want to guard against being misunderstood. The Indian Civil Service has, in the course of about a century, produced a fairly good number of men who have honestly and fearlessly stood for the protection of Indian interests against those of people of their own race and religion. In doing so they have sometimes ruined their own prospects of promotion and advancement. Whenever they failed in their self-imposed task, and more often they failed than not, they failed because the authorities at the top were forced by considerations of domestic and imperial policy to do otherwise. On the whole, the defects of the bureaucratic administration were more the defects of the system than of the individuals composing it.

The Indian Civil Servant, like the old Brahmin, is autocratic and dictatorial. He dislikes any display of independence by the people put under his charge. He discourages initiative. He likes to be called and considered the Mai bap (mother and father) of his subjects. On those who literally consider him such he showers his favors. The others he denounces and represses. This has, in the course of time, led to national emasculation. That is our chief complaint against the Indian Civil Service. Of the other services we would rather not speak. They have by no means been so pure and high-minded as the I. C. S., nor perhaps so autocratic and dictatorial. The number of men who misused their powers and opportunities to their own advantage has been much larger in services other than the I. C. S. Yet they all have done a certain amount of good work for India; whether one looks at the engineering works designed and executed by them, or the researches they have made in the science of healing and preventing disease, or the risks they have run in preserving order or maintaining peace one cannot but admire their efficiency and ability. The grievances of the Indian Nationalists against the Public Services in India may be thus summarized:

(a) That the services monopolize too much power and are practically uncontrolled by and irresponsible to the people of the country.

(b) That the higher branches of the services contain too many foreigners.

(c) That these are recruited in England, and from some of them the Indians are altogether barred.

(d) That even when doing the same work Indians are not paid on the same scale as the Europeans.

(e) That the Government has often kept on men of proved inefficiency and of inferior qualities.

(f) That, considering the economic conditions of India, the higher servants of the Government are paid on a scale unparalleled in the history of public administration in the world.

(g) That the interests of the services often supersede those of the country and the Government.

(h) And last, but not least, that by the gathering of all powers of initiative and execution in their hands they have emasculated India.

As regards (a) we have already quoted the opinion of the eminent authors of the report. The principle laid down in the announcement of August 20, and the scheme proposed are supposed to do away with the element of irresponsibility. It is obvious that with the introduction of the principle of popular control into the Government, the power of individual servants of the executive will not remain what it is now, or has been in the past. Much that is vested in and done by the service will be transferred to public bodies elected by popular vote. This will naturally affect (b) and (c) also. We will here stop to quote again from the Report:

The authors of the Report then proceed to state the limitations of the process, subject to the general remark that at the present moment there are few Indians (we do not admit this) trained in public life, who can replace the Europeans, and thus to alter the personnel of a service must be a long and steady process. They admit that:

In the next paragraph they state why, in their judgment, it is necessary that a substantial portion of the services must continue to be European. Their reasons may be gathered from the following:

On these grounds they make the following recommendations:

Now we must admit that this is certainly a distinct and marked advance on the existing situation. The Indian Constitutional party, however, wants to have the percentage of recruitment in India fixed at 50 per cent., retaining at the same time the annual increase suggested. In our opinion, this difference is not material, provided the number of posts to which the rule of percentage is to be applied is substantially reduced. We may state our position briefly.

We are of the opinion that the system of administration in India is much more costly than it should be, considering the sources and the amounts of Indian revenues. Unless the industries of the country are developed we can see no new sources of increased taxation. Consequently, to us, it seems essential that some economy should be effected in the various departments of the administration. The only way to effect that economy is to substantially reduce the number of posts on which it is considered necessary to retain a certain percentage of Europeans. In speaking of the machinery of the Government of India, the authors of the Report say:

These observations raise an apprehension in our mind that it is proposed to add to the strength of the services under the Government of India. We, for ourselves, do not see how it can be otherwise. With the steady admission of the popular element into the Government of India the activities of the latter are likely to increase rather than diminish; the secretarial work of the different departments will expand rather than contract. The question of questions is how to meet the increased cost.

The remedy is the same as was suggested many years ago by Sir William Hunter, the official historian of India. He said:

“If we are to give a really efficient administration to India, many services must be paid for at lower rates even at present. For those rates are regulated in the higher branches of the administration by the cost of officers brought from England. You cannot work with imported labor as cheaply as you can with native labor, and I regard the more extended employment of the natives, not only as an act of justice, but as a financial necessity. If we are to govern the Indian people efficiently and cheaply, we must govern them by means of themselves, and pay for the administration at the market rates for native labor.”

Now, whatever may be said about the necessity of maintaining a strong European element in the departments which require initiative, courage, resourcefulness and all the other qualities of “leadership” they are certainly not a sine qua non for efficiency in secretarial work. We can see no reason why, then, the different secretariats of the Government of India cannot be manned mainly, if not exclusively, by Indians. Their salaries need not be the same as those now paid to the Europeans engaged in these departments. May we ask if there is any country on earth where such high salaries are paid to the secretarial heads of departments as in India? Secretaries to the Government of India in the Army and Public works and Legislative departments receive 42,000 Rs. each ($14,000, or £2800 a year); Secretaries to the Government of India in the Finance, Foreign, Home, Revenue, Agriculture, Commerce and Industry and Education departments get Rs. 48,000 a year each ($16,000 or £3,200); Educational Commissioners from 30 to 36,000 Rs. ($10,000 to $12,000).

These secretarial officers are not of Cabinet rank. Besides their salaries they get various allowances, and the purchasing value of the rupee in India is much higher than that of 33 cents in the United States or of 16d. in the United Kingdom, the exchange equivalents of an Indian rupee. The same remarks may be made about Provincial Secretariats. We do not ignore the fact that a European who cuts himself away from his country and people for the best part of his life cannot be expected to give his time, energy and talents for the compensation he might accept in his own country, nor that, if the best kind of European talent is desired for India, the compensation must be sufficiently attractive to tempt competent men to accept it. In Paragraphs 318 to 322, both inclusive, the Secretary of India and the Viceroy have put forward a forceful plea for improvement in the conditions of the European Services by (a) increment in their salaries, (b) expediting promotions, and (c) grant of additional allowances, and also by bettering the prospects of pensions and leave. We are afraid the only way to obtain the concurrence of Indian public opinion in this matter, if at all, is by restricting the number of posts which must be held by Europeans. The cadre of services to which the rule of percentage is to apply must be reduced in strength, and if Europeans are required for posts outside these they should be employed for short periods and from an open market. For example, it seems inconceivable to us why professional men like doctors, engineers and professors should be recruited for permanent service. Nor is there any reason why the recruitment should be confined to persons of British domicile. The Government of India must be run on business principles. With the exception, perhaps, of the higher posts in the I. C. S. and in the Army, all other offices should be filled by taking the supply on the best available terms for short periods and from open market. By reducing the number of higher posts to which the rule of percentage should apply, the Government would be reducing the number of Indian officers who could claim the same salary as is given to their European colleagues. In our humble opinion, the latter claim is purely sentimental, and the best interests of the country require that the administration should be as economical as is compatible with efficiency. The strength of the different permanent services should be reduced as much as possible and the deficiency made up by the appointment of the best persons available at the price which the administration may be willing to pay, whether such persons be European, Indian or American. Take the Indian Educational Service, for example. The members start with a salary of 6000 Rs. a year ($2000 or £400) and rise to about 24,000 Rs. a year ($8000 or £1600). In the United States, to the best of our knowledge, few professors, if any, get a salary higher than $7000 or 21,000 Rs. a year. High-class graduates of Harvard, Yale and Columbia start their tutorial careers at $2000 to $3000 a year, many at $1500 a year. These men would refuse to go to India on a similar salary. On the other hand, if a salary of $4000 to $10,000 were offered to a select few, the services of the men at the top might be had for a short period. Surely, in the best interests of education, it is much better to get first-class men on high salaries for short periods than permanently to have third-class men beginning with smaller salaries and eventually rising to high salaries and ensuring to themselves life long pensions. What is true of the Educational Service is similarly, if not equally, true of the Medical, the Engineering and other scientific services. At the present time we have men in these technical services who received their education about twenty or twenty-five years ago and whose knowledge of their respective sciences is antiquated and rusty. Apothecaries, absolutely innocent of any knowledge of modern surgery, are often appointed to the post of Civil Surgeons. No sensible Indian desires that the present incumbents should be interfered with, except where it is possible to retire them under the terms of their service. All engagements should be met honorably. What is needed is that in future there should be a radical departure in the practice of appointing non-Indians to responsible posts in India. We do not want to deprive ourselves of the privilege of being guided in our work by European talent, nor should we grudge them adequate compensation for their services. What we object to is (1) racial discrimination; (2) excessive power being vested in individual officers; (3) the employment of more than a necessary number of persons of alien origin; (4) the crippling of the country’s resources by burdening its finances with unnecessary pensions and leave allowances; (5) the continuance of men on service lists long after their usefulness has disappeared; (6) the filling of appointments by jobbery, as is now done in the so-called non-regulation provinces. We, in the Punjab, have been “blessed” by the rule of several generations of Smiths, Harrys and Jones. Those who failed to pass the I. C. S. joined the cadre by the back door and received the same emoluments as those who entered it by competition. It is they who block the avenues of promotions and not the sons of the soil.

COST OF ADMINISTRATION

On the subject of the cost of administration it will be instructive to compare the annual salaries allowed to the highest public servants in India, the United States and Japan.

The President of the United States, who ranks with the great royalties of the world in position, gets a salary of $75,000, without any other allowance. The Prime Minister of Japan gets 12,000 yen, or $6000. The Viceroy and the Governor General of India gets 250,000 rupees, or $83,000, besides a very large amount in the shape of various allowances. The Cabinet Ministers of the United States get a salary of $12,000 each, the Japanese 8000 yen or $4000, and the Members of the Viceroy’s Council, $26,700 each.

In the whole Federal Government of the United States there are only three offices which carry a salary of more than $8000. They are:

All the other salaries range from $2100 to $8000. In the State Department all offices, including those of the secretaries, carry salaries of from $2100 to $5000. In the Treasury Department the Treasurer gets $8000, three other officers having $6000 each. All the remaining officials get from $2500 to $5000. In the War Department there are only two offices which have a salary of $8000 attached: that of Chief of Staff and that of Quartermaster General. The rest get from $2000 to $6000. In the Navy Department, besides the President of the General Board mentioned above, the President of the Naval Examination Board gets $8000 and so does the Commandant of the Marine Corps. All the rest get from $6000 downwards. In the Department of Agriculture there is only one office carrying a salary of $6000. All the rest get from $5000 downwards. The Chief of the Weather Bureau, an expert, gets $6000. In the Commerce Department four experts get $6000 each, the rest from $5000 downwards.

In Japan the officials of the Imperial Household have salaries ranging from $2750 to $4000. Officials of the Higher Civil Service get from $1850 to $2100 a year; the Vice-Minister of State, $2500; Chief of the Legislative Bureau, $2500; the Chief Secretary of the Cabinet, $2500; and the Inspector General of the Metropolitan Police, $2500; President of the Administrative Litigation Court, $3000; President of the Railway Board, $3750; President of the Privy Council, $3000; Vice-President of the Privy Council, $2750, and so on.

When we come to India we find that the President of the Railway Board gets from $20,000 to $24,000 and that two other members of the Railway Board get $16,000. Secretaries in the Army, Public Works, and Legislative Departments get $14,000. Secretaries in Finance, Foreign, Home, Revenue, Agriculture, Commerce and Industry Departments get $16,000. The Secretary in the Education Department gets $12,000; Joint Secretary, $10,000; Controller and Auditor-General, $14,000; Accountant-General, from $9,000 to $11,000; Commissioner of Salt Revenue, $10,000; Director of Post and Telegraph, from $12,000 to $14,000.

Among the officers directly under the Government of India there are only a few who get salaries below $7000. Most of the others get from that sum up to $12,000.

The United States includes forty-eight States and territories. Some of them are as large in area, if not even larger, than the several provinces of India. The Governors of these States are paid from $2500 to $12,000 a year. Illinois is the only State paying $12,000; five States, including New York and California, pay $10,000; two, Massachusetts and Indiana, pay $8000; one pays $7000, and three pay $6000. All the rest pay $5000 or less. There is only one territory, the Philippines, which pays a salary of $20,000 to its Governor-General.

In India the Governors of Madras, Bombay and Bengal each receive $40,000, besides a large amount for allowances. The Lieutenant-Governors of the Punjab, the United Provinces, Bihar and Burma get $33,000 each, besides allowances. The Chief Commissioners receive $11,000 in Bihar, $18,700 in Assam, $20,700 in the Central Provinces, and $12,000 in Delhi. The Political Residents in the native States receive from $11,000 to $16,000, besides allowances.

In Japan the governors of provinces are paid from $1850 to $2250 per year, besides allowances varying from $200 to $300.

The Provincial services in India are paid on a more lavish scale than anywhere else in the world. In Bengal the salaries range from $1600 for Assistant Magistrate and Collector to $21,333 to Members of the Council, and this same extravagance is also true of the other provinces.

Coming to the Judiciary, we find that Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States get a salary of $14,500 each, the Chief Justice getting $15,000; the Circuit Judges get a salary of $7000 each; the District Judges, $6000. In the State of New York the Judges of the Supreme Court, belonging to the General Sessions, get from $17,500 and those of the Special Sessions from $9000 to $10,000 each. City Magistrates get from $7000 to $8000. In India the Chief Justice of Bengal gets $24,000; the Chief Justices of Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces, $20,000 each. The Chief Judges of the Chief Court of the Punjab and Burma get $16,000 each and the Puisine Judges of the High Courts the same amounts.

The Puisine Judges of the Chief Courts receive $14,000. In the Province of Bengal the salaries of the District and Session Judges range from $8,000 to $12,000. District Judges of the other provinces get from about $7000 to $12,000. The Deputy Commissioners in India get a salary in the different provinces ranging from $6000 to $9000 a year. The Commissioners get from $10,000 to $12,000.

In Japan the Appeal Court Judges and Procurators get from $900 to $2500 a year. Only one officer, the President of the Court of Causation, gets as much as $3000. The District Court Judges and Procurators are paid at the rate of from $375 to $1850. It is needless to compare the salaries of minor officials in the three countries. Since the Indian taxpayer has to pay so heavily for the European services engaged in the work of administration, it is necessary that even Indian officers should be paid on a comparatively high scale, thus raising the cost of administration hugely and affecting most injuriously the condition of the men in the lower grades of the government service. The difference between the salaries of the officers and the men forming the rank and file of the government in the three countries shows clearly how the lowest ranks in India suffer from the fact that the highest governmental officials are paid at such high rates.

In New York City the Chief Inspector gets $3500 a year; Captains, $2750; Lieutenants, $2250; Surgeons, $1,750; and Patrolmen, $1,400 each. In Japan the Inspector General of the Metropolitan Police gets $2500. The figures of the lower officials are not available. But the minimum salary of a Constable is $6.50 a month, besides which he gets his equipment, uniform and boots free. In India the Inspectors General get from $8000 to $12,000, the Deputy Inspectors General from $6000 to $7200, District Superintendents of Police from $2666 to $4800, Assistants from $1200 to $2000, Inspectors from $600 to $1000, Sub-inspectors from $200 to $400, Head Constables from $60 to $80, Constables from $40 to $48.

We have taken these figures from the Indian Year Book, published by the Times of India, Bombay. We know as a fact that the Police-Constables in the Punjab are paid from $2.67 to $3.33 per month—that is, from $32 to $40 per year. The reader should mark the difference between the grades of salaries from the highest to the lowest in India as compared with the United States and Japan. While in India the lowest officials are frightfully underpaid, the highest grades are paid on a lavish scale. In the other countries of the world this is not the case.

EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT

In the United States (we quote the figures of New York) the lowest grade school teachers get a salary of $720, rising to $1500 a year. In the upper grades salaries range from $1820 to $2260. Principals of elementary schools receive $3500 and assistants $2500. In the High Schools salaries range from $900 to $3150, in training schools from $1000 to $3250. Principals of High Schools and Training Schools receive $5000 and the same salary is paid to the District Superintendent. The Commissioner of Education in New York gets $7500.

In Japan the Minister of Education, who is a Cabinet Minister, gets $4000, and the lowest salaries paid to teachers range from $8 to $9 per month. In the United States College Professors make from $3000 to $5000 per year, a few only getting higher sums. In Japan salaries range from $300 to $2000. Coming to India we find that while the Administrative officials and even the College Professors get fairly high salaries, the teachers in the schools are miserably underpaid.

Even the Times of India, an Anglo-Indian newspaper published in Bombay, has recently commented on the colossal difference between the salaries allowed at the top and those allowed at the bottom. Yet recently the Secretary of State has been sanctioning higher leave allowances to the European officers of the Indian Army.

The Secretary of State for India in Council has approved, with effect from January 1, 1919, the following revised rates of leave pay for officers of the Indian Army and Indian Medical service granted leave out of India:

Indian Army