John Law

“ Everything had its price in Hyderabad. If a man wanted a place he counted out his money to buy it. If a man wanted justice, he bade for it as for any other marketable commodity. Every public office, in every department of the State, was accessible to a bribe . . . Neither life nor property was secure . . . There was nothing left indeed but the name of government, all the rest was lawlessness and confusion." In 1853 the Minister, Nawab Seraj-ul-Mulk, died; and his nephew, Nawab Salar Jung, who was then only twenty-five years old, was chosen by Nizam Nasir-ud-Daula to succeed him. ”

“ Now, in England, kings and queens visit hospitals and send gifts of game, fruit, and other things to the patients, rich people endow beds in and leave large sums of money to hospitals, and well-educated and refined women nurse the sick and attend to the ying. And in British India, the wives of viceroys and governors all try to follow the royal example as regards hospitals and nurses.
Government charity must always be a cold and barren business; yet in a purdah country how can any woman become a Florence Nightingale and make hospital nursing fashionable? ”

“ Government schools are too strict as regards clothes and cleanliness to suit illiterate parents, and they prefer to pay a few dubs to a Hindu school-master, who in some small, ill-ventilated room will teach the boys to repeat by heart some well-known Hindu legends, and to do a little bazaar arithmetic.
There is no gainsaying that while the government is most anxious to educate the masses, employers, in country places, are just as desirous to keep them in slavish ignorance. The sowcars, too, hinder education all they can. ”

“ An easy and somewhat cynical nonchalance characterises him; and being kind-hearted and courteous, he has made many friends and few enemies during the long period that he has held his important office. The knowledge of the State and State affairs that Nawab Faridoon Jung possesses to-day makes him invaluable to H. H. the Nizam and to His Highness's Government, and his marvellous capacity to say and do the right thing on the spur of the moment — well to few do the gods give these gifts in such a happy combination. ”

“ I do not care to argue this point, more especially in the case of the Hyderabad State, where all women — both Mahomedans and Hindus — of the higher classes (with a few notable exceptions) , live behind the curtain. We have seen in the new census that Hindu working-women in the Dominions are engaged in almost every kind of business, and that they show a marked aptitude for trade and possess a keen money-making instinct. And we have read in the education reports that the schools for girls of the upper classes in Hyderabad city are as good, if not better, than similar places in British India. ”

“ At all times Hyderabad city presents kaleidoscopic views of peculiar interest; but on Langar Day it seems to surpass itself, for then the streets are filled with men in holiday clothes, among whom pace gorgeously-caparisoned elephants, while carriages dash past, driven by syces in rainbow-coloured liveries, and carrying little children dressed in the most brilliant and varied garments. ”

“ I venture to disagree with a member of His Highness's government in his opinion that the illiteracy of the masses in Hyderabad State is largely due to the fact that the girls of the lower classes are kept totally ignorant. It seems to me that the whole environment of the people in the districts is at fault, and that a desire for more education will come when roads open up the districts, the jagirdars are brought to a sense of their great responsibilities as landlords, and some Hindu religious text-book is introduced into the primary schools. ”

“ There is, in fact little to rouse the intelligence of Hindu children in places far from a railway station and reached only by a fair-weather road or a cart-track, and it seems to me that if the Hindu religion were not so much neglected in government schools, there might be a desire on the part of parents to let their children learn the things that the Education Department is so anxious to teach them, for with Hindus religion is not only a duty but, also, a stimulus. ”

“ Every little heap of stones beside the railway line had been guarded by policemen while the viceregal train rushed past, and motor cars had conveyed Their Excellencies from entertainment to entertainment in Hyderabad city and its suburbs, while the lives of the common people had been made wretched by police regulations and restrictions, and the public had offered up a daily and hourly prayer that the Viceroy might go safely and quickly away. ”

“ Needless to say, the things that interested me most, while travelling in the districts, were the differences that I noticed there between Mahomedan and English rule. I came to the conclusion that the former is the most popular with Hindus, and chiefly so because it interferes the least with their customs and habits. In British India, Hindus are always being hustled by energetic young English civilians and "chartered hands," who want to have everything done in a hurry and done according to their own customs. ”

“ Visvesvaraya's scheme has not been materially altered. It has, however, received an addition of great importance. The occasion has been seized not only to protect the city from floods but also to provide it with a pure and bountiful supply of drinking water, the first requisite of health and well-being in any country, but in India above all. We hope that in four years the city of Hyderabad and the cantonment of Secunderabad will be blessed with a supply of water that for purity, copiousness and permanence, can challenge comparison with any town in the East. ”

“ Finance is, no doubt, the pivot of an administration, and no one will deny that the smoothness of the government machinery in His Highness's Dominions at the present time is largely due to Sir George Casson Walker, I.C.S., who held the position of Finance Minister in Hyderabad from 1901 to 1910. ”

“ There is no excess, it says, of male births but more male than female infants die during the first year of their lives. After the fifth year is passed, the male population is in excess of the female, and women then remain in a position of numerical inferiority until the end. That the women do not live as long as the men in Hyderabad State is proved by the statistics ; but it is difficult to obtain the correct ages of the women. "Every woman," says the Census, "who can possibly do so seems to have a fancy for returning herself as between twenty and twenty-five years of age." ”

“ Concerning the wages received by farm servants and farm labourers, nothing definite is known, because such people are largely paid in kind, and are more or less the slaves of the cultivators. "To sell into slavery" is a criminal offence in Hyderabad State, but there is no doubt that in remote places farm labourers still sometimes sell their children to their employers, and sometimes bind themselves to work for a certain number of years, and even for a life-time in return for money given to defray marriage expenses, and little girls are sometimes bartered for food, clothes, and sandals. ”

“ In undertaking any legislative measure, the Council is bound to be guided by the principles of Mahomedan law, the tenets of the Hindu shastras, the special laws of every community residing in His Highness's Dominions, the customs and usages having the force of law and the jurisprudence of British India or other civilised countries. No Act of the Council, nor any power granted to it, can in any way affect the rights and prerogatives of His Highness as the supreme ruler of the State. ”

“ Behind the chicks of the windows, unseen but felt, are the secluded ladies, for whom, no doubt, the Langar is a great annual event, and every roof and every doorstep is covered with sightseers, who seem to vie one with another as regards the brilliancy of their attire. ”

“ Mir Turab Ali Khan Bahadur, known as Sir Salar Jung I, was born in 1828, and the condition of Hyderabad at the time of his birth is thus described by Sir John Kaye. in his "Life of Lord Metcalfe":—
"The whole system of administration was rotten to the very core, it was a congeries of diseases. Nothing seemed to flourish there except corruption. Every man was bent on enriching himself at the expense of his neighbour. No one cared for the people, no one cared for the State. ”

“ Finally there is every reason to anticipate a steady increase in revenue as the country is developed by roads, railways and irrigation. Of course famine may at any time cause a set back to the prosperity of the State, but people and government are now better prepared to face such a calamity than they were fifteen years ago when the last serious famine occurred. ”

“ I was shown ruined temples on hills outside cities, or I was told : — "The Hindus go to the Godavari — their sacred river — to say their prayers."
Perhaps it is good for the Hindus to be hustled. I do not know. Bombs are unpleasant. I cannot imagine a Nizam riding alone to meet a Wat Tyler, like Richard the Second of England; yet without such people as Wat Tyler where would England be now?
The Purdah System.
English people are wont to say that the purdah system is at the root of all backwardness in India, and that, "the hope of India lies in educating its women." ”

“ When we visit the Residency bazaars in Hyderabad to-day, and learn that the British Resident now exercises there civil and criminal jurisdiction over 17,971 people, we find it difficult to picture the Residency area of one hundred years ago. ”

“ No European can be appointed to the State service, nor can any one be granted the rank of commissioned officer in the State army, without His Highness's permission. Death sentences can be carried out only after the confirmation of the Nizam."
This was written while His Highness the late Nizam was on the gadi, and it is only necessary to add that the present ruler of Hyderabad has made himself intimately acquainted with the working of each State department, that he has a thirst for public affairs, and that he shews a determination to master every detail of government business. ”

“ Everywhere the machinery of administration is excellent, but so far the people in the districts cannot live up to it. They lag, and when I asked the reason for this sluggishness, I was generally told that the small jagirdars and the fat sowcars are at the root of the slow progress that is being made at present. Things familiar to me in British India I found everywhere, but not so highly developed as they are under English rule. ”

“ There one can learn more in six weeks than during six months spent in the capital; and chiefly so, I think, because government officials in the districts are much less reticent than is the case in Hyderabad city and its suburbs. Having read of the bribery and corruption that existed among talukdars and tahsildars in the time of Sir Salar Jung I, I was not prepared to find these gentlemen so up-to-date and so efficient. The Subedars of the four divisions I did not see, because I visited Warangal, Medak, Gulbarga and Aurangabad during the cold weather, and they were all on tour. ”

“ The hard manual labour done by Hindu women of the lower classes has probably much to do with the high rate of female mortality, also the unskilled midwifery, which the Victoria Zenana Hospital in Hyderabad is now trying to do away with. The proportion of female to male children has, however, increased during the last decade, for while in 1901 the male and female populations under ten years of age numbered 1,414,320 and 1,393,700, in 1911 they numbered 1,788,219 males and 1,830,461 females. ”

“ And it must not be forgotten that a Nizam is in his State absolute. So far the present ruler has shewn no inclination to interfere with government revenue, which pays for the administration, the Courts of Justice, the State army, the Public Service, etc. His Highness is much too intelligent and enlightened a ruler to jeopardise the good government of the State, the loyalty of his subjects, and the good- will of the Government of India by such a course of conduct. ”

“ There is nothing direct to show for roads in the way of dividends, but they are really more necessary for the development of the State than the Hingoli railway, for instance; and those who have the true interests of the State at heart will rejoice to hear that, according to the administration report for 1320-1321 Fasli (1910-1912) "a comprehensive programme of road construction has been put in hand." Local Boards in the districts have since 1887 been in receipt of a cess of one anna per rupee of land revenue, and this money, which is called Local Fund, is partly spent on the repair of roads. ”

“ It only half protects Hyderabad from floods, it much reduces their intensity, but it does not confer entire immunity. The river Easi has still to be controlled, an even larger and more costly work, but one which can be applied to a purpose which in India is of overwhelming importance in irrigation. It will not come in my time, but I sincerely hope that His Highness who is young and by God's blessing strong and vigorous, will some day complete the whole scheme which he is now here to inaugurate. ”

“ Most of the troops are stationed in or near the capital, but some are in the chief towns in the districts. The State Army appears to be fairly popular as a means of earning a living, and there is no dearth of officers. These privileged gentlemen have a fine club on the Fateh Maidan, a suburb of Hyderabad city, and they enjoy sports and races at the local gymkhana, in fact, they have a very good time, if one may judge by their appearance.
↑ * Since this was written the army of H. H. the Nizam has been largely drawn upon for the Expeditionary Forces sent from India to the seat of war in 1914. ”

“ The princes of the East do not lose much of their valuable time in the study of geography. Major Achilles Kirkpatrick, the Resident at this Court, wished to obtain a grant of one or two fields to erect this structure upon. He requested the engineer of the English force stationed at Hyderabad to make an exact survey of the spot and when this was finished upon a large sheet he carried it to the Darbar and, showing it to the Nizam, requested he would grant the English Government a grant of the land. ”