Bengaluru

“ Several districts belonging to Bengal lie interspersed within these mountains, but none beyond them; for to the westward they extend several degrees, and are in some parts impassable, as far as the province of Berar in the Decan; to the north they divide. Bengal from the southern division of BEHAR, and to the south, seem the natural separation of Bengal from ORIXA, which nevertheless has a tract of country within them extending 20 miles along the sea-coasts from Ballasore to the river of Pipley, which disembogues opposite to the Island of Sagore. ”

“ And thus have we demonstrated the nature and condition of this Bengal government, together with the evils it hath caused to the country governed, not from a recital of disputed facts, but from principles universally understood and admitted. For every one, the least acquainted with the Company’s affairs, must know and will allow that the views, the interests, the powers and opportunities of her deputed government in Bengal are exactly such as we have described them ”

“ They have been the recipients of the highest honors from the Government. Bengal is virtually the only province permanently settled where the Government cannot add to the Land tax fixed in 1793. The Bengalis are the people who spread over India, with every territorial extension of the British Raj. They have been the pampered and favored children of the Government and for very good reasons, too. They are the best educated and the most intelligent of all the Indian peoples. They know how to adapt themselves to all conditions and circumstances, they know how to enjoy and also how to suffer. ”

“ Of all the stations occupied by the English in Southern India, Bangalore is certainly the most charming. Having an elevation of three thousand feet above the level of the sea, it enjoys a climate which, though still tropical, is most refreshing, especially in the winter months, to the invalid from the low-lands. Hence, it is much used as a health-station for those needing a change from the oppressive heat of the stations below the Ghauts, and also as the headquarters of a large body of troops. ”

“ The first formulated effort in Bengal dates from 1769, four years after the civil administration of the Province came into its hands; the latest orders of the Court of Directors on the subject were issued in 1855, three years before the government of India passed from the Company to the Crown. During the long interval, many able and earnest men had laboured at the work, manuscript materials of great value had been amassed, and several important volumes had been published. But such efforts were isolated, directed by no central organization, and unsustained by any continuous plan of execution. ”

“ THE scope of our narrative now calls us from the coast of Coromandel to relate the calamities which at this time befel the English settlements in Bengal; previous to which it is requisite to investigate the rise and progress of the English commerce in the province, and to give some portion of the history of the Mahomedan government.
Bengal is the easternmost of the provinces which compose the empire of the Great Mogul. It lies between the degrees 26. 30. and 21. 30. of north latitude, and extends from the 86th to the 97th degree of longitude, computing from the meridian of London. ”

“ The presidency of Bengal, in contradistinction to those of Madras and Bombay, eventually included all the British territories north of the Central Provinces, from the mouths of the Ganges and Brahmaputra to the Himalayas and the Punjab. In 1831 the North-Western Provinces were created, which are now included with Oudh in the United Provinces; and the whole of northern India is now divided into the four lieutenant-governorships of the Punjab, the United Provinces, Bengal, and Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the North-West Frontier Province under a commissioner. ”

“ Lord Curzon, however, was determined to cut Bengal Proper and the Bengali-speaking community in two, giving 25,000,000 of the population to the new Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam with a new capital at Dacca, and 18,000,000 of the population to a Province still to be called Bengal, with the old capital of Calcutta, and bound up with the outlying districts of Behar, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa, all of which differ from Bengal in race, language, and civilization, as does Assam. ”

“ But Hinduism, understood even in this wide sense, represents only one of many creeds and races found within Bengal. The other great historical cultus, which during the last twelve centuries did for the Semitic peoples what Christianity accomplished among the European Aryans, has won to itself one-fifth of the population of Bengal. The Mahommedans number some 9,000,000 in Bengal, but the great bulk of their numbers was transferred to Eastern Bengal and Assam. ”

“ It is a matter of vital importance to the nation that the cultivators of Bengal should prosper and live better lives (hear, hear) . It is a matter of supreme importance to those who want self-government or swaraj in this country (hear, hear) . We must look forward to the whole Bengalee nation. We must work persistently, we must look forward to the day when the Bengalees as a nation, Hindus and Mahomedans, all together, will stand before the world in all the glory of nationality (cheers) . I say therefore the question is of vital importance from the point of view of the nation. ”

“ As a fruit of that meeting, a statue of the first Principal of the Sanskrit College has been set up in the College-building as a tribute of respect to the great man.
But is this sufficient? Who is to answer the question? The natives of Bengal must consider themselves fortunate that they have been able to do so much. Most surely, they have won a very bad name that they are great in words, but small in deeds. How often have they assembled in large gatherings rending the walls of the room with loud vociferations of their thundering eloquence, and how often have they failed in deeds! ”

“ The history of Bengal during the next few months will furnish the answer to the question whether we have utilised the century and a half of British peace, British administrative example, English education, and the preaching and sacrifice of a succession of national leaders, and acquired the one indispensable basis of popular government, or whether we still retain the spirit of the Kartabhaja and Maharaja sects. Have we learnt that the nation is greater than the individual? ”

“ AMONG the famous men of Bengal in the nineteenth century no name deserves a more honoured place than that of Ram Mohan Roy. At once the pioneer of the great Renaissance that was slowly dawning in Bengal and the first representative of India to the British people, he opened up to his fellow countrymen new paths of progress and reform. ”

“ But Bengal has other attractions to one who rides over it. This single province of India is five times as large as the State of New York. It is a vast alluvial plain, through which the Ganges pours by a hundred mouths to the sea, its overflow giving to the soil a richness and fertility like that of the valley of the Nile, so that it supports a population equal to that of the whole of the 281 United States. The cultivated fields that we pass show the natural wealth of the country, as the frequent towns show the density of the population. ”

“ But since the advent of British administration the history of Bengal has substantially been a record of prosperity; the teeming population of its river valleys is one of the densest in the world, and the purely agricultural districts of Saran and Muzaffarpur in the Patna division support over 900 persons to the square mile, a number hardly surpassed elsewhere except in urban areas. ”

“ This is the first time I am here, and never before knew Bengal was so beautiful. You ought to have seen the rivers here — regular rolling oceans of fresh water, and everything so green — continual production. The villages are the cleanest and prettiest in all India. ”

“ Not yet wholly emerged from the troublous times of the eighteenth century, it was not in a position to reap the full advantages of the rule of law and order which under British supremacy was gradually settling down upon the distracted land. Hindu Society, in the usual acceptation of the term, there was none. Nothing that could be called public opinion existed. Bengal had no literature, scarcely even a language of its own. Such education as existed was confined to Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, and even the study of these languages had fallen into decay. ”

“ That province of the Mogul Empire which lay on the Ganges immediately above Bengal, was so called, and still retains the name and character of a province, under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and embracing the ten modern districts of Patna, Sāran, Gāya, Shāhābād, Tirhut, Champāran, the Santāl Parganas, Bhāgalpūr, Monghyr, and Purnīah. The name was taken from the old city of Bihār, and that derived its title from being the site of a famous Vihāra in Buddhist times. In the later days of Mahommedan rule the three provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa were under one Subadar, viz. ”

“ In all the places which were made under municipal institutions he encouraged the local corporations to do the same. Through his precept or example a fresh impulse was given to these beneficent works at every capital city, industrial centre, or considerable town, throughout the Bengal Presidency—more than half the empire—and a general quickening of municipal life was the consequence. His influence could not{168} under the constitution of British India be equally direct in the Madras and Bombay Presidencies but there also it was felt as a practical encouragement. ”

“ Around the English cantonment, more especially on the north side of it, is the modern town of Bangalore, containing about sixty or seventy thousand inhabitants, who are chiefly Tamulians, the descendants of those native camp-followers and adherents who accompanied the British forces from Madras and the plains of the Carnatic when they conquered and took possession of the land. There are likewise at Bangalore a goodly number of English and Irish pensioners, who have chosen rather to abide in India than come back to this country ”

“ It is not justified by history, which teaches us that civilisation is the result of the mutual action of Europe and Asia; and that the advanced races of India are our own kinsfolk.
The scene of Mr. Banerjea's tales has been won from the sea by alluvial action. Its soil, enriched by yearly deposits of silt, yields abundantly without the aid of manure. A hothouse climate and regular rainfall made Bengal the predestined breeding-ground of mankind; the seat of an ancient and complex civilisation. But subsistence is too easily secured in those fertile plains. ”

“ For tho’, in our description of the Company’s government in India, we confined our account to that of Bengal alone, as being the most important and best known part of her dominion; yet doth the Company possess, besides Bengal, certain other territorial governments, of no small value and importance, in respect of either revenue or commerce. All which governments being formed upon the same system as that of Bengal, do not less demand reform, supervision, and controul. ”

“ But life has its side which is vigorously destructive and full of uncertainties and contradictions. The signs of perturbation so evident in Bengal, in her social and religious life, in her intellectual adjustments, only show that creative ideas are at work in the centre of her being. I trust I do not merely prove my patriotic bias by saying that, of all countries in the East, Bengal is most earnestly engaged in the exploration of life's ideal. ”

“ Hindu society, that is the village community, has long decayed in Bengal owing to Muhammadan dominance, the concentration of estates in the hands of large proprietors and the weakening or lapse of the customary rights of tenants. Coupled with this has been the growth of an important urban population, in which the castes mentioned have raised themselves from their menial position in the villages and attained wealth and influence, just as the Gujarāti Telis are now doing in Burhānpur, while the agricultural castes of Bengal have been comparatively depressed. ”

“ The kingdom of Bengal has been long under the power of the Mahomedans, yet there are many Gentile inhabitants. Wherever I speak of Gentiles I am to be understood as signifying idolaters, and by Moors I mean the followers of Mahomet. The inhabitants of the inland country do greatly worship the river Ganges; for if any one is sick, he is brought from the country to the banks of the river, where they build for him a cottage of straw, and every day they bathe him in the river. ”

“ In every branch of the public services open to Indians and in all the liberal professions, as well as in the civic and political life of their country, the Bengalees have played a leading part, not restricted even to their own province, and in the very distinguished person of Lord Sinha, Bengal has just provided for the first time an Indian to represent the King-Emperor as governor of a province—the neighbouring province of Behar and Orissa. Nor have the women of Bengal been left behind as in so many other parts of India. ”

“ New actors were appearing in the political arena. The invasion of the Great Coḷa Conqueror left a deep impression on north eastern India. It gave Bengal a new dynasty of kings and indirectly hastened the ruin of the Pãla Empire. After the Badal pillar inscription of Narāyaṇapāla, there is no other inscription which can throw Hght on the history of Northern Bengal for three generations, i.e. till the time of Mahīpāla I. About this time some Mongolian tribes occupied the whole of the Northern Bengal and either massacred the old inhabitants or gradually forced them back southwards. ”