THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA 99
A begger, according to English notions, is fit only for the stocks or compulsory labour in the workhouse ; in India he is a respectable character and worthy indeed of veneration according to the Brahminical theory, which considers him as one who has renounced all the pleasures and temptations of life for the cultivation of learning and undisturbed meditation of the Deity.
“ Paragraph 17.—Upper classes in India .—The classes who may be deemed to be influential and in so far the upper classes in India may be ranked as follows:—
1st. —The landowners and Jaghirdars, representatives of the former feudatories and persons in authorities under Native powers and who may be termed the Soldier class.
2nd. —Those who have acquired wealth in trade or commerce or the commercial class.
3rd. —The higher employees of Government.
4th. —Brahmins, with whom may be associated, though at long interval, those of higher castes of writers who live by the pen such as Parbhus and Shenvis in Bombay, Kayasthas in Bengal provided they acquire a position either in learning or station.
“Paragraph 18.—Brahmins, the most influencial .—Of these four classes, incomparably the most influencial, the most numerous, and on the whole easiest to be worked on by the Government, are the latter. It is a well-recognized fact throughout India that the ancient Jaghirdars or Soldier class are daily deteriorating under our rule. Their old occupation is gone, and they have shown no disposition or capacity to adopt new one, or to cultivate the art of peace. In the Presidency, the attempts of Mr. Elphinstone and his successors to bolster up a landed aristocracy have lamentably failed ;. and complete disconfiture has hitherto attended all endeavours to open up a path to distinction through civil honours and education, to a race to whom nothing appears to excite but vain pomp and extravagance, of the reminiscences of their ancestors’ successful raids in the plains of Hindusthan”. Nor among commercial classes, with a few exceptions, is mere much greater opening for the influences of superior education. As in all countries, but more in India than in the higher civilized ones of Europe, the young merchant or trader must quit his school at an early period in order to obtain the special education needful for his vocation in the market or the counting house. Lastly, the employees of the State, though they possess a great influence over the large numbers, who come in contact with Government, have no influence, whatever, with the still larger numbers who are independent of Government ; and, indeed, they appear to inspire the same sort of distrust with me public as Government functionaries in England, who are often considered by the vulgar as mere hacks of the State.