THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA 137
with social reform, it took courage to announce publicly and once for all its policy of opposition to reform. In a Government Resolution of that year, the British Government proclaimed :
“In dealing with such subjects as those raised in Mr. Malabari’s Notes, the British Government in India has usually been guided by certain general principles. For instance, when caste or custom enjoins a practice which involves a breach of the ordinary criminal law, the State will enforce the law. When caste or custom lays down a rule which is of its nature enforceable in the Civil Courts, but is clearly opposed to morality or public policy, the State will decline to enforce it. When caste or custom lays down a rule which deals with such matters as are usually left to the option of citizens, and which does not need the aid of Civil or Criminal Courts for its enforcement, State interference is not considered either desirable or expedient.
“In the application of such general principles to particular cases, there is doubtless room for differences of opinion; but there is one common-sense test which may often be applied with advantage in considering whether the State should or should not interfere in its legislative or executive capacity with social or religious questions of the kind now under notice. The test is, ‘Can the State give effect to its commands by the ordinary machinery at its disposal ?’ If not, it is desirable that the State should abstain from making a rule which it cannot enforce without a departure from its usual practice or procedure.
“If this test be applied in the present case, the reasons will be apparent why His Excellency in Council considers that interference by the State is undesirable, and mat the reforms advocated by Mr. Malabari, which affect the social customs of many races with probably as many points of difference as of agreement, must be left to the improving influence of time and to the gradual operation of the mental and moral development of the people by the spread of education.
“It is true that the British Government in India has by its legislation set up a standard of morality independent of, and in some material respects differing from, the standard set up by caste; and it may be that the former standard has had some beneficial effect in influencing native customs, practices, and modes of thought. But legislation, though it may be didactic purposes; and in the competition of influence between legislation on the one hand, and caste or custom on the other, the condition of success on the part of the former is that the Legislature should keep within its natural boundaries, and should not, by overstepping those boundaries, place itself in direct antagonism to social opinion.”
The policy laid down in this Resolution has ever since remained the policy of the British Government in the matter of Social Reform.