THE CAUSES OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.

Colonist, Issue 6, 10 November 1857, Page 3

THE CAUSES OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.

The anxiety about our Indian affairs grows in intensity, and it is fed by the perusal of private letters, which are circulated everywhere, but which no one could venture to publish, with the details they give of the diabolical cruelties inflicted upon our countrymen —'•arid, still worse, upon women and children—by the bloodthirsty arid licentious mutineers. Our sympathies are only rendered the more poignant, by the recollection that we can give no help to the sufferers, and that we may have to wait another month, before we learn the progress of affairsj—^whether thd conflagration ia to spread through the length and breadth of India, until it consumes the last fragments of our sovereignty, or to be extinguished, with the blood of no greater a sacrifice than that of the Bengal army, and over no larger a space than that measured by the Ganges and its tributaries. That seems to be* at. present, the region through which the outbreak has extended; and it has been mentioned, as a significant fact, that the rebellion—if we must so call it—-which broke out almost simultaneously, in various parts of the north-eastern presidency, and with the greater violence in proportion to the prevalence of the Brahminical element in the army, has scarcely manifested itself in Madras or Bombay, and finds no encouragement among the more warlike and formidable tribes in the Punjaub, in Scinde, or among the defiles or on the slopes of the Himalayan mountains. This is, in one of its aspects, an encouraging circumstance; for it indicates one of the secrets of our power, —in the jealousy and hatred with which the different races of India regard each other. It leaves, however, as a difficulty to be solved, the fact that Hinduism cannot be the sole and exclusive cause underlying these movements; since we find Mohammedans, as well as Pagans, equally concerned in the mutiny, and equally infuriated against us. They may each have their separate motives ; but it is clear that they agree in a common cause,- — which must lie deeper, and be more general, than any of those particular grievances which have been agitated on*1 the surface. We do not believe that the "pork fat" was the real and efficient cause of such a moral earthquake as this, which has shaken what was considered the most loyal and submissive,' as well as the most ancient part, of our dominion. It may have been the -spark that fired the mine; but the disaffection must have had a deeper seat, and' the ingredients of hatred and wrath must have been accumulating for a long time, before any single act of provocation could have produced so fearful an explosion. It appears almost certain that the Mahommedans and Hindus could have had but little respect or sympathy for each other, on the score ot religion; because nothing can exceed the contempt which the followers of the Arabian prophet express, for the disgusting and obscene idolatry of the disciples of Brahma ; besides being -themselves mostly of foreign blood, and the representatives of former conquerors of India. It is in fact, the opinion of many experienced Anglo-Indians, that we have not sufficient^ availed themselves of this feeling, and that it was our policy to have governed India through the instrumentality of the Mahommedans, as the superior race, who agree with us in so many vital points, on which we differ from the aborigines of India, and whose creed and institutions

form a kind of intermediate stage between Christianity and Paganism. Along with us, and our elder brethren the Jews, they maintain the plenary inspiration of Moses an;i the Prophets. Their most ancient traditions agree with ours. They do not absolutely reject the New Testament—so that it do not exclude the authority of the Koran as a final revelation, or of Mahbnimed as the last and greatest of, the divine messengers; Such pretensions" are; ■of Course in our eyes;. false aild even' 'Blasphemous : but, apart from these considerations," there are many things in Mahomm^danism which would recommend it to us, as an instrument of government and, civilization; ;in preference to the absurd and revolting .superstitions whic)*'prevail in liidiaY The Koran contains many. fictions and extravagances; but no where are the unity and spirituality of God, the immortality, of the soul, or the eternity of rewards and punish-' ments, set forth in more sublime and impressive language, than in the Koran:- It approaches, in these ; respects, and in the simplicity and^ gravity of its ritual, much nearer to primitive .Christianity thaix som© other persuasions which affect - that name. It has taught abstinence from' intoxicating drinks, as a religious duty. It has been the patron of literature and science, in the dark ages. It built the Alhambra, invented Chemistry, and gave the world translations of Aristotle"'and the other Greek-philoso-phers,—at the time when eastern monks wrangling, about the1 Hotnoousiaii- .controversy, and ■ fheir contemporaries', in the west were burning witches ahd heretics. The Mahommedans were our predecessors, as conquerors of India; and we have wounded their pride, by placing them on an equality with Pagans, who reckon three hundred and thirty millions of -deities in their mythology; and who regard all .the religions of the west with detestation arid abhorrence. . .;, As for the Hindus, —we do not incline to the belief that this mutiny is " reaction of. their bigotry .: against Christianity." There is no evidence of this; and; certainly it is not a feeling on which they \vouicl have the sympathy or co-operation of the Mahomedans; So far as they are coticez*ried, we would rather ascribe their disaffection to" the. causes . indicajtedj by the late Sir Charles Napier, who did not fail to predict these occurrences. He distinctly pointed out the demoralisation of the Bengal atrmy, years ago, which he ascribed to.,extreme laxity of discipline, occasioned by the\ ignorance and parsimony, of the East* India Company;—to which we may venture to add, that all armies, by an inevitable tendency, run into mutiny, when not properly controlled*—and that, in the case before us, there is deep sense of degradation, in being a conquered people, and the seeing themselves constantly left under the corrimand of a mere handful of unfledged subalterns. All the blunders and disasters ma\^ be traced to the fact of the East India Company having been trusted too long, and too implicitly; with military power and imperial authority. : The 'Bengal army has rebelled; as every army, raised among a conquered people, -will rebel, — when it has the opportunity.- That is all;. There is no great problem to solve there. We think that the missionaries have had less to do with it than the Persians and Russians. A school—a chain-gang—a Legislative Council—a congregation—a crew—^a harem —even the members of a Government will rebel; if the chief does not keep them well in hand, and put: down the first symptom of insubordination, with a rod of iron. . It is only some few noble natures; that can succeed in governing on a different system, but then they must have something congenial to work upon, and not such devils incarnate as could perpekate the massacres at Cawnpore.— Melbourne Herald. ■ •