Sometimes life imitates art (consider a certain type
of Indian wedding and those in Bollywood movies) while at other times art
imitates life (consider War and Peace and the paintings of Vincent Van Gough.)
It happens occasionally, however, that a life is so dramatic, so full of
adventure, romance, violence , war and intrigue that few writers would dare create a
thriller in its image for fear of being laughed at for writing childish
fantasy.
One such life of high drama was that of Warren Hastings.
Orphaned at an early age and poor to boot, Warren was packed off at age
seventeen to serve the East India
Company as a Writer (accounts clerk) in India instead of being sent up to
Oxbridge where his scholarly and athletic prowess may have given his life a
very different turn from the one it took.
School history books do, I seem to remember, mention Hastings
briefly and in a very boring manner, as one of the many monsters who came East
to trade and stayed to rule. The trick, however, as I discovered by accident, is to read the life of
Hastings as a thriller, presented by another imperialist, racist Sahib, who
nonetheless had a remarkable command of the English language and a powerful,
compelling style of writing --Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Macaulay’s essay on Hastings is more than 40000 words
long and so qualifies as a book of sorts, for the purposes of this blog. It
also, by the sheer quantum, intensity and variety of its dramatic content,
qualifies as a remarkable thriller.
I could attempt to summarize the story, but summaries
are dull things, while both, the events of Hastings life and their presentation
by Macaulay, sparkle with energy, excitement and power. Hastings was no knight
in shining armour and Macaulay’s attempts to both condemn and defend him are
intriguing. One must remember that Macaulay was trained as a lawyer.
(A couplet of Akbar Allahabadi comes to mind here
Paida hua vakil to shaitan ne kaha
Lo aaj hum bhi sahib-e-aulad ho gaye
The poet was a sessions judge, by the way)
A few examples to illustrate Macaulay’s skill and power as commentator and essayist would not be out of order here.
In setting
the context for Hasting’s early life in India, TBM says,
“But at first English power came among them (Indians/Bengalis)
unaccompanied by English morality. There was an interval between the time at
which they became our subjects, and the time at which we began to reflect that
we were bound to discharge towards them the duties of rulers. During that
interval the business of a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of
the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as speedily as possible,
that he might return home before his constitution had suffered from the heat,
to marry a peer's daughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give
balls in St. James's Square.”
Historians
may debate the ‘English morality’ that Macaulay talks about, but the greed is
beautifully described!
The
descriptions of Hasting’s measures to raise money -- ‘the shamefully bloody,
mercenary, and lucrative subjugation of Rohilcund, paid for by Oude’, the unjust
but brutally successful effort to ‘wring extra money out of the Rajah of
Benares’ and the equally successful
steps to ‘terrorize, torment, and despoil the wealthy Begums of Oude’ is
explained as follows:
‘The
finances of his government were in an embarrassed state, and this embarrassment
he was determined to relieve by some means, fair or foul. The principle which
directed all his dealings with his neighbours is fully expressed by the old
motto of one of the great predatory families of Teviotdale, "Thou shalt
want ere I want." He seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental
proposition which could not be disputed, that, when he had not as many lacs of
rupees as the public service required, he was to take them from anybody who
had. One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied
to him by his employers at home, was such as only the highest virtue could have
withstood, such as left him no choice except to commit great wrongs, or to
resign his high post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and
distinction. The Directors, it is true, never enjoined or applauded any crime.
Far from it. Whoever examines their letters written at that time, will find
there many just and humane sentiments, many excellent precepts, in short, an
admirable code of political ethics. But every exhortation is modified or
nullified by a demand for money. "Govern leniently, and send more money;
practise strict justice and moderation towards neighbouring powers, and send
more money"-- this is, in truth, the sum of almost all the instructions
that Hastings ever received from home. Now these instructions, being
interpreted, mean simply, "Be the father and the oppressor of the people;
be just and unjust, moderate and rapacious." The Directors dealt with
India, as the Church, in the good old times, dealt with a heretic. They
delivered the victim over to the executioners, with an earnest request that all
possible tenderness might be shown.’
Hasting’s
effective efforts to raise finance calls forth the following comment from the
Essayist:
‘Whatever we
may think of the morality of Hastings, it cannot be denied that the financial
results of his policy did honour to his talents.’
Macaulay’s concluding take on Hastings is a remarkable
effort at having your cake and eating it too:
‘… in the
two great elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of others,
and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles
were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth
describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard
without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare
talents for command, for administration, and for controversy,………’
Much has
been said about Warren Hastings, but one dimension of his life is usually
ignored -- the story of his courtship and marriage to the Baroness Imhoff, the
wife of the impecunious Baron Imhoff, whom he met on his second voyage to India.
It is a love story par excellence and Macaulay’s brief description of it is
brilliant and heart-warming.
Whatever
else he was -- brutal imperialist, 'murderer' of Nandkumar, knower of Persian and Arabic et al -- he was
also a man capable of love.
Macaulay’s
Essays are available for download at www.gutenberg.org
and the essay on Hastings is in Critical and Historical essays Volume 1.
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