APPENDIX. B.
THE
LANDHOLDERS' AND COMMERCIAL ASSOCIATION
OF
BRITISH INDIA.
To
SIR,
The trial, in the Supreme Court, of the Reverend James Long for the libel in the publication of a pamphlet called the "Nil Durpan" or Indigo Planting Mirror, having elicited the fact that a copy of the work was sent to many influential persons in England, under the frank of the Government of Bengal, the Landholers' and Commercial Association of British India, at whose instance the prosecution was instituted, deem it right to send to you the report of the trial herewith, and a brief statement of the circumstances which led to it.
On the 25th May the Committee became aware by a communication from Lahore, that the pamphlet in question, containing foul and malicious libels on the Calcutta daily newspapers and the Indigo planters of Lower Bengal, had been circulated under the frank of the Government of Bengal.
On the 25th and 29th May they addressed the Government of Bengal on the subject, and under date 3rd June, received the reply, which with their letters, will be found in the Appendix (I).
As an answer to the request that the name of the parties who had so circulated the pamphlet should be given to them was evaded by that Government, the commitee had no alternative but to institute legal proceedings, which they did—first, against the printer; who, when put on his trial, pleaded guilty, and gave up the name of the Rev. James Long as the person who had employed him.
Mr. James Long was accordingly indicted at the Sessions; that form of proceeding having been adopted at the suit of a body of men such as Indigo planters; and having been tried by a special Jury, the result was that he was found guilty, and sentenced to one month's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of one thousand rupees.
The work itself is a Bengalee drama, purporting to depict the Indigo system as viewed by the Natives at large; the author's preface commencing, "I present the Indigo planting mirror to the Indigo planter's hands, now let every one of them observe his face." The translation is preceded by an introduction written by the Rev. Mr. Long who superintended the printing, paid the expense, Rs. 300/- received the whole edition of 500 copies, and who adopts the whole by stating in the preface that "language is plain but true."
The dramatis personae are the well-to-do and even rich ryots of a village in Lower Bengal; their wives and daughters; two Indigo planters, Mr. Wood and Mr. Rose; their dewans and factory servants; the Magistrate of the district; a sweetmeat maker who is also a procuress; and other inferior characters.
The play brings into action, as facts and actual occurrences, all those exploded and disproved falsehoods against Indigo planters, which are stated in the Report of the Indigo Commission to be so. The factory Ameen is made to say in the second scene, first act, that be gave his own sister to the young saheb; and that he will now try to get the ryot's beautiful daughter, who had just appeared, for him, in hopes of promotion. When the planters appear on the scene they recite, and glory in all the violence they have done, in the atrocities they have committed; they use the foulest language. Wood in the third scene of the same act, orders the "bloody nigger" to be beaten; and does it himself, with the whip, a leather strap, which is described to be always at hand and to be used by the planters also on their highest servants.
The ryots' wives and daughters are models of beauty and innocence; though one of them does say, in the fourth scene, that the wife of the planter is a great deal too intimate with the Magistrate, "and has no shame at all." Her power over, and conduct with, the Magistrate is again referred ta in scene 3, Act 4, by the Jemadar of the jail, who says that he had been a house-servant of Mrs. Wood's but, through the influence of one letter from her, had got from Magistrate the appointment he holds.
The first scene in the second Act is in the godown of the planter, where the ryots are tortured to make them take advances and cultivate Indigo and where the planter in person flogs, and kicks them.
In the third Act, third scene, two brave ryots rescue the beautiful daughter after she had been brought to Mr Rose's chamber by the procuress who, however, had previously expressed great sorrow at the wicked part she had been compelled to act by the planter. One of the two gives the planter a good beating, though the other urges him "not to be cruel because they are so." The Magistrate in Court openly favours Wood the planter; takes his advice; writes private letters during the examination; sends off a note to Mrs. Wood and a message to his steward, that Mr. Wood will dine with him whilst the trial is going on, and before any decision or order is given. The father of the family is put in the jail by the Magistrate; will take no food, and hangs himself.
In the fifth Act, second scene, the eldest son is brought in with his skull fractured by the blow given him by the saheb, notwithstanding the brave resistance of the same neighbour who saved the maiden, and who, when wounded on the breast with a sword by the young saheb, flew at the nose of the elder one, and bit it off. "That nose," he says in triumph, "I have kept with me, and will shew to the dead Baboo when he rises up alive again." He expresses regret that he had not taken off the planter's ears also, adding that "I would not have killed him, as he is a creature of God."
One wife dies of grief; another becomes insane, kills a beautiful girl of the family; and the maiden whose virtue was attempted by the planter, dies also. In the words of the author "the whole family is destroyed by Indigo—the great destroyer of honour. How very terrible are the arms of indigo."
So terminates this drama—"the favorite mode with the Hindoos for describing certain states of society, manners and customs", and which, in this instance, is vouched for by Mr. Long to "be written in simple homely language, plain but true."
On the side of ryots every one is pure and virtuous; and they express nothing but the most exalted and noble sentiments, which guide all their actions.
To the European, language, practices, and crimes only to be imagined by the Bengalee are imputed, whether he be a former Governor of Bengal—a Magistrate of the country, a planter, or his English wife.
This is the production which Rev. Mr. Long, a clergyman of the Church of England, has vouched for the truth of, has revised, superintended, and paid for the printing of, and has furnished a list for its distribution in England, to influential men, thus stabbing his countrymen in the dark, in such a manner that they might not know of the blow until they felt the effect in what might be, to them, irreparable injury. This is the work the whole edition of which Mr. Long sent to the head official and representative of the Government of Bengal, Mr. Seton-Karr, the President of the late Indigo Commission, and the writer of its report; and who has stated in that report "that there are considerations which are paramount to all mercantile interests and political expediency, and to all material advantage—the simple consideration of justice and truth."
Yet Mr. Seton-Karr, as Secretary to the Government of Bengal, is found to have used his official authority, and the public means to circulate on Her Majesty's service this gross and malicious slander on his countrymen, giving it the weight and sanction of Government. Mr. Seton-Karr has been since appointed Member of the Legislative Council of India.
The Association beg a reference to the evidence given in the trial; to the judgement of Sir Mordaunt Wells, who presided at it; and to the judgement of Sir Barnes Peacock, the the Chief Justice, who heard the motion for arrest; to shew that they have here stated nothing that was not proved; and that all the Judges concurred in opinion that the libel was a gross and malicious one, aggravated by the manner of its distribution.
The Association leave it to you and to the public to judge how far such proceedings can be reconciled by Mr. Long with his mission of peace and goodwill to all men, or with the profession; by the Government, of its desire to smooth over animosities of race and to encourage British settlers and European capital in India.
They would desire to put you and all their fellow-countrymen in England, and especially to those who are Legislators, or Members of the Government, this case. It is yet but a few years since much excitement prevailed in England on the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws. Men's minds were greatly divided on this question, and many pamphlets and tracts were written and published on both sides. Had some one of those, opposed to the alteration of the Corn Laws written and published such a play as this Nil Durpan, charging on the manufacturers of England as body, and on their wives such crimes and such baseness as is here charged against Englishmen and Englishwomen in India; had it been established by undoubted evidence that such a drama had been printed under the superintendence of a clergyman and that by his orders 500 copies of the same had been sent to Downing street and had been circulated secretly by the Queen's Government—circulated in such a way that those attacked could only hear of it by accident, and after the effect desired by its circulators had been produced,—what would have been said and done by that Parliament and people of England in such a case?
What is there supposed as occurring in England has now occurred in India, and the Association confidently believe that the same measure of justice will be meted out to them, as their countrymen in England would have received.
By order of the Landholder's and Commercial Association of British India.
W. F. FERGUSSON.