OUTRAGES ON NATIVES IN INDIA. (Hansard, 14 February 1899)

* LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
My Lords, I rise to ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Indian Government have taken, or intend to take, measures to prevent the outrages committed by European soldiers upon the natives of India, such as have recently occurred at Barackpore and Poonamallee. A great deal was last summer said about disaffection and sedition in India. Mr. Justice Strachey has given a novel and extraordinary definition of disaffection, and a new law has been passed on sedition. I believe that law has not yet been put in force, but events have taken place of worse effect than that which 10 or 20 seditious articles would have produced in the way of exciting disaffection. Every outrage or death caused by soldiers which goes unpunished, or imperfectly punished, must produce a worse effect on the minds of the natives of India who witness these outrages, than could be produced by newspaper articles which they for the most part do not and cannot read. At Barackpore, on April 30th last, three soldiers assaulted and killed an old Hindoo doctor without any provocation, and were put upon their trial in July last. The trial, from the long report, appears to have been fairly conducted. The judge, the Chief Justice, did his duty well, but the jury brought in a verdict of grievous hurt against all three prisoners. Under these circumstances seven years' rigorous imprisonment was the limit of the sentence the judge was able to pronounce. After that trial General Baker Russell issued an Order 817 to the troops under his command, in view of the recent outrage committed at Barackpore by three soldiers, resulting in the death of a native gentleman. The Order wishes all general officers and other officers to impress upon their men the cowardliness of striking or otherwise ill-using natives of India, and the serious consequences which may result to themselves. This Order, however, was insufficient, because the General who issued it would probably retire from his command within five years, and because it applied only to the forces in Bengal. In the Madras Presidency at Poonamallee at the end of July last, another outrage took place. A soldier named Knight put a cartridge into his carbine and discharged it into the body of a boy who was seated in a cart in which they and some other soldiers were driving. The boy jumped out of the cart, and they drove on without seeking to know whether he lived or died. Another person carried the boy to a doctor, who examined him slightly and sent him on to the general hospital, where he died. Knight was tried. It was said in his defence that he had been discussing with another soldier, sitting by him, how quickly he could load his carbine, and that he had touched the trigger accidentally. The jury found him guilty of a negligent act. The judge, Mr. Justice Boddam, however, blamed the soldiers for leaving the wounded boy by the roadside, and he blamed the doctor for sending on the boy a further distance to the hospital, and he sentenced Knight to nine months' rigorous imprisonment. If the judge had believed that this death was caused by accident only, would he, or could he, have passed such a sentence? I can find no mention of this Poonamallee case and trial in either a Bombay or Calcutta paper, all the numbers of which have reached me. This looks as if the editors of those papers were also of opinion that such cases are worse than seditious writing, and had therefore hesitated to comment on the trial. I have been told that the reason why juries bring in such verdicts, relieving soldiers from the consequences of these acts of violence, is the difficulty of proving malice. No doubt this is true. There was no previous malice either in the Barackpore case or the recent Poonamallee case, nor in the 818 Dum Dum murder case about 10 years ago—November 1st, 1889. This makes these outrages all the worse, more inexcusable in those who commit them, more offensive to the relatives and countrymen of the victims. The malice is not against the individual, but against the race. The views which soldiers have already acquired with reference to the natives is given in an English paper, "India," in which a soldier says— As for the darkies, they are like stones under our feet. If they do not do what we want, we pull their turbans off their heads, and turn them upside down. This paper goes on to remark upon the Secretary of State having described the people of India as savages. Let me remind the House of the Dum Dum case, and relate its sequel, since I have met with persons usually well acquainted with matters in India who had not heard of the sequel. Four soldiers—three of the Leinster regiment and one of the Buffs—left the Dum Dum Barracks one night with service rifles and Government ammunition to shoot pigs. The Buffs soldier expressed his surprise at the others having obtained cartridges). On the way they obtained some toddy more or less forcibly from the people in the huts. Some of them got drunk, and one named O'Hara pulled a sleeping man from out of his verandah, chucked him into a pond, and then shot him. The poor man crawled back to his house and died. O'Hara was arrested and tried by Mr. Justice Norris, and convicted on the evidence of the Buffs soldier, and sentenced to death. But those who from race feelings wished to prevent the sentence being carried out, moved the High Court, and the sentence was quashed on the pretext that he had been convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. The Buffs soldier was not, however, an accomplice, since he had not started with O'Hara on a criminal expedition. Nor had he consented to anything of which the criminal act was a probable consequence. The consequences of not carrying out the sentence passed on O'Hara were that he re-entered the Army, but justice was not done, and encouragement was thereby given to others to follow his bad example. Some time later O'Hara again 819 got drunk and shot a sergeant and a soldier, and was then hanged, but not until after he had deprived Her Majesty's forces of two soldiers, and burdened himself with two more murders. If soldiers other than go id conduct men, whom the colonel can unreservedly trust, are allowed to go out shooting, quarrels with the villagers and outrages are certain to arise, since soldiers ignorantly shoot the tame animals belonging to the villagers; or peacocks or monkeys and other animals whose lives are respected by the villagers. After the Dum Dum affair I made notes of all the cases that were mentioned in the Indian newspapers, and at the end of three months five cases had occurred. I mentioned this to the Private Secretary of the Secretary of State, and he said these things often went in cycles. He might have been right, but I was, and still am, more inclined to attribute that interruption of quarrels and accidents to the good influence of the then Secretary of State, and it is a matter for great regret that he did not resume his place when the present Administration was formed. I would suggest that in future outrages by soldiers should be tried by Courts-martial with open doors, and not by juries. Juries will always, in such cases, contain men anxious from race feelings to screen the soldiers, and jurors have less feelings of responsibility than officers of rank who sit on a Court-martial. I have heard it objected a few days ago that this would be to discredit trial by jury; but I need not fear that accusation, after having in this House opposed the attempt made against trial by Jury in Bengal. The new Viceroy has recently stated that India is the pivot of the British Empire. I said much the same thing, but in different words, about 20 years ago to the noble Marquess at the head of the Government. Whether it is so or not, the well-being of the Empire requires that the people of India should not be alienated by outrages committed by British soldiers, and it is for that reason that I ask the Question of which I have given notice.

* THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The EARL of ONSLOW)
My Lords, the Question the noble Lord has put on the Paper is to inquire whether Her Majesty's Government have taken or intend to take measures to prevent the outrages committed by European soldiers upon the natives of India. Your Lordships will have heard that the cases the noble Lord referred to are not very numerous. Two only occurred in recent years, the Dum Dum case having happened some eight or ten years back-The Government of India have been consulted in this matter, and they report that in the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief there is no ground for taking any special measures, as regards British troops in India. Cases of this nature are of comparatively rare occurrence, and the ordinary law provides for the punishment of the offenders. The noble Lord himself has told your Lordships that in the case of the outrage which took place at Barackpore the jury unanimously found the prisoners guilty of causing grievous harm, and they were sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment each. As regards the Poonamallee case, which the noble Lord has been unable to trace in certain papers that he has consulted, I may say that Poonamallee is in the Presidency of Madras, and if the noble Lord had consulted Madras papers he would have found a full report of the case and of the sentence. I think under these circumstances your Lordships will be entitled to agree with me that there is no necessity for taking any exceptional measures for dealing with such cases as these should they unhappily occur.

* LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
My Lords, I should like to say that the answer of the noble Earl is extremely unsatisfactory, and I am sure it will be found so in India.