Plain Tales from the Hills

  TOD'S AMENDMENT.

  The World hath set its heavy yoke Upon the old white-bearded folk Who strive to please the King. God's mercy is upon the young, God's wisdom in the baby tongue That fears not anything.

  The Parable of Chajju Bhagat.

  Now Tods' Mamma was a singularly charming woman, and every one in Simlaknew Tods. Most men had saved him from death on occasions. He was beyondhis ayah's control altogether, and perilled his life daily to find outwhat would happen if you pulled a Mountain Battery mule's tail. He wasan utterly fearless young Pagan, about six years old, and the only babywho ever broke the holy calm of the supreme Legislative Council.

  It happened this way: Tods' pet kid got loose, and fled up the hill, offthe Boileaugunge Road, Tods after it, until it burst into the ViceregalLodge lawn, then attached to "Peterhoff." The Council were sitting atthe time, and the windows were open because it was warm. The Red Lancerin the porch told Tods to go away; but Tods knew the Red Lancer and mostof the Members of Council personally. Moreover, he had firm hold of thekid's collar, and was being dragged all across the flower-beds. "Givemy salaam to the long Councillor Sahib, and ask him to help me takeMoti back!" gasped Tods. The Council heard the noise through the openwindows; and, after an interval, was seen the shocking spectacle ofa Legal Member and a Lieutenant-Governor helping, under the directpatronage of a Commander-in-Chief and a Viceroy, one small and verydirty boy in a sailor's suit and a tangle of brown hair, to coerce alively and rebellious kid. They headed it off down the path to the Mall,and Tods went home in triumph and told his Mamma that ALL the CouncillorSahibs had been helping him to catch Moti. Whereat his Mamma smackedTods for interfering with the administration of the Empire; but Tods metthe Legal Member the next day, and told him in confidence that if theLegal Member ever wanted to catch a goat, he, Tods, would give him allthe help in his power. "Thank you, Tods," said the Legal Member.

  Tods was the idol of some eighty jhampanis, and half as many saises.He saluted them all as "O Brother." It never entered his head thatany living human being could disobey his orders; and he was thebuffer between the servants and his Mamma's wrath. The working of thathousehold turned on Tods, who was adored by every one from the dhobyto the dog-boy. Even Futteh Khan, the villainous loafer khit fromMussoorie, shirked risking Tods' displeasure for fear his co-matesshould look down on him.

  So Tods had honor in the land from Boileaugunge to Chota Simla, andruled justly according to his lights. Of course, he spoke Urdu, but hehad also mastered many queer side-speeches like the chotee bolee of thewomen, and held grave converse with shopkeepers and Hill-coolies alike.He was precocious for his age, and his mixing with natives had taughthim some of the more bitter truths of life; the meanness and thesordidness of it. He used, over his bread and milk, to deliver solemnand serious aphorisms, translated from the vernacular into the English,that made his Mamma jump and vow that Tods MUST go home next hotweather.

  Just when Tods was in the bloom of his power, the Supreme Legislaturewere hacking out a Bill, for the Sub-Montane Tracts, a revision of thethen Act, smaller than the Punjab Land Bill, but affecting a fewhundred thousand people none the less. The Legal Member had built,and bolstered, and embroidered, and amended that Bill, till it lookedbeautiful on paper. Then the Council began to settle what they calledthe "minor details." As if any Englishman legislating for natives knowsenough to know which are the minor and which are the major points, fromthe native point of view, of any measure! That Bill was a triumph of"safe guarding the interests of the tenant." One clause provided thatland should not be leased on longer terms than five years at a stretch;because, if the landlord had a tenant bound down for, say, twenty years,he would squeeze the very life out of him. The notion was to keep upa stream of independent cultivators in the Sub-Montane Tracts; andethnologically and politically the notion was correct. The only drawbackwas that it was altogether wrong. A native's life in India implies thelife of his son. Wherefore, you cannot legislate for one generation ata time. You must consider the next from the native point of view.Curiously enough, the native now and then, and in Northern India moreparticularly, hates being over-protected against himself. There wasa Naga village once, where they lived on dead AND buried Commissariatmules.... But that is another story.

  For many reasons, to be explained later, the people concerned objectedto the Bill. The Native Member in Council knew as much about Punjabis ashe knew about Charing Cross. He had said in Calcutta that "the Bill wasentirely in accord with the desires of that large and important class,the cultivators;" and so on, and so on. The Legal Member's knowledgeof natives was limited to English-speaking Durbaris, and his own redchaprassis, the Sub-Montane Tracts concerned no one in particular,the Deputy Commissioners were a good deal too driven to makerepresentations, and the measure was one which dealt with smalllandholders only. Nevertheless, the Legal Member prayed that it might becorrect, for he was a nervously conscientious man. He did not know thatno man can tell what natives think unless he mixes with them with thevarnish off. And not always then. But he did the best he knew. And themeasure came up to the Supreme Council for the final touches, while Todspatrolled the Burra Simla Bazar in his morning rides, and played withthe monkey belonging to Ditta Mull, the bunnia, and listened, as a childlistens to all the stray talk about this new freak of the Lat Sahib's.

  One day there was a dinner-party, at the house of Tods' Mamma, and theLegal Member came. Tods was in bed, but he kept awake till he heard thebursts of laughter from the men over the coffee. Then he paddled out inhis little red flannel dressing-gown and his night-suit, and took refugeby the side of his father, knowing that he would not be sent back. "Seethe miseries of having a family!" said Tods' father, giving Tods threeprunes, some water in a glass that had been used for claret, and tellinghim to sit still. Tods sucked the prunes slowly, knowing that he wouldhave to go when they were finished, and sipped the pink water like a manof the world, as he listened to the conversation. Presently, the LegalMember, talking "shop," to the Head of a Department, mentioned his Billby its full name--"The Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment."Tods caught the one native word, and lifting up his small voicesaid:--"Oh, I know ALL about that! Has it been murramutted yet,Councillor Sahib?"

  "How much?" said the Legal Member.

  "Murramutted--mended.--Put theek, you know--made nice to please DittaMull!"

  The Legal Member left his place and moved up next to Tods.

  "What do you know about Ryotwari, little man?" he said.

  "I'm not a little man, I'm Tods, and I know ALL about it. Ditta Mull,and Choga Lall, and Amir Nath, and--oh, lakhs of my friends tell meabout it in the bazars when I talk to them."

  "Oh, they do--do they? What do they say, Tods?"

  Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressing-gown and said:--"Imust fink."

  The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, with infinite compassion:

  "You don't speak my talk, do you, Councillor Sahib?"

  "No; I am sorry to say I do not," said the Legal Member.

  "Very well," said Tods. "I must fink in English."

  He spent a minute putting his ideas in order, and began very slowly,translating in his mind from the vernacular to English, as manyAnglo-Indian children do. You must remember that the Legal Memberhelped him on by questions when he halted, for Tods was not equal to thesustained flight of oratory that follows.

  "Ditta Mull says:--'This thing is the talk of a child, and was made upby fools.' But I don't think you are a fool, Councillor Sahib," saidTodds, hastily. "You caught my goat. This is what Ditta Mull says:--'Iam not a fool, and why should the Sirkar say I am a child? I can see ifthe land is good and if the landlord is good. If I am a fool, the sin isupon my own head. For five years I take my ground for which I have savedmoney, and a wife I take too, and a little son is born.' Ditta Mull hasone daughter now, but he SAYS he will have a son, soon. And he says: 'Atthe end of five years, by this new bundobust, I must go. If I do not go,I
must get fresh seals and takkus-stamps on the papers, perhaps in themiddle of the harvest, and to go to the law-courts once is wisdom, butto go twice is Jehannum.' That is QUITE true," explained Tods, gravely."All my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says:--'Always fresh takkus andpaying money to vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five years orelse the landlord makes me go. Why do I want to go? Am I fool? If I am afool and do not know, after forty years, good land when I see it, letme die! But if the new bundobust says for FIFTEEN years, then it isgood and wise. My little son is a man, and I am burnt, and he takes theground or another ground, paying only once for the takkus-stamps on thepapers, and his little son is born, and at the end of fifteen years isa man too. But what profit is there in five years and fresh papers?Nothing but dikh, trouble, dikh. We are not young men who take theselands, but old ones--not jais, but tradesmen with a little money--andfor fifteen years we shall have peace. Nor are we children that theSirkar should treat us so."

  Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were listening. The LegalMember said to Tods: "Is that all?"

  "All I can remember," said Tods. "But you should see Ditta Mull's bigmonkey. It's just like a Councillor Sahib."

  "Tods! Go to bed," said his father.

  Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and departed.

  The Legal Member brought his hand down on the table with a crash--"ByJove!" said the Legal Member, "I believe the boy is right. The shorttenure IS the weak point."

  He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. Now, it was obviouslyimpossible for the Legal Member to play with a bunnia's monkey, by wayof getting understanding; but he did better. He made inquiries,always bearing in mind the fact that the real native--not the hybrid,University-trained mule--is as timid as a colt, and, little by little,he coaxed some of the men whom the measure concerned most intimately togive in their views, which squared very closely with Tods' evidence.

  So the Bill was amended in that clause; and the Legal Member was filledwith an uneasy suspicion that Native Members represent very littleexcept the Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put the thoughtfrom him as illiberal. He was a most Liberal Man.

  After a time the news spread through the bazars that Tods had got theBill recast in the tenure clause, and if Tods' Mamma had not interfered,Tods would have made himself sick on the baskets of fruit and pistachionuts and Cabuli grapes and almonds that crowded the verandah. Till hewent Home, Tods ranked some few degrees before the Viceroy in popularestimation. But for the little life of him Tods could not understandwhy.

  In the Legal Member's private-paper-box still lies the rough draft ofthe Sub-Montane Tracts Ryotwari Revised Enactment; and, opposite thetwenty-second clause, pencilled in blue chalk, and signed by the LegalMember, are the words "Tods' Amendment."