# Allan Octavian Hume, C.B./Social Reform

Social Reform.
But while thus strenuous in his admonition with regard to defects which he specially deprecated, he did not lose sight of the general conditions essential to national progress in India, among a people with customs and traditions originating from an ancient civilization, though modified by foreign aggressions, and by the influences of modern thought. His attitude was judicial; and he recognized that any specific social reform was only one portion of the great work which sought the regeneration of India on all lines, spiritual, social, political, and economic. With the foresight of the experienced organizer he pointed out that success could only be achieved if all reformers—however diverse their specific objects—worked in combination, with a due sense of proportion, and a reasonable regard for existing conditions. These views are set forth in a letter which was published in the Indian Spectator of the 1st of February 1885. It is entitled "A letter to Mr. Behramji M. Malabari on the subject of his notes upon Infant Marriages and Enforced Widowhood, and ​generally on the present prospects and methods of National Progress " ; and is so important, both as illustrating Mr. Hume's attitude of mind towards social problems, and as indicating the practical course of action which he favoured, that I have reproduced it in extenso as Appendix II. To supplement the views therein stated, another letter is added. Appendix III, regarding the resolution passed by Lord Dufferin's Government with reference to Mr. Malabari's demands for social legislation. In this letter he pointed out that Lord Dufferin's objections to legislate were not unreason- able ; and that so long as the Viceroy had virtually only European colleagues as advisers, the Government, how- ever sympathetic it might be, was not in a position to pass measures on such intricate social matters. It is neither good for the commonalty, nor safe for the Government, that foreigners should deal with questions affecting so closely the innermost domestic life of the people. "But," as pointed out by Mr. Hume, "as soon as we have a strong independent representative element in all our Councils, the situation will be altogether changed." Now, happily, under Lord Morley's reforms, a move has been made in the right direction ; a representative element has been introduced into the Legislative Councils ; and already the inde- pendent members have put their hands to the plough. By supporting Mr. Gokhale's Bill for free and compul- sory elementary education, they have sought to prepare the soil in which good seed may be sown. Looking to the views expressed by Lord Dufferin, it is an irony of fate that the opposition to the Bill comes from the head- quarters of the official camp. The excuse put forward is that the measure is unpopular. But of this there is no evidence whatever. No popular protest has been forthcoming, as was so emphatically the case when ​the people demonstrated against the Partition of Bengal. On the contrary, the Indian Press is unanimous in support of the Bill, and public meetings in its favour have been held in all parts of the country. The official obstruction discloses what seems to have been an unsound mental condition among the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors v^ho were consulted. On the one hand, in their reports, they claim to know the mind of the people better than the people themselves; on the other hand, they show little effective sympathy with the "heart-felt wish" of King George, who desired to see "spread over the land a net-work of schools and colleges." The official majority in the Viceroy's Council has been employed to destroy Mr. Gokhale's Bill, which followed the most approved methods of dispelling illiteracy among the masses, and would have laid a solid foundation for social reform.
These letters (Appendices II and III) are also valuable as illustrating Mr. Hume's power of adaptation. For it will be remembered that in his great scheme of national regeneration, the original idea was to give the first place to social reform. But his logical mind soon grasped the fact that in India social legislation was not practicable, except with the help of representative institutions. He therefore abandoned his original intention, and, to use his own phrase, devoted his life to political reform. And his foresight has been justified by events. For although, in the Viceroy's Council, Mr. Gokhale's Bill was killed by a mechanical majority, the force of argument was altogether with its supporters, and the spirit evinced in the debate is a bright augury for future progress.