The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-24 00:00:00

REJECTED INDIAN STUDENTS.

.A.Wntion has been drawn in sIU Me l'itar 14,210 tc
what, as far as facts are at present known, Must Is, rted
as a very hard ciao, arising out of the action taken the
Civil Service Commissioners in connection with the last
published list of selected candidates for the Indian Civil
Service. In this list there appeared the names of foul
natives. Ono stood third, another fourteenth, and
two others occupied the thirty-eighth and thirty-
ninth places respectively. Three of these gen-
tlemen (Messrs. Dutt, Gupta, and Banerjea) wore
from Calcutta; the other, Mr. Thakur, was from
Bombay. All four had graduated in the Indian universi-
ties—three at Calcutta and ono at Bombay—and had won
honourable places—one of them a very honourable place—
in an open competition, in which as many as 323 candi-
dates, the immense majority of whom must have been
Europeans, took part. These places they aro not
permitted to hold. The circumstances are remark-
able. When natives of India were first allowed
to compete in the open examinations, the limit
of age was fixed at twenty-four years; that
is to say, a man who had completed his twenty-fourth
year was not eligible to compete. Subsequently the age
was reduced to twenty-three, and in 1865 the limit
was fixed at twenty-one. If, therefore, any candidate
at the last examination, which took place in the month of
June, was over that age when examined, he would be dis-
qualified. Now it happens, that very unfortunately
for two of the native gentlemen who were so honourably
placed by tho Civil Service Commissioners, that ago is
reckoned somewhat differently in India from the
way wo reckon it in England. An Englishman
on being called to state his ago states always
his last birthday ; a Hindoo will always state
his next. An English youth, for example, who
completed his fifteenth year on last Now Year's Day would
say that ho was fifteen, but a Hindoo boy who completed
his fifteenth year on the same day would say that he was
sixteen. Out of this difference in the mode of reckoning
the difficulties of the young Indian candidates seem to
have arisen. The Indian universities require that every
student at matriculation shall be sixteen years old. The
Calcutta University puts the requirement thus :—A
student upon matriculating must, "to tho best of his
belief, have attained tho ago of sixteen years." Bombay
requires that every student shall have " completed his
sixteenth year." No question appears ever to have been
raised as to whether these restrictions were intended to be
construed as they would be construed in England, in
which case a lad who had not actually completed sixteen
years would be ineligible for matriculation, or whether
they were to be understood, as they would bo
ordinarily understood in India. There could be little
doubt, in the absents of a construction clause, that they
would be understood in the latter sense, for we are told
that the custom referred to of reckoning a man's ago to be
that which ho will attain on his next birthday is accepted
in the Indian law courts; it was- fully argued and admitted,
years ago, in the case of a conversion of a Hindoo boy
by a missionary ; and the best evidence of its common
acceptance is the rule that a Hindoo is of age when
sixteen: which, in the chief text book of native law,
" Macnaughten's Principles," is laid down as moaning that,
"according to the doctrines of Bengal, the end of fifteen
years is tho limit of minority." Mr. Chisholm Anstey, who
has been a judge in the Bombay High Court, adds to a
statement of this custom that, "according to his judgment
and belief, no native of British India, upon whom the
condition of attaining a certain ago is imposed by
law, would, unless the sense thereof were previously ex-
plained to him, understand it to be a condition of having
completed such ago." As a matter of fact, the candi-
dates in question, did enter their universities
before they were sixteen years old, according to our under-
standing of sixteen years. It seems to have been suggested
to the Civil Service Commissioners that if the young men
were sixteen when they matriculated, they must have been
over twenty-one when they passed their examination.
Comparison of dates showed that this was so, and Mr.
Banerjea and Mr. Thakur were thereupon declared to be
disqualified. A third of the candidates had a very
narrow escape. The Commissloners refusing to review
their decision, Mr. Banerjea applied to the Court
of Queen's Bench for a mandamus directing them to hear
evidence as to the age of the disqualified candi-
dates, and the case will be heard in November.