Major General -- W.H. Sleeman

Major General Sir W.H. Sleeman (1788-1856) who spent 47 years in India had a brilliant record of eliminating thugs, a criminal tribe who were a great menace. He was fond of India and its rich culture. His book, Rambles and Recollections, provides glimpses of society of mid 19th century-North India. Here is his reply to his compatriots who criticized that India lacks public spirit.

While sitting at my tent door looking upstairs beautiful sheet of water and upon all the noble works around me, I thought of the charge, so often made against the people of this fine land of the total want of public spirit among them, by those who have spent their Indian days in the busy courts of law and still more by the busy commercial establishments of our great metropolis.

If by the term public spirit be meant a disposition on the part of individuals to sacrifice their own enjoyments, or their own means of enjoyment for their common good, there is perhaps no people in the world among whom it abounds so much as among the people of India. To live in the grateful recollections of their countrymen for benefits conferred upon them in great works of ornament and utility is the study of every Hindoo of rank and property. Such works tend, in his opinion, not only to spread and perpetuate his name in this world, but through the good wishes and prayers of those who are benefited by them, to secure the favour of the deity in the next. (world)

According to their notions, every drop of rain water or dew that falls to the ground from the green leaf of a fruit tree, planted by them for the common good, proves a refreshing draught for their souls in the next. When no descendant remains to pour the funeral libation in their name, the water from the trees they have planted for the common good, proves a refreshing draught for their souls in the next. The water from the trees they have planted for the public good is destined to supply its place. Everything judiciously laid out to promote the happiness of their fellow creatures, will in the next world, be repaid to them tenfold by the deity.

In marching over the country in the hot season, we every morning find our tents pitched on the green ward amid beautiful groves of fruit trees, with wells of pukkha (brick or stone) masonry, built at great expense and containing the most delicious water, but how few of us ever dream of asking at whose cost the trees that afford us and our followers, such agreeable shade, were planted, or the wells that afford us such copious streams of fine water in the midst of dry arid plains were formed? We go on enjoying all the advantages which arise from the noble public spirit that animates the people of India to benevolent exertions. Without once calling in question the truth of the assertion of our metropolitan friends, that “the people of India have no public spirit!

See Also:
• Eye Witness Account of a Sati (19th Century)