The unknown side of Hume
SELECTED WRITINGS OF ALLAN OCTAVIAN HUME, Vol.1, 1829-1867 — District Administration in North India, Rebellion and Reform: S. R. Mehrotra and Edward C. Moulton — Editors; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 1500.
EVERY INDIAN middle school student has had to encounter the name of A.O.Hume, the retired English ICS officer who founded the Indian National Congress in 1885. Those who missed out his name in history textbooks have to inevitably confront his ubiquitous presence in popular quiz programmes.
Hume appears briefly in Indian accounts as a well-meaning Englishman who wanted to organise middle-class opinion along liberal lines so that a firm foundation could be laid for Indian collaboration with the Raj.
His detractors, mostly enemies of, and dissenters within the Congress like Lala Lajpat Rai, spun fanciful stories around Hume. He was supposed to have been in league with imperial Viceroys like Dufferin and the Congress in this light appeared as an attempt by the colonial government to contain and tame Indian national sentiment.
This conspiracy theory of the Congress as the "safety valve" enjoyed great popularity for decades till the painstaking research of S.R.Mehrotra and Bipan Chandra put such stories to rest. Dufferin it turns out thoroughly disapproved of Hume's dabbling with Indian nationalists and anyway something like a Congress was already in the making through the independent initiative of Surendranath Bannerjee and others. However, having settled the matter of bestowing the honourable title of the "founder" of the Indian National Congress on Hume, for the most part Indian historians tended to forget him.
Multi-faceted personality
The latest burrowings of S.R.Mehrotra and Edward C. Moulton now reveal that there was more to Hume than his pioneering forays into Indian political organisation. A thorough and persistent search through the colonial archives in England and India over many years by the editors have brought up a wealth of material.
To be published in four large volumes, Hume's various writings and official reports reveal a complex personality and nuance in many ways the picture of colonial rule in India. Hume began his career in the North-Western Provinces (U.P.) and rode the storm of 1857 successfully.
The editors point out that he remained particularly attached to Etawah his last district posting as magistrate and collector till 1867 when he was promoted as commissioner of customs for the same province.
In 1870 he became secretary of the influential home department. In 1871 he became secretary of the newly created department of agriculture, revenue and commerce.
Hume's meteoric rise with Viceroy Mayo's blessings received a setback during the tenure of Lord Lytton, who abolished the last department ostensibly on the grounds of cutting costs but more so to clip Hume's wings. The editors argue that Hume's outspokenness about Lytton's illiberal administration brought about his downfall.
Avid ornithologist
This was only his official career. With a deep and abiding interest in scientific projects, Hume assembled over the years a vast ornithological collection in his house Rothney Castle at Jako Hill in Shimla. But this was no Victorian gentleman's amateur passion. In 1872 he launched as principal editor and founder Stray Feathers, A Journal of Ornithology for India and Its Dependencies.
A few years later he brought out with C.H.T.Marshall the lavishly illustrated three-volume, The Game Birds of India, Burma and Ceylon. He donated his vast collection of Indian bird-skins, nests and eggs to the British Museum of Natural History.
Forays into spirituality
Hume also dabbled in mysticism. Some historians have in fact traced his hysterical warnings about imminent revolution in India in the 1880s to the influence of occultism. In the introduction the editors point out instead that Hume was a serious student of spiritualism.
He met Helena P. Blavatsky and Colonel Henry S. Olcott in Allahabad in 1879 and became a convert. By 1882 he had become a critic of the Theosophical movement and was more influenced by Swami Paramhansa of Almora, a well-known exponent of Advaita philosophy.
The editors confess that their interest and fascination with Hume arose not only because he is a neglected figure in colonial history. Hume was no ordinary ICS living out his time in India.
The editors write that it was Hume's "feistiness, his sharp criticisms of the Raj, his close identification with the Indian educated masses and his concern for a broad-based regeneration of the country," that attracted them to his life and writings.
This volume reprints the district administration reports that Hume wrote in the early part of his career. Historical documents of this nature are likely to interest only the specialist.
The editors have, however, provided a detailed general introduction and a separate one for the documents. Their herculean enterprise will be widely welcomed by historians and scholars.
It remains to be seen if Mehrotra and Moulton's industry will help Hume to find a prominent place among other celebrated British friends of the Indian national movement in the early part of the 20th Century and which include names like Sister Nivedita, C.F. Andrews and Patrick Geddes.
PARTHO DATTA
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