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The Sullivan view
S. MUTHIAH
Apropos my remarks last week about Governors going up to Ooty for the summer, the practice would have never arisen but for John Sullivan, Collector of Coimbatore (Miscellany, January 17). While not quite the discoverer of Ooty, he was responsible for its development as the first hill station in India and for the opening up of the Nilgiris. A recent exhibition at the British Council, of a collection of pictures by 19th Century photographer A.T.W. Penn that the Nilgiri Documentation Centre now owns, gave viewers a glimpse of what Sullivan's Ooty was like. But the exhibition also provided another glimpse — a leaflet that gave a peep into what John Sullivan thought of India.
The British who first arrived in India in the 17th Century included those who came to make a fortune out of the country (`the nabobs'), those who saw themselves as birds of passage for whom India provided opportunity to progress in their professions, those who saw themselves as divine-ordained rulers, and those who saw themselves being in a position to contribute to the improvement of the lot of India. The last group might have seemed condescending, but they sincerely believed they had something to offer before they, willy nilly, left these shores. Perhaps the best known of this group was Thomas Munro, but the recent exhibition also revealed that Sullivan was another of those who were seen by the other British as "native lovers".
It was at a meeting of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on February 9, 1832, that Sullivan contributed to one half of the following exchange:
"What would be the probable effect on the natives... ?
I think, if the natives were entrusted with a great share in the administration of their own affairs, the lease of lands by Europeans would be attended with great benefit: strong regulations would be necessary for the protection of natives from persons of bad character. In proportion as the natives are admitted to a share in the administration of their own country, they become independent, and are disposed to resist all encroachments on their rights.
In what way would it be possible to raise natives to such a station?
To give them those situations now held by Europeans.
To what situations do you allude?
I think almost every situation under the civil administration of the government; preserving for Europeans the power of control (i.e. the army).
How far do you think the native population in that (Madras) presidency is in a state fitting it for employment in the higher stations of the country?
I think them eminently qualified; all the business of the country is in fact now done by natives.
Were they to be trusted without a very close superintendence?
Not now, perhaps; but that is because we give them no motive to make them honest. If they had been treated as we have been treated, I have no doubt they would have been found equally trustworthy.
Where are the means to be found of giving them those emoluments?
They must, in a great degree, occupy the posts which are now filled by Europeans."
People like Munro and Sullivan were anticipating Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858. But that was a proclamation that was never fully implemented — the writing was, therefore, already on the wall, predicting that the sun would set on the empire, even before the empire was founded.
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