Japan K Pathak

In this first season of History series, I am republishing some carefully selected old reporting/articles of historical value, curated from over 100 years old records. Such articles though deserving, never got placement in any book, journal or even Google search engine through all these years.

The article presented in full text on this page below is from the Ras Goftar, September 9, 1861. A lengthy article has some interesting details of historic value scattered here and there.

One very interesting insight is regarding the city of Surat. The article gives an idea on how Surat city suffered decline which resulted into gain for Ahmedabad during one particular phase of history.

The article mentions that for a century, Surat had surpassed the population, wealth and commerce of Ahmedabad, the former capital of Gujarat. But (1). frequent fires and floods, particularly those of year 1837; (2) the gradual filling up of the river Taptee; (3) Transfer of the High Court to Bombay and (4) the transfer of Northern Division of the Army to Ahmedabad, rapidly contributed to the decline of the prosperity of Surat.

The article also mentions how Shahukars (leading traders) in Ahmedabad collected the sum of Rs. 50,000 for the purpose of founding a college in Ahmedabad. The article deliberates the process of introducing a law college and also discusses the low quality of lawyers.

The article in full text:

Sir Arthur Cotton, of the Madras Engineers, has remarked tat “no people in the world so well understand or appreciate the difference between 99 and 100 pies as the people of India,” and we may add that no people of any province of India so thoroughly comprehend this difference as those of Guzerat, and those of no part of Guzerat as of Ahmedabad. This city was formerly the capital of Guzerat and must have been in a very flourishing state, as appears from the remains of its splendid palaces and its stupendous mosques and temples. Afterwards for a century Surat surpassed it in population, wealth and commerce. But frequent fires and floods particularly those of 1837, the gradual filling up of the Taptee, the removal of the Sudder Adawlut to Bombay and the transfer of the Northern Division of the Army to Ahmedabad by Sir John Malcolm, rapidly contributed to the decline of the prosperity of Surat. On the other hand Ahmedabad has been of late steadily regaining its former position. With the exception of Bombay it is now the most opulent city on this side of India. Still up to a very recent time its wealthy inhabitants never thought of devoting the smallest portion of their princely fortune for charitable purposes, nor thought of imitating “the animated example of munificence at once patriotic and catholic, unstinted and discriminating,” of the late benevolent Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, Bart. On the contrary, the first man in rank and wealth at Ahmedabad, the late Hemabhai, the Nugur Sett of the city, who, according to Mr. Ashness Remington, the late Puisne Judge of the Sudder Adawlut of Bombay, was a man who “never parted with a Dumree without getting an equivalent for it,” and whose evidence in an important case was pronounced by him to be “a tissue of falsehood.” Hence in 1856 we were agreeably surprised when we heard that the Sahookars of Ahmedabad had subscribed the sum of rupees fifty thousand, for the purpose of founding a college in their city. This was owing partly to the personal exertion of Mesars. C.J. Erskine and T.C. Hope and partly of Lord Elphinstone, who was accompanied by the former gentleman in his tour through Guzerat.

In July 1856 the Supreme Government consented to contribute an equal sum of money, and we believe everything was ready to open the college. But a sudden change took place. In August 1856 sickness compelled Mr. Erakine to give up the post of the Director of Public Instruction. He was succeeded by Mr. Howard, who did not approve of this plan of his predecessor, and recommended the Government, with his usual vigour and lawyer-like precision, to give up the idea of establishing a college at Ahmedabad. It would be out of place to mention here how he had discussed this question in his report for 1856-57, for one cannot but be convinced of its sufficient reasoning on a perusal of the subject.

Instead of a college at Ahmedabad, Mr. Howard proposed to establish a school to impart professional education – a school “whose function,” to use Mr. Howard’s words “would be to prepare youths to enter the Government service in the Revenue, Judicial and Public Works Department.” Government concurred in the views of Mr. Howard.

Notwithstanding this, for five years nothing was done in this matter. It is, therefore, with some satisfaction that we learn from an Ahmedabad correspondent, that the long expected law class has already been formed, and that they were waiting for the arrival of the officiating tutor Mr. Kaikhusro Hormunjee, the late Moonsiff of Surat. About thirty young men have joined the class. The number is not inconveniently large, and we trust it will not be reduced in the same ratio as the law class of Bombay, which began with one hundred and ten young men, and which in the third year of its existence contained only ten students!

Our correspondent does not inform us, whether the English or the vernacular is to be made the medium of communicating knowledge on the subject. If the former is selected we must express our fear of the final success of the class. The preliminary study of the English language is in itself no ordinary tas for the native of India. The early defective education of these young men, we fear, will go a great way to neutralise all the result of the patient industry and laudable perseverance of these otherwise meritorious students. In making this observation, we make no reflection on the boys of the English school of Ahmedabad. It is no fault of theirs, but of the system under which they in common with the other boys of the Presidency have received a defective school education. It is to this cause, we believe, that the shortcomings of our native attorneys of H. M.’s Supreme Court be fairly ascribed. Until a solid foundation is laid by a sound and careful preliminary education, it is next to impossible for our promising youths to enter on a successful course of professional education. We trust great judgement and discrimination has been used in selecting fit candidates for the law class of Ahmedabad. We trust an equal degree of judgement will be exercised in selecting text books, such as may impart a practical knowledge of the subject. We hope this class would furnish a better race of vakeels, to our Mofussil courts, than what we have at present. Really the present race of our vakeels are a curse to society and a crying shame to our Government. No language of ours would accurately describe in its true colour, the character of a vakeel or professional pleader. Sure it is a theme that would “leave the most eloquent tongue powerless to do justice to it.” Nothing can improve so much the character of our Mofussil courts as the introduction of a better race of pleaders than the present one. And if Mr. Howard succeeds in gaining this object, he will no doubt deserve well of the people of Western India. The stupidity and superstitious notions of these vakeels, their utter want of information on the commonest subjects, their slavish and power-worshipping propensity, their want of self-respect and independence, their utter disregard of truth and absence of a sense of duty, their corruption and love of chicanery and above all their low idea of the sublime precepts of morality make them utterly unfair to assist the courts or to promote the interests of their clients. We honestly believe this picture is not overcoloured. It has only the other day what we read in the Deccan Herald, of the 19th ultimo, that at Ahmedabad, a vakeel named Oojumlal had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, with hard labour, for receiving rupees six hundred from a man under the pretense of giving it, as a bribe, to the local Deputy Magistrate for obtaining a decision in his favour. Such instances might be indefinitely multiplied. If the records of our Sudder and Zilla Adawluts for the last thirty years were searched, we make no doubt they would furnish not a small list of men worse than Oojumlal. We have been informed, on reliable authority, that vakeels in the Mofussil cheat their poor ignorant clients, even of the batta money – that is, money given for the service of summonses, and that for five rupees some of them would reveal the most confidential secrets of their clients to the opposite party.

Happily the introduction of the New Code of Civil Procedure (Act VIIL of 1859), which requires all plaints and written statements to be verified on oath before they are presented to the court, and which authorise the presiding judge at an stage of the trial to examine orally parties on oath have greatly lessened the influence of these harpies of law. The doing away of a series of pleadings allowed by the old laws, has admirably checked the introduction of irrelevant matters, and setting up of false please written in incoherent and prolix language by the vakeels and their clerks. If we had half-a-dozen Zillah Judges of the stamp of the late Honorable Mr. James Sutherland, who cleared for a time the city of Surat from a set of rascally pleaders and band of habitual perjurers and forgerers who were a pest to the poorer classes of the people, then we may have some satisfaction of wiping away the stigma which disgraces our Mofussil judicial system. But prevention is better than cure. So it would be a matter of congratulation both to the governing classes and the governed of this side of India, if the Ahmedabad law class produces a better race of pleaders than the one we have at present.

We shall conclude this article by directing the attention of our readers to the following description of our native vakeels, given by an able writer (ala now no more) in the Bombay Quarterly Review for October 1856, who was himself a Mofussil judge, and who had a practical insight into the working of our judicial system:-

“There can be,” says he, “little doubt, that in the present day our native civil courts stink in the nostrils of the native population. Courtacha Oopardrrue – the court plague or calamity – has become a common apothegm among the ryots. Lying, perjury, subordination of perjury, forgery, falsification of documents and every species of under hand iniquity are openly and unblushingly practiced in or hall of justice. This is no scurrilous libel – we almost wish it were, for the sake of our administration, – but a solemn melancholy fact, that our Indian, reader of experience will bear us out in. Mosniffs and native judges themselves admit the existence of the disease, but they attribute it to our lenient criminal system, by which in their opinion we hold out immunity to crime, and offer a premium to successful villany. But this is inconclusive reasoning. To us it appears that such universal corruption in our Mofussil courts is due to rather to the machinations of a corrupt and thoroughly unprincipled native bar. If we consider this well, it is difficult to arrive at any other deduction. All civil suits are conducted entirely by vakeels, or professional pleaders. They file the whole of the documentary evidence, and produce all the oral testimony in the case. If then the former are so often forgeries, or the later based on deliberate perjury, are we to hold those in whom is vested the entire conduct of the suit, blameless and free of responsibility? To us it is clear as noonday that the Augean stables never will be cleansed, our courts of law never will be reformed, and our character for justice and impartiality never will be vindicated until we set about reorganizing the native bar. Our argument, therefore, resolves itself into this: if our native pleaders were not, as general rule, corrupt – if they did not either directly or indirectly countenance forgery and perjury, – then forgeries would cease to be the distinguishing characteristic of our courts; ergo, to reform our courts we must reform the bar, by raising the standard qualification for admittance to its ranks.”