COCXVlll 



(F). — Local Fund and Municipal Administration, &c. 



•Extracts from the reTnarks of Sir Alfred Lyall in regard to the political 

 inexpediency of Government relinquishing its right to control the manage- 

 7nent of religious institutions in this country {Sir Alfred LyalVs 

 " Asiatic Studies "). 



Sir Alfred Lyall has pointed out that from a political point of view 

 it was a mistake for the Indian Q-overnment to have relinquished its 

 right to control religious endowments. The following are extracts 

 from his remarks : 



" In India they have no conception of the animosity against 

 Establishment which has been fostered in England by Acts passed'to 

 enforce unity of religious profession and uniformity of clerical teach- 

 ing, by the old attempts to drive wandering sects like sbeep into one 

 fold under one official shepherd. -A.s there rias never been one nation 

 or one religion in India, so a national church establishment, excluding 

 all others, has never been imagined. That the Sovereign should provide 

 decently for his own persuasion is regarded as natural and decorous ; that 

 he should distribute revenue allotments (or continue them) to every 

 well-defined religious community is thought liberal ; that he should 

 administer to all religious properties and interests is right and proper ; 

 that he should ignore them all and provide not even for his own faith . 

 would be a policy comprehensible only by those who had studied 

 English polemics, and one without precedent in Asia '^ 



" It has been said latterly, and with some reason, that the English 

 Q-overnment acted prematurely, and upon incomplete knowledge of all 

 the considerations involved, when it resolved to sever the ancient chain 

 which bound the religious institutions of each province round the feet 

 of the Government which annexed them, and when we thus, in liberat- 

 ing ourselves from being plagued with old-world fancies, threw away 

 the repute and leadership which accrued to the Sovereign of India 

 from being universally recognized as the authority whose conge cVelire 

 was required, or whose arbitration was accepted, in all nominations and 

 successions to important religious office or estate. In the Madras 

 Presidency the superintendence of ' no less than seven thousand six 

 hundred Hindu establishments had hitherto been vested in the officers 

 of Government ; and this was more than a nominal superintendence ; 

 the people regarded the district officer as the friendly guardian of their 

 religion. ' Speaking of the aversion of the people to the abandon- 

 ment by Government of the management of a famous pagoda (Tiru- 

 pati) in North Arcot, the district magistrate wrote : ' No persuasion 

 or reasoning could effect a change in the resolution they had taken ; 

 the management of this pagoda, they said, had been in the hands of 

 the ruling power for ages back ; the innovation proposed was contrary 

 .to established custom, and if persisted in, religious worship in their 

 temple would cease. . . . ' 



" At first we were over-careful to conciliate native prejudices by 

 showing official respect and deference to rites and ceremonies of a 

 nature largely repugnant to European habits of thought in such 

 matters ; and we were far too anxious to prove that we had no notion 

 of giving umbrage to powerful creeds by favoring Christianity, which 



