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Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

W >> William Sleeman >> Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official




During the season here mentioned, grain had become very dear at
Sagar, from the unusual demand in Bundelkhand and other districts to
the north. As usual, supplies of land produce flowed up from the
Nerbudda districts along the great roads to the east and west of the
city; but the military authorities in the cantonments would not be
persuaded out of their dread of a famine. There were three regiments
of infantry, a corps of cavalry, and two companies of artillery
cantoned at that time at Sagar. They were a mile from the city, and
the grain for their supply was exempted from town duties to which
that for the city was liable. The people in cantonments got their
supply, in consequence, a good deal cheaper than the people in the
city got theirs; and none but persons belonging bona fide to the
cantonments were ever allowed to purchase grain within them. When the
dread of famine began, the commissariat officer, Major Gregory,
apprehended that he might not be permitted to have recourse to the
markets of the city in times of scarcity, since the people of the
city had not been suffered to have recourse to those of the
cantonments in times of plenty; but he was told by the magistrate to
purchase as much as he liked, since he considered every man as free
to sell his grain as his cloth, or pots and pans, to whom he
chose.[12] He added that he did not share in the fears of the
military authorities--that he had no apprehension whatever of a
famine, or when prices rose high enough they would be sure to divert
away into the city, from the streams then flowing up from the valley
of the Nerbudda and the districts of Malwa towards Bundelkhand, a
supply of grain sufficient for all.

This new demand upon the city increased rapidly the price of grain,
and augmented the alarm of the people, who began to urge the
magistrate to listen to their prayers, and coerce the sordid corn-
dealers, who had, no doubt, numerous pits yet unopened. The alarm
became still greater in the cantonments, where the commanding officer
attributed all the evil to the inefficiency of the commissariat and
the villany of the corn-dealers; and Major Gregory was in dread of
being torn to pieces by the soldiery. Only one day's supply was left
in the cantonment bazaars--the troops had become clamorous almost to
a state of mutiny--the people of the town began to rush in upon every
supply that was offered for sale; and those who had grain to dispose
of could no longer venture to expose it. The magistrate was hard
pressed on all sides to have recourse to the old salutary method of
searching for and forcibly opening the grain pits, and selling the
contents at such price as might appear reasonable. The kotwal[13] of
the town declared that the lives of his police would be no longer
safe unless this great and never-failing remedy, which had now
unhappily been too long deferred, were immediately adopted.

The magistrate, who had already taken every other means of declaring
his resolution never to suffer any man's granary to be forcibly
opened, now issued a formal proclamation, pledging himself to see
that such granaries should be as much respected as any other property
in the city--that every man might keep his grain and expose it for
sale, wherever and whenever he pleased; and expressing a hope that,
as the people knew him too well not to feel assured that his word
thus solemnly pledged would never be broken, he trusted they would
sell what stores they had, and apply themselves without apprehension
to the collecting of more.

This proclamation he showed to Major Gregory, assuring him that no
degree of distress or clamour among the people of the city or the
cantonments should ever make him violate the pledge therein given to
the corn-dealers; and that he was prepared to risk his situation and
reputation as a public officer upon the result. After issuing this
proclamation about noon, he had his police establishments augmented,
and so placed and employed as to give to the people entire confidence
in the assurances conveyed in it. The grain-dealers, no longer
apprehensive of danger, opened their pits of grain, and sent off all
their available means to bring in more. In the morning the bazaars
were all supplied, and every man who had money could buy as much as
he pleased. The troops got as much as they required from the city.
Major Gregory was astonished and delighted. The colonel, a fine old
soldier from the banks of the Indus, who had commanded a corps of
horse under the former government, came to the magistrate in
amazement; every shop had become full of grain as if by supernatural
agency.

_'Kale admi ki akl kahan talak chalegi_?' said he. 'How little could
a black man's wisdom serve him in such an emergency?'

There was little wisdom in all this; but there was a firm reliance
upon the truth of the general principle which should guide all public
officers on such occasions. The magistrate judged that there were a
great many pits of grain in the town known only to their own
proprietors, who were afraid to open them, or get more grain, while
there was a chance of the civil authorities yielding to the clamours
of the people and the anxiety of the officers commanding the troops;
and that he had only to remove these fears, by offering a solemn
pledge, and manifesting the means and the will to abide by it, in
order to induce the proprietors, not only to sell what they had, but
to apply all their means to the collecting of more. But it is a
singular fact that almost all the officers of the cantonments thought
the conduct of the magistrate in refusing to have the grain pits
opened under such pressing circumstances extremely reprehensible.

Had he done so, he might have given the people of the city and the
cantonments the supply at hand; but the injury done to the corn-
dealers by so very unwise a measure would have recoiled upon the
public, since every one would have been discouraged from exerting
himself to renew the supply, and from laying up stores to meet
similar necessities in future. By acting as he did, he not only
secured for the public the best exertions of all the existing corn-
dealers of the place, but actually converted for the time a great
many to that trade from other employments, or from idleness. A great
many families, who had never traded before, employed their means in
bringing a supply of grain, and converted their dwellings into corn
shops, induced by the high profits and assurance of protection.
During the time when he was most pressed the magistrate received a
letter from Captain Robinson, who was in charge of the bazaars at
Elichpur in the Hyderabad territory,[14] where the dearth had become
even more felt than at Sagar, requesting to know what measures had
been adopted to regulate the price, and secure the supply of grain
for the city and cantonments at Sagar, since no good seemed to result
from those hitherto pursued at Elichpur. He told him in reply that
these things had hitherto been regulated at Sagar as he thought 'they
ought to be regulated everywhere else, by being left entirely to the
discretion of the corn-dealers themselves, whose self-interest will
always prompt them to have a sufficient supply, as long as they may
feel secure of being permitted to do what they please with what they
collect. The commanding officer, in his anxiety to secure food for
the people, had hitherto been continually interfering to coerce sales
and regulate prices, and continually aggravating the evils of the
dearth by so doing'. On the receipt of the Sagar magistrate's letter
a different course was adopted; the same assurances were given to the
corn-dealers, the same ability and inclination to enforce them
manifested, and the same result followed. The people and the troops
were steadily supplied; and all were astonished that so very simple a
remedy had not before been thought of.

The ignorance of the first principles of political economy among
European gentlemen of otherwise first-rate education and abilities in
India is quite lamentable, for there are really few public officers,
even in the army, who are not occasionally liable to be placed in the
situations where they may, by false measures, arising out of such
ignorance, aggravate the evils of dearth among great bodies of their
fellow men. A soldier may, however, find some excuse for such
ignorance, because a knowledge of these principles is not generally
considered to form any indispensable part of a soldier's education;
but no excuse can be admitted for a civil functionary who is so
ignorant, since a thorough acquaintance with the principles of
political economy must be, and, indeed, always is considered as an
essential branch of that knowledge which is to fit him for public
employment in India.[15]

In India unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous
consequences than in Europe. In England not more than one-fourth of
the population derive their incomes from the cultivation of the lands
around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes independent of
the annual returns from those lands; and with these incomes they can
purchase agricultural produce from other lands when the crops upon
them fail. The farmers, who form so large a portion of the fourth
class, have stock equal in value to _four times the amount of the
annual rent of their lands_. They have also a great variety of crops;
and it is very rare that more than one or two of them fail, or are
considerably affected, the same season. If they fail in one district
or province, the deficiency is very easily supplied to a people who
have equivalents to give for the produce of another. The sea,
navigable rivers, fine roads, all are open and ready at all times for
the transport of the superabundance of one quarter to supply the
deficiencies of another. In India, the reverse of all this is
unhappily to be found; more than three-fourths of the whole
population are engaged in the cultivation of the land, and depend
upon its annual returns for subsistence.[16] The farmers and
cultivators have none of their stock equal in value to more than
_half the amount of the annual rent of their lands_.[17] They have a
great variety of crops; but all are exposed to the same accidents,
and commonly fail at the same time. The autumn crops are sown in June
and July, and ripen in October and November; and, if seasonable
showers do not fall during July, August, and September, all fail. The
spring crops are sown in October and November, and ripen in March;
and, if seasonable showers do not happen to fall during December or
January, all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail.[18] If they
fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to
offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads are
scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages at _any season_, and
nowhere _at all seasons_--they have nowhere a navigable canal, and
only in one line a navigable river.

Their land produce is conveyed upon the backs of bullocks, that move
at the rate of six or eight miles a day, and add one hundred per
cent. to the cost of every hundred miles they carry it in the best
seasons, and more than two hundred in the worst.[19] What in Europe
is felt merely as a _dearth_, becomes in India, under all these
disadvantages, a scarcity, and what is there a _scarcity_ becomes
here a _famine_. Tens of thousands die here of starvation, under
calamities of season, which in Europe would involve little of
suffering to any class. Here man does everything, and he must have
his daily food or starve. In England machinery does more than three-
fourths of the collective work of society in the production,
preparation, and distribution of man's physical enjoyments, and it
stands in no need of this daily food to sustain its powers; they are
independent of the seasons; the water, fire, air, and other elemental
powers which they require to render them subservient to our use are
always available in abundance.

This machinery is the great assistant of the present generation,
provided for us by the wisdom and industry of the past; wanting no
food itself, it can always provide its proprietors with the means of
purchasing what they require from other countries, when the harvests
of their own fail. When calamities of season deprive men of
employment for a time in tillage, they can, in England, commonly find
it in other branches of industry, because agricultural industry forms
so small a portion of the collective industry of the nation; and
because every man can, without prejudice to his status in society,
take to what branch of industry he pleases. But, when these
calamities of season throw men out of employment in tillage for a
time in India, they cannot find it in any other branch, because
agricultural industry forms so very large a portion of the collective
industry of every part of the country; and because men are often
prevented by the prejudices of caste from taking to that which they
can find.[20]

In societies constituted like that of India the trade of the corn-
dealer is more essentially necessary for the welfare of the community
than in any other, for it is among them that the superabundance of
seasons of plenty requires most to be stored up for seasons of
scarcity; and if public functionaries will take upon themselves to
seize such stores, and sell them at their own arbitrary prices,
whenever prices happen to rise beyond the rate which they in their
short-sighted wisdom think just, no corn-dealer will ever collect
such stores. Hitherto, whenever grain has become dear at any military
or civil station, we have seen the civil functionaries urged to
prohibit its egress--to search for the hidden stores, and to coerce
the proprietors to the sale in all manner of ways; and, if they do
not yield to the ignorant clamour, they are set down as indifferent
to the sufferings of their fellow creatures around them, and as
blindly supporting the worst enemies of mankind in the worst species
of iniquity.

If those who urge them to such measures are asked whether
silversmiths or linendrapers, who should be treated in the same
manner as they wish the corn-dealers to be treated, would ever
collect and keep stores of plate and cloth for their use, they
readily answer--No; they see at once the evil effects of interfering
with the free disposal of the property of the one, but are totally
blind to that which must as surely follow any interference with that
of the other, whose entire freedom is of so much more vital
importance to the public. There was a time, and that not very remote,
when grave historians, like Smollett, could, even in England, fan the
flame of this vulgar prejudice against one of the most useful classes
of society. That day is, thank God, past; and no man can now venture
to write such trash in his history, or even utter it in any well-
informed circle of English society; and, if any man were to broach
such a subject in an English House of Commons, he would be considered
as a fit subject for a madhouse.

But some, who retain their prejudices against corn-dealers, and are
yet ashamed to acknowledge their ignorance of the first principles of
political economy, try to persuade themselves and their friends that,
however applicable these may be to the state of society in European
or Christian countries, they are not so to countries occupied by
Hindoos and Muhammadans. This is a sad delusion, and may be a very
mischievous one, when indulged by public officers in India.[21]


Notes:


1. Irrigation by means of a 'dug-out' canoe used as a lever is
commonly practised in many parts of the country. The author gives a
rough sketch, not worth reproduction. The Persian wheel is suitable
for use in wide-mouthed wells. It may be described as a mill-wheel
with buckets on the circumference, which are filled and emptied as
the wheel revolves. It is worked by bullock-power acting on a rude
cog-wheel.

2. December, 1835.

3. A.D. 1833 corresponds to the year 1890 of the _Vikrama Samvat_, or
era, current in Bundelkhand. About 1880 the editor found this great
famine still remembered as that of the year '90.

4. Half a crown seems to be used in this passage as a synonym for the
rupee, now (1914) worth a shilling and four pence.

5. Bundelkhand seems to be the meeting-place of the east and west
monsoons, and the moist current is, in consequence, often feeble and
variable. The country suffered again from famine in 1861 and 1877,
although not so severely as in 1833. In northern Bundelkhand a canal
from the Betwa river has been constructed, but is of only very
limited use. The peculiarities of the soil and climate forbid the
wide extension of irrigation. For the prevention of acute famine in
this region the chief reliance must be on improved communications.
The country has been opened up by the Indian Midland and other
railways. In 1899-1900, notwithstanding improved communications,
Malwa suffered severely from famine. Aurangzeb considered Gujarat to
be 'the ornament and jewel of India' (Bilimoria, _Letters of
Aurungzebie_, 1908, no. lxiv).

6. The influence of trees on climate is undoubted, but the author in
this passage probably ascribes too much power to the groves of Malwa.
On the formation of the black soil see note 7 to Chapter 14, _ante_.

7. The word in the author's text is 'grain', a misprint for 'gram'
(_Cicer arietinum_), a pulse, also known as chick-pea, and very
largely grown in Bundelkhand. 'Gram' is a corruption of the
Portuguese word for grain, and, like many other Portuguese words, has
passed into the speech of Anglo-Indians. See Yule and Burnell,
_Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words_, s.v.

8. 'Agricultural capitalist' is a rather large phrase for the humble
village money-lender, whose transactions are usually on a very small
scale.

9. The author's advice on the subject of famine relief is weighty and
perfectly sound. It is in accordance with the policy formulated by
the Government of India in the Famine Relief Code, based on the
Report of the Famine Commission which followed the terrible Madras
famine of 1877.

10. This statement is too general. Examples of the horror alluded to
are recorded in several Indian famines. Cases of cannibalism occurred
during the Madras famine of 1877. But it is true that horrors of the
kind are rare in India, and the author's praise of the patient
resignation of the people is fully justified. An admirable summary of
the history of Indian famines will be found in the articles 'Famines'
and 'Food' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed. (1885). For further and
more recent information see _I.G._ (1907), vol. iii, chap. 10.

11. No European officer, military or civil, could now venture to
adopt such arbitrary measures. In a Native State they might very
probably be enforced.

12. 'The magistrate' was the author himself.

13. The chief police officer of a town. In the modern reorganized
system he always holds the rank of either Inspector or Sub-Inspector.
Under native governments he was a more important official.

14. Elichpur (Ilichpur) is in Berar, otherwise known as the Assigned
Districts, a territory made over in Lord Dalhousie's time to British
administration in order to defray the cost of the armed force called
the Hyderabad Contingent. Since 1903 Berar has ceased to be a
separate province. It is now merely a Division attached to the
Central Provinces. From the same date the Hyderabad Contingent lost
its separate existence, being redistributed and merged in the Indian
Army.

15. Political Economy was for many years a compulsory subject for the
selected candidates for the Civil Service of India; but since 1892
its study has been optional.

16. The census of 1911 shows that about 71 per cent. of the
301,000,000 inhabiting India, excluding Burma, are supported by the
cultivation of the soil and the care of cattle. The proportion varies
widely in different provinces.

17. This proposition does not apply fully to Northern India at the
present day. The amount of capital invested is small, although not
quite so small as is stated in the text.

18. The times of harvest vary slightly with the latitude, being later
towards the north. The cold-weather rains of December and January are
variable and uncertain, and rarely last more than a few days. The
spring crops depend largely on the heavy dews which occur daring the
cold season.

19. Daring the years which have elapsed since the famine of 1833,
great changes have taken place in India, and many of the author's
remarks are only partially applicable to the present time. The great
canals, above all, the wonderful Ganges Canal, have protected immense
areas of Northern India from the possibility of absolute famine, and
Southern India has also been to a considerable, though less, extent,
protected by similar works. A few new staples, of which potatoes are
the most important, have been introduced. The whole system of
distribution has been revolutionized by the development of railways,
metalled roads, wheeled vehicles, motors, telegraphs, and navigable
canals. Carriage on the backs of animals, whether bullocks, camels,
or donkeys, now plays a very subordinate part in the distribution of
agricultural produce. Prices are, in great measure, dependent on the
rates prevailing in Liverpool, Odessa, and Chicago. Food grains now
stand ordinarily at prices which, in the author's time, would have
been reckoned famine rates. The changes which have taken place in
England are too familiar to need comment.

20. Since the author's time certain industries, the most important
being cotton-pressing, cotton-spinning, and jute-spinning, have
sprung up and assumed in Bombay, Calcutta, Cawnpore, and a few other
places, proportions which, absolutely, are large. But India is so
vast that these local developments of manufactures, large though they
are, seem to be as nothing when regarded in comparison with the
country as a whole. India is still, and, to all appearance, always
must be, essentially an agricultural country.

21. The author's teaching concerning freedom of trade in times of
famine and the function of dealers in corn is as sound as his
doctrine of famine relief. The 'vulgar prejudice', which he
denounces, still flourishes, and the 'sad delusion', which he
deplores, still obscures the truth. As each period of scarcity or
famine comes round, the old cries are again heard, and the executive
authorities are implored and adjured to forbid export, to fix fair
prices, and to clip the profits of the corn merchant. During the
Bengal famine of 1873-4, the demand for the prohibition of the export
of rice was urged by men who should have known better, and Lord
Northbrook is entitled to no small credit for having firmly withstood
the clamour. The more recent experiences of the Russian Government
should be remembered when the clamour is again raised, as it will be.
The principles on which the author acted in the crisis at Sagar in
1833 should guide every magistrate who finds himself in a similar
position, and should be applied with unhesitating firmness and
decision.




CHAPTER 25


Epidemic Diseases--Scape-goat.

In the evening, after my conversation with the cultivator upon the
wall that united the two hills,[1] I received a visit from my little
friend the Sarimant. His fine rose-coloured turban is always put on
very gracefully; every hair of his jet-black eyebrows and mustachios
seems to be kept always most religiously in the same place; and he
has always the same charming smile upon his little face, which was
never, I believe, distorted into an absolute laugh or frown. No man
was ever more perfectly master of what the natives call 'the art of
rising or sitting' (_nishisht wa barkhast_), namely, good manners. I
should as soon expect to see him set the Nerbudda on fire as commit
any infringement of the _convenances_ on this head established in
good Indian society, or be guilty of anything vulgar in speech,
sentiment, or manners. I asked him by what means it was that the old
queen of Sagar[2] drove out the influenza that afflicted the people
so much in 1832, while he was there on a visit to me. He told me that
he took no part in the ceremonies, nor was he aware of them till
awoke one night by 'the noise, when his attendants informed him that
the queen and the greater part of the city were making offerings to
the new god, Hardaul Lala. He found next morning that a goat had been
offered up with as much noise as possible, and with good effect, for
the disease was found to give way from that moment. About six years
before, when great numbers were dying in his own little capital of
Pithoria[3] from a similar epidemic, he had, he said, tried the same
thing with still greater effect; but, on that occasion, he had the
aid of a man very learned in such matters. This man caused a small
carriage to be made up after a plan of his own, for _a pair of scape-
goats_, which were harnessed to it, and driven during the ceremonies
to a wood some distance from the town, where they were let loose.
From that hour the disease entirely ceased in the town. The goats
never returned. 'Had they come back,' said Sarimant, 'the disease
must have come back with them; so he took them a long way into the
wood--indeed (he believed), the man, to make sure of them, had
afterwards caused them to be offered up as a sacrifice to the shrine
of Hardaul Lala, in that very wood. He had himself never seen a
_puja_ (religious ceremony) so entirely and immediately efficacious
as this, and much of its success was, no doubt, attributable to the
_science_ of the man who planned the carriage, and himself drove the
pair of goats to the wood. No one had ever before heard of the plan
of a pair of _scape-goats_ being driven in a carriage; but it was
likely (he thought) to be extensively adopted in future.'[4]

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