Modern India by William Eleroy Curtis

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There is a difference of opinion as to the beauty of the nautches.
It is purely a matter of taste. There is no rule by which personal
attractions may be measured, and doubtless there may be beautiful
women among them, but, so far, I have never seen one. Their costumes
are usually very elaborate, the materials being of the rarest and
finest qualities and profusely embroidered, and their jewels are
usually costly. Their manners are gentle, refined and modest; they
are perfectly self-possessed under all circumstances, and, while
their dancing would not be attractive to the average American
taste, it is not immodest, and consists of a succession of graceful
gestures and posturing which is supposed to have a definite meaning
and express sentiments and emotions. Most of the dances are
interpretations of poems, legends, stories of the gods and heroes
of Indian mythology. Educated Hindus profess to be able to understand
them, although to a foreigner they are nothing more than meaningless
motions. I have asked the same question of several missionaries,
but have never been able to discover a nautch dancer who has
abandoned her vocation, or has deserted her temple, or has run
away with a lover, or has been reached in any way by the various
missions for women in India. They seem to be perfectly satisfied
with their present and their future.

The greatest good women missionaries have done in India, I think,
is in bringing modern medical science into the homes of the natives.
No man is ever admitted to the zenanas, no matter what may happen,
and thousands upon thousands, yes, millions upon millions, of poor
creatures have suffered and died for lack of ordinary medical
attention because of the etiquette of caste. American women brought
the first relief, graduates from medical schools in Philadelphia,
New York and Chicago, and now there are women physicians attached to
all of the missions, and many of them are practicing independently
in the larger cities. They are highly respected and exert a great
influence.

Nizam-u-Din, one of the holiest of the Hindu saints, lies in a
tomb of marble lace work and embroidery near Delhi; as exquisite
a bit of architecture as you can imagine, so dainty in all its
details that it ought to be the sepulcher of a fairy queen instead
of that of the founder of the Thugs, the secret religious society
of assassins which was suppressed and practically exterminated by
the British authorities in the '60's and '70's. He died in 1652.
He was a fanatic who worshiped the goddess Kali; the black wife of
Siva, and believed that the removal of unbelievers from the earth
was what we call a Christian duty. As Kali prohibited the shedding
of blood, he trained his devotees to strangle their fellow beings
without violating that prohibition or leaving any traces of their
work, and sent out hundreds of professional murderers over India
to diminish the number of heretics for the good and glory of the
faith. No saint in the Hindu calendar is more generally worshiped
or more profoundly revered unto the present day. His tomb is
attended by groups of Brahmins who place fresh flowers upon the
cenotaph every morning and cover it reverently with Cashmere
shawls of the finest texture and pieces of rare embroidery.

India is the only country where crime was ever systematically
carried on as a religious and legitimate occupation in the belief
that it was right, for not only the Thugs, but other professional
murderers existed for centuries, and still exist, although in
greatly diminished numbers, owing to the vigilance of the police;
not because they have become converted from the error of their ways.
There are yet tribes of professional criminals who believe that,
in following the customs and the occupation of their ancestors,
they are acting in the only way that is right and are serving
the gods they worship. Criminal organizations exist in nearly
all the native states, and the government is just now making
a special effort to stamp out professional "dacoits," who are
associated for the purpose of highway robbery, cattle stealing
and violence and carry on marauding expeditions from their
headquarters continuously. They are just as well organized and as
thoroughly devoted to their business as the gangs of highwaymen
that used to make travel dangerous through Europe in the middle
ages. And there are other criminal organizations with which it
is even more difficult to deal. A recent report from the office
of the home secretary says:

"We all know that trades go by castes in India; a family of
carpenters will be a family of carpenters a century or five centuries
hence, if they last so long; so with grain dealers, blacksmiths,
leather-makers and every known trade. If we keep this in mind
when we speak of 'professional criminals' we shall realize what
the term really means. It means that the members of a tribe whose
ancestors were criminals from time immemorial are themselves
destined by the use of the caste to commit crime, and their
descendants will be offenders against the law till the whole
tribe is exterminated or accounted for in the manner of the Thugs.
Therefore, when a man tells you he is a badhak, or a kanjar,
or a sonoria, he tells you, what few Europeans ever thoroughly
realize, that he is an habitual and avowed offender against the
law, and has been so from the beginning and will be so to the
end; that reform is impossible, for it is his trade, his caste--I
may almost say, his religion--to commit crime."

The Thugs were broken up by Captain Sleeman, a brave and able
British detective who succeeded in entering that assassination
society and was initiated into its terrible mysteries. A large
number of the leaders were executed from time to time, but the
government, whose policy is always to respect religious customs
of the Hindus, administered as little punishment as possible,
and "rounding up" all of the members of this cult, as ranchmen
would say, "corralled" them at the Town of Jabal-pur, near the
City of Allahabad, in northeastern India, where they have since
been under surveillance. Originally there were 2,500, but now
only about half of that number remain, who up to this date are
not allowed to leave without a permit the inclosure in which
they are kept.

One of the criminal tribes, called Barwars, numbers about a thousand
families and inhabits forty-eight villages in the district of
Gonda, in the Province of Oudh, not far from Delhi. They live
quietly and honestly upon their farms during the months of planting
and harvesting, but between crops they wander in small gangs
over distant parts of the country, robbing and plundering with
great courage and skill. They even despoil the temples of the
gods. The only places that are sacred to them are the temple
of Jaganath (Juggernaut), in the district of Orissa, and the
shrine of a certain Mohammedan martyr. They have a regular
organization under hereditary chiefs, and if a member of the
clan gives up thieving he is disgraced and excommunicated. The
plunder is divided pro rata, and a certain portion is set aside
for their priests and as offerings to their gods.

There is a similar clan of organized robbers and murderers known
as Sonoriaths, whose special business is to steal cattle, and
the Mina tribe, which lives in the district of Gurgaon, on the
frontier of the Punjab Province, has 2,000 members, given up
entirely to robbery and murder. They make no trouble at home. They
are honest in their dealings, peaceable, charitable, hospitable,
and have considerable wealth, but between crops the larger portion
of the men disappear from their homes and go into other provinces
for the purpose of robbery, burglary and other forms of stealing.
In the Agra Province are twenty-nine different tribes who from
time immemorial have made crime their regular occupation and,
like all those mentioned, look upon it as not only a legitimate
but a religious act ordered and approved by the deities they
worship.

Special laws have been enacted for restraining these castes or
clans, and special police officers now exercise supervision over
them. Every man is required to register at the police headquarters
and receive a passport. He is required to live within a certain
district, and cannot change his abode or leave its limits without
permission. If he does so he is arrested and imprisoned. The
authorities believe that they have considerably reduced the amount
of crime committed by these clansmen, who are too cunning and
courageous to be entirely suppressed. No amount of vigilance
can prevent them from leaving their villages and going off into
other provinces for criminal purposes, and the railways greatly
facilitate their movements.

Nevertheless, if you will examine the criminal statistics of
India you will be surprised at the small number of arrests, trials
and convictions for penal offenses. The figures demonstrate that
the people are honest and law abiding. There is less crime in
India than in any other country in proportion to population, much
less than in England or the United States. Out of a population
of 300,000,000 people during the ten years from 1892 to 1902
there was an annual average of 1,015,550 criminal cases before
the courts, and an average of 1,345,667 offenses against the
criminal laws reported, while 870,665 persons were convicted of
crime in 1902, with the following penalties imposed:

Death 500
Penal servitude 1,707
Imprisonment 175,795
Fines 628,092
Over two years' imprisonment 7,576
Between one and two years 39,067
Between fifteen days and one year 86,653
Under fifteen days 34,517

The following were the most serious crimes in 1902:

Arrests. Convictions.
Offenses against public peace 15,190 5,088
Murder 3,255 1,102
Assault 42,496 12,597
Dacoity or highway robbery 3,320 706
Cattle stealing 29,691 9,307
Ordinary theft 183,463 45,566
House-breaking 192,353 23,143
Vagrancy 25,212 18,877
Public nuisances 216,285 201,421

The following table will show the total daily average of prisoners,
men and women, serving sentences for penal offenses in the prisons
of India during the years named:

Men. Women. Total.
1892 93,061 3,142 96,202
1893 91,976 2,988 94,964
1894 92,236 2,941 95,177
1895 97,869 3,216 101,085
1896 100,406 3,280 103,686
1897 109,989 3,277 113,266
1898 103,517 2,927 106,446
1899 101,518 2,773 104,292
1900 114,854 3,253 118,107
1901 108,258 3,124 111,382

Those who are familiar with criminal statistics in the United
States and other countries, will, I am confident, agree with
me that this is a most remarkable record for a population of
300,000,000, illiterate, superstitious, impregnated with false
ideas of honor and morality, and packed so densely as the people
of India are. The courts of justice have reached a high standard;
the lower courts are administered almost exclusively by natives;
the higher courts by English and natives together. No trial of
importance ever takes place except before a mixed court, and
usually the three great religions--Brahminism, Mohammedanism and
Christianity--are represented on the bench.

One of the most difficult and delicate tasks of the British
authorities has been to prevent infanticide, the murder of girl
infants, because from time immemorial among all the races of
India it has been practiced openly and without restraint and
in many sections as a religious duty. And what has made it more
difficult, it prevailed most extensively among the families of
the highest rank, and among the natives, communities and provinces
which were most loyal to the British crown. For example, the
Rajputs, of whom I have written at length in a previous chapter,
are the chivalry of India. They trace their descent from the
gods, and are proud of their nobility and their honor, yet it
has been the custom among them as far back as traditions run,
to strangle more than half their girl babies at birth, and until
this was stopped the records showed numbers of villages where
there was not a single girl, and where there never had been one
within the memory of man. As late as the census of 1869 seven
villages were reported with 104 boys and one girl, twenty-three
villages with 284 boys and twenty-three girls and many others in
similar proportions. The statistics of the recent census of 1901,
by the disparity between the sexes, show that this crime has not
yet been stamped out. In the Rajputana Province, for example,
there are 2,447,401 boys to 1,397,911 girls, and throughout the
entire population of India there are 72,506,661 boys to 49,516,381
girls. Among the Hindus of all ages there are 105,163,345 men
to 101,945,387 women, and among the Sikhs, who also strangle
their children, there are 1,241,543 men to 950,823 women. Among
the Buddhists, the Jains and other religions the ratio between
the sexes was more even.

Sir John Strachy, in his admirable book upon India, says: "These
people have gone on killing their children generation after
generation because their forefathers did so before them, not
only without a thought that there is anything criminal in the
practice, but with the conviction that it is right. There can
be little doubt that if vigilance were relaxed the custom would
before long become as prevalent as ever." The measures taken
by the government have been radical and stringent. A system of
registration of births and deaths was provided by an act passed
in 1870, with constant inspection and frequent enumeration of
children among the suspected classes, and no efforts were spared
to convince them that the government had finally resolved to
prevent the practice and in doing so treated it as murder.

XIX

SIMLA AND THE PUNJAB

At Delhi the railway forks. One branch runs on to the frontier of
Afghanistan via Lahore and Peshawur, and the other via Umballa, an
important military post, to Simla, the summer capital and sanitarium
of India. Because of the climate there must be two capitals. From
October to April the viceroy occupies the government house at
Calcutta with the civil and military authorities around him, but
as soon as the summer heat sets in the whole administration, civil,
military and judicial, removes to Simla, and everybody follows,
foreign consuls, bankers, merchants, lawyers, butchers, bakers
and candlestick makers, hotel and boardinghouse keepers, with
their servants, coachmen and horses. The commander-in-chief of
the army, the adjutant general and all the heads of the other
departments with their clerks take their books and records along
with them. The winter population of Simla is about 15,000; the
summer population reaches 30,000. The exodus lasts about a month,
during which time every railway train going north is crowded and
every extra car that can be spared is borrowed from the other
railways. The last of October the migration is reversed and everybody
returns to Calcutta. This has been going on for nearly fifty
years. The journey to Umballa is made by rail and thence by
"dak-gherries," a sort of covered democrat wagon, "mailtongas,"
a species of cart, bullock carts, army wagons and carriages of
every size and description, while the luggage is brought up the
hills in various kinds of conveyance, much of it on the heads
of coolies, both women and men. The distance, fifty-seven miles
by the highway, is all uphill, but can be made by an ordinary
team in twelve hours.

Long experience has taught the government officials how to make
this removal in a scientific manner, and the records are arranged
for easy transportation. The viceroy has his own outfit, and when
the word is given the transfer takes place without the slightest
difficulty or confusion. A public functionary leaves his papers at
his desk, puts on his hat and walks out of his office at Calcutta;
three days later he walks into his office at Simla, hangs his
hat on a peg behind the door and sits down at his desk with the
same papers lying in the same positions before him, and business
goes on with the interruption of only three or four days at most.
The migration makes no more difference to the administration than
the revolutions of the earth. Formerly the various offices were
scattered over all parts of Simla, but they have been gradually
concentrated in blocks of handsome buildings constructed at a
cost of several millions of dollars. The home secretary, the
department of public works, the finance and revenue departments,
the secretary of agriculture, the postmaster general and the
secretary of war, each has quite as good an office for himself
and his clerks as he occupies at Calcutta. There is a courthouse,
a law library, a theatre and opera house, a number of clubs and
churches, for the archbishop and the clergy follow their flocks,
and the Calcutta merchants come along with their clerks and
merchandise to supply the wants of their customers. It is a
remarkable migration of a great government.

Although absolutely necessary for their health, and that of their
families, it is rather expensive for government employes, or
civil servants, as they are called in India, to keep up two
establishments, one in Simla and one in Calcutta. But they get
the benefit of the stimulating atmosphere of the hills and escape
the perpetual Turkish bath that is called summer in Calcutta.
Many of the higher officials, merchants, bankers, society people
and others have bungalows at Simla furnished like our summer
cottages at home. They extend over a long ridge, with beautiful
grounds around them. It is fully six miles from one end of the
town to the other, and the principal street is more than five
miles long. The houses are built upon terraces up and down the
slope, with one of the most beautiful panoramas of mountain scenery
that can be imagined spread out before them. Deep valleys, rocky
ravines and gorges break the mountainsides, which are clothed with
forests of oak and other beautiful trees, while the background is
a crescent of snowy peaks rising range above range against the
azure sky. Many people live in tents, particularly the military
families, and make themselves exceedingly comfortable. Simla is
quite cold in winter, being 7,084 feet above the sea and situated
on the thirty-second parallel of north latitude, about the same
as Charleston, S. C., but in summer the climate is very fine.

The viceroy occupies a chateau called the Viceregal Lodge, perched
upon a hill overlooking the town, and from his porches commands as
grand a mountain landscape as you could wish to see. The Viceregal
Lodge, like the government-house in Calcutta, was designed especially
for its purpose and is arranged for entertainments upon a broad
scale. The vice-queen takes the lead in social life, and no woman
in that position has ever been more competent than Lady Curzon.
There is really more society at Simla than in Calcutta. It is
the Newport of India, but fortunately for the health of those
who participate, it is mostly out of doors. The military element
is large enough to give it an athletic and sporting character, and
to the girls who are popular a summer at Simla is one prolonged
picnic. There are races, polo, tennis, golf, drives, rides, walks,
garden parties and all sorts of afternoon and morning functions. F.
Marion Crawford describes the gayeties of Simla in "Mr. Isaacs,"
the first and best novel he ever wrote, and gives a graphic account
of a polo match in which his hero was knocked off his horse and
had his head bathed by the young lady he was in love with. Kipling
has given us a succession of pictures of Simla society, and no
novel of Indian life is without a chapter or two on it, because
it is really the most interesting place in all the empire.

If you want to get a better idea of the place and its attractions
than I can give, read "Mr. Isaacs." Many of its incidents are
drawn from life, and the hero is a Persian Jew of Delhi, named
Jacobs, whose business is to sell precious stones to the native
princes. Crawford used to spend his summers at Simla when he
was a reporter for the Allahabad Pioneer, and made Jacobs's
acquaintance there. His Indian experiences are very interesting,
and he tells them as well as he writes. When he was quite a young
man he went to India as private secretary for an Englishman of
importance who died over there and left him stranded. Having failed
to obtain employment and having reached the bottom of his purse,
he decided in desperation to enlist as a private soldier in the
army, and was looking through the papers for the location of the
recruiting office when his eye was attracted by an advertisement
from the Allahabad Pioneer, which wanted a reporter. Although
he had never done any literary work, he decided to make a dash
for it, and became one of the most successful and influential
journalists in India until his career was broken in upon by the
success of "Mr. Isaacs," his first novel, which was published
in England and turned his pen from facts to fiction.

The railway journey from Delhi to Lahore is not exciting, although
it passes through a section of great historical interest which
has been fought over by contending armies and races for more
than 3,000 years. Several of the most important battles in India
occurred along the right of way, and they changed the dynasties
and religions of the empire, but the plains tell no tales and
show no signs of the events they have witnessed. Everybody who
has read Kipling's stories will be interested in Umballa, although
it is nothing but an important military post and railway junction.
He tells you about it in "Kim," and several of his army stories
are laid there. Sirhind, thirty-five miles beyond, was formerly
one of the most flourishing cities in the Mogul Empire, and for
a radius of several miles around it the earth is covered with
ruins. It was the scene of successive struggles between the Hindus
and the Sikhs for several centuries, and even to this day every
Sikh who passes through Sirhind picks up and carries away a brick,
which he throws into the first river he comes to, in hope that in
time the detested city will utterly disappear from the face of
the earth. Sirhind is the headquarters of American Presbyterian
missionary work in the Punjab, as that part of India is called,
and the headquarters of the largest irrigation system in the
world, which supplies water to more than 6,000,000 acres of land.

Just before reaching Lahore we passed through Amritsar, a city
which is famous for many things, and is the capital of the Sikhs,
a religious sect bound together by the ties of faith and race
and military discipline. They represent a Hindu heresy led by
a reformer named Nanak Shah, who was born at Lahore in 1469 and
preached a reformation against idolatry, caste, demon worship
and other doctrines of the Brahmins. His theories and sermons
are embraced in a volume known as the "Granth," the Sikh Bible,
which teaches the highest standard of morality, purity and courage,
and appeals especially to the nobler northern races of India. His
followers, who were known as Sikhs, were compelled to fight for
their faith, and for that reason were organized upon a military
basis. Their leaders were warlike men, and when the Mogul power
began to decay they struggled with the Afghans for supremacy in
northern India. They have ever since been renowned for their
fighting qualities; have always been loyal to British authority;
for fifty years have furnished bodyguards for the Viceroy of India,
the governors of Bombay, Bengal and other provinces, and so much
confidence is placed in their coolness, courage, honesty, judgment
and tact that they are employed as policemen in all the British
colonies of the East. You find them everywhere from Tien-Tsin to
the Red Sea. They are men of unusual stature, with fine heads
and faces, full beards, serious disposition and military airs.
They are the only professional fighters in the world. You seldom
find them in any other business, and their admirers declare that
no Sikh was ever convicted of cowardice or disloyalty.

Amritsar is their headquarters, their religious center and their
sacred city. Their temples are more like Protestant churches than
those of other oriental faiths. They have no idols or altars, but
meet once a week for prayer and praise. Their preacher reads passages
from the "Granth" and prays to their God, who may be reached through
the intercession of Nanak Shah, his prophet and their redeemer.
They sing hymns similar to those used in Protestant worship and
celebrate communion by partaking of wafers of unleavened bread.
Their congregations do not object to the presence of strangers,
but usually invite them to participate in the worship.

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