Part 25 (1/2)
Redress for these wrongs is never sought in our courts, because they can never hope to get it. But it is a great mistake to suppose that the people of India want a heavier punishment for the crime than we are disposed to inflict--all they want is a fair chance of conviction upon such reasonable proof as cases of this nature admit of, and such a measure of punishment as shall make it appear that their rulers think the crime a serious one, and that they are disposed to protect them from it. Sometimes the poorest man would refuse pecuniary compensation; but generally husbands of the poorer cla.s.ses would be glad to get what the heads of their caste or circle of society might consider the expenses of a second marriage. They do not dare to live in adultery, they would be outcasts if they did; they must be married according to the forms of their caste, and it is reasonable that the seducer of the wife should be obliged to defray the coats of the injured husband's second marriage. The rich will, of course, always refuse such a compensation, but a law declaring the man convicted of this crime liable to imprisonment in irons at hard labour for two years, but ent.i.tled to his discharge within that time on an application from the injured husband or father, would be extremely popular throughout India. The poor man would make the application when a.s.sured of the sum which the elders of his caste consider sufficient; and they would take into consideration the means of the offender to pay. The woman is sufficiently punished by her degraded condition. The _fatwa_ of a Muhammadan law officer should be dispensed with in such cases.[11]
In 1832 the people began to search for other causes [_scilicet_, of bad seasons]. The frequent measurements of the land, with a view to equalize the a.s.sessments, were thought of; even the operations of the Trigonometrical Survey,[12] which were then making a great noise in Central India, where their fires were seen every night burning upon the peaks of the highest ranges, were supposed to have had some share in exasperating the Deity; and the services of the most holy Brahmans were put in requisition to exorcise the peaks from which the engineers had taken their angles, the moment their instruments were removed. In many places, to the great annoyance and consternation of the engineers, the landmarks which they had left to enable them to correct their work as they advanced, were found to have been removed during their short intervals of absence, and they were obliged to do their work over again. The priests encouraged the disposition on the part of the peasantry to believe that men who required to do their work by the aid of fires lighted in the dead of the night upon _high places_, and work which no one but themselves seemed able to comprehend, must hold communion with supernatural beings, a communion which they thought might be displeasing to the Deity.
At last, in the year 1833, a very holy Brahman, who lived in his cloister near the iron suspension bridge over the Bias river, ten miles from Sagar, sat down with a determination to _wrestle with the Deity_ till he should be compelled to reveal to him the real cause of all these calamities of season under which the people were groaning.[l3] After three days and nights of fasting and prayer, he saw a vision which stood before him in a white mantle, and told him that all these calamities arose from the slaughter of cows; and that under former Governments this practice had been strictly prohibited, and the returns of the harvest had, in consequence, been always abundant, and subsistence cheap, in spite of invasion from without, insurrection within, and a good deal of misrule and oppression on the part of the local government. The holy man was enjoined by the vision to make this revelation known to the const.i.tuted authorities, and to persuade the people generally throughout the district to join in the pet.i.tion for the prohibition of _beef-eating_ throughout our Nerbudda territories. He got a good many of the most respectable of the landholders around him, and explained the wishes of the vision of the preceding night. A pet.i.tion was soon drawn up and signed by many hundreds of the most respectable people in the district, and presented to the Governor-General's representative in these parts, Mr. F. C. Smith. Others were presented to the civil authorities of the district, and all stating in the most respectful terms how sensible the people were of the inestimable benefits of our rule, and how grateful they all felt for the protection to life and property, and to the free employment of all their advantages, which they had under it; and for the frequent and large reduction in the a.s.sessments, and remission in the demand, on account of calamities of seasons. These, they stated, were all that Government could do to relieve a suffering people, but they had all proved unavailing; and yet, under this truly paternal rule, the people were suffering more than under any former Government in its worst period of misrule--the hand of an _incensed G.o.d_ was upon them; and, as they had now, at last after many fruitless attempts, discovered the real cause of this anger of the Deity, they trusted that we would listen to their prayers, and restore plenty and all its blessings to the country by prohibiting the _eating of beef_. All these dreadful evils had, they said, unquestionably originated in the (Sadr Bazar) great market of the cantonments, where, for the first time, within one hundred miles of the sacred stream of the Nerbudda, men had purchased and eaten cows' flesh.
These people were all much attached to us and to our rule, and were many of them on the most intimate terms of social intercourse with us; and, at the time they signed this pet.i.tion, were entirely satisfied that they had discovered the real cause of all their sufferings, and impressed with the idea that we should be convinced, and grant their prayers.[l4] The day is past. Beef continued to be eaten with undiminished appet.i.te, the blight, nevertheless, disappeared, and every other sign of vengeance from above; and the people are now, I believe, satisfied that they were mistaken. They still think that the lands do not yield so many returns of the seed under us as under former rulers; that they have lost some of the _barkat_ (blessings) which they enjoyed under them--they know not why. The fact is that under us the lands do not enjoy the salutary fallows which frequent invasions and civil wars used to cause under former Governments. Those who survived such civil wars and invasions got better returns for their seed.
During the discussion of the question with the people, I had one day a conversation with the Sadr Amin, or head native judicial officer, whom I have already mentioned. He told me that 'there could be no doubt of the truth of the conclusion to which the people had at length come. 'There are', he said, 'some countries in which punishments follow crimes after long intervals, and, indeed, do not take place till some future birth; in others, they follow crimes immediately; and such is the country bordering the stream of _Mother Nerbudda_. This', said he, 'is a stream more holy than that of the great Ganges herself, since no man is supposed to derive any benefit from that stream unless he either bathe in it or drink from it; but the sight of the Nerbudda from a distant hill could bless him, and purify him. In other countries, the slaughter of cows and bullocks might not be punished for ages; and the harvest, in such countries, might continue good through many successive generations under such enormities; indeed, he was not quite sure that there might not be countries in which no punishment at all would inevitably follow; but, so near the Nerbudda, this could not be the case.[l5] Providence could never suffer beef to be eaten so near her sacred majesty without visiting the crops with blight, hail, or some other calamity, and the people with cholera morbus, small-pox, and other great pestilences. As for himself, he should never be persuaded that all these afflictions did not arise wholly and solely from this dreadful habit of eating beef. I declare', concluded he, 'that if the Government would but consent to prohibit the eating of beef, it might levy from the lands three times the revenue that they now pay.'
The great festival of the Holi, the Saturnalia of India, terminates on the last day of Phalgun, or 16th of March.[16] On that day the Holi is burned; and on that day the ravages of the monster (for monster they will have it to be) are supposed to cease. Any field that has remained untouched up to that time is considered to be quite secure from the moment the Holi has been committed to the flames.
What gave rise to the notion I have never been able to discover, but such is the general belief. I suppose the siliceous epidermis must then have become too hard, and the pores in the stem too much closed up to admit of the further depredation of the fungi.
In the latter end of 1831, while I was at Sagar, a cowherd in driving his cattle to water at a reach of the Bias river, called the Nardhardhar, near the little village of Jasrathi, was reported to have seen a vision that told him the waters of that reach, taken up and conveyed to the fields in pitchers, would effectually keep off the blight from the wheat, provided the pitchers were not suffered to touch the ground on the way. On reaching the field, a small hole was to be made in the bottom of the pitcher, so as to keep up a small but steady stream, as the bearer carried it round the borders of the field, that the water might fall in a complete ring, except at a small opening--which was to be kept dry, in order that the _monster_ or _demon blight_ might make his escape through it, not being able to cross over any part watered by the holy stream. The waters Of the Bias river generally are not supposed to have any peculiar virtues.
The report of this vision spread rapidly over the country; and the people who had been suffering under so many seasons of great calamity were anxious to try anything that promised the slightest chance of relief. Every cultivator of the district prepared pots for the conveyance of the water, with tripods to support them while they rested on the road, that they might not touch the ground. The spot pointed out for taking the water was immediately under a fine large pipal-tree[l7] which had fallen into the river, and on each bank was seated a Bairagi, or priest of Vishnu. The blight began to manifest itself in the alsi (linseed) in January, 1832, but the wheat is never considered to be in danger till late in February, when it is nearly ripe; and during that month and the following the banks of the river were crowded with people in search of the water. Some of the people came more than one hundred miles to fetch it, and all seemed quite sure that the holy water would save them. Each person gave the Bairagi priest of his own side of the river two half-pence (copper pice), two pice weight of ghi (clarified b.u.t.ter), and two pounds of flour, before he filled his pitcher, to secure his blessings from it.
These priests were strangers, and the offerings were entirely voluntary. The roads from this reach of the Bias river, up to the capital of the Orchha Raja, more than a hundred miles, were literally lined with these water-carriers; and I estimated the number of persons who pa.s.sed with the water every day for six weeks at ten thousand a day.[18] After they had ceased to take the water, the banks were long crowded with people who flocked to see the place where priests and waters had worked such miracles, and to try and discover the source whence the water derived its virtues. It was remarked by some that the pipal-tree, which had fallen from the bank above many years before, had still continued to throw out the richest foliage from the branches above the surface of the water. Others declared that they saw a _monkey_ on the bank near the spot, which no sooner perceived it was observed than it plunged into the stream and disappeared. Others again saw some flights of steps under the water, indicating that it had in days of yore been the site of a temple, whose G.o.d, no doubt, gave to the waters the wonderful virtues it had been found to possess. The priests would say nothing but that 'it was the work of G.o.d, and, like all his works, beyond the reach of man's understanding.' They made their fortunes, and got up the vision and miracle, no doubt, for that especial purpose.[l9] As to the effect, I was told by hundreds of farmers who had tried the waters that, though it had not anywhere kept the blight entirely off from the wheat, it was found that the fields which had not the advantages of water were entirely destroyed; and, where the pot had been taken all round the field without leaving any dry opening for the demon to escape through, it was almost as bad; but, when a small opening had been left, and the water carefully dropped around the field elsewhere, the crops had been very little injured; which showed clearly the efficacy of the water, when all the ceremonies and observances prescribed by the vision had been attended to.
I could never find the cowherd who was said to have seen this vision, and, in speaking to my old friend, the Sadr Amin, learned in the shastras,[20] on the subject, I told him that we had a short saying that would explain all this: 'A drowning man catches at a straw.'
'Yes,' said he, without any hesitation, 'and we have another just as good for the occasion: ”Sheep will follow each other, though it should be into a well”.'
Notes:
1. We are told in 2 Samuel, chap. xxiv, that the Deity was displeased at a census of the people, taken by Joab by the order of David, and destroyed of the people of Israel seventy thousand, besides women and children. [W. H. S.] The editor, in the course of seven years'
experience in the Settlement department, six of which were agent in Bundelkhand, never heard of the doctrine as to the incestuous character of surveys. Probably it had died out. Even a census no longer gives rise to alarm in most parts of the country. The wild rumours and theories common in 1872 and 1881 did not prevail when the census of 1891 was taken, or during subsequent operations.
2. This theory is, of course, erroneous.
3. The flax plant (_Linum usitatissimum_) is grown in India solely for the sake of the linseed. Linen is never made, and the stalk of the plant, as ordinarily grown, is too short for the manufacture of fibre. The attempts to introduce flax manufacture into India, though not ultimately successful, have proved that good flax can be made in the country, from Riga seed. Indian linseed is very largely exported.
(Article 'Flax' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed.)
4. Spores is the more accurate word.
5. That is to say, cattle-trespa.s.s. Cattle do not care to eat the green flax plant. The fields are not fenced.
6. The rust, or blight, described in the text probably was a species of _Unedo_. The gram, or chick-pea, and various kinds of pea and vetch are grown intermixed with the wheat. They ripen earlier, and are plucked up by the roots before the wheat is cut.
7. Chap. 4 of the Koran is ent.i.tled 'Women', and chap. 24 is ent.i.tled 'Light'. The story of Ayesha's misadventure is given in Sale's notes to chap. 24.
8. Muhammad died A.D. 632. Abu Bakr succeeded him, and after a khalifate of only two years, was succeeded by Omar, who was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the twelfth year of his reign.
9. Basrah (Ba.s.sorah, Bussorah) in the province of Baghdad, on the Shatt-ul-Arab, or combined stream of the Tigris and Euphrates, was founded by the Khalif Omar.
10. In the author's time the Muhammadan criminal law was applied to the whole population by Anglo-Indian judges, a.s.sisted by Muhammadan legal a.s.sessors, who gave rulings called _fatwas_ on legal points.
The Penal Code enacted in 1859 swept away the whole jungle of Regulations and _fatwas_, and established a scientific System of criminal jurisprudence, which bas remained substantially unchanged to this day. Adultery is punishable under the Code by the Court of Session, but prosecutions for this offence are very rare. Enticing away a married woman is also defined as an offence, and is punishable by a magistrate. Complaints under this head are extremely numerous, and mostly false. Secret and unpunished murders of women undoubtedly are common, and often reported as deaths from snake-bite or cholera.
An aggrieved husband frequently tries to save his honour, and at the same time satisfy his vengeance, by tromping up a false charge of burglary against the suspected paramour, who generally replies by an equally false _alibi_.