Misrepresented India
I
As all the world knows, a Round Table Conference will meet in London, sometime this autumn, to consider the situation in India, and the detailed proposals which should be placed before Parliament to deal with that situation. At present the position is strained and delicate; discussion — and more especially ill-formed discussion — may easily aggravate it. Indians are sensitive to criticism; Englishmen whose interests are linked with those of India have often clean-cut and tenaciously held opinions as to the most suitable course to adopt; and at such a moment, with the gravest issues calling imperatively for decision, and with much depending upon the ‘atmosphere’ in which the discussions of the Conference will take place, the general feeling in England is that a truce should be called to discussion until the Conference has met and reported.
There have been no general debates in Parliament, for this reason; and such examination as the subject has received in the press has been characterized by an objectivity and a restraint unusual in similar circumstances. It is felt that the issues are so grave, the decisions to be taken so far-reaching in their consequences, and the material upon which these decisions must be based so complicated and so vast, that any examination which the press can make will probably fail to elucidate points of major importance, and may on the other hand occasion resentment in this quarter or in that prejudicial to that just, reasoned, impartial, and equitable treatment of the subject which all political parties in England unite in desiring. The writer has ‘eaten the salt’ of India; in common with all who have worked there he has, throughout his official life, placed the interests of India first; and he feels that any examination of the general political situation at the moment — even though that examination would be based upon long personal experience — would be inopportune, for the reasons stated above.
It may be, however, that a minor and subordinate rôle might still usefully be played. The Economist, in reviewing on August 3 of this year the performances of the first session of the second Labor Government in England, commented as follows, after referring to the signing of the Naval Treaty: ‘Certainly not less important is the fact that, after several years of increasing and dangerous estrangement, AngloAmerican relations have been reëstablished on a basis of harmony and coöperation which, we hope, will not be prejudiced by the recent misrepresentations of British action and policy in India which have been widespread in the United States.’ The Times has, within the last few weeks, published a series of special articles dealing with these misrepresentations, and refuting them. But they persist; they are widely believed in the United States; they have created a strong opinion adverse to England there, and the mere existence of that opinion prejudices America’s attitude toward any solution which may be adopted by the Round Table Conference, and eventually by Parliament. It would perhaps be useful, therefore, to set out some of the salient facts as regards British administration in India, and to pass briefly in review some of the more striking results achieved there, as a corrective, and in order to enable Americans to judge, with some accuracy and fairness, as to the rights and wrongs of the general situation.
All the statements made in the following paragraphs have been carefully verified. All are readily verifiable. Where opinions are expressed, they are the opinions of the writer. In order that some estimate may be formed of the weight of experience behind these opinions, it may be stated that he spent twenty-five years in the Indian Civil Service. During that period he was for about two years in the Secretariat of the local Government, for several years in the Secretariat of the Government of India, for roughly two years at the India Office, and the remainder of the time he was occupied with work in the districts, was in charge of one of the larger cities of India, and served on various provincial and imperial commissions which gave him an opportunity to travel practically throughout the Indian Empire. While in the districts, he spent many months each year camping among the people, and he spoke their language fluently. His official work brought him into contact with all classes of the people — from princes to peasants, from criminals to philanthropists, from Brahmans to Sansiyahs.
In the writer’s view, administration in India is conditioned by, and subject to, four major disabilities — the prevalence of the ‘caste’ system, acute communal differences, a geographical and political situation which renders heavy expenditure upon defense unescapable, and the existence of natural conditions which determine that the vast bulk of the population must live in scattered villages and earn their living by the practice of agriculture. It will be well to examine each of these disabilities in turn.
II
Caste, in the form in which it exists in India, has no analogue elsewhere. It is a system which is so alien to European thought that it is most difficult to comprehend it, or — more important still — to appreciate its actual working. The origin of the system has been discussed for very many years, but there is still no general agreement on the point. The probability is that it originated in the desire of the Aryan invaders of India to preserve their racial purity and their predominant social and political position as against the aboriginal inhabitants of the Peninsula; if that is so — and it is the view to which the weight of authority leans — it is one of the subtle ironies of history that one of the main forces behind the political movements in India today should be resentment against the alleged social exclusiveness of the European.
Under the caste system, the status of every Hindu is determined by his birth. He is born into a caste; there is — save for extremely rare and wholly unimportant exceptions — no other method by which he can enter it. Throughout his life he remains a member of that caste, subject to his compliance with the major rules of conduct which govern it. He may be outcasted for failure to comply with these rules; in that event, the structure of social life in India is in general such that he probably attempts to enter some other association of individuals which calls itself a caste, and which does in time assume all the characteristics of a caste. The writer was at one time in contact with a criminal tribe which claimed to be a caste, had a caste name and caste rules, caste inhibitions and prohibitions, but which was prepared to welcome outcasted men (with suitable professional qualifications!) from all sources.
Caste is largely, though not always, associated with occupation; the degree of association depends upon the caste; and there are some occupations which no member of a certain caste could possibly undertake. A Brahman may be a cultivator, a policeman, a cook, or a lawyer, for example: he could not conceivably be a leather worker or a laundryman, or a dustman. Rich or poor, literate or illiterate, he is still a Brahman, and as such an object of respect — even of veneration. A Chamar could not be a water carrier, for no man of superior caste could take water from him. He might be very wealthy, — some of them are, — but all the social disabilities attaching to his low caste remain unimpaired.
It is almost inconceivable that a Hindu should marry outside his caste; he would forfeit his caste by doing so. Caste is something fixed, immutable, governing the great majority of the ordinary acts of life, determining the range of possible occupations to a large extent, fixing the social status, determining in advance the orbit in which the individual must move. It cuts him off, to a very large degree, from free social intercourse with his fellow men. It is restrictive, conservative, rigid, exclusive. Men are divided into exclusive groups; they are born to compliance with a set of meticulous rules; their life has to be fitted into a cast-iron framework; and, through the agency of the 2300 or so castes which have been recognized, Hindu society is rigidly controlled and organized upon intensely conservative lines. Ability, intellect, wealth, all alike beat in vain against the iron bars of caste.
Caste, then, is the negation of equality; it is frequently the denial of opportunity. It has divided and segmented Hindu society — and the term ‘Hindu ’ has in practice the very widest signification — into separate, water-tight compartments. It has produced an intense conservatism which impedes advance. It hampers administration and progress in a thousand ways, direct and indirect, subtle and obvious. It limits the choice of officials, for example — for a man of low caste cannot possibly exercise any wide authority. It complicates all communal life, for its network of restrictions upon conduct spreads across the normal lines of social and economic activity. It affects most seriously the administration of justice, for the man of lower caste feels diffident about inflicting punishment upon the high-caste man, and the witness often considers that the claims of caste are superior to the claims of truth. It is obvious that the problem of education is greatly complicated by the existence of ‘ untouchability,’ and that the task of the administration in providing sanitation and adequate water supplies is rendered much more difficult by the rigid limit which the caste system places upon the numbers available for the former purpose, and upon the utilization of water supplies by the various sections of the community.
It is, in short, a tyranny which, though universally accepted, hampers progress and impedes administration at every turn. To give a concrete idea of the field of its influence, it may be stated that there are roughly 216¾ million ‘Hindus’ in India, over 163 million in British India; and that the ‘untouchables’ in British India (excluding Burma) are estimated at approximately 43½ millions.
III
With regard to the second major disability mentioned above—the existence of acute communal differences — the basic fact is that, in British India, there are over 59 million Muhammadans, living side by side with over 163 million Hindus. These groups are, to a large extent, different in their racial origins; they differ in their outlook upon this life and upon the future life; they have different social customs, different habits, different dress, different diet to a large extent; naturally they differ as regards religion, and they have different mental and physical characteristics. The Muhammadan religion is not in general tolerant of ‘the idolater’; and the use of beef by Muhammadans raises problems of great complexity in a society which regards the cow as an object of veneration.
Fanaticism, on both sides, is a commonplace of administration; it has to be taken into account on all occasions and at all times, but particularly when religious festivals and religious processions occur.
The Muhammadans see all around them the memorials of their past greatness and their recent empire; some of them, at least, still dream of domination; the glories of their race, and the propagation of their religion, are heady thoughts in a primitive country; they still take pride in their former military prowess; and they resent the increased power which numbers, and superior mental ability, confer upon the Hindu. They are neither so quick mentally, nor so capable of rapid adaptation to a new situation, as the Hindu; on the other hand, they think — and with considerable reason — that they possess superior virility, that they are more suited to executive work, and that their racial origin and their social habits and religion make for a stronger individuality.
The two communities live, as a consequence, in a continual state of watchfulness and tension; and this tension breaks, not infrequently, into serious disturbances and distressing conflicts. The administration has to be constantly on its guard against such occurrences; no one who has not lived in India, and who has not had personal experience of the infinity of patience and the complexity of the organization necessary, as a matter of day-to-day administration, in order to deal with recurring problems of the kind, can form an accurate idea of how much the existence of this perennial if often latent hostility hampers progress, imposes what ought to be regarded as useless expenditure, and retards the advancement of the country. It means troops — and, from the nature of the problem, mainly European troops; it necessitates a larger police force; it implies in the aggregate an enormous waste of administrative power and energy; it forces the administration, in respect of many of its activities, to do the expedient thing rather than the right thing.
IV
The third of the major disabilities alluded to above is the fact that the geographical and political situation in India, and beyond its borders, renders heavy expenditure upon defense unavoidable. This expenditure amounts to just a shade over one quarter of the total expenditure, central and provincial. The percentage is formidable; everyone is agreed that it is regrettably high; but the Government of India is faced with a situation in which it finds it impossible to reduce it. The first duty of any government is to provide adequately for the security of its territories. On the northwest frontier of India, where the great natural barrier protecting the continent breaks down, stands the gate through which, during the centuries, wave after wave of invasion has poured into India. India has never offered effective resistance. It is imperative that that gate should be firmly closed; and, since the British occupation, it has been effectively closed.
The border is inhabited by wild and lawless tribes, who delight in swift, ruthless raids into the fat lands of India. For them the temptation is constant and great. From 1850 to 1922 there were seventy-two expeditions against these tribes — an average of one a year. Every possible device has been tried to ameliorate the situation, but without much effect. The necessity — the proved necessity — for military force is still there; and it has to be met. Behind this fringe stands Afghanistan, which is not a member of the League of Nations, and which is occupied by a notoriously turbulent and warlike people. There again every effort has been made to deal on satisfactory lines with the situation; and there again the Government has been slowly and unwillingly forced back to the conclusion that the safety of India requires the presence of an adequate armed force. Behind Afghanistan there is Russia. Russia is not a member of the League of Nations; and Russia has, as a matter of common knowledge, been pursuing a policy which does not suggest that safety for India would lie in the direction of a reduction in the numbers, or a diminution in the efficiency, of her armed forces. Under the Tsarist régime, Russia pushed on, steadily and rapidly, from the Urals to the Sea of Japan; she extended to the far north, she dominated northern Persia, and she acquired Central Turkestan. She was, clearly, a somewhat difficult neighbor; the threat to India was freely spoken of, and plans for invasion were openly discussed. Under the Soviet régime, attempts have been made to foment rebellion in India.
The difficulties are clear enough; what is the force with which to meet them? There are 60,000 British troops in India, and 150,000 Indian troops, with 34,000 reservists. This force constitutes the sole military weapon, on the spot, with which to defend an area of 1,805,000 square miles and a population of approximately 319 millions, to protect a vast continent against external aggression and internal disturbance. There is one British soldier to each thirty square miles of territory, and to each group of 5315 Indians.
It will be recollected that, as stated above, it is necessary, for reasons connected with the communal tension in India, to rely to a considerable extent upon the British forces in case of internal disturbance. There is no other body which cannot be suspected, or which will not be accused, of partiality. As will be seen later, the exiguousness of the police force also throws an additional and heavy burden, as regards internal disturbance, upon the army. The Government of India has always been fully conscious that the necessity for a relatively high expenditure upon the army diminishes the amount available for ordinary administrative services, and thereby retards the more rapid development of the country. But, while keenly appreciating the disadvantages inherent in their decision, they have been reluctantly forced to the conclusion that the military forces now at their command are the minimum with which they can adequately discharge their primary duty of protecting the country against external attack and internal disturbance.
It may assist in giving a more concrete idea of the position if it is pointed out that the figures quoted above represent — assuming an even distribution — one unit of a thousand British troops for each 30,000 square miles of territory, and one unit of a thousand Indian troops for each 12,000 square miles. In many cases, the district officer is hundreds of miles from the nearest troops; he may easily spend his whole service in India without seeing a British soldier, except when he visits a garrison town, probably well over a hundred miles away, for official or social purposes. We have often been told that ‘India is held by the sword’; the statistics given above lend no support to that dictum, and it is hotly denied by all who know the real facts of the situation.
V
The last of the major disabilities mentioned above is the fact that the natural conditions in India are such that the bulk of the population must necessarily reside in scattered villages, and earn their living by the practice of agriculture. Distances in India are very great; communications are still imperfect; natural resources — in the form of coal, minerals, water power, and so on — are concentrated at relatively few points; railway freights (even at the extremely low rates ruling in India) cut deeply into possible profits from industrial activity except in a few specially favored localities; and, though India is now one of the eight largest industrial states in the world, physical and geographical conditions are such that the great majority of the population must necessarily turn to agriculture for their livelihood.
Roughly, 92 per cent of the population live in villages, or in towns of less than ten thousand inhabitants. Agriculture, and allied occupations, occupy over 70 per cent of the whole population, scattered among half a million villages. They speak over 220 vernaculars. When the last census was taken, 90 per cent of the 319 millions then counted were found to be living in the district in which they had been born; and, of the balance, two out of every three were living in a contiguous district.
These figures ‘give furiously to think.’
Here we have about one fifth of the whole population of the world, isolated by great distances from the centres of thought and activity, strongly disinclined to move from the villages where they were born, speaking over two hundred tongues, many engaged in what is traditionally one of the most unchanging of occupations, almost wholly illiterate, certainly not at all anxious to become literate, conservative to a degree, and governed by custom to an extent which is almost unbelievable to the American or the Englishman without Oriental experience. The village bounds their horizon; their ways are the ways of their fathers; they passively but strongly resent change. And this vast mass of population, scattered over nearly two million square miles, apathetic and largely inert, held in the grip of the deadening caste system, presents a problem of appalling magnitude to the administrator.
The most powerful efforts are readily absorbed with little more than a tremor in the huge mass; to lever up this colossal dead-weight by the most infinitesimal fraction demands a tremendous expenditure of time, energy, and money. Yet the problem of the British in India is now, as it has always been, to improve the standard of life of these hundreds of millions, to give them a new and wider outlook, to increase their material prosperity, to awaken them to political consciousness, to fit them eventually to govern themselves.
VI
The foregoing paragraphs will, it is hoped, give a basis, however slight, for an appreciation of some of the graver disabilities under which British administration works in India. Before proceeding to deal, in the broadest outline, with the results which have hitherto been achieved, it may be well to refer to some of the more serious charges which are frequently brought against that administration by its critics.
One of the commonest assertions is that Indians are ‘ dragooned ’ by the British army, and by a venal police force. Statistics have already been given concerning the British forces in India. For the area of British India under governors (an area of 1,011,000 square miles, with a population of 242,945,000) there is a total police force of 187,000 men, with approximately one thousand officers. Of these, under six hundred are Europeans! The area per policeman is five times as great, and the population twice as great, as in England, which is one of the most law-abiding countries in the world, where communal tension is hardly existent, where the population is homogeneous, and where the people have always assisted, actively and energetically, their police force. In India there is in general no such assistance or coöperation; crimes are usually more violent and more subtle; false charges are unquestionably very much more prevalent; organized robbery is much more common; and evidence is for a variety of reasons much less reliable.
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that here also, as in the case of the army, the desire to economize, to obtain funds for much-needed development, has led the Government to reduce expenditure on the police to the absolute minimum. No one with district experience in India will, the writer considers, be disposed to contest this statement; the general opinion would probably be that an increase in the police force, and a substantial addition to their pay, were eminently desirable or even essential in the best interests of the country.
Another allegation frequently made is that England has governed India in her own interests. It is, of course, peculiarly difficult to reply to a charge of this kind; to prove a negative is not easy. During the long course of England’s relations with India, there have been cases where British officers working in India felt — and felt strongly — that Indian interests were being subordinated to those of England. Such cases were very few in number; and only one could reasonably be regarded as of major importance — the cotton excise duties.
In the course of the writer’s service, although he occupied for years positions in which cases of this kind would necessarily have come before him, he cannot recollect more than three instances where he personally felt — and stated as strongly as official decorum permitted — that India’s legitimate interests were being inadequately considered. His opinion may have been incorrect, of course; looking back on these crowded years, he is rather inclined to think that the English officer in India had a perfervid loyalty to India which, on occasion, possibly did more credit to his heart than to his head. The Government of India and the British officer in India tended, in the nature of things, to see the special strength of the Indian case in all such matters; they were probably, also in the nature of things, less appreciative of the more general considerations which affected the issue, but with which they were necessarily less familiar. On one point — and it is the major point — the writer’s personal experience admits of no doubt. He is convinced that India has always found, and will probably continue to find, its keenest and ablest defenders from among the ranks of British officers serving or who have served in India.
However this may be, there are two acid tests which may be applied in judging whether England governs India in her own interests or not. Although he possesses the power, as a matter of law, the Secretary of State for India does not interfere with the enactment of any tariff measure upon which the Government of India and the Indian Legislature are agreed. There was a recent and crucial instance, where, despite the insistence of Lancashire, the Government of the day refused to disallow, or to bring any pressure upon India to alter, a measure which Lancashire strongly objected to. Unemployment was then widespread in England, and particularly in Lancashire; it was felt that the measure in contemplation would seriously aggravate an already most difficult situation; but, despite that, the Government in England confined itself to a brief statement of the position, and to the expression of a hope that modification might be found possible. Its views were not accepted by India; but no attempt was made to disallow the legislation passed by the Indian authorities.
Again, the Secretary of State has relinquished his control of policy in the matter of the purchase of government stores for India, other than military stores. The governments in India, in agreement with the legislatures there, are now free to buy stores in India or in England or abroad, as may seem best to them; and the Secretary of State, although he is by statute responsible to Parliament, has undertaken not to intervene. So we have the spectacle of India raising loans — which have the special character of trustee investments, and can as such be issued on favorable terms — in England, and spending the money in buying locomotives for her railways in Germany or in Belgium, and that at a time when unemployment in England has increased to an unheard-of degree, and when the English electorate is fully aware alike of the extent and of the gravity of the unemployment problem.
In passing, and in view of the widespread credence given to the statement, it may be mentioned that England has never administered her colonies or possessions on the basis of receiving tribute. The revenues of India, for example, are declared by statute to be applicable solely to the purposes of the government of India; and there is a further statutory provision that, except for preventing or repelling actual invasion of His Majesty’s Indian possessions, Indian revenues cannot be expended on military operations carried on beyond the external frontiers of India, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament. England does not receive one penny of tribute from India — or, for that matter, from any of her colonies or possessions; she has not infrequently to aid them financially; but the ideal has always been that each unit of the Empire should be financially independent and self-contained. The revenues of each unit are attributed solely to that unit; if loans can be raised locally, so much the better; if capital has to be obtained in England, it is readily placed at the disposal of the constituent parts of the Empire; if grants in aid have to be given, they are accorded, their amount being limited as narrowly as may be; and they have, if possible, to be repaid.
In any attempt to balance the account as between India and England, it should not be forgotten that India is, in the ultimate analysis, protected by the British navy, of which the whole cost falls on the British taxpayer. It is believed that India has in recent years made a small contribution on this account; but that contribution is of importance chiefly as constituting a recognition of the benefits received, and is so small that it cannot be regarded as in any sense a payment for them.
Before leaving this point — the assertion that England has governed India in her own interests, and not in the interests of India — it is well to remember that the policy of the English in India has always been that of the ‘open door.’ The citizens of any state, Americans or Swiss, Germans or Austrians, Japanese or Chinese, are free to enter India, to settle there, to found businesses, to trade, to engage in industry. They are subject to no special discrimination or disqualification; they stand upon the same footing as the Indian or the Englishman. This — as most people are aware — is certainly not the policy of the colonizing Powers generally. Further, trade and shipping are entirely free — again a notable departure from the normal procedure. Shipping traffic between India and England, or between India and any part of the British Empire, is not regarded as ‘coasting traffic,’ reserved for national bottoms; it is open to all. To summarize, the assertion that England is mindful of her own interests, and neglectful of those of India, finds, in the view of the writer, no justification either in history or in fact.
VII
Another charge which one frequently hears is that India is exploited in the interests of the upper classes — the socalled ‘governing classes’ — of England. Here again indisputable figures cast a flood of light on the position, particularly for those who are unfamiliar with Indian conditions.
In the whole civil administration of India, from the highest to the lowest grade, there are about 12,000 Europeans, out of a total approximating to a million and a half — eight tenths of one per cent only. If the superior grades of the Civil Service only are taken into account — and the 12,000 mentioned above includes a large number of engine drivers, and others of the same class — the total is about 3500. The proportion to the number of government servants as a whole is 0.23 per cent. Expressed in another fashion, it means one European to each 70,600 of the population.
If the statistics of the individual services be examined, the figures are even more striking.
The Indian Civil Service governs India; in that service, on January 1, 1929, there were 894 Europeans and 367 Indians; by January 1, 1939, the present, programme provides for 715 Europeans and 643 Indians. In other words, there is at present one member of the Indian Civil Service for each 195,000 of the population of British India. The proportion is certainly not extravagant; and it will be observed that, even at present, over 29 per cent of the personnel of the Indian Civil Service is Indian. By January 1939 the proportion will be over 47 per cent. At the moment, there is one European member of the Civil Service for each 276,250 of the population of British India.
Similar, and equally illuminating, figures could be quoted for other services. The Irrigation Service, for example, has at present 255 Europeans and 240 Indians in its superior branch; by 1939 it will have 229 Europeans and 270 Indians. To turn to the judicial side, the detailed figures show that, in the higher courts in the Presidency of Madras, there are, out of a total of 177 officers, 50 Europeans and 127 Indians. In the High Court — the supreme court for the Presidency — there are 8 Europeans and 6 Indians.
The writer thinks it will be agreed that these statistics — and many others of a similar character which could be produced — do not lend any support to the suggestion that India is overstaffed with Europeans, or that the Government has been slow to accord to Indians a fair proportion of the higher appointments, as soon as men with the requisite qualifications for these appointments became available. The writer is not aware of any colonial administration, British or foreign, where the proportion of Europeans is so small as in India, where the total staff is so restricted relative to area and population, or where so large a percentage of that staff is composed of residents of the country.
Criticism of the Government of India’s opium and excise policy has probably been more envenomed, more unfair, less well informed, and more widely accepted than in respect of any other branch of the administration. Such criticism has originated chiefly in America; and it is, almost uniformly, based upon a plenteous lack of knowledge.
The broad facts are clear enough, and the figures which will shortly be quoted are undisputed and indisputable. India — accompanied in this by regrettably few of the nations of the world — has not allowed her policy as regards opium to be determined by financial considerations. After the socalled ‘opium wars,’ England did not, as is almost invariably asserted, force China to admit Indian opium; no such demand was made. The matter was left entirely to the Chinese. When China, in the early years of the present century, expressed the desire to prohibit the cultivation and consumption of opium in China, and as a necessary step to that end to secure the gradual extinction of the imports of opium from India, the Government of India readily acceded to the request. An arrangement was quickly come to; and the heavy loss of revenue which that arrangement entailed was cheerfully accepted by India, although opinion there strongly inclined to the view that China had set herself an impossible task, and that the object aimed at could not and would not be attained. It is difficult to estimate with accuracy the loss of revenue involved; the figure currently accepted was in the region of £4,000,000 a year.
This arrangement was scrupulously observed by India; and exports to China did, in fact, cease some years before there was any obligation upon India to prohibit them. At that time there were also no international obligations of any kind binding India in the matter; it was before the days of the Hague Convention. Exports of opium from India to China ceased as long ago as 1913. Events have proved that the skepticism felt in India as to China’s power to carry through her projected reform was amply justified; the situation in China at the moment, and during recent years, is now a matter of common knowdedge.
The only consideration which India received for her heavy loss of revenue was the hope that it might be found possible to prohibit, or rigidly control, the use of opium in China; that hope has been disappointed by the march of events, but India does not complain. She is, frankly, glad to be quit of the traffic. India did not, however, content herself with a mere rigid compliance with the terms of the convention arranged with China. She took various steps, which it would take too long to enumerate here, to secure, as far as that was possible, that there should be no floating surplus of opium in the Far East available for smuggling into China. In recent years she has taken a further and most important step. Again disregarding all financial considerations, — the loss involved is in the region of £2,000,000 per annum, — India decided, for a variety of reasons which need not be explained in detail, that the export of opium from India, other than for purely medical and scientific purposes, should cease by the end of 1935. Here again she was under no international obligation of any kind; her action was purely voluntary. It may safely be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that no other government has incurred such heavy financial sacrifices in the interests of the repression of the drug traffic.
VIII
Despite these and other cogent facts, however, it is still repeatedly asserted that India’s policy is governed solely by financial considerations; and that England still reaps, from an infamous traffic, vast revenues. It has already been explained that England reaps nothing, in any event; whatever revenue there may be is Indian revenue, utilizable solely by India in the interests of India. Let us see what this net revenue is. For the latest year for which data are available, it was, as near as may be, £2,300,000. This includes the revenue from the export of opium to ‘smoking’ countries, from the export of opium for medical purposes, and from the sale, at something near cost price, of opium to the provincial governments for excise purposes. This net revenue is less than 4½ cents per head of the population of British India; it is less per head than it would cost an Indian to send a letter to China. And, as pointed out above, it is a revenue which India will, by the end of 1935, have voluntarily abandoned.
As regards the consumption of opium in India itself, the position is complicated by various considerations which it would be out of place to discuss here in detail. It will perhaps be sufficient to say that the consumption in India was till quite recently, and for many years, at a considerably lower rate than the consumption in the United States. This is a little-known but highly significant fact. Very rapid advance has been made in America during recent years in controlling and limiting the consumption of opium products; and the rigid control now exercised has naturally led to a much lower consumption. The consumption per capita in India has also fallen, steadily and fairly rapidly; it now stands at approximately one half higher than the consumption in the United States. Evidently there is no basis here for the assertion — which has frequently been made — that the Government of India deliberately encourages the opium traffic, in order that it may be easier to rule over the drugged and helpless subjects. At the time when that monstrous assertion was first made — by an American — the consumption per capita in the United States was in fact higher, and considerably higher, than the consumption per capita in India! The consumption of opium at the present time in India is just under sixteen grains per head per annum.
The excise revenue from opium — that is, the revenue derived from sales of the drug in India — works out at just a shade under five cents a head a year. The rate at which the opium is issued to vendors varies; but it ranges about eleven dollars a pound. The price paid by the consumer, purchasing in very small quantities, is naturally much higher.
We have, then, in India an average consumption of opium per head per annum of just under sixteen grains, and an average incidence of taxation per capita upon the consumption of opium of just under five cents a year. The former figure is all the consumer takes; the latter is all the Government gets. And neither points to abuse.
The matter may be looked at from another standpoint. There is on an average one shop for the sale of drugs to each seventy-three square miles of territory in British India. On the same scale, this would correspond to something like 1290 shops for the whole of the United Kingdom. There are, in fact, over 100,000 shops for the sale of intoxicating liquors in that area — a figure which is not of course comparable, but which nevertheless serves to give some aid in visualizing what one shop to each seventy-three square miles really means. It clearly cannot be contended that the Government of India places temptation in the way of the opium eater, or that it makes much money out of him.
The liquor problem may be briefly disposed of. Muhammadans, speaking generally, do not consume liquor; its consumption is forbidden by their religion. Nor do the higher-caste Hindus drink, except in rare individual cases. The consumption of liquor is, in practice, confined to the lower-caste Hindus; and it is the lowest castes of all which provide the heaviest drinkers. But steady drinking is unusual. There are riotous orgies on feast days, during marriage ceremonies, and on other similar occasions; but for weeks or months at a time the average Indian, even of the lowest caste, probably abstains from drink. The operative reason, in most cases, is doubtless that he cannot afford it. As in the case of opium, the price is always kept at the maximum point, consistently with the fundamental condition that it must not be so high as to lead to smuggling or illicit distillation on any material scale. The revenue from liquor is, as near as may be, £10,300,000 a year; the incidence is almost exactly twenty cents per head per annum. There is, on an average, one shop for each twentyfour square miles of territory; this would correspond to approximately 3900 shops for the whole of the United Kingdom, as against the 100,000 which actually exist there. There is in India one shop for each group of 5620 inhabitants; in England the shop density is about twelve times greater. The total excise revenue, from all sources, — opium, liquor, other drugs, and miscellaneous, — works out at something under twenty-nine cents a head a year.