Social Reform and Service (1828-1913)

CHAPTER VI

SOCIAL REFORM AND SERVICE

1828–1913

SOCIAL service and reform are so closely intertwined with religious thought and effort in every land, and especially in India, that it may prove useful to students to have a connected account, however brief, of the various movements and organizations which have influenced the people of India socially during the past century.

I. HISTORICAL OUTLINE

The Indian social movement is a direct outcome of Christian missions and Western influence ; and all communities have felt the impact in a greater or less degree. The primal impulse was communicated by the Serampore Missionaries to Ram Mohan Ray, and by him to the Hindu community ; and, throughout the whole history, Christian teaching, effort and example have done more than anything else to quicken the movement.

Ram Mohan Ray scarcely touched the question of caste, but he condemned polygamy, and he spoke and wrote against widow-burning with so much force and convincing power as materially to prepare the way for Lord Bentinck’s act.¹

Under Lord Bentinck the British Government entered on a new policy of very great significance, the putting down of certain social and religious customs which had for many centuries been usual in India but which were outrageously inhuman. Widow-burning was prohibited in 1829; thagī, or the strangling of travellers, was then put down, and the crusade against female infanticide was begun. Under later rulers human sacrifice and religious suicide were prohibited.

In 1849 a secret society for social reform was founded by Hindus in Bombay, and in 1851 the Parsees of the city formed a Religious Reform Association.

Besides their daily teaching in College, Duff and the other educational missionaries of Calcutta used to deliver public lectures in the city in which social as well as religious questions were discussed. As a result of this Christian teaching a secret society was formed in Calcutta, in which Hindus pledged themselves to educate their wives and daughters. In 1849 Īśvara Chandra Vidyāsāgara, along with a European official, Mr. Drinkwater Bethune, founded the first Hindu school for girls in Calcutta. About the same time Vidyāsāgara also began the agitation which led to the Government Act of 1856 legalizing the marriage of Hindu widows.

A little earlier Lord Dalhousie passed an Act prohibiting the gross obscenities which until then had been common in the streets of Indian cities. It was found necessary to insert a clause into the Bill providing that its restrictions should not apply to the images, temples and cars of the gods.

The next prominent name in social reform is Keshab Chandra Sen. He was the first non-Christian who adopted the whole social programme of Christian Missions, namely, the thorough reform of the Hindu family, the repudiation of caste and the practice of philanthropy. Through his influence new non-idolatrous rites for domestic ceremonies were introduced among Brāhmas; and they gave up child-marriage, polygamy and enforced widowhood, and began to press forward the education of girls. Brāhma marriages were legalized by Lord Lawrence’s Government in 1872. Sasipada Banerjea did a good deal of excellent social work at Barahanagar near Calcutta. The New Dispensation and the Sādhāran Brāhma Samāj are still true to Keshab’s teaching and practice in social matters.

The interest of the story passes next to the Bombay Presidency, where from 1870 onwards Maṅkar, Ranade and Vishṇu Śāstrī Paṇḍit carried on a vigorous and fruitful agitation in favour of the remarriage of Hindu widows.

About 1870 the movement appeared also in the North. In that year Syed Aḥmad Khan began his long-continued agitation in favour of modern education and social reform among Muḥammadans; and from 1875, when the Ārya Samāj was founded, we must also reckon Dayānanda as helping the cause of reform along certain lines. He not only condemned idolatry but opposed child-marriage and favoured female education. His crusade against caste was more nominal than real.

From 1880 onwards the great mass movements of the Depressed Classes towards Christianity began.¹ These have not only added hundreds of thousands to the Christian Church, but have powerfully affected thinking men of all religions throughout India, and have started movements of untold significance among Brāhmas, Āryas, Hindus and Muḥammadans.

In 1887 the first Widows’ Home organized by a Hindu was opened by Sasipada Banerjea at Barahanagar near Calcutta. In the same year B. M. Malabari, a Parsee, published a large pamphlet entitled Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India. This pamphlet, with its unsparing criticism and its great array of weighty names, roused widespread discussion, and did much to move public opinion. It was largely as a result of this agitation that the Govern-ment of India felt free to pass, in 1891, their Age of Consent Act, whereby cohabitation with a wife under the age of twelve is prohibited. It has been found impossible to enforce the Act with anything like strictness; but it has proved distinctly helpful in more ways than one.

Meanwhile social reformers had organized themselves and had met in 1888, for the first time, in the National Social Conference, which since that date has formed the centre of much social effort and has proved a powerful agent for the formation of public opinion. A few facts about its history are given below.

From about 1890 onwards one can trace the influence of a large number of organizations in social matters. Most of these new bodies are exceedingly conservative, the Rāmakṛishṇa Mission, the Sectarian movements, whether Hindu, Jain or Muḥammadan, and the Caste Conferences; yet every one of them does something to promote female education and to raise the age of the marriage of girls. Even the ultra conservative Nambutīri Brāhmans of Travancore are beginning to move.

Since the opening of the new century there has been a notable increase in earnest attempts to render social service to the most needy. The Rāmakṛishṇa Mission has not only given itself to education but to medical work and to flood and famine relief. The Ārya Samāj has also done great work in famine relief. But the most important organizations are the various societies, Brāhma, Ārya, Hindu, Muslim, which are seeking to help the Depressed Classes, the many new Widows’ Homes, the Seva Sadan and Mr. Gokhale’s Servants of India Society.

LITERATURE.—The Administration of the East India Company, by J. W. Kaye, London, Bentley, 1853 (describes the great reforms). The Suppression of Human Sacrifice, Suttee and Female Infanticide,

Madras, C. L. S. I., 1898, 2½ as. (abridged from Kaye). Confessions of a Thug, by Meadows Taylor, London, Trübner, 1s. Rambles and Recollections, by W. H. Sleeman, Oxford University Press, 7s. 6d. net. Social Reform in Bengal, by S. N. Tattvabhushana, Calcutta. Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India, by B. M. Malabari, Bombay, 1887. Religious and Social Reform, by M. G. Ranade, Bombay, Claridge, 1902. The Speeches and Writings of Sir N. G. Chandavarkar, Bombay, 1911, Rs. 2 as. 8.

2. THE NATIONAL SOCIAL CONFERENCE

It was the Bombay Presidency, and, in the main, the Prārthanā Samāj, that created the new movement. The earliest Social Reform Association was formed in Sind in 1882. The National Social Conference was organized and met for the first time at Madras in 1888.¹ The real leader was Mr. M. G. Ranade, but, with his usual modesty, he remained as much in the background as possible. Sir T. Mādhava Rao presided at the first Conference, and afterwards the most prominent place was usually taken by Rai Bahadur Raghunath Rao,² a Hindu belonging to the Madras Presidency, who had been Prime Minister of the State of Indore, and was older than Ranade. The methods of the Conference are practically the same as those in use in the Congress. Representatives meet from every part of India. The subjects on the agenda are discussed, and resolutions are passed. The Conference usually meets in the same city as the Congress, and just after it. At the close of the Conference the members usually dine together, irrespective of caste, race and religious distinctions. While a few Muḥammadans and others attend, the great majority of those who take part in the Conference are Hindus; and the whole policy of the movement tends to be Hindu in its affinities and interests.³ The following set of resolutions passed in the Conference held at Allahabad in December, 1910, will give some idea of its interests and work :¹

I. (a) That in the opinion of this Conference greater and more persistent efforts should be made by the educated community themselves to promote the Education of Women. That with a view to give effect to this recommendation this Conference is of opinion that a larger number of schools should be opened in towns and that a graduated series of text books be prepared for use in such schools and that local Committees be appointed to collect funds and to establish and conduct such schools. (b) That this Conference while appreciating the help which Government has extended to the cause of the Education of Women in this country is of opinion that the proportion of expenditure on the Education of Women is much less than it should be and it earnestly prays that Government may be pleased to spend a larger proportion of revenues under this head.

II. That this Conference strongly recommends that every effort should be made to persuade parents not to marry their boys before the age of 25 and their girls before 16.

III. This Conference is of opinion that the time has come when steps should be taken to abolish the parda system.

IV. That this Conference welcomes the efforts that are being made in several parts of the country to raise the moral, material and social condition of the depressed classes, and urges that further efforts be made to obtain for these classes full recognition as an integral part of the general body of the community.

V. That this Conference records its opinion that no attempt should be made in the census to introduce artificial distinctions among classes recognized as belonging to our community and in this connection views with great concern the recent circular issued by Mr. Gait regarding the depressed classes.

VI. That the miserable condition of young widows should be improved by starting or further strengthening Widows’ Homes in each province, by giving young widows technical education and permitting such of them as wish to marry to do so without let or hindrance.

VII. That this Conference is of opinion that the requirements of Act III of 1872 of repudiation of religious belief on the part of parties to marriage is unnecessary and inexpedient, and urges that the law be so amended as to omit this undue interference with religious beliefs.

VIII. That every effort should be made to induce sub-castes of the same caste to interdine and intermarry.

IX. That a working fund be established for the organization of the annual Social Conference for collecting and publishing its proceedings and for carrying on the necessary office work during the year.

X. That this Conference reiterates the resolution passed at previous Conferences urging on all social reform bodies the necessity of strenuous efforts in favour of temperance and social purity, and regrets the action of the exhibition authorities to allow a dancing girl to perform within the precincts.

XI. That in the opinion of this Conference it is a pressing duty of the Hindu community to provide facilities for the re-admission of repentant converts.

XII. That all obstructions to the re-admission of foreign returned Indians be removed.

XIII. That in the opinion of this Conference it is urgently necessary that there should be some legislation controlling the administration and management of charitable and religious trusts which as experience has proved have been utterly mismanaged by their trustees.

The year 1897 marks a further advance in the movement. Two permanent provincial organizations for furthering social reform arose that year, The Bombay Presidency Social Reform Association, and The Madras Hindu Social Reform Association. These bodies at once began to hold annual Provincial Conferences.¹ In 1900 Bengal followed suit.² These provincial assemblies, which are usually held at the same time and place as the provincial gatherings for political purposes, have proved extremely useful. Distances are so great in India that it is very hard to gather men from every quarter for a Conference, but the problem is much easier in a province. Local conferences are also held representing single districts or other sections of the country. The first of these were also held in 1897, in the Godavery and Mangalore districts.³ Wherever a group of the friends of freedom and progress happen to be, there it is comparatively easy to hold a social conference.

Since 1904 an Indian Ladies’ Conference (Bhārat Mahilā Parishad) has been held at the same time and place as the National Social Conference, to discuss subjects affecting women’s life. The following Resolutions were passed in Hindi at the seventh Conference held at Allahabad at Christmas, 1910:

1. That in the opinion of this Conference the best way of the advancement of the country is female education and the Conference requests all Indians to make arrangements for spreading female education.

2. That in the opinion of this Conference it is not enough to teach girls reading and writing. They ought to be taught how to manage the household, how to attend a sick person, sewing, etc.

3. That in the opinion of this Conference child-marriage is he root of all evils. It is the duty of the well-wishers of the country to remove this evil.

4. That this Conference is of opinion that it is absolutely necessary to lessen the rigour of the parda.

5. That this Conference thinks that the children should not be made to wear ornaments.

6. That the condition of Hindu widows is pitiable, and in order to save them from many troubles it is necessary to open Widows’ Homes where they can be educated.

Ladies have also met in conference in a few provincial centres in recent years, notably Benares,¹ Guntur,² Vizianagram³ and Travancore.⁴

In 1890 The Indian Social Reformer, a twelve-page weekly in English, began to appear. Its office is in Bombay. Its editor, Mr. K. Natarajan, belongs to the Madras Presidency. The paper has had a very honourable record. It stands for religion, for morality, for social and political progress, and has consistently maintained a courageous and manly policy. Its influence as an encouragement to social reformers in small places, where orthodox opposition is fierce and powerful, must be very great.

3. FEMALE INFANTICIDE

As British rule was extended in India, administrators discovered, to their horror, that female infanticide prevailed to a most alarming extent in the Centre and the West. In some villages there was scarcely a girl to be seen; in others there were four or five times as many boys as girls, all the rest having been destroyed. Under Lord Bentinck administrative action was taken to put down the inhuman practice. The crusade took many years; and even now there may be some places where it is still secretly practised; but on the whole it has been stamped out, and no Indian would wish to see it revived.

4. CHILD-MARRIAGE

The Hindu law since about 500 B.C. has been that the father who does not marry his daughter before the menses appear commits sin; and since the Christian era, if not earlier, the law has been held to be a serious religious obligation and has been almost universally obeyed.¹

Christian influence began to make itself felt early in the nineteenth century, and bore fruit among the Parsees in Bombay, in the Brāhma Samāj under Keshab Chandra Sen and in the Ārya Samāj under Dayānanda. B. M. Malabari, a Parsee journalist, started in 1884 an agitation on child-marriage and widow-celibacy which convulsed Hindu society, and deeply influenced public opinion. He wished Government to take action, especially in the matter of child-marriage.² His pamphlet, containing the opinions of many prominent Hindus and Government officials, was published in 1887.³ Much useful discussion was provoked. Missionaries supported him warmly throughout the country. Soon, a case occurred, which proved conclusively how serious the matter was becoming:

Public attention was called to the matter by the case of Rukhmabai in Bombay, a case which showed that relief was demanded not for Christian girls alone, but for Hindu girls as well. Rukhmabai was a Hindu girl, educated in the Free Church Mission School and afterwards as a Zenana pupil. She was clever and accomplished, and the man, Dadaji by name, to whom she had been married in infancy, being repulsive and illiterate, she refused to live with him. He appealed to the law to compel her to do so. The case was carried from court to court, till the High Court ordered Rukhmabai either to live with Dadaji as his wife or go to prison for six months. A compromise, however, was then effected. A sum of money, sufficient to buy another wife, was paid to Dadaji. But it was decreed that, according to Hindu law, Rukhmabai must never marry. She went to London to study medicine, took the degree of M.D., and returned to India to take charge of a hospital for women.¹

In 1890 a tragic occurrence brought another aspect of the subject forcibly before the minds of all men. A Bengali girl, named Phulmanī Dāsī, eleven years of age, died in Calcutta in consequence of what in all other civilized countries would be described as an outrage on the part of her husband, who was a man of thirty. He was arrested and tried for culpable homicide. The only defence he made was to quote the clause in the Penal Code which fixed the age of ten years as the lowest limit for married life. Yet he was convicted, and sentenced to twelve months’ rigorous imprisonment. The consequence was a loud outcry from the orthodox community. They complained that it was utterly unjust to punish a man for doing what was prescribed by his religion and distinctly permitted by law.

The case caused great indignation in Christian circles. Europeans demanded, in the words of Max Müller, “that the strong arm of the English law be not rendered infamous by aiding and abetting unnatural atrocities.” There was a loud cry that the age should be raised, and that the penalty should be increased. The Government of India therefore introduced a bill into the Legislative Council, raising the age from ten to twelve.

The Bill roused the most violent opposition amongst Hindus. The following sentences give some idea of the excitement and fury raised by the proposal:

Never before, within living memory, had Bengal been so agitated. Crowds of excited Hindus paraded the streets all day and far into the night, yelling at the pitch of their voices, “Our religion is in danger.” Those who were still sane enough to argue protested that the Bill was an infringement of the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858, by which she pledged her Government to a policy of non-interference with the religions of her Indian subjects. . . . A monster meeting of protest was held on the maidan, for no public building in Calcutta would accommodate all those who wished to be present. The attendance was estimated at one hundred thousand, and speeches were delivered from twelve platforms. . . . No such public demonstration had ever been seen in Calcutta. When it became apparent that the appeals to the Government of India and to the Secretary of State were in vain, it was resolved as a last resort to make a supreme effort to move Kali, the patron goddess of Calcutta, to intervene. A mahapuja, or whole day of fasting, prayer and sacrifice was proclaimed at Kalighat, the great shrine of this popular deity, in one of the suburbs of Calcutta. . . . It was estimated at the time that two hundred thousand rupees (over £13,000) were spent on the ceremony. Three hundred pundits, many of whom had been brought from Benares, led the devotions. One devotee wished to sacrifice himself upon the altar, and was with difficulty restrained from his purpose. Others, like the priests of Baal, cut themselves with knives.¹

But Government passed the Bill in spite of all protests. The date was 1891. Those who are best able to judge believe that it has had a good effect; but it is quite well known that the law is still broken in multitudes of cases.

About twenty years ago Colonel Walter, then Agent to the Governor-General in Rajputana, suggested to the leaders of Rajput society an arrangement which has produced excellent results. By the unanimous decision of these men it was decided that no girl should be married before she was fourteen, and that the marriage expenses should in no case exceed a certain proportion of the father’s yearly income. A society, called the Walterkṛit Rājputra Hita-kārinī Sabhā (the Rajput Benevolent Society created by Colonel Walter) sees to the enforcement of these rules. It would be well if similar institutions could be introduced elsewhere.

In 1901 the Gaekwar of Baroda passed the Infant Marriage Prevention Act, which fixed the minimum age for marriage in the State at twelve for girls and sixteen for boys. Early in 1912 the Census Commissioner of Baroda published his impressions of the results of the act. The Times of India thus summarizes his views:

In the ten years under review no less than 22,218 applications were made for exemption from the provisions of the Act and 95 per cent of them were allowed. Over 23,000 marriages were performed even without this formality of an application for exemption, in violation of the Act. The parties responsible were fined from a few to a hundred rupees, and the Superintendent thinks that there must have been an equally large number of marriages which were connived at by the village patels who are also the marriage registrars. The age returns are notoriously unreliable, but even thus there were 158 per thousand males and 277 per thousand females married and widowed, under 10 years of age.

Clearly the act is much too far in advance of the public conscience.

A certain amount of progress has been achieved in this matter as a result of these acts and of the persistent agitation of the reformers; but it is universally recognized that the mass of Hindu society has been scarcely touched as yet.

5. BOY-MARRIAGE

In ancient India boys of the Brāhman, Kshatriya and Vaiśya castes were expected to go to school for a religious education for an extended period, and were married only on

their final return from school. But for many centuries the vast mass of boys have not taken the old religious training. Hence nothing has stood in the way of marriage; and in many parts of the country it has long been customary to marry boys at the age of eight, ten or twelve.¹

Social Reformers have appealed powerfully against this most unwise custom, and modern education has tended to restrict the practice; but the plan referred to in the following paragraph is probably the best that has yet been thought of for dealing with the difficulty :

At the last meeting of the Travancore Popular Assembly Mr. K. G. Sesha Iyer advocated the exclusion of married boys from Government Schools. The Central Hindu College at Benares has been enforcing this exclusion for several years past. The rule ought to be adopted everywhere. Seeing that the ancient ideal of students in India was celibacy until education was finished, there ought to be no opposition from orthodox Hindus. To prevent any possible hardship to married boys, who are not responsible for their marriage, it may be laid down that the rule will be enforced five years hence.²

6. POLYGAMY

Every Hindu marriage is in posse polygamous. Though the great majority of Hindus are monogamous in practice, yet there is a law which allows a man to take a second wife if the first proves childless or quarrelsome; and from the earliest times until to-day kings and wealthy men have been accustomed to marry many wives.³

Ram Mohan Ray himself had two wives, when he was a young man; but, later, under Christian influence, he condemned polygamy. Social reformers have continued to agitate against the practice, and public opinion has been

partially modified, but the old conditions still prevail. There has been very little betterment, except in the Samājes.

7. WIDOWS

About 500 B.C. it became the rule that only childless Hindu widows should marry, and from about the time of the Christian era, it has been the law that no Hindu widow, not even a virgin child-widow, shall marry.¹ Some three or four centuries later the practice of satī became recognized as legitimate, i.e. when a man died, his widow was allowed to mount the pyre and be burned along with his body if she wished to do so. Widows who did not mount the pyre had thenceforward to live a life of serious asceticism. In many parts of India to-day, as soon as a woman is widowed, her hair is shaven away and she must live tonsured all the rest of her life.²

By the beginning of the nineteenth century widow-burning had reached huge proportions in India, especially in Bengal. The vast majority of widows certainly were not burned; but several hundreds actually mounted the pyre every year in Bengal alone. In certain kingdoms, especially in the South, a vast holocaust of women took place when the king died. Individual Englishmen protested vehemently against the practice; and here and there an English administrator took the law into his own hands, and prevented the burning of a widow; but for many years the British Government hesitated to interfere. The Serampore missionaries protested very loudly on the subject both in England and in India; and Ram Mohan Ray added his powerful voice to theirs. Finally, in 1829, in spite of the opposition of many leading Hindus and of some Englishmen, Lord Bentinck prohibited the practice within the British prov-inces. It was many years later before it was put down in native states.

Perhaps no educated Indian to-day would wish to revive the practice ; for all now recognize that it came into use at a comparatively modern date ; but, even in these days, a Hindu widow occasionally carries out the old custom by burning herself. When such a thing happens, the Hindu community still thrills with reverence and sympathy. It may be also mentioned that Dr. A. K. Coomaraswamy published in The Sociological Review for April, 1913, a paper, in which he attempts to set forth the essential nature of the Hindu ideal of woman, and he gives his paper the title, Satī; A Defence of the Indian Woman.

It was Paṇḍit Īśvara Chandra Vidyāsāgara who began the agitation in favour of allowing Hindu widows to remarry, if they wished to do so. The Government of India passed an Act legalizing such marriages in 1856. About 1870 an agitation was started in the Bombay Presidency for the purpose of rousing Hindus to such sympathy with widows as would make widow-marriage really possible in Hindu society.¹ The Social Reform Movement has made this one of its main aims, and has done a great deal to commend the remarriage of widows in all parts of the country. In consequence, a certain number of such marriages do take place in all grades of Hindu society, and in most parts of the country ; but they are exceedingly few, and it is questionable whether they are increasing.

Social reformers have not done very much to lighten the burden of suffering which the widow has to endure throughout her life. Only one point has been vehemently attacked by them, namely, the tonsure. Appeals on this subject now and then appear in the columns of the Indian Social Reformer; and in 1909 a small volume called The Ton-sure of Hindu Widows, by M. A. Subramaniam, B.A., B.L., was published in Madras.¹

During the last twenty years groups of Hindus in various parts of the country have begun to maintain Widows’ homes in imitation of Christian missions. The earliest Home outside the Christian Church was established at Barahanagar near Calcutta in 1887 by Sasipada Banerjea,² and did good work for some time; but it is no longer in existence. In 1889, a Christian lady, Paṇḍitā Rāmabai, opened the Sāradā Sadan, or Home of Learning, for Hindu widows in Bombay.³ Soon after it was moved to Poona. But within a few years so many of the widows had been baptized that Hindus became very hostile. Most of the widows were withdrawn, and Hindu subscriptions ceased. But the work accomplished was manifestly good and necessary; and Hindus began to clamour for a similar institution under Hindu management. Hence the Hindu Widows’ Home Association was organized in Poona in 1896, and a Home was opened, which has steadily grown in strength and usefulness. During the year 1912 there were 105 inmates in the Home, of whom 95 were widows. The annual expenditure is now about 17,000 Rupees.⁴ The whole institution seems to be thoroughly well managed by the founder, Mr. D. K. Karve. In 1906 a Boarding School for high-caste Hindu girls and widows was opened close beside the Home. Then in 1912 the Nishkāma Karma Maṭha (Monastery for Unselfish Work) was started for the purpose of creating a band of competent women workers to staff the Boarding School. I was able to visit these institutions in February last, and was much struck with the character of the buildings and the excellence of the arrangements. So far as I know, no widows’ home was founded by Hindus between 1896 and 1906; but it was probably during that interval that the Deva Samāj,¹ the Ārya Samāj² and the Digambara Jains³ founded their homes. I have seen no reports of these institutions, and do not know the dates when they were founded. In 1907 a Hindu Widows’ Home was founded in Mysore City; and in 1910 there were thirty-two pupils, of whom seventeen were resident. The total cost was met by Rai Bahadur Narasimha Iyengar.⁴ The same year the Mahilā Śilpāśrama, or Women’s Industrial Refuge, was founded in Calcutta by Mrs. P. Mukerjee, a niece of Mr. Rabindra Nath Tagore. Over a dozen widows reside in it, and a number of others come from the outside to receive instruction. It is supported by public subscription, supplemented by Government and Municipal grants.⁵ In 1908 the Sikhs opened their Widows’ Home in Amṛitsār. In 1910 Mrs. Pitt, the widow of an Indian civilian, opened a Widows’ Home in Bangalore, which is to be conducted on purely Hindu lines. It is intended to teach women the privilege of social service.⁶ In 1911 a Home was opened in Dacca of which Mrs. Dutta is the Founder-Secretary.⁷ In July, 1912, a group of Hindus organized a Brāhman Widows’ Hostel in Madras, and in September of that year the Government of Madras undertook the bulk of the financial responsibilities. It is too early to say anything about the success of this new venture.⁸

8. THE ZENĀNA

From very early times the ladies of royal harems in India lived in something like seclusion, and wealthy families naturally copied kings in some degree. There was also a great deal of distrust of women expressed in Hindu law, and men were therefore bid guard their women with great care. Yet there was no general custom of shutting women up in the house. When, however, at the end of the twelfth century, the Muḥammadan invasion came, two motives arose which combined to make the Hindus seclude their women. Their conquerors, who now held the highest social position in India, kept their women shut up in the women’s apartments; and it was natural for Hindus to imitate them. Then, in the wild violence and lawlessness which characterized Muslim rule for centuries, Hindu women were unsafe, unless they were shut up and guarded. Hence all high-caste Hindus, living in provinces where Muḥammadans were numerous and powerful, adopted the Zenāna system. A high-caste woman to-day very seldom leaves the zenāna. If she goes out, it is in the dusk of the morning or the evening, and only for a hurried visit to the temple or the river. On occasion she may go to the house of a relative for a wedding or some other important ceremony, but, if she do, she goes in a closed carriage or palanquin. Parsees and Jains adopted the custom as well as Hindus. In those parts of the South where Muḥammadan rule did not arise or did not last long, some of the old freedom still remains; and the women of the lower orders live a very free life.

Christian teaching and Western example have made a very serious impact on educated opinion in this matter; and the women of the Brāhma Samāj are now as free as Christian women; but the only other community which has stepped out into full freedom is the Parsees. But there has been a distinct and very welcome change amongst educated Hindus during the last twenty years. A small but increasing number in Calcutta and in Bombay take their wives and children out driving with them in the evening; and in every educated centre the women themselves are increasingly eager to meet European ladies socially, to gather together in little clubs and societies, and occasionally to hold women’s meetings and conferences. One sympathizes with the fear lest a sudden change should do more harm than good; but, without any doubt, progress in this matter might with safety be a good deal accelerated.

9. MARRIAGE EXPENSES

Loud and bitter complaints are raised in many parts of India by Hindus about the extortionate payments demanded by the bridegroom’s family from the father of the bride. The evil seems to be largely a result of the progress of Western education; for a young man who has done well at College is a most desirable bridegroom, and naturally the price has tended to rise as steadily as the demand. The tyrannical custom, which compels a father to spend huge sums upon feasting, processions and presents to Brāhmans on the occasion of a daughter’s wedding, presses very heavily on the poor. Most fathers are driven to borrow huge sums, and, in consequence, pass the remainder of their lives in bondage and fear.

Reformers have tried to mitigate these evils, but nothing very substantial, except the action of the Walterkṛit Sabhā,¹ has to be chronicled. Quite recently in Calcutta, a father could see no way to raise money for his daughter’s marriage except by mortgaging his home. The daughter, whose name was Snehalatā, burned herself to death in her own room to release her father from the impasse.¹ Her suicide roused intense feeling, and meetings were held to move public opinion, but with what result has still to be seen.

10. DOMESTIC CEREMONIES

In ancient Hindu Law-books twelve domestic saṃskāras or sacraments, are enumerated as binding on every Hindu of the Brāhman, Kshatriya and Vaiśya castes, and the details of the ceremonies are laid down in priestly manuals. Each is filled with polytheistic ideas and idolatrous practices; so that modern men are inclined to object to them. Debendranath Tagore prepared a new set of ceremonies for Brāhmas from which everything idolatrous was excluded, and Keshab carried the process still farther.² The other Samājes have followed suit, but orthodoxy remains orthodox.

11. DEVADĀSĪS (HIERODOULOI)

In Hindu literature of all ages, even in the Ṛigveda itself, wherever references to heaven occur, we find very frequent mention of the Gandharvas and the Apsarases, the former being male musicians, the latter female dancers and singers. The Apsarases are equally famed for their dazzling beauty and their easy morals. When some human ascetic carried his austerities to such a pitch that the merit due to him threatened to endanger the gods, the regular expedient was to send down one of these irresistible nymphs to draw him away from his self-torture.

This is probably a reflection of the customs of Hindu Kings. Each had a troop of male musicians in his resi-dence and companies of dancing and singing women of rather loose character. This custom is still kept up by Hindu princes.1

Every well-appointed Hindu temple aims at being an earthly reproduction of the paradise of the god in whose honour it was built. He and his spouse or spouses are there in stone, also his mount, his car, and all else that he needs. The Gandharvas are represented by the Temple-band, the Apsarases by the courtesans who sing and dance in the service. These are dedicated to the service of the god; but they give their favours to his worshippers. They are usually called Devadasis, handmaidens of the god, Herodouloi; but in the Bombay Presidency each shrine has its own name for its women, Muralis, Jogavins, Bhavinīs, Naikinis, Kalawantis, Basavis,2 Devadasis, Devaḷis, Joglis, Matangis, Sharnīs, Muralis being used in a general way for all.3 They dance and sing in the temple-services and also when the images are carried out through the town in procession. Hence the common name for them everywhere is Nautch-girls, Dancing-girls. The songs they sing are usually obscene. They receive certain allowances from the temple. Until recently they lived within the temple precincts, but now they usually occupy some street or lane close by. In North India they are not permanently attached to the temple. They live in the bazaar, practise music and dancing, and ply their trade. The temple-authorities hire as many as they require for each occasion. In some temples in the Bombay Presidency there are male prostitutes also.

How foul the atmosphere is in which this custom thrives may be realized from the hideous sculpture visible on the gates and walls of many Hindu temples in Central and Southern India and from the following quotation:

And then again, it is not that only females are dedicated to the temples but also males who are called Waghyas of Khandoba, Aradhyes of Ambabai, Potrajas of Dyamawwa, Jogyas of Yallamma, and who are forbidden to marry or to live the ordinary civil life and therefore lead a more or less dissolute life. Their number however is not so considerable as that of the female victims nor is their looseness so noticeable. There is a third class of devotees, who are neither male nor female but are mostly eunuchs. These hideous beings are more indecent than immoral and they naturally follow the trade of procurers, pimps, and such other disgusting and un-natural practices. Whether they are for some wicked purpose castrated or born defective and how they come to be connected with the temples cannot be said; but they are generally connected with the temples of the female deities Ambabai and Yallamma. Quite a number of them might be seen at any time loitering and dancing about the little temple of Bolai near the Sassoon Hospital in Poona.¹

Courtesan ministrants, in precisely similar fashion, lived in the temples of Babylonia, Syria and Egypt, and took part in the ritual; and thence the custom spread to Cyprus, the Greek islands and elsewhere. The Greek name for them was Hierodouloi, Sacred Slaves.²

To these facts is due the low estimate in which music and dancing, especially the latter, have been held in most countries of the East. Salome degraded herself to the level of a courtesan in dancing before Herod. The cultivation of music and dancing has never been a respectable art in India, but has always been left to Nautch-girls.³

A century ago these women were much more in the public eye in India than they are to-day. L’Abbé Dubois writes:⁴

Their duties, however, are not confined to religious cere- monies. Ordinary politeness requires that when persons of any distinction make formal visits to each other they must be accompanied by a certain number of these courtezans. To dispense with them would show a want of respect towards the person visited, whether the visit was one of duty or politeness.

Hindus have also been accustomed to hire them to dance and sing in their houses at weddings, on other festive occa- sions, and even when entertaining European officials: their dancing and singing have been part of the programme, like the performances of jugglers. Missionaries have long protested in the name of morality and decency against the whole system, and have especially begged that European officials should give no countenance to such a thing. Brahmans and social reformers have joined in these protests. The presence of these women at the temple-services and in the great processions leads to a great deal of vice among young Hindus; and their intro- duction into the homes of the people on festive occasions has done endless harm. Their gestures in dancing are lewd and suggestive; and their songs are immoral and obscene. Many a man has spoken of the dire results such exhibitions have upon the young. Western example and education have had their influence upon the coarsest parts of Hinduism. The frightful obscenities which we hear about from eighteenth-century writers have almost altogether disappeared. What remains is bad enough, it is true; but the grossest things have been removed. Dancing girls are much less prominent in the temples of the West and the North than they used to be.

Lord Wenlock, who was Governor of Madras from 1891 to 1896, was the first prominent official who distinctly refused to countenance the nautch.¹ His example has proved very powerful: so that nowadays one seldom hears of an English official consenting to be present on any occasion when dancing-girls are present. The majority of educated Hindus have also given up the custom of having them in their homes at weddings and such like. This is a reform of very great value indeed ; and we may trust that in future things will go still further.

In many parts of the country it is customary to marry a girl to an idol, a flower, a sword or some other material object, in order that she may be free from the entanglements of a genuine marriage.

In the year 1906 a large body of gentlemen, including many Hindus, approached the Governor of Bombay, calling his attention to the whole practice of divine marriage, and praying that measures might be taken by the Government to put down the dedication of girls to prostitution. The following is a brief statement :

The Memorialists ask that the attention of the Police shall be called to the infrequency of prosecution, and that they shall be directed to show greater vigilance in bringing offenders to account. They request that public notices shall be posted in many places, and especially at Jejuri, where the temple of Khandoba enjoys an infamous pre-eminence in this destruction of innocent children ; and that temple-authorities shall be warned of their liability to prosecution as accessories to crime, if they permit such ceremonies to take place within the precincts of the temple.¹

In the following year the Bombay Government issued a resolution on the subject. They feel the need of action but recognize that it is impossible to do much until public opinion is riper. They promise, however, to prosecute temple-authorities who take part in the dedication of girls ; and they suggest that the Hindu community should provide orphanages or homes in which girls rescued by Government may be placed.1 Two years later Sir George Clarke, Governor of Bombay, issued a proclamation, calling the attention of District Magistrates to the powers of. the law and to the necessity of enforcing them seriously.2 The Mysore Government next took action. In 1909 they issued an order, in which they prohibit the performance of any religious ceremony which has an intimate connection with dedication to the profession of a prostitute or dancinggirl. This prohibition applies to every temple under the control of the Mysore Government.3 About the same time, the head of the Sankasvara monastery, a modern representative of Sankaracharya, issued an order in which he declares that the custom of dedicating girls has not the sanction of any sacred book of the Hindus, and therefore must be put a stop to.4 Later still the Travancore Government took the matter up.5 But though the movement has thus made considerable progress, there are those who oppose it for various reasons.6 The first of these is the fear that the musical art may suffer if they are discouraged. How absurd this argument is, we need not say. Yet it had weight enough with certain Government officials to lead them to introduce dancinggirls into the Arts and Industries Exhibition at Allahabad in the winter of 1910-1911, and to give prizes to the most skilful of these artistes.7 As one might expect in such a country as India, Government example at once led to serious results. Here is what the Rev. C. F. Andrews of Delhi wrote to the press on the subject:

An intimate friend of mine, who was known by all the city to refuse under any circumstances to be present at a wedding where a nautch was a part of the ceremonies, was asked a few days ago to a wedding, and was on the point of accepting it, when he discovered that a nautch was to be held. When he remonstrated with some indignation, saying that his own abstention from nautches was well known in the city, the reply was immediately made that now things were different. The Government itself was encouraging nautches, and one was being held every night at the Government Exhibition.¹

Fortunately, the press of India, whether European or Indian, almost unanimously condemned the action of those who had charge of the Exhibition;² and public opinion was so clearly expressed that we may hope that little final evil will come of it.

Fortunately, Lord Morley’s attention had been drawn to the whole problem; and, on the 3rd of March, 1911, he addressed a despatch to the Government of India on the question:

My attention in Council has lately been called to the various methods by which female children in India are condemned to a life of prostitution, whether by enrolment in a body of dancing girls attached to a Hindu Temple; by symbolical marriage to an idol, a flower, a sword, or some other material object; or by adoption by a prostitute whose profession the child is brought up to follow. I observe with satisfaction that an increasing section of Hindu Society regards the association of religious ceremonies with the practice of prostitution with strong disapproval. In Madras, where the Institution of Temple Dancing Girls still survives, an Indian District Magistrate, Mr. R. Ramachandra Row, has expressed the opinion that Temple servants have been degraded from their original status to perform functions ‘abhorrent to strict Hindu religion’; and in Bombay a society for the protection of children has been formed with the co-operation of leading Hindu citizens.

I desire to be informed of the probable extent of the evil; how far the provisions of the Penal Code, sections 372 and 373, are in themselves sufficient to deal with it effectually, and whether in your opinion, or that of the Local Governments, adequate steps are being taken to enforce the law as it at present stands, or whether any, and if so, what amendments of the law are required to give reasonable encouragement and suppress the grave abuse. The matter is one in which the weight of public authority may well be lent to the furtherance of reforms advocated by the enlightened leaders of the communities to which the children belong whom the law was intended to protect.

The Society for the Protection of Children in Western India, which consists of men belonging to all faiths, keeps watch over the progress of events, and seeks to rouse public opinion, and to help Government in every way possible. The pamphlet on Muralis quoted above was published by them.

As this book goes to press, the Government of India is passing a law for the better protection of girls.

LITERATURE. — Hindu Customs, Manners and Ceremonies, by J. A. Dubois, Oxford University Press. The Crown of Hinduism, by J. N. Farquhar, Oxford University Press. The Muralis, by V. R. Shinde, Bombay, Sharada Kridan Press, half an anna. Lotus Buds, by Amy W. Carmichael, London, Morgan & Scott. India and its Problems, W. S. Lilly, 231-237.

12. EDUCATION OF BOYS

In Ancient India, when the Hindu system took shape, it was the rule that every boy of the three highest castes should go to some teacher and spend several years in acquiring a religious education. All girls, and all boys of every other caste or class, were by law excluded from this education. As the centuries passed, the percentage of those taking the religious education became less and less.

Doubtless various systems of secular education were used from time to time, but none of them took deep root in the country. When the Muhammadans conquered India, Muslim education became the passport to government service and high social position. Here again it was only the few who were educated.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the illiteracy of India was almost complete. The number of those who received any education was exceedingly small; and in the universal confusion of the times things were steadily getting worse. It was the missionaries who began to give the people education. But what they gave them was not any Indian discipline, but a Western training, mediated in the schools by the vernaculars. A few European laymen soon began to help. Then Ram Mohan Ray perceived the facts of the situation, and became the champion of Western education. Government came round to the same point of view in 1835.

The one large fact which we must keep firm hold of in thinking of education in modern India is, that Western education (which the country clearly must have) comes from an alien civilization and environment, and that in inoculating the community with this most necessary remedy considerable disturbance will inevitably be produced. This far-reaching fact is usually neglected altogether by those who condemn modern education in India as a failure.¹ The comparison of the results of Roman education in the provinces of the Empire would lead men to a saner estimate of the factors at work. It is quite as necessary to keep this same truth in mind, if we are to understand why the education of boys grows so slowly in India. The conservatism of the people and their pitiful poverty are certainly powerful retarding agents. Yet both taken together do not hamper progress nearly so much as the inherent antagonism of the religious systems to Western thought and life.

Two very healthy symptoms may here be mentioned to cheer the reformer and the student. The first of these is Mr. Gokhale’s bold attempt to secure universal education in India through Government action. The Bill which he laid before the Viceroy’s Council was rejected; and, personally, I am inclined to believe it was well for India that it should be rejected; yet the way in which the Indian press received the proposal showed that the educated class have travelled far in opinion these last twenty years, and that there is in them the possibility of still greater advance. The second healthy symptom is this, that competent Indian observers assure us that the last few years of extreme national interest and excitement have so stirred the common people in certain parts of India that there is now a keen desire for widespread education, and such a willingness to allow children to attend school as has not been known before.

In 1902, 22.2 per cent of the boys of school-going age in India were at school; in 1912 the percentage had risen to 29.

13. EDUCATION OF GIRLS

The ancient ideal for high-caste Hindus was that, when children reached the age of eight to twelve, the boys should go to school, and the girls should be married. ¹ The deep distinction here implied has not only been taught the Hindu people for two thousand five hundred years, but has been worked into their very nature and character by a series of institutions such as no other country has ever possessed. Girls have been married before reaching puberty. Their husbands have been free to marry as many wives as they chose to have. No husband has eaten with his wife. The widow has been prevented from remarrying, while the widower has had severe pressure brought to bear upon him to induce him to remarry, if he was disinclined. For some fifteen hundred years, the Hindu widow was taught that the noblest thing she could do was to burn herself upon the pyre with her husband. For six hundred years, high-caste women have been closely shut up in the zenāna. Finally there was another fact which told for a long time:

Courtesans, whose business in life is to dance in the temples and at public ceremonies, and prostitutes are the only women who are allowed to learn to read, sing, or dance. It would be thought a disgrace to a respectable woman to learn to read; and even if she had learnt she would be ashamed to own it.¹

This feeling does not tell so powerfully now as it did a century ago.

When we take all these factors into consideration, we are not astonished to find that the proposal to give Hindu girls an education has made very little progress in the community. The whole Hindu scheme of things has operated to keep the people from giving their girls an education.

It was missionaries who began the education of girls. They were followed, at a considerable interval, by a few European laymen, the Government, and the Brāhma Samāj. Later still, the other Samājes, the Rāmakṛishṇa Mission and Theosophy began to help; and now most Hindu organizations do something to further the cause. Progress is slow, yet while only 2.5 per cent of girls of school-going age were in school in 1902, there were 5 per cent in 1912.

14. CASTE

The main rules of caste which a Hindu has to observe relate to marriage, food, occupation and foreign travel. No man may marry outside his caste, and usually he is restricted to certain sub-sections of his caste, while, in many parts of India, sectarian distinctions narrow the range of choice still farther. Certain kinds of food are absolutely proscribed in each caste; there are rules as to the caste of the person who may cook for the members of the caste; no man may eat with a person of lower caste than himself; and there are strict rules as to those from whose hands one may receive water. The occupation rule is in most cases very strict for low-caste people but very lax for the high castes. No Hindu may cross the ocean.¹

The marriage rule is very strictly kept by all classes. There are very few, even among those who have had an English education, who dare to break the matrimonial rules; for they are the very foundation of caste observance. Not only the social reform organization but most of the sectarian unions ² and the caste conferences ³ suggest that restrictions on marriage between members of sub-castes should be given up, but very little progress has yet been made. It is only the most advanced reformers who propose that distinctions of caste should be altogether neglected in marriage.

The law as to what is legitimate or illegitimate in the matter of diet must always have been subject to minor changes. Educated men living in the large towns take large liberties nowadays outside their own homes in this matter, but they are usually strict at home. Mr. Shridhar Ketkar, in the second volume of his History of Caste in India, gives a very illuminating account of the state of affairs in the matter of diet in the Bombay Presidency.¹

Until recent times the rule that a man must not eat with a person of lower caste than himself was upheld with the extremest stringency. In past days, people have been outcasted because they had smelt beef! Even now in certain localities orthodoxy is very strict. Yet Western thought and common sense are gradually telling on educated men. The Brāhmas are quite free in interdining, and most members of the Prārthanā Samāj are ready to dine not only with Hindus of any grade but with Christians, Muhammadans and foreigners. Indeed social reformers all tend to seek liberty in this matter. The ordinary educated Hindu desires freedom, so that he may dine with old classmates and with Europeans who have been happily associated with him in public life, education or business. Yet many shrink back, and the mass of educated men still hold the orthodox position. There is much ground yet to be possessed.

What may perhaps be described as the boldest action taken by social reformers in recent years was carried out in Bombay in November, 1912. Under the auspices of a new organization, called the Aryan Brotherhood, a Conference of people opposed to caste was held from the 9th to the 12th of November, and closed with a dinner at which one hundred and fifty men and women dined together, openly setting at defiance the laws of caste. Those who were present at the dinner had come from many parts of Western India; and a considerable number of them found themselves outcasted, as soon as they returned to their homes. In several places, the orthodox party showed that they were determined to push things to the uttermost. It is well known that Brāhmans of the highest rank who are counted orthodox take tea in Irani shops in Bombay, and even occasionally dine quietly with Muḥammadans or Europeans. So long as this is done secretly, nothing is said; but a public defiance of all the rules of caste is another matter. Some of those outcasted yielded at once, and were reinstated after performing prāyaśchitta (an atonement ceremony), but others are holding out. It seems clear that this piece of bold action will produce good results.¹

The rule that no Hindu may cross the ocean was imposed because it is clear that no Hindu can go to another country by sea and keep caste rules about food. When Ram Mohan Ray went to England, he sought to preserve his caste by taking a Brāhman cook with him. The desire to get an education in Europe or America has proved the most powerful motive leading to the breach of the rule; but the exigencies of business have also proved effective; and a few orthodox Hindu princes have yielded under the overwhelming desire to be present at some great state ceremonial in England. For a long time orthodoxy remained utterly implacable. The man who had crossed the ocean could not be received back into caste unless he underwent the prescribed atonement, prāyaśchitta, a most disgusting and barbarous ceremony. Those who would not pay the penalty were outcasted. Hence there grew up in Calcutta a small but interesting and influential community who, for the sake of education, had suffered excommunication. Most of them found refuge in the Brāhma Samāj. For long the battle was most serious,² and in many parts of India it is so to the present day; but nationalism has triumphed in Calcutta. One of the most noticeable results of the unbounded excitement of 1905–1907 was the creation of a society in Calcutta for the sending of Bengali students to Europe, America or Japan to receive a modern education. So popular has the movement been and so powerful its leaders, that, when students return to Calcutta, they are received back into caste without any fuss. Quite recently the Bhatias of Bombay have split into two sections over the problem.

The movement for the uplifting of the Outcaste is probably the most significant of all the facts that fall to be chronicled under the head of caste. But it has been already dealt with,¹ so that we need not touch it here.

15. TEMPERANCE

Many a Hindu has been reckless enough to declare that Europeans brought drink to India, and debauched a teetotal nation. The facts are, however, that there has been a good deal of drinking in India since the very dawn of history. Priests and people in the time of the Rigveda were so fond of the drink called soma that they not only offered it to the gods as one of the best gifts they could give, but actually deified it. Soma is one of the leading gods of the Rigveda. From the Epics it is also evident that there was a good deal of drinking among the warlike tribes in the pre-Christian centuries. The laws of Manu show us that in settled Hindu life throughout North India various kinds of intoxicating liquor, drink shops, drinking parties and drunkards, were not uncommon; and the dramas corroborate this evidence.

It is perfectly true that Hindu law for many centuries has been seriously opposed to the use of alcoholic drink; and high-caste Hindus, as a class, have been practically total abstainers. Yet even this general statement requires to be qualified; for in Bengal, at the great festivals, every family gives siddhi to visitors; and in the Left-hand Śākta Sect intoxicating liquor is one of the five tattvas used as means of salvation. Many of the lower castes have been accustomed to drink from time immemorial.

Modern life, unfortunately, has done a good deal to introduce drink among the educated classes and to spread the drinking habit among the coolies on tea-gardens. It is probably true also that the planting of licensed liquor shops in the lower parts of the great cities of India has led to an extension of the drinking customs of the common people.

There was thus ample room for a temperance propaganda. A vigorous crusade was carried on for several years by Mr. W. S. Caine and a number of helpers, with the result that many Hindu castes were induced to give up drink altogether. The movement still continues to do good work, through the Churches, the Samājes, and Temperance Societies consisting of men of every faith. Besides using moral suasion with communities and individuals, these bodies do useful service by watching lest the action of the Excise Department lead to an increase in drink-shops and drinking, and by making suggestions to Government for the better control of the traffic. An Annual Temperance Conference is held in one of the great cities.

16. SOCIAL SERVICE

It was Keshab Chandra Sen who first suggested that the Brāhma Samāj should copy Christians in the matter of philanthropy. All the Samājes have taken this up seriously. The Ārya Samāj especially has done work of very great value in relieving the famine-stricken and those who suffered in the great Kangra earthquake. The Rāmakṛishṇa Mission has several times done fine service in re-lieving sufferers from flood, famine and pestilence. The Ārya Samāj, the Deva Samāj and the Rāmakṛishṇa Mission all follow the lead of the Christian Church in doing medical work. The Brāhma Mission on the Kasi Hills also gives medical help.

But the new currents started by the great national excitement of recent years have helped to bring into existence a new type of effort which may yet prove of considerable value. For many years certain Christian Colleges and schools have led out their students into simple social service. Usually this has taken the form of schools for neglected tribes and castes, or simple medical relief; but, in recent years, the value of social work as training for the young Christian has been so clearly perceived that the whole subject has been carefully discussed, and many new lines of activity have been started. This Christian movement found articulate expression in an excellent book, Suggestions for Social Helpfulness, by the Rev. D. J. Fleming, of Lahore. This volume is now out of print, but its place has been taken by a still better book, Social Study, Service and Exhibits, by the same author.

During the last three or four years the movement has appeared in Government and Hindu Colleges; and it is steadily spreading. In most cases the work attempted is a school for Outcaste children. This service is being done by students of the Presidency College, Calcutta, by students of the Central Hindu College, Benares, and by others. In some cases, careful social study has been started. For example, the students of Patna College, organized in the Chanakya Society, have surveyed the chief industries of Patna City, of Dinapore, of Mozufferpore and of some other places in Behar. In many centres the Young Men’s Christian Association has organized groups of Hindus for social service along various lines.

In close connection with the Servants of India Society’s work there was started recently, under the Presidency of Sir N. G. Chandavarkar, the Social Service League, Bombay. The objects of the League are:

The collection and study of social facts; the discussion of social theories and social problems with a view to forming public opinion and securing improvements in the conditions of life, and the pursuit of social service.

Only those who are prepared to work are received as members. A similar League, under the Presidency of Mrs. Whitehead, is working in Madras.

LITERATURE. — Social Study, Service and Exhibits, by D. J. Fleming, Calcutta, The Association Press, 1913, 10 as. The Theory and Practice of Social Service in India, by K. M. Munshi, Bombay, the Social Service League (a prize essay).

17. THE CRIMINAL TRIBES¹

The movement for the reformation of the Criminal Tribes is scarcely parallel with the other efforts at social reform which we have just reviewed; for, thus far, it has been almost exclusively the work of the Salvation Army and the Government; but it is a matter of so much importance and interest, and fits so well into the chronicle of this chapter, that the story had better be told.

The phrase Criminal Tribes is used strictly of tribes whose regular caste-occupation is some form of crime. The form of crime which a tribe practises is part of the caste-organization, and is carried on under very strict rules.

Thus, among the Ghantichors of the Bombay Presidency it used to be the rule that a young man could not marry until he had stolen a nose-ring off a woman’s face. The same tribe is bound by another rule, that they must steal only by day: until quite recently, if a man stole by night, he was outcasted. The reason why these regulations are so well understood and so carefully observed is that they are to the tribesmen religious laws. In most cases the tribe holds that the gods have imposed their particular crime-occupation on them; that, so long as they follow it in accordance with caste rules, they are true men and faithful to their religion; and that, if they were to give it up, the gods would wreak their displeasure on them. Hence, before starting out on a criminal expedition, they offer prayers to their divinity, and when they return, they dedicate to him a percentage of their spoils. The Chhapparbands of the Bombay Presidency, for example, whose caste profession is the making of counterfeit coins, give 12½ per cent. Most of these tribes are Hindus, but some are Muḥammadans; and amongst the Muḥammadans it is usually to the shrines of the Pirs (saints) that they dedicate the stated portion of their gains.¹

No trustworthy estimate of the numbers of these religious criminals can be given; for no careful survey has yet been made. Some tribes are completely and dangerously criminal; others are less aggressive, part being actively criminal, the rest only passively so; others are mixed, some sections being perfectly honest, others hardened criminals. But, though a definite census has not been taken, they are known to be very numerous; for they are found in every part of India; and we may be certain that the total population of those tribes which are completely and dangerously criminal is not less than 300,000. If they could be changed into good citizens, a large part of the Indian police force could be disbanded.

The growing efficiency of the British Government, and two modern police-methods — the taking of finger-prints and gang-prosecutions — have broken the self-confidence of many of these tribes. They begin to find the resources of civilization too strong for them. They are in a chastened mood, and are thus in some degree prepared to respond to the suggestion that they should become honest men. The majority are willing to enter Settlements.

Government is also, in a manner, pledged to go forward with their reclamation: such is the implication of the Criminal Tribes’ Act of 1911.

Government Settlements for the purposes of reclamation were tried at various times in the past, but with limited success. It is only during the last six years that results have been won which justify the hope that the further improvement of methods may lead to a complete transformation of these tribes.

A. In 1908 work was begun in a small Settlement at Gorakhpur by the Salvation Army with Government help, and others have been opened since. The long experience the Army has had in dealing with the criminal class all over the world has prepared them for the task. Government provides suitable buildings when such are available, or gives grants-in-aid for the erection of new buildings. It also gives a monthly grant for expenses, and in many cases provides land for cultivation. Trades, such as silk-reeling, carpentry, weaving, etc., are taught to many of the younger members of the tribes. The Salvation Army provides experienced officers of the right type of character. Their work has not been all success by any means; and they themselves confess that they are only learning how to deal with these difficult people; yet such results have been won as to justify a wide extension of the effort. The Army have now 25 Settlements in India and one in Ceylon. A pamphlet by Commissioner Booth Tucker, called Criminocurology,¹ gives a vivid account of their work.

B. At the end of 1909 the Government of Bombay opened an experimental Settlement at Bijapur in the South of the Presidency, under direct Government supervision. In the beginning their efforts were confined to Chhapparbands, Harranshikaris and Ghantichors. At a later date work was opened at other centres. The method has two sides. The people live in a Settlement, and work is provided for them, either in the Settlement or outside, so that they may become accustomed to earning an honest livelihood. A considerable number of them have been placed in spinning and weaving mills, others have been taught masonry or carpentry. Experience has shewn that the members of the Settlement attain to a virility and knowledge of the economic value of their own labour much more speedily if work is found for them under independent employers than if work is provided directly under the Settlement authorities. Hence the present policy is to establish the Settlements in places where there is a keen demand for labour. They are kindly treated and helped in every possible way. But, in order that they may not slip away from discipline and return to crime, they are registered and watched; and absconders are punished.

Very encouraging results have been already won. An extension of the work is now contemplated; but the question is being considered whether, in order to obtain the necessary moral influence, some of the Settlements should not be controlled by voluntary agencies.

The independent experience so gained fully corroborates the conclusions which Salvation Army Officers have reached as to the possibility of reclaiming these people and the methods to be employed. The provision of regular work for a considerable period of time under strict discipline, and the placing of them under the guidance of people of high character, who will treat them at once with the utmost kindness and the utmost firmness, and will use all possible moral suasion to change them, seem to be the principles which will lead to success. Government alone can bring to bear the pressure necessary to secure discipline, and private philanthropic effort alone can supply in a satisfactory way the men and women needed for the moral side of the work of reclamation.

The work is still mostly of an experimental nature, but the experiments now being carried on in different parts of India are leading to such definite conclusions that it is highly probable that the near future will see a very wide extension of the work.

There are thirteen Salvation Army Settlements in the United Provinces, five in the Panjab, five in the Madras Presidency and two in Bihar and Orissa. The American Baptists in the Telugu country have one Settlement, and one is under the control of the Manager of a Mica mine. The Wesleyans in Benares are working among the Doms, a semi-criminal tribe.

Arrangements are being made for the opening of more Settlements under private management. Hitherto only Christian bodies have been willing and able to undertake the task, and until quite recently the Salvation Army alone has had Settlements; but long-established Missions, with their communities, Churches, Industrial Schools and Industries, and their knowledge of the local conditions, are in many respects in a position of great advantage for dealing with the problem, though at present they have not the experience of the Salvation Army. It may also be noted that the Panjab Government recently invited several of the leading Hindu and Muhammadan societies to take a share in the work. The problem is so large that there would appear to be ample scope for all suitable voluntary agencies to aid in its solution.

Footnotes