A Tour through the Famine Districts of India

Front matter

A Tour Through the Famine Districts of India PLAGUE SIGNS. A Tour Through the Famine Districts of India BY F. H. S. MEREWETHER reuter's special famine commissioner LONDON A. D. INNES AND CO. BEDFORD STREET Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Buncay fl> tht Wotfox O . — —i u WHO BORE ME, AND WHO HAS BORNE WITH MY VAGARIES FOR MORE YEARS THAN I CARE TO COUNT, THESE RECENT EXPERIENCES OF HER WANDERING EOY ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED By The Author. Savage Club, Nov. 1S97.

Preface

This book to any one expecting a mere collection of the horrors of the Indian Famine will be a bitter disappointment. Our great Eastern dependency is passing through a crisis which has been death-dealing and far-reaching in its effect upon the suffering millions of Ind. The author has, as far as possible, merely hinted at the awful and gruesome sights and scenes which it was his lot to witness, and which certainly any wordpainting of his would fail to accurately portray. He has relied upon a series of photographs taken upon the spot, to bring forcibly before the mind's eye of his readers, if any, the state and condition of the oriental races who owe their allegiance to the Queen-Empress. This volume is the mere journalistic record of a man who travelled through the length and breadth of the Famine Districts of India; in which he has endeavoured to depict, with perhaps too light a brush, the various scenes that came under his personal observation.

He has gathered up from various and numerous sources a mass of information — useful or otherwise — and this he now, with all diffidence, puts into the hands of the public. It has been too the object of the writer to relegate, as far as lay in his power, the dry-as-dust statistics, which are the natural outcome of such an enormous undertaking as the Famine Relief of India,

PREFACE.

VIII to the obscurity of the Appendices. Should even one heart be touched and one purse-string loosened for the benefit of the naked and starving myriads of Hindustan, the author of this work will feel that his reward is far greater than he deserves. The Author. Savage Club, Nov. 1897. A small portion of the matter herein has already seen the light in a series of articles contributed to the Times of India, and the Author begs here to express his thanks to the Editor for his courtesy in permitting the use of this material, which has been incorporated in the present work. CONTENTS

Appendix

A. FAMINE RELIEF STATISTICS ... ... 305 „ B. OFFICIAL REPORT ON THE GHAGGAR CANALS ... ... ... ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE plague signs ... ... ... Frontispiece THE MARINE LINES ... ... ... ... 2 A HOTBED OF PLAGUE ... ... ... ... 7 BY THE SAD SEA WAVE: MAHIM SANDS ... ... II DESERTED BOMBAY ... ... ... ... 14 A GROUP OF MAHRATTAS... ... ... ... 24 AN INDIAN HOMESTEAD ... ... ... ... 30 BIJAPUR BAZAAR ... ... ... ... 40 THE GOL GUMBAZ : BIJAPUR ... ... ... 45 A LEMANI DANCING GIRL... ... ... ... 53 SHOLAPUR WEAVERS ... ... ... ... 79 GRINDING BAJRI ... ... ... ... 96 A GURU ... ... ... ... ... 107 THE POOR AND NEEDY ... ... ... ... 113 A MELA: RAIPUR ... ... ... ... Il8 beyond the pale: bilaspur ... ... ... 1 30 a group of aborigines... ... ... ... 135 in the native states: rewaris... ... ... 143 jubbulpur poor-house: dinner-time ... ... 153 gonds on the move before the famine... ... 1 56 gonds during the famine ... ... ... 159 a bheel woman in the piping times of plenty ... 169 India's starving millions ... . ... ... 185 MY stage coach: banda ... ... ... 187 THE HINDOO'S END ... ... ... ... 1 97 HUNGRY AND HELPLESS ... ... ... ... 225 A COMPANY OF THE PROPHETS ... ... ... 232 A STREET IN LAHORE ... ... ... ... 251 BIKANIRI NIGHTINGALES ... ... ... ... 26 1 A DHOOLIE ... ... ... ... ... 295 FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE ... ... ... 298 GHAUT: BENARES ... ... ... ...

Part I The Bombay Presidency Chapter

I BOMBAY Urbs prima in Indis is the proud motto which its citizens claim for Bombay the Beautiful. It is the front door of India, as Aden can only be looked upon as the garden-gate leading to our vast Eastern possessions. Any one approaching from the sea cannot fail to be struck with the beauty of the islands and their sur roundings. The island of Bombay, or, as the natives call it, Mamb6, is flat with the exception of the Cumballa and Malabar Hills. The latter trends upward till it culminates in Malabar Point — the cold-weather residence of the Governor. The tropical foliage, the palms which stand up against the sky-line on the hills, and hide, in the lower ground below, the populous quarter of Girgaum, add to the charm, while the background formed by the deep red ghauts across the harbour gives a picture which impresses itself indelibly on the mind of the traveller, to whom the glories of the sunny East B have hitherto been more or less of a sealed book.

The public buildings which line the shore and which face you on approaching Bombay, though somewhat bizarre and incongruous in detail, if taken as a whole form a pleasing view. The whole scene is enhanced during the rains by the bright green of the Maidans, amidst which the great public buildings and Government offices stand enframed. The picturesque thatch bungalows of the Marine Lines in the foreground form too a striking contrast to the massive buildings behind. These old relics of a bygone time have, however, since the plague devastated the city, been razed to the ground, and their sites present now a series of immense rubbish heaps. The whole quarter, by orders of the Government, has been demolished and burnt. Apart from the inconveniences and the perpetual growls of the inhabitants, these old bungalows marked an epoch and formed a landmark in the history of Bombay, the removal of which the conservative lover of the antique will deplore.

Sanitary science, alas, is a stern task master, and will brook no interference from insanitary and dilapidated picturesqueness. The fiat went forth, and at one fell swoop the dear old Marine Lines passed away. Many and pleasant are the associations with these time-worn and worm-eaten homes ; and the messes of the Marine Light Infantry and the native Bombay Regiment will no longer re-echo with the merry voices of the gay subaltern and his friends. We shall probably have some solid stone, pncca-built quarters, which will be as ugly as the old bungalows were pleasing to the eye. How many joyous evenings have we not spent in these old homes ! Never again shall we lounge after dinner in the long chair, THE MARINE LINES. BOMB A Y 3 dear to the Anglo-Indian, and listen to the gnp of the passing hour.

This is, however, mere digression, and memory must not be allowed too full a sway. Bombay has earned another title to our respect, and may be justly called Bombay the Busy. With its immense and beautiful harbour, to which ships of all nations are attracted by the export trade, the scene presented is an animated one. The contrasts too between the various craft thronging the vast land-locked bay, which forms one of the best harbours of refuge in the world, are very great. Here, owing to the high tides which prevail, the largest ships of our navy can not only ride at anchor in the stream, but enter if necessary the series of docks which line the shore. You may see the huge battleship or Peninsular and Oriental mail-steamer, with all the latest appliances of modern naval science, cheek-by-jowl with the rough and clumsy native bnggla, with its high bulwark of interlaced bamboo and its huge and unwieldy lateen sail.

Amidst all this great mass of shipping, the small tonies or dug-outs, manned by a couple of bronze-coloured natives with their primitive paddles, dart to and fro. In the afternoon, when the heat has somewhat decreased, the white sails of the dainty yachts, owned by the sahibs of the Yacht Club, skim the deep blue surface of the bay. The Bombay Harbour, when seen in the rose-light of the declining sun, with the setting of the ghauts of the mainland in the back ground, is a memory of the beautiful which the beholder cannot fail to treasure as a new experience. One of the first things that strikes the new-comer is the enormous mass of humanity which throngs the streets of the city; which crowd is intensified tenfold in the native quarters of the town. This heterogeneous collection of all sorts and conditions of men, the snowy white clothed Parsee and Bania, the swarthy Arab, the yellow-skinned Chinaman, the stalwart Mahommedan, the statuesque coolie, form, with the gay-coloured sarees of the female portion of the crowd, a kaleidoscopic picture which is alike pleasing to the eye and bewildering to the brain.

It is the people, the variegated throng of picturesque humanity, which after all remains as one of the first and indelible impressions of Bombay. The submerged tenth live and have their being in the open air. In the native quarters at night the footway is simply impassable, owing to the masses of shrouded natives who use it as their sleeping-place. In the vicinity of the Crawford markets and in the quarter of Cammatepura they simply line the pavement, and wrapped closely in their dirty white chuddahs, look like bales of merchandise. But the destroying angel of the plague altered all this. In streets where even towards midnight it was im possible, owing to the crowds, for a ticcagharry to proceed beyond a walking pace, a battery of artillery might have galloped in safety down the now deserted thoroughfare.

I went on a tour of inspection when the disease was at its height, and found whole streets in the busiest portion of the native town practically deserted. The shops were all closed, and the occupants had disappeared en bloc. It was calculated at that time that nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants had fled from the pest-stricken island to the mainland. This enormous exodus on the part of the people did incalculable harm to the Presidency, and without doubt caused the spread of the fell disease into the country districts of the province. At a later period on my tour, I found in one remote BOMB A Y 5 village of the Konkan that more than forty people had died of the plague which had been imported by a sufferer from Bombay. The hardships and discomforts entailed upon the European residents of Bombay during the reign of the pestilence can scarcely be conceived except by those who were not only eye-witnesses, but actual sufferers from the panic caused to the natives by the epidemic.

People at home have no idea of how dependent the Anglo-Indian is upon the cloud of dark-skinned servants who minister to his necessities and anticipate his slightest needs. The plague brought this home very clearly to those who were obliged to remain in the city. I arrived one day at the Yacht Club for tiffen, and found that with the exception of three who had remained faithful to their salt, the whole posse of servants had fled. It was a some what droll sight to see reverend judges, potent collectors and brave generals, foraging round promiscuously for means wherewith to stay their appetite or assuage their thirst. With the happy insouciance which characterizes the Englishman in India, the whole affair was treated as a huge joke, and a merry and impromptu picnic was the result. Another instance will show to what degree of dis comfort those who stuck to their guns were put.

A friend of mine who lived in a flat in the fort was deserted by his retainers with the exception of an ancient Portuguese cook ; and for days he andhis wife had to do their own house-work. The bobachi agreed to cook, but absolutely refused to bring the things to table or wash up afterwards, and he was the master of the situation. The sahib and his wife had to arrange that for themselves. This, with the thermometer standing in the immediate neighbourhood of eighty degrees in the shade, is no mean undertaking for delicately nurtured Europeans. They stood it for some time, but at last turned tail and fled for refuge to an up-country hotel. In the earlier stages of the epidemic the municipality attempted the disastrous plan of concealment ; and it was mainly owing to the fearless policy and tone of the Times of fndia in laying bare the actual facts of the case, and especially in tracing the abnormal mortality to its true cause, that the Government was forced to take the strenuous repressive measures it subsequently did.

If from the first the nettle had been grasped firmly, and a cordon established round Bombay, the disease would not have attacked Kurrachee nor been so widespread as it eventually became. The Plague Committee which the Government too tardily formed, had it been in existence sooner, would doubtless have achieved at an earlier stage a still more brilliant success. With such popular and indomitable chiefs as General Gatacre and Dr. Pollen, the dread monster would have been sooner quelled. It was some time before it was fully recognized that the plague, of which we had heard such gruesome tales from Hong Kong the previous year, was really and definitely in our midst. To all appearance it had come to stop ; and the city and authorities were more or less panic-stricken at the thought. There is very little doubt that in the earlier stages numerous cases were diagnosed as pneumonia, and the cause of death attributed to that malady, while the real sons et origo mali was plague pure and simple.

As time went on, experts began to flock into Bombay from all the known quarters of the A HOTBED OF PLAGUE BOMB A Y 7 habitable globe, and were busy from morn till eve in the laboratories cultivating bacilli in bouillon. Chemists, scientists, bacteriologists, experts, were as plentiful in our city as leaves on Vallombrosa. The theories started were practically endless. To one it was sea-borne — to another earth-borne — to another water-borne — to another land-borne. To another, since it began in Mandvie, the centre of the wheat and seed bazaar, bad grain was its alma mater. To another rats were the culprits ; — in fact, Quot homines tot sententiæ. The daily papers teemed with letters, scientific articles, theories ; and yet the plague calmly pursued the even tenor of its way and decimated the population.

Eventually, after almost endless discussion and ventilation of the matter, it was unanimously agreed that filth and want of sanitation were, if not the actual germinants, at any rate all-im portant factors in the spread and propagation of the epidemic. The fiat went forth that cleanliness was as good if not better than godliness, and we set to work, one and all, to purge, purify and whitewash Bombay the Bubonic. The slums of the city, even to one not ignorant of the homes of the submerged tenth in our own metropolis, are a new and terrible experience. The quarters of the lower and poorer classes of the natives in Bombay are scarcely to be described. One instance will serve : A party of volunteers with a hose were washing and disinfecting a chawl (native tenement house), the only entrance to which was down a gully (in the centre of which ran an open drain), so narrow that one could with difficulty squeeze through.

At the end of this was a rat-hole of a place, pitch dark, and about eight feet square. The hose was turned on, and fearful and THROUGH THE FAMINE DISTRICTS 8 diabolical yells arose in the far corner of this black-hole of Bombay. A light was brought, and an old woman, a mere bundle of rags, was discovered crouching in the corner, and emitting a stream of ear-splitting screams. The place was entirely without means of light or ventilation, and the state of affairs revealed by the lantern was simply indescribable. There were a couple of old battered cooking pots ; and this kennel which one would have offered with some feelings of compunction to a pariah dog, had served this ancient beldame as a home, in which she had lived, slept, cooked and fed for several months past. This is only one solitary instance, but 'twill serve.

Can one therefore be surprised that the bubonic plague, which is supposed to be the outcome of defective sanitation, should have taken such a hold upon the city when it can find such places as the above in which to batten, fester and ferment. Government at last took in hand what the municip ality, with all its vaunted ideas of progress and the advance of civilization, had been found absolutely in capable of coping with. Such a crisis required a Cromwell, and the man arose in General Gatacre, who, as President of the Plague Committee, took the bull by the horns. The measures adopted, aided by the advent of the hot weather, succeeded in eventually scotching the pest. The Angel of Death, however, had been very busy in our midst, and the mortality had been enormous. When a case occurred or proved fatal, a circle was placed on the door-post of the house, and in one house alone the number of rings shown adds up to forty-three.

There was also an oart or square where this number was exceeded. It is without my province to describe the various scenes and episodes that took place in Bombay BOMB A Y 9 during the raging of the plague. Suffice it to say that all the open spaces and lungs of the city were devoted to the hutting and housing of the various castes and peoples. Hospitals sprung up on all sides like mush rooms in a single night. The wail of the mourners was heard on every side, and one could not pass down a street without meeting one or more funeral procession. The burning ghauts were strained to their utmost capacity, and the Mahommedan burial-grounds could not hide beneath the earth sufficiently fast the Moslem victims. On Mahim sands, if in ordinary times you ride out there in the early morning, you may generally find the dying embers of one fire.

In the times of the plague the whole sea-shore was clothed with the fires of innumerable funeral pyres. People who have lived through these times can scarcely refrain from shuddering at the sad thoughts and remembrances which memory recalls. The plague in Bombay has left an almost indelible mark upon the commerce and enterprise of that afore time thriving commercial centre. The export, and indeed the import trade has dwindled to almost nothing, while the check to the native mill industry has been such that it will take some years to recover. God grant that the dread disease has made its final exit, and may not be recurrent. There are, however, great fears that the present monsoon will see a recrudescence of the fell epidemic. Let us hope that the exponents of this theory will prove false prophets.1 1 I regret to say that since this was written, from advices received from Bombay, the plague has shown strong signs of recrudescence, and in addition to this, that cholera has broken out in the native quarters of the doomed city. The death-roll has again risen, and the arrival of the monsoon has not tended to mitigate the evils.

Chapter II The Start

Ox the thirteenth of January in this present year I was at Santa Cruz, assisting at a function of the banquet description, given by the jovial sportsmen of Bombay who compose the Jackal Club. Even though plague be raging in the city, the young and ardent of the European contingent must kill something, and the pursuit with horse and hound of the wily jackal in the plains and jungles of Salsette affords at this season of the year the handiest means of breaking your neck. Every " cold weather " a camp is formed about twelve miles from Bombay, and here the hounds meet twice a week in the grey and early dawn. Many of us prefer on the eve of hunting-days to sleep out there under canvas ; and this will account for my presence in the camp. While at dinner, a belted c/iupprassie of the Bombay Gazette silently crept to my side and thrust a note into my hand, saying — "Answer wanted, sahib."' Thinking that it was a mere request for more copy, or some trifle of that description, I ordered the man to baito — i. e. sit, wait — and went on with the more important business of dining.

When I opened the note I found the following — BY THE SAD SEA WAVE. Burning Plague Piitiails on Mahim Smith.) THE START 11 Dear M. " Reuter wants a man to do the Famine ; if you care for the job, see W. — Yours, G. C. P." W. was Reuter's manager, and the note was from the editor of the Bombay Gazette ; so telling the messenger, Tumara sahib ko baliut saiaam-boio — which being inter preted means, " Tell your sahib I have received the chit, and am much obliged, and will see about it when I have any spare time," — and a few other things of that sort, which the florid imagination of the messenger may dictate, I turned in. Since the failure of the monsoon the previous Sep tember, we in India had been fully aware that a very intense and extended famine would result. The Indian papers had already sent out their " Own Specials," and the Lord Mayor's Fund at home was rolling up daily.

The English press, however, had as yet taken no steps, and their supineness was a matter of surprise to the coterie of press-men in Bombay. In the famine of 1876, India was flooded with a crowd of English correspondents, and the Press Commissioner, whose office had not been abolished in those days, was worked off his legs in his attempts to please all parties. By parenthesis, judging from the sedition which at the time of this writing is rampant in various centres of the Bombay Presidency, a censorship of the native press would not only be expedient, but seems an absolute necessity. The re organization of this important office would be a right step in the direction of repressing the hot-headed fanatics who are stirring up sedition. The sad murder of my poor friend Lieutenant Ayerst, and the death of Mr. Rand, have led me into this digression, but let me get back to my own personal affairs.

I called upon the manager of Reuter the next morning, and having settled matters to our mutual satisfaction, it was determined that I was to travel through the districts in India affected by famine, and from the chief centres send telegrams to England, report ing upon the state of affairs. It did not take me long to arrange my business, so that the world should not cease to revolve during my absence, and the following evening, in company with my faithful servant Domenico, I started by the mail-train to Poona, in search of famine. In concluding this chapter, I beg leave to crave a slight indulgence from my readers, if any. I hope that they will pardon the too-oft recurrence of that wretched unit, the personal pronoun I. Please remember that these are the personal experiences of a man who, like Ulysses, saw many lands and peoples during his wander ings ; and so free me from the charge of egoism, and accept my account as what has been heard and seen by Reuter's Special Correspondent.

Chapter III Satara With

my start by the Poona Mail, on January 15, began my peregrinations in search of famine and starvation, which led me to a tour through India of some 4500 miles in extent and some seven weeks in duration. By the help of my friends and colleagues of the Times of India, I had mapped out a route to which I more or less adhered in my travels. It had been decided that I should first exhaust the possibilities of the Bombay Presidency, and having heard that there was great scarcity prevailing in the Southern Mahratta country, I made Satara, an important cantonment at the foot of the Mahableshwar hills, my first point of attack. Arriving at Poona in the early dawn, I had just time to dash across to the station of the Southern Mahratta Railway, and take my place before the train crept out of the station.

After the roomy carriages and huge engines of the G. I. P.,1 those of this line, which is constructed on the metre gauge, seemed a mere toy. They were however to be more or less my home for the next ten days, and I got quite to love their tiny daintiness. After having passed Wathar, the station at which you disembark when en route to the hill-station of Mahableshwar, to which the Government goes for the 1 Great Indian Peninsular. '3 hot weather, we shortly after noon ran into the station of Satara Road. The city is about ten miles distant, and is accessible by means of dawk tongas; I shall have to make frequent use of the term dawk, so I may as well here explain it. Dawk means a stage, and to lay a dawk means to arrange for a relay of ponies from one place to another. A tonga is a two-wheeled cart, somewhat in the style of a Battlesden cart, in which the passenger takes a back seat.

A couple of wiry native ponies are harnessed to a pole in the fashion that prevails at the Cape. These rats of ponies are really wonderful, and what with hard work and hard fare are marvels of endurance. A dawk bungalow is a rest house, the property of Government, where, when en voyage, the traveller may put up, paying a fixed charge of a rupee a day and making arrangements with the khansammah or attendant for his messing. You are provided with bare furniture and necessaries, but have to bring with you your own bedding. You see, there fore, every traveller in India provided with a huge roll of bedding, consisting of a resai, or wadded quilt blankets, and the usual sheets, pillows, etc., which he uses either while sleeping in the train or in the dawk bungalow. Hotels only exist in the large cities, and the further you get off the beaten track the more uncomfortable the traveller's bungalows become.

After a hot and dusty drive, the city of Satara, with its celebrated fort crowning the hill and dominating the town, appeared in the plains below, and in due course the dawk bungalow was reached. Immediately on arrival I sent for the bazaar-master, and also for the dawk-wallah, an intelligent Parsee, who gave me some of the information I required. I found that though DESERTED BOMBAY SATARA 15 there was no actual starvation in the city, yet the prices of the staple food-stuffs had risen enormously, and that the poorer classes were feeling the pinch. Jowari and bajri, the principal grains, which in normal times were sold at twenty to twenty-two seers to the rupee, were now being sold at six or seven. Fodder too was very dear, having gone up 300 per cent., and the natives were selling their cattle for what they would fetch.

On the last bazaar-day, bullocks which in ordinary times were worth from fifteen to twenty rupees were sold for two or three. I then sallied forth to call upon the Collector and the principal civilians of the station. I found however that, with the exception of the policeman (and he too was going out the following day), all the civil officers of the place were out in the district. I then went on to the mess of the native regiment, where I hoped to find my old friends of the Tenth Bombay Infantry. They too had gone to another station, and so, having left my cards on their successors the Third, I returned to mine inn. I had not arrived long before Lieut. Rosemale- Cocq, the adjutant, rode up, and very kindly offered to put me up, an invitation which I gladly accepted. A note shortly came from the district policeman, saying he would be glad if I would go out with him to his camp at Atit the following morning, and that a few miles beyond his camp there were at Kahsil large relief works which I might like to inspect.

I accepted and sent for the Parsee, who managed to lay a dawk for me to Kahsil for the following morning. I then went out into the bazaar, and made arrangements with a Goanese photographer to accompany me with his camera. After dinner my host sent for a couple of his sepoys, and treated me to an exhibition of native wrestling, which was curious and interesting. He is writing a brochure on the subject, and is no mean exponent of the pastime himself. It seems there are two methods, the friendly and unfriendly system. In the latter the object is to disable your opponent as quickly as possible, and I was shown several tricks by means of which the arm, leg, neck, or even back of your adversary may be broken. I believe neck or back constitute what in sporting parlance is called "a knock-out." It would in all probability bring matters to a crisis, if not to a conclusion.