THE FIGHTING MEN OF INDIA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10598, 29 October 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE FIGHTING MEN OF INDIA.

(By Frank G. Carpenter.) The troubles in India continue. All is quiet upon the surface, but. every now and tli»n a homb is thrown, a con<*pn ic\ uneaithed, that shows the volcano beneath Since I have been here the aiiaichisnc organisations have made attempts upon the lives of many offiriik trams have been wrecked, and the most barbarous plots unearthed. Sevei.il bombs have been,thrown at the Viceioj and no high official is safe. In the main the natives are quiet, but the unrest seems- increasing and an\ international complications m winch' Great"' Britain takes part may precipitate trouble. ' , On my way to Calcutta I travelled I with General Pole-Carew, a well-known.] British officer. In speaking cf the army, he said''Our Indian, troops will be loval enough, as long as England is in the | ascendancy and her power m the Far | East predominant.. If we should have trouble with *finy other nation, such as Russia, for instance, and should meet with defeat,, there would be dangei that tlie' Indian army would fly to the woiship of the rising sun. As it is now we hold India because it is a continent ol many nations lather than one The peoples'are such that thev cannot combine. The membeis of the various castes hate one anothei. The races will not mix and the leiigious sects, if left alone, would fight to the death. It is m this that oui s.ifetj lies " Said another gencial whom I met here at Calcutta:— . "It the Bntish lulo wcie iemo\ecL

ior a' week India ■ would- be anarchy. The Mohammedans would swoop down loot "arid, mass.acro the Jtpwrisiof .Bongal, v The only salvation- for India is in a strong Power at the.head; and we manage our array by keeping, the castes 'and sects in such divisions that.* tliey '■ cannot combine. "We learned that during the Sepoy rebellion; and shall ■never forget it." I am told-that the agitatorsare doing 'all they can to stir up' sedition in, the army.. Anarchistic •„ publications ;aresmuggled- flito' the native, barracks,, and;iittempts made to, create dissatisfaction 'among "■ tile soldiers. So far this liasyheen in vain.,- The soldiers are loyal r aiid stick to the British. Nevertheless,' they are thinking; and thinking hard.,/.[The Japanese-Paissian war. was.'-watched and discussed in the barracks.;, and it was a great surprise that thC---Japnnese defeated the Russians. ";ti;";was t];e defeat of the white man by 'the'.ib'rown man, and. the question among the'' fighting class is, if the Japs were victorious why should not"the-..East .In-, ■'idiaiv be so in some great, war. of the future? On the other hand, the rajahs appreciate the conditions that would obtain should the ■ army? as now constituted, be dissolved. One of the northern chiefs; who controls a population' larger tliah : .,-that of Great Britain, recently ■ s'ai-d:'. '."' ', "I » should 'like to see the British leave India. If they did I would take hall' a dozen regiments-: and -.within three weeks there' would, iiot;«b'e a.:rtwoanria bit left on the plains of the Ganges. We would loot the Bengal'ese and capture their women. I tell you it would be .sport.-" England's hold upon India, is the wonder of colonial Governments. She has.here a combination of the most turbulent and most peaceful 'peoples on earth. She has some whose religion teaches them it is their duty and business to fight arid plunder their fellows; and millions who have feuds with each.other and wlio would fight to the death did they not fear the strong arm of the British. Nevertheless she controls the country with a military force which averages much less than one soldier to each thousand people. India has altogether 300,000,000, and the total army, including both British and natives, is only .236.000. This is scattered all over the peninsula. There are eight divisions in. the north, a large part of which guards the' frontier, and there are four divisions in the south, as well as the troops in Buririah and a garrison at Aden, Arabia. ■ . . ■ ■ The army, all told, would be small, even if the country .were homogeneous and peaceful. It is nothing in coniparison:Swith;'the great forces which are. forming in Europe'and in the Far East. If "Thdiaj'had as many soldiers in proportion to population as Japan has on a peace footing, its' army would nuinber::3,QoO;oQP, -and"-"if on a war footing it would before than 12,000,000. The Germans have I per cent, of their whole population under iarms, and in times of war they could put 5 per cent, of it into the field. At the same ratio India could have 15,000,000 under arms in the great wars of the' future, and the only power that might possibly surpass her in numbers would be the Chinese, who, at the same rate could muster, perhaps, 3,000,000 moic. The Indian army was made over 1 y Lord Kitchener. I met him about a year ago here at Calcutta, when lie was still in charge of the troops. He speaks highly of the soldiers as a lighting force and savs they are loyal to the Government, 'although attempts have been made to corrupt them. Lord Kitchener, when he came to India about eiijht years ago, iouud three armies, each confined to one part of the country. He consolidated these and mobilised them. He made nine divisions, each oi winch has its own general and sta/f. These were organised lor war and each could take the field intact, leaving enough troops behind to maintain order. v Ever} division lias its own transport and supph arrangements, and the divisional generals have great autluuity. At the same time additional oJhceis were appointed, and a military college instituted to supply others. Loid Kitchener reorganised the cavalry and infantry as well as the other departments, and it v. as during his administration that the army proper was divided from the department <-i military supplies. ~ ~ xi The officers here tell mo that the armv is the best paying asset in England's schedule ol East Indrin investments. It is kept up without taxing ihc peonlc at Home, and it gives a big {i"htiiig force: which can be shnted to anv pait ot the world under order. It was nsnd against the Bocis, and also m China ot the time of the Boxer rebellion. In case of an Asiatic way ol any desc-iption it would be invaluable, and upon -the whole it makes India worth Lai- more than it costs. This is especially so, as the Hindus paj the total ex- ' pontes of the miTilaij supplies and o, the soldiers. The cost amounts to something like £20,00,000 a year, but this is all raised by >thc taxation of Hindustan. The army is not extravagantly kept from a western standpoint. Tlw native soldiers receive something like 8s or 12s per month, which is good pay for this part of the world. Moreover, those who remain in the service for a fixed length of time are retired on a pension of 2id a day, and therefore can luxuriate for the rest of their-lives.. In addition to the army, India has a large civil nolice. Every town has its local watchman, and every city is patrolled by police with clubs m their hands. The local village police ag-■ri-poate something like 700,000 men, and this would be baldly enough to give one to each \illage. In addition there are thousands in the cities, and I on the whole order is fairly well kept The- thugs and other castes, who," in times past, made a business' and leh'gion of murder and stealing, have been wiped' out. but there are still armed gangs who now and -then go about committing lobbery and housebreaking.' - - - .' Every place has' its own police .station and arrangements for patrol day -and night. In the larger towns .there are police commissioners and at the stations lists ."are" kept erf released consuspected characters, and .habitual offenders. Such parties are carefully watched, and- ,whcn . they move their reputations go with them to form -p.aft .of-the'black list of their new rcsiMJpo'ii) such" lists, are the descendants of tlie thugs and members 'of the other castes who formerly made crime a business. There "are many of these. The Kurn Marus are piofessional thieves and pickpockets. They teach thenchildren to steal and lie out of it. Ihey /burglarise bouses, not through the doors or windows, but by digging through the mud walls with instruments" made for the purpose. The thugs have about disappeared, bavins been hunted down by the police like wild beasts. They were a caste or ] baud of hereditary assassins who first~t strangled and then robbed their vie- ,

i tims. They had maps' of the country with murder stations marked upon I thorn,- at which places one could kill j with least danger of discovery; They I billed by wholesale. In one of the trials !a certain thug confessed that he had been engaged in 900 murders. The road poisoneis of to-daj are said to be the descendants of or allied to the'thugs Thci woik in small gangs, following the pilgrims and tiavellers and \ using that they may be able to 10b and make their escape. One ot tho most common diugs is mix vomica, and another is tho native dlii»tuia, which pioduces insensibility and death. l"he latter comes fiom a plant common all over the countiy. It i 3 one of the famous poisons of ancient India, which kills without trace. Ono it tho inrst noted poisoneis of lecont times used xhis drug He was a policeman, who had learned the tiade in gaol At his trial he confessed that ho had poisoned hundieds of people, and hj" f,a\c the details of sixty-nuie mui-

Oers ... Poisoning has alwajs flounshed m I India The legends of the gods are i lull of the custom, and love chainia and d -atli chaims may still bo bought. 'J ho t-imieis used to poison cattle foi then hides bj placing arsenic m thou feeding troughs; and within recent times an attempt Was made to poison a.i official with diamond dust mixed v ith aisenic. Thoic arc traditions ot pimccs and pnncesscs who have been poisonedl>> envenomed jobes like that of Nessus.

Until \ciy rccenth c lie of the most Iciim-io" ciimes in Indm has been m- | laiiiio'de It is still piacticed in some localities, being most pievalent ot the times of famines. Such infants are usually girls. Many of tlie Hindus h )k upon tho bnth of a female child as .( cui.se, and by census taken not long asyi it was shown that of the gnls uiivl >i 12 veais of ago of ceitain castes, ab( ut 10 in cveij 1000 wcie missing. This would mean tho killing of four j,irls ia a hundred, a large percentage, indeed.

Among the Rajputs of Northern India the surplus female children were once destroyed at birth, and I am told that this still occurs now and then. In and about Benares there is tradition that if a girl baby be drowned in milk it may come into the family next year as a baby boy. Such beliefs made infanticide common in many parts of India until the British Administration took hold. Ono authority relates, that, in, some of the tribes of "Oudh not morn than one in twenty of the baby girls were allowed to live, and many castes and tribes threw their surplus of children into wells or tied them to trees, where their eyes wore picked out by the crows. In the upper Ganges valley tlie British had to pass special laws for the clans supposed to bo.addicted to child murder. The police 'were set on them, and they were heavily taxed until their proportion of gu'ls corresponded to that of the rest of tho countiy. Even to-day, everywhere throughout India girls are less vjrizod than boys, and the girl baby is not as well cared for as her baby brother: She is not as well fed and not as. well treated in sickness.

Law and order now 7 mean more in Inthan in any other country of Asia, with the exception, perhaps, of Japan. There' arc courts everywhere, and every native has the right to bring suit. The Hindus are fond of the law, and they spend freely in defending their rights. Something like 2,000,00.0 civil cases arc ■ instituted each- year. The officers of the courts number almost 9000, and the civil justices and the majority of the magistrates are natives. There are many trials by native juries, and the native lawyers, who usually are graduates of the universities, are both able and efficient. There is a regular system of appeal courts, and in_ Madras, Bombay, Bengal, and the iinited provinces -'.there are supreme high courts; which have the right of appeal to the Privy Council in England.