The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-08 00:00:00

THE INDIGO RIOTS IN INDIA.

A letter from Calcutta, dated March 31, says,—
These indigo riots threaten consequences so serious
that your readers may be obliged to me for a short
sketch of the causes which have produced them.
Almost the whole of Bengal, as you are aware, is in
the hands of a limited number of landowners,
whose estates vary from 5,000 square miles—the
Dinagepore zemindaree is more than that—to 50.
These zemindars aro not, however, landlords in the
English sense, for their tenants are equally with
themselves proprietors. The mass of them cannot
be turned out while they pay their rent, Accord-
ingly, the speculator who wants to grow indigo, in-
stead of buying land and hiring labour, as he would
in Europe, buys the right to these rents. Some-
times he buys out the iemindar altogether. This
has been done in Tirhoot, and, owing to this and
some other causes, the European landlords and
their peasantry are in that district in accord. No
clubmen •are employed, and the' landowners can
turn out their people to assist the police. In other
cases the planters only hold of the zemindars. This
is the case at Krishnaghur, where the Europeans
own three-fifths of the soil, but still do not hold di-
rectly of the Crown. The indirect influence of the

zemindar. stillremains very great. Having no labour
and no land in occupancy, the planter has to induce
the riots to cultivate their land with the article he
wants. For half a century his plan for effecting this
end has been to induce his tenantry to take advances.
For every rupee so taken the ryot has to furnish
from four to eight bundles of indigo. The peasant,
from the beginning, never liked the indigo, for two
reasons—it requires minute attention and excessive
exertion in cutting time, and it is a "gambling
crop," i.e. the difference of return in different years
is excessive. Under the advance system the whole
risk is borne by the peasint. If his crop is large he
prospers, but if it is bad his advance debt runs into
the following year, and he has to cultivate next
time without any money at all. Still an advance
of capital without interest was tempting, and while
rice was low the indigo was, on the whole, a fair
cultivation. For the past six years, however, while
the price of rice has been steadily rising, the de-
mand for seeds has been enormously on the increase.
l'he rate for indigo remained unchanged, and the
peasant therefore found that he was often using his
land to pay off an old debt at a low price per bundle,
while he might have gained a high profit on his
rice or seeds. As a matter of course he tried to shirk,
and equally aia, matter of course the planter insisted
on his bundles of plant. If he found the ryot obsti-
nate, the planter sowed the land himself, frequently
being attacked by the villagers during the opera-
tion. This is the root of the " club or lattial
system," the planter keeping clubmen to protect
the cultivation. At last, prices continuing to rise,
the peasantry became more menacing in their
tone, and recently beset the Lieutenant-Governor
with petitions. Mr. Grant replied, stating that
they must work if they contracted to work, but
they could make contracts or not as they liked.
Mr. Eden, magistrate of Baraset, indignant at what
he thought oppression, or, as the Olanters say, de-
testing the interlopers, circulated a paragraph of
Mr. Grant's letter among the police. Police and
people took it to mean that Government disap-
proved the cultivation of indigo, and a sudden strike
followed. The news spread, and in a few days the
cultivation of indigo had stopped is Krishnaghur,
Moorshedabad, Baraset, and Jessore. A few fac-
tories, owned directly by Europeans, kept on ; but
the peasantry at once threatened the workmen
with death, and beat them severely as earnest of
their intentions. To put down mutiny among their
own order they moved in large masses with clubs,
and, of course, we all know the danger from an ex-
cited mob. In a few days they commenced menac-
ing the Europeans. In one factory the assistants
were clubbed; in another the stacks were burnt
down; in a third Mr. Lyons was compelled to call
the crew of a steamer to his aid, and shoot down
five of the mob. In all there was the certainty of
immediate insolvency. If the seed was not sown
by May the crop—a million sterling—would be
lost, and advances of a million sterling more irre-
trievably. sacrificed. The planters, therefore, ap-
plied to Government for aid.
In any other contry the civil courts could have
protected both parties. In Bengal, however, the
civil courts aro mere devices for delaying justice. It
takes from seven to 15 months to get a suit on the
file. The India-house can produce elaborate tables
showing that the average of delay is five or three
months. Those tables are quite truthful, only the
delay is calculated from the first hearing, which
may be a year after the first application to be heard.
Moreover, the special cases involved were too nu-
merous. Mr. Forlong, for example, agent for a
London company, has 19,000 separate cash con-
tracts out. All the Courts in Bengal could not
settle them in five years, and resort to Government
was unavoidable.

Government was very unwilling to move. The
chief officials said, justly enough, the peasants
would never resist a profitable trade, and an un-
profitable one had better die. Last week, however,
the reports from the magistrates became alarming.
One known to be favourable to the ryots reported
that the outrages revealed gave no adequate idea of
the excitement, and that the peasantry were re-
fusingds, native as well as
querie at all hazards,
orders arrived from
ELord
op
ce
aar
nne nn. n
At
go t t
ot t hhs eet
spl
aa
mna de oa timere
and Mr. Wilson represented the folly of allowing a
grand trade to disappear at the mandate of pea-
sants whom the loss of that very trade would im-
poverish. The Government gave way, and on the
24th inst. a bill to preserve indigo contracts was
introduced.

and does not sow indigo,
It provides that any man who has received cash
theind
advance and imprisoned.
isagob,reach of contract, or omAnna
may be
rbmoemafini sneientdso
tfi.
gvo
times
spoil-
ing a growing crop, may be imprisoned for six
months. It also provides for:a:commission of in-
question, and put plan-
tersii!rYan to investigate
i.yo This commission
will comprise a civilian, a planter, a merchant,
ts
alike the
on
oath.
and a native, Mr. Yule, the hunting commissioner
(
of Bhaugulpore, and one of the most trusted men
in India, being, I believe, the civilian. At the same
time, large bodies of military police and irregular
cavalry were ordered into the district to support
the law. The Act expires on the 24th of Septem-
ber, the object being simply to gain time. How
far it will be effectual we do not yet know. The
belief here is that the ryots will yield. By the last
accounts they are represented as declaring that Go-
vernment has betrayed them ; that, after ordering
them to discontinue sowing, it imprisons them for
obeying its orders—a remark which, as the expres-
sion of angry feeling, very likely was made. If
they do not yield, the cultivation is at an end, for
all the Acts in the world will not enable half a dozen

magistrates to imprison two or three milli-6ns of
people.
On the merits of the quarrel, opinion will be, of
course, divided. The planters admit that their rates
were too low, and explain their adherence to them
by the known difficulty of altsriug a ." dustoor."
There is no doubt, also, that the factory managers
(natives) used to oppress the people. If the gm/lash-
tsh was well fee'd, he drew the measuring chain
lightly round the bundles., If he were not, he could
pull the bundle to half its size. He always took, too,
a very heavy " dustooree" on advances ; i.e., in plain
English, he stole 20 per cent. So well is this known
among the natives that the men of one factory
agreed to yield if the European would deal with them
personally, and dismiss his native agent. Oa the
other hand, a Bengalee ryot is the most tiling of
human beings. He is always doing small swindles,
and he regards the " kottree, or factory, as an entity
it is his moral duty to cheat. In the particular
case he had, moreover, no right to refuse to cultivate
and refuse to repay advances at the same time,
while his trick of combining for violence brings him
always into conflict with goodorder. The commis-
sion of inquiry will do infinite good, and its appoint-
ment is a curious lesson to, all official men. It is
now seven years since the non-official class in Ben-
gal, headed by Mr. Macleod Wylie and some lead-
ing missionaries, demanded an inquiry into' the
condition of the peasantry of Bengal. One of their
petitions was presented to the House of Commons
by the member for Perth, and caused au animated
debate. Mr. liinnaird even then, in nahearing,
-pointed out the possibility of it Acquerze, aia was
told from the Ministerial benches that the people
alone were to blame because they were too cowardly
to resist. An argument of the same kind was read
from a minute by Mr. Doran, late member of Coun
eil, and elicited from Lord John Russell the sharp,
andois events have proved, wise remark, that men
with such opinions ought not to be members of
Council.
I do not think the movement politically danger-
ous as yet. The true ground for apprehension is lest
the ryots, aware that they have obtained redress by
strikes," should follow up their new policy to a dan-
gerous extent. Some of the rice cultivators have
grievances to which those of the indigo growers are
trifles, and they are very likely to imitate their
brethren. A new Bengalee dictionary of law tchrms
is just out. I find in it a single word, marocha, to
express the illegal fee a zemindar exacts from the
ryot on his marriage. Only imagine the universality
of an oppression like that before a people would in-
vent a word to express it ! The ryot knows that
this tax is unjust just as well- as the Lieutenant-
Governor, and the moment he dares he will throw
that burden and a good many others off his shoulders.
Your readers may comprehend how inefficient parts
of our administration are when I say that every
official in the country understands these illegal cesses,
reports about them, deplores them, and is utterly
powerless to afford the people he professes to govern
even the appearance of a remedy. If a man does
not pay, the zemindar's clubmen beat him nearly to
death. If he complains, the court takes three
months to inquire; and intermediately he is kid-
napped and tortured till he acknowledges that his
charge is a false one. The records are crowded with
such cases ; and then we wonder the peasantry hate
the rich and have a " latent tendency to turbise
lence." I should like to analyse the " latent ten-
dencies" of labourers in Norfolk under those cir-
cumstances. There can be no doubt whatever that
the peasantry of Bengal, though yearly better off iv.
point of means, do suffer a most unreasonable amount
of oppression without the chance of legal redress.
It is just possible that Government, warned by its
present difficulty, may take steps to remove the
causes of discontent, but [ confess I have little hope.
I have watched the course of legislation here for 12
years, and with the exception of Mr. Currie's Rent
Law, which abolished the legal right of the zemindar
to flog a tenant to death if he would not attend
cutcherry, I have never seen anything done for the
peasantry. The trader is jealousy protected, the
artisan is carefully taught ; but the ryot in India,
as in England, is left to his landlord, and the land-
lord thinks the less he is " elevated" the easier he
is to manage.