The Portland daily press., 1895-05-18
VILLAGE CoMMUNEs OF INDIA.
A System of Communism That Has En-
dured Thousands of Years.


[James MACPHERSON in the Country Gentle
mani
L concluded letter descriptive of In
dla in your paper some time ago with
the statement that the whole sociology
of India rests on the village commune :"
Now l have read what you have to say
IN your last issue about state FARMS :"
and L quite agree with you that the idea
is ''senseless. But the village in India
Is entirely unlike any of the experiments
you describe, inasmuch as the conditions
are so natural and simple that the village
community is merely big farmers fam
lily working under varying conditions !;
but with fairly favoring ones probably
as ancient and successful as anything of
the communistic kind anywhere.
Communism in land is probably entire
ly impossible under so called civilized
governments. Such governments
launched their populationsson an entirely
different course-for good or for evil, ard
they must work out their salvation on
lines which are difficult to foresee or un-
derstand All the governments L believe
i retain eminent domain, and should the
necessity become paramount, the individ-
ual CT the community would speedily
find that individual ownership would
count for little, and that compensation
for property taken would be considered
tardily, if at all. do not need to fol-
low thIs4ine of thought any further, or
give instances in point; they will occur
at once.
This, then, is at least survival of COM
munism in land and other property
survival of the joint ownership, which
seems to have been universal in the
ealrier stages of civilization, but which
has been built upon and developed more
naturally and perfectly in Asiatic coun-
tries than anywhere else, although Afri-
ca and even Mexico can show abundant
examples AS passed several years as
a near neighbor of very fourishing
hill village in India, it may possibly in
the advantages and disadvantages of
their system.
I will dispose of the disadvantages first
by saying that the system seems to be q
leveling one-that is to say, no man in
their communities seems to be permitted
to "put on airs" OF arrogate to himself
any greater share of the common wealth
than his fellows-not even the great and
reputedly wealthy "Gowdahs, who by
common consent are at once high priests,
mayors, treasurers and general "Pooh
Bahs, F." they live in Just the same kind
of house. eat the same food, dress in the
same clothes, and are not in any way dis
tinguishable from the rest, except perhaps
by wafer or mark on the forehead, their
Brahminical cord, and sometimes by a
certain dignity of mien and consciousness
of power, inseparable from their ac-
| knowledged superiority as leader. These
villages contain from 20 to so or more
people, and in the various provinces and
among the various peoples with their
varying religious customs and conditions,
many less favorable examples and many
more favorable examples and many more
favorable than I am about to describe
doubtless occur. The Budagha village Of
Coonoor contained about 200 souls when
I lived near it from 1864 to 1869. They
followed mixed husbandry; they had
probably 1000 or more acres partly in
grass, and portion always in fallow; ;
they kept large herds of cattle and butfa-
los-not bison; large number of them
were skilled mechanics-carpenters in
this partic ular village.
They had superb climate, perpetual
grazing, the purest of pure water, and
only moderately arabic land, for like all
hill land it was more or less washed and
quilted They raised enough grain and
opium and tobacco for their wants-never
too much opium that 1 could discover;
they had plenty of wild fruits; they used
an ounce of meat; they sold any surplus
over and above the granary stores, always
set aside for dry or famine season.
Their younger men woll.ad all round
for the government, for the planters and
for the European residents of the hill
stations; they did this when they were
at liberty from their own crops. When
crops were on hand, you could hardly get
a 'Budagha" for love or money; their
women could not be hired under any Cir
cumstances. They attended to the house,
the babies, and worked in the fields mostly
ly at the wedding. They were rich, we'll
to-do, well nourished "heathen. 2" May
be they would steal, but they were GER
tainly never found out. They had no
poor-no poorhouse. The idlers, the loaf
ers, the aged, the infrm, were provided
with some congenial occupation, if only
sitting in the sun soaring birds.
This is an approximation to systematic
communism in land. No one probably,
can tell how many thousands of years it
has obtained, but in some variety, very
nearly on this model, it has become uni
versal iu Asia, and continues to survive,
in spite of conquests in spite Of superior
civilizations being imposed upon it,
There is pprobably village there against
every family here. 1 have heard Hindoos
on the lecture platform in London, and
in America, too, bewail the fact that