INDIA. 



433 



of the non-official members from one tLird to 

 one half of the Council, which would still leave 

 the Government with a working majority, since 

 it could never provoke the united opposition 

 of the non-official members. The army ought, 

 in the opinion of the Congress, to be excluded 

 from the Council, and the introduction of the 

 elective principle in choosing the non- official 

 members of the councils of the Viceroy and 

 the provincial governors was suggested. The 

 proposition for introducing the elective method 

 was as cautious as the other resolutions of the 

 Congress. It is proposed that, after the electo- 

 ral college has been constituted with due pre- 

 cautions from the municipal councils, cham- 

 bers of commerce, and other representative 

 bodies, it shall be subjected to the scrutiny and 

 revision of the Government, which would sup- 

 ply the representation of classes that have been 

 passed over or are inadequately represented by 

 nominating additional members. The Con- 

 gress reaffirmed the resolution adopted in 1886, 

 when Russian aggression in Afghanistan drew 

 from the leading potentates of the feudatory 

 states the offer of a million sterling and their 

 armies, asking the Government to authorize a 

 system of volunteering. The Congress pointed 

 out that the age of mercenaries is over in Eu- 

 rope, that England must depend in a great 

 struggle on the fighting-men among her own 

 subjects, and that India can furnish wliat Eng- 

 land chiefly lacks, that is, numbers. The dele- 

 gates were of various minds in regard to a 

 resolution requesting the repeal of the arms act, 

 some thinking the prohibition to carry arms a 

 slnr on the loyalty of the people.'others wish- 

 ing to avoid so delicate a subject, and others 

 still insisting on the practical hardships of the 

 people whose lives are exposed to wild 1 

 whose cattle are killed by thousands, and whose 

 crops are destroyed by wild boars, and a reso- 

 lution was adopted in favor of transferring the 

 licensing authority from the Central Govern- 

 ment to the municipal and rural councils. 



In April a meeting of Mohammedans was 

 held at Madras to protest against the National 

 Congress and express regret at the prospective 

 departure of Lord Dufferin. who had shown a 

 desire to promote the welfare of all classes and 

 sympathy with the Moslem community. Anti- 

 Congress meetings were held at Peshawur, 

 Dacca, and other places, where Mohammedans 

 condemned the movement as dangerous. The 

 fourth National Congress mot in Allahabad. 

 the capital of the Northwest Provinces, in De- 

 cember, 1888. 



Marriage-Reform Movement. The movement 

 for the reform of the Hindoo customs of infant 

 marriage and enforced celibacy of widows is 

 not merely an extraneous agitation carried on 

 by Europeans, but has many adherents among 

 educated Indians from the classes that chiefly 

 follow these practices, viz.. the higher Brahmin 

 and Rajput castes, for neither custom is prac- 

 tised by the lower classes of the people. In 

 Bengal, among every 1,000 girls between the 

 VOL. xxvni. 28 A 



ages of five and nine, 271 are provided with 

 husbands, and 11 are widows, doomed to an 

 unhappy position of isolation and ignominy. 

 There are about 1.000, 00<> girl-widows among 

 the Hindoo population. Among the high caste 

 every female child becomes a wife, and many 

 are widows, before reaching their fourteenth 

 year. The custom of enforced celibacy is 

 closely connected with the liability of the hus- 

 band's heirs to provide that no woman of the 

 family should be without a home, and that of 

 early marriage on the requirements of the 

 Brahmanical religion which make it a father's 

 duty to secure protectors for his daughters. 

 The customs of infant marriage and perpetual 

 celibacy in themselves have no sanction in the 

 Veda, but they were enjoined by religious 

 teachers of mediaeval times, and are considered 

 to have a religious sanction by the great ma- 

 jority of the priests. A large sect of the 

 Brahman caste, which represents advanced 

 thought and supplies the intellectual leaders of 

 the people, is strongly in favor of reform, and 

 is supported by large numbers in the lower 

 castes. The British authorities have estab- 

 lished by law the right of Hindoo widows to 

 marry again and retain their property, pro- 

 vided they embrace some other religion. They 

 do not venture, however, to meddle with the 

 ecclesiastical laws and religious customs of the 

 Hindoos. 



The Government convened a meeting in 

 March, at Ajmere, of representatives of the 

 states of Rajputana, to consider the question 

 of marriage reform. The representative com- 

 mittee adopted a set of resolutions for regu- 

 lating the excessive expenses of weddings and 

 funerals, which weigh heavily on the commu- 

 nity, to the advantage of certain privileged 

 classes, as well as making the marriageable age 

 older in both sexes, to wit, fourteen years for 

 girls and eighteen for boys. These resoutions 

 were embodied in a decree that was issued by 

 the princes of Rajputana. who have always held 

 the highest rank in Hindoo society, and whose 

 initiatory action in reforming the custom of 

 infant marriages was, therefore, strongly de- 

 sired by the British authorities. 



Religions Animosities. The religious hatred 

 between the Hindoos and Mohammedans has 

 been aggravated by an agitation that has sprung 

 up among the Hindoos against cow-killing. 

 In 1888 the Moslem festival of Mohurrum and 

 the Hindoo festival of Ramlila, fell on the 

 same day, with the inevitable resnlt of san- 

 guinary collisions and disorders. Serious dis- 

 turbances at Agra, Ghazipore, and Coorg, were 

 narrowly averted by the prompt action of the 

 authorities in calling out the troops and volun- 

 teers to restore order. At Nujihabad a mob 

 made an attack on a civil officer, at whose 

 command the police fired, killing and wound- 

 ing many person-. 



The Hyderabad Minins Concession. The Nizam, 

 in January, 1886, granted a monopoly of min- 

 ing rights in his dominions for ninety-nine years 



