354 



INDIA. 



Boundary Delimitations. The demarcation of 

 the boundary between Afghanistan and India, as 

 provided by the Durand treaty of 1893, was practi- 

 cally brought to a conclusion by the operations of 

 Col. T. H. Holdieh and Capt. A. H. MacMahon, 

 who traced the line between Persia and Beluchistan 

 northward from Kuhak and the Afghan line west- 

 ward to the point where Afghanistan, Persia, and 

 Beluchistan meet. By a later agreement, concluded 

 with Sa-lar Gholam Haidar Khan in December, 



1895, the territory in the basin of the Chitral river, 

 called Bashgal or Arnawai, was withdrawn from 

 the British sphere and added to the possessions of 

 the Ameer. During 1895-'96 Capt. MacMahon and 

 an Afghan commissioner traced the line from the 

 Khwaja Amran range past Shorawak and across 

 the desert to the Helmund valley and thence south- 

 ward to Persian Seistan. There remained about 

 100 miles of unfixed boundary between Asmar and 

 Lundi Kotal in the Khyber. The Ameer in his 

 agreement promised not to interfere in Swat, 

 Bajaur. or Chitral and to relinquish his claim to 

 the Waziri country, except Birmal, and to Chageh, 

 while he was allowed to retain Asmar and the valley 

 above it. In the spring of 1896 a body of Afghan 

 militia occupied the Mattai valley in Bajaur, the 

 clans of which country had been called upon to pay 

 taxes to the Ameer. To insure the obedience of 

 the conquered state of Kafiristan the Ameer made 

 a durable road from Jellalabad to Asmar. 



Insurrection of the Moplahs. Encouraged, 

 perhaps, by the insurrection of the natives against 

 the Portuguese authorities in Goa, which began 

 with a mutiny on Sept. 14. 1895, of the battalion 

 ordered to Mozambique, the Moplahs of the British 

 coast districts of southwestern India declared a 

 jehad against the Hindus, and committed many 

 fanatical outrages before they were reduced to sub- 

 jection by the Indian troops. The Moplahs are a 

 sect originally planted in Malabar by Arabian 

 settlers who converted low-caste Hindus to Islam, 

 and they now number about 1,000,000 of the most 

 ardent and fanatical Mussulmans in India, many of 

 whom are dedicated to God by their parents before 

 birth, and hence regard the destruction or conver- 

 sion of the infidel as their chief duty. On March 1, 



1896, an English regiment attacked a large body of 

 the fanatics and killed over 100. Other bands were 

 pursued by the soldiery and the police, and were 

 not reduced until nearly all were slain. The soldiers 

 mowed them down from a distance, beyond the range 

 of their old muskets. All offers of mercy they 

 scorned, and they deliberately presented themselves 

 as targets for the British bullets, believing that to 

 die thus for the faith was to render secure their 

 admission to paradise. On one occasion 92 of them 

 who had taken up a position in a Hindu temple, 

 armed with matchlocks and swords, died fighting 

 to the last man, declaring, when implored to lay 

 down their arms, that death was the thing they most 

 wished for. 



Famine and Plague. Failure of the winter 

 rains in northern India caused early in 1896 great 

 distress among the population of the Northwest 

 Provinces and Oudh, the Central Provinces, and 

 Rajputana. The provincial governments gave em- 

 ployment on relief works to many thousands, and 

 the commencement of railroads that were contem- 

 plated was hastened in order to provide work. In 

 the summer there was complete drought in northern 

 and central India. All crops also failed, and the 

 prices of food rose \<> double the normal figures. 

 Grain riots occurred in several places. For a consid- 

 erable time the numbers employed on relief works ex- 

 ceeded 300.000. Wheat was shipped from California 

 to Calcutta in the autumn. The wheat-eating popu- 

 lation of the Northwest Provinces and the Punjab 



suffered the most. The exports of wheat from In- 

 dia, which have decreased since 1887, when over 

 22,000,000 hundredweight was exported, except in 

 the exceptional year of 1892, when they were 30,- 

 000,000 hundredweight, have fallen below 10,000,000 

 hundredweight a year in the past three years. From 

 the beginning of 1896 very little was shipped abroad. 

 As the drought continued, the autumn crops were 

 seriously damaged in a large part of the Northwest- 

 ern Provinces, in most of Oudh, in southern and 

 central Punjab, in several districts in the Central 

 Provinces, in parts of Bom bay, and in Upper Burmah. 

 The parts of India affected corresponded closely 

 with the famine area in 1877, but within these dis- 

 tricts the irrigated area has since then been increased 

 by many million acres, and the railroads open have 

 two and a half times the length, and carry freight 

 much cheaper. The Indian people feel sore against 

 the British for having diverted the famine insurance 

 fund of Rx 1,500,000 a year to military expenses. 

 Though agricultural operations have been extended, 

 and the population has increased by 50,000,000, 

 British administration has impoverished India by 

 destroying the old industries and draining a large 

 share of the profits of commerce and of the taxes 

 out of the country. The average annual earnings 

 in India are estimated at 28 rupees for each indi- 

 vidual, a twentieth as much as in England. The 

 salt tax in many districts has been increased five- 

 fold by the British, and the mass of people do not 

 obtain half enough of this necessary article, and 

 great numbers get but one scanty meal a day. Sir 

 C. A. Elliott has estimated the number of half- 

 starved people at 70,000,000, and Sir W. W. Hunter 

 at 40,000,000. The deterioration of the physique of 

 the population is a matter of common observation 

 among officials, and is telling on the productive 

 capacity of the laborers, and also on the recruiting 

 of the Indian army, compelling the Government to 

 obtain her soldiers among the Goorkhas of Nepaul 

 and the Beluchis and other better-fed peoples of 

 the native states. While there were 13 famines 

 and an estimated loss of 5,000,000 lives from 1802 

 to 1854. there were 16 famines with a loss of over 

 12,000,000 of lives from 1860 to 1879. The Govern- 

 ment in its scheme of famine insurance, which has 

 been several times interrupted for the sake of push- 

 ing the frontier defenses, has advanced the railroads 

 for the distribution of food in preference to irriga- 

 tion canals and reservoirs for extending its produc- 

 tion, on the presumption that the latter works tend 

 to encourage a local increase of population up to the 

 limits of the enlarged production. The larger pro- 

 tective canals irrigate at present an area of 8,500.000 

 acres, and petty works constructed out of local reve- 

 nues a further area of 5,000,000 acres, producing to- 

 gether crops valued at Rx 37,000.000, and earning 

 from 4 to 7 per cent, on the capital invested by the 

 state, except in Bengal and Bombay, where the 

 canals do not pay. The whole expenditure on the 

 main systems has not exceeded 30.000,000, and on 

 the minor works Rx 3,000,000. When the distress 

 first showed itself some of the local authorities de- 

 voted their relief funds to the digging of wells, and 

 these immediately helped the situation of the people, 

 enabling them to sow rabi and other crops. Actual 

 famine began to be felt in November, when the au- 

 tumn crops failed to ripen and winter crops could not 

 be sown except where there were, wells. Throughout 

 the whole length and breadth of India the rainfall was 

 deficient, except in a few localities. In the Allaha- 

 bad, Lucknow, Faizabad, and Agra divisions of the 

 Northwest Provinces there was a total failure of 

 crops over an area containing 13,000.000 inhabitants, 

 and a severe failure over an area containing 26.500.- 

 000. In Oudh and in the neighborhood of Benares 

 wells were sunk to relieve the distress, which had 



