422 



INDIA. 



are abandoned by an incoming administration. 

 The income-tax, which was imposed by Lord 

 Mayo, was removed by Lord Northbrook ; Lord 

 Lytton substituted a license-tax ; and in the 

 latter part of 1881 all India was thrown into a 

 state of consternation by the rumor that Lord 

 Kipon intended to reimpose the income-tax, in 

 order to abolish the favorite cotton duties. An 

 income-tax is not popular in more enlightened 

 countries, and in India it is regarded as a grind- 

 ing oppression and a very badge of servitude. 



A land reform which is to be carried out in 

 Bengal is similar in its main features to the 

 scheme inaugurated in Ireland. The Bengal 

 land bill, like its Irish counterpart, is an exten- 

 sion of principles which were first laid down 

 in a former bill. Before 1793 the East India 

 Company was the sole proprietor of the whole 

 of the soil. By the land law of that year the 

 land was divided among a number of private 

 persons. The population increased and the 

 competition for land became so great that the 

 landlords drew enormous rents from the land, 

 and the tillers were kept on the verge of starva- 

 tion. In 1859 the state partially recalled the 

 privileges it had conferred on the proprietors 

 by defining the tenant-rights, which were re- 

 served in vague and ineffective terms in the 

 original law. The tenant-rights in ancient 

 times, before the confiscation of the soil by the 

 East India Company, and while the country 

 was sparsely inhabited, were nearly tantamount 

 to actual ownership. The population lias in- 

 creased rapidly since 1859, and the people are 

 rack-rented in spite of the act of that year. 

 The rent commission, which was appointed in 

 1879, now proposes to restore, in a great meas- 

 ure, the tenant-rights which existed under 

 native rule. The peasantry are to be given a 

 heritable and assignable right in their holdings, 

 and the landlords to be considerably restricted 

 in their power to augment the rents. 



On the 28th of March the state of Mysore, 

 which has been governed by English officials 

 for fifty years, was restored to native rule. 

 The young maharajah, who assumes the sover- 

 eignty with the same status as the rulers of 

 the other native states, is still kept in a meas- 

 ure under tutelage, being surrounded by Eng- 

 lish counselors, who, according to the expecta- 

 tion and understanding, will direct his acts.* 



This prince belongs to the dynasty which founded the 

 kingdom of Mysore in 1565, successfully defending it against 

 the Mohammedan conquerors of a great part of the ancient 

 kingdom of Vijayanagara, of which it was a portion. In the 

 last century Mysore was conquered by Hyder All, but when 

 his successor, Tippoo, was defeated at Seringapatam by the 

 British, they restored the Hindoo dynasty. The rajah, who 

 was a minor when placed on the throne in 1799, after attain- 

 ing his majority began a career of vice, cruelty, and oppres- 

 sion, which reduced the country to such a distressful state 

 that, in 1881, Lord William Bentinck interposed. He de- 

 clined to annex the country, but placed it under a British 

 administration, which ruled in the name of the rajah. Sir 

 Mark Cubbon administered the province until 1861, when it 

 was placed in charge of the Mysore Commission, a large staff 

 of English officials employed, and the government assimilated 

 to that of the British provinces. The old rajah died in 1869. 

 His adopted son was carefully reared under European and 

 native teachers, as the successor to the throne, in which he 

 was installed Hot long after attaining his majority. 



The elements of disorder are always at work 

 in India, and the country is in a constant state 

 of incipient rebellion. Through the ignorant 

 and arrogant application of English methods, 

 which are unsuited to the habits of the people, 

 there is a vast army of homeless and desperate 

 people scattered through the provinces. "Whole 

 trades and industries are supplanted by the in- 

 troduction of new processes or new products, 

 an entire peasantry is evicted because a famine 

 has prevented them from paying their debts, 

 or even through the operation of a new code 

 of law which is unsuited to the character of 

 the people. The disbandment of large num- 

 bers of native soldiers after the late war fur- 

 nished a dangerous addition to the ranks of the 

 idle and discontented. The rigorous enforce- 

 ment of forest regulations has lately created 

 serious dissatisfaction in the highlands of 

 Western India. 



The simple aborigines of the Sonthal country 

 were wrought up into a dangerous state of dis- 

 quietude by the census. They were worked 

 upon by an ascetic preacher, named Habami, 

 and led to fear that the enumeration boded 

 some terrible act of oppression. Another fa- 

 natic, Babajee, leader of the sect of Kherwars,* 

 had still more influence in exciting the natives. 

 The extortions of money-lenders and of land- 

 lords were important elements in the Sonthal 

 disturbances, as they are in many of the insur- 

 rectionary movements in India. The last re- 

 settlement of rents resulted in an increase of 

 70 per cent on the average, so that the people 

 were naturally suspicious of official operations. 

 Troops were distributed through the country, 

 and the census regulations were considerably 

 modified, precautions which were necessary to 

 prevent a general rising. 



A foolish but desperate conspiracy was 

 brought to light in the native state of Kola- 

 pore in January. A company of dakoits, or 

 gang-robbers, were proved on their trial to 

 have engaged in the dakoities in order to obtain 

 the means to carry out a plot for the deposition 

 of the maharajah in favor of their leader, Ghode 

 Bawa, who pretended to be the dead prince Chi- 

 ma Sahib, who was deported after the Sepoy 

 rebellion. The conspirators were said to have 

 numbered thousands, and to have been twice 

 prevented by accidental circumstances only 

 from attempting to murder all the Europeans 

 and plunder the city, and were fully prepared 



* The Kherwar sect was founded by Bhagrit Mangl in 1875, 

 after the raising of the rents at the last settlement. He 

 gave out that he was sent by Heaven to deliver the Son- 

 thals from British rule, and consequently from grinding rent*, 

 which bear heavily on the poverty-stricken husbandmen, and 

 the exactions of the usurers to whom they are driven, and 

 whose hard terms are enforced by the British officials. He 

 was crowned as a king and enshrined as a divinity, exercising 

 an unbounded influence over the simple tribesmen until he 

 was convicted and imprisoned. His disciples continued to 

 prophesy a divine deliverance from the British yoke, and 

 made use of the mistrust excited by the census operations to 

 arouse the people to rebellion. Their leader, Dhubia Gossain 

 Babajee, was arrested a couple of months before the date 

 of the enumeration, and sent to Lucknow as a state pris- 

 oner. 



