368 



INDIA. 



the verge of starvation and millions perish every 

 decade. The congress denounced the action of 

 the Government in tampering with public 

 pledges by disturbing the permanent settlement 

 of land titles in Bengal, and also its hasty action 

 in closing the mints to the private coinage of 

 silver. In England, where Mr. Naoroji, a Par- 

 see gentleman from Bengal, represented the 

 movement for public liberty and representative 

 institutions as a member of the House of Com- 

 mons, an Indian parliamentary committee has 

 been formed to support the reforms demanded 

 by the congress. The Indian Government has 

 tried to fortify itself against this movement, 

 which is mostly confined to the Hindus of Ben- 

 gal and the educated class in the cities, by at- 

 tracting allies from among the Mohammedan 

 population and the fighting races of the north, 

 who have had various advantages conferred upon 

 them during Lord Lansdowne's viceroyalty. In 

 the spring of 1894 many of the British in India 

 took alarm when mysterious patches of plaster 

 mixed with hair were found on the mango trees 

 of Behar and the provinces to the east and west. 

 No one would tell by whom or from what motive 

 the trees were smeared. It was suspected to be 

 a signal of revolution against the English raj, 

 like the unleavened cakes that were passed from 

 hand to hand before the Indian mutiny, and are 

 commonly believed to have been the signal of 

 revolt. Behar was a province where there was 

 much discontent on account of the cadastral 

 survey, which the Zemindars thought was a 

 scheme for a settlement which would deprive 

 them of a part of their property, and the peas- 

 ants were led to believe to be a preliminary to 

 raising the land tax. The objection to the sur- 

 vey was intensified by the decision of the Gov- 

 ernment to make the people of the districts sur- 

 veyed pay a large proportion of the cost. The 

 Government had given offense to the people of 

 this part of India also by the sanitary measures 

 taken in regard to pilgrimages to the shrines of 

 Hurdwar, Puri, and Benares. Governmental in- 

 terference with native marriage customs and the 

 appointment of a commission to inquire into 

 the opium question were fruitful sources of pop- 

 ular discontent. The fears of certain military 

 men of a repetition of the Indian mutiny were 

 not shared by the responsible officials. The 

 finally accepted explanation of the tree-smearing 

 was that it was started by some local holy man 

 as an act of propitiation after the blight had re- 

 cently appeared on the mango trees, and that 

 the votaries of the temple of Janakpur, in Ne- 

 paul, had taken it up in order to draw pilgrims 

 to their shrine, where there are no British sani- 

 tary restrictions to offend worshipers. The sa- 

 cred city of Hurdwar came near to being de- 

 si roved in August by the bursting of a natural 

 dam that was suddenly formed a year before by 

 a landslip in the valley of the Birahi Ganga, a 

 tributary of the Ganges, at a point close to the 

 village of Gohna. The daubing of the trees was 

 also connected with an ancient prophecy that 

 the sanctity of the Ganges would be transferred 

 to the river Nerbudda in 1893. The association 

 for the protection of cows was supposed to have 

 taken a hand in it as a means of spurring the 

 general dissatisfaction of the Hindus at the ac- 

 tion of the Government in allowing Mussulmans 



to sacrifice a cow at their religious festival. A 

 mutiny occurred in May in a Bengal regiment, 

 in which some companies of Rajputs refused to 

 serve with Bengali sepoys, though all were Mo- 

 hammedans. The ringleaders were severely pun- 

 ished. The native community in Bombay was 

 incensed at the polemics of the missionary pa- 

 pers on the opium question, and a number of 

 missionaries were tried and convicted of crim- 

 inal libel. The editor of another missionary or- 

 gan in British territory was prosecuted for de- 

 faming the Hindu faith. Extraordinary military 

 precautions were taken in Bombay to prevent 

 the recurrence of the religious riots that took 

 place in 1893. The Hindus consider the Moham- 

 medan ceremony of killing a cow at the festival 

 of Bakri Id to be no religious observance, but an 

 exhibition of contempt for their own religion. 

 No riots occurred during the Bakri Id celebra- 

 tion, but in September a serious riot occurred at 

 Poona, where some Mohammedan worshipers 

 who fell upon a Hindu religious procession be- 

 cause the music was not stopped entirely in 

 front of the mosque were beaten by a Hindu 

 mob that quickly gathered and the mosque was 

 wrecked. 



The Afghan Frontiers. The Russian and 

 British governments, having been for two years 

 endeavoring to find a basis for the delimitation 

 of the Russian, Afghan, and British frontiers in 

 the Pamirs, were said in the later months of 1894 

 to have nearly reached an amicable agreement, 

 and this involved concessions to Russia in Shig- 

 nan and Roshan, districts always claimed by 

 Russia as dependencies of the Khan of Khokand, 

 but which the British instigated the Ameer of 

 Afghanistan to occupy in 1883 as dependencies 

 of Badakshan. In September a Russian force 

 entered Shignan and ordered the Afghans to 

 evacuate the country. They refused, and at- 

 tacked the invading force, obtaining an advan- 

 tage. The question was referred to the authori- 

 ties at Cabul and to Russian headquarters. After 

 an interchange of views the Russians entered the 

 country and occupied it in force, the Afghans 

 retiring, but still keeping possession of their fort 

 of Bar Panja, on the left bank of the Panja river. 

 This river is conceded by Russia to be the south- 

 ern limit of her sphere according to the Anglo- 

 Russian agreement of 1873, which fixed the Oxus 

 as the northern boundary of Afghanistan up to 

 its source ; but the British have hitherto asserted 

 that the Aksu or northern branch is the head 

 stream of the Oxus or Amu Darya. 



Previous to this Russian advance the British 

 were said to have established outposts at the 

 Kilik and Mintaka passes beyond the Hindu 

 Kush. The border states of Hunza-Nagar and 

 Chitral have been brought under the political 

 control of Great Britain and are garrisoned by 

 Indian troops. The mountain tribes beyond, 

 along the whole frontier of Afghanistan, are sub- 

 sidized by the Indian Government and are not 

 disturbed unless they attack British posts. The 

 de facto ruler of Chitral was expelled by British 

 troops in 1892 and Nizam-ul-Mulk set upon the 

 throne. Sher Afzul, the deposed Mehtar, ob- 

 taining the aid of the neighboring Afghan chief 

 and some support from the Government of the 

 Ameer, who claims rights of suzerainty over 

 Chitral, threatened to invade the country and 



