That Eurasian

by Aleph Bey

CHAPTER XXXIII.

It was the same with liquor. For years I never saw a drunken man in the district. There were no spirits made, none to be obtained and none used. It is contrary to the religion of the better classes of Hindus to have anything to do with liquor in any manner, and the Muhamedan religion prohibits its use entirely. The people were in blissful ignorance of the use and effects of liquor. Along came the abkari agent of the Revenue Department of Government who saw a great field for his operations and he at once arranged for the erection of four distilleries. Natives in the Government service, both Hindu and Muhamedan were placed in charge. At first the distilleries were idle, but by sending out agents to offer big prices for sugar cane refuse, the natives were induced to bring the stuff for sale. Then the liquor was not used and the same methods were employed as for the introduction of opium. Places were licensed and liquor at first given away for the encouragement of trade and the benefit of the Government revenue. The result was that in a few years there were drunkards, and the nights were made hideous by their revelry. Idleness, poverty and crime increased. Broils destroyed the good order of the communities. The Muhamedan officer in charge told me that every year there was a large increase in the amount of spirits produced and the annual reports of Government were exultant over the increased revenue from this department. One of the members of the Board of Revenue, an Englishman, in one of his tours of examination boasted of the increasing success of the liquor traffic among the natives and the consequent advantage to Government. A man might as well boast of his seduction of innocence, of his robbery of widows or of defrauding the simple-minded. But what of the officers of Government, intelligent men, calling themselves Christians, representing a civilized Christian people, deliberately planning a scheme with the all-powerful, despotic, brute force of Government to debauch and degrade the ignorant, simple-minded people of India? The devil himself, if there be one, as the Christians devoutly believe, must have made hell ring with laughter when he saw what these Christian officers of a Christian nation were doing to help him damn the world.

It may be asked why did the people submit to such tyranny and raise opium? Only an innocent, unacquainted with the power and methods of the Indian Government would ask such a question.

What else could these helpless people do but to go when seized by the policemen of the opium agent, and to take the contracts forced upon them? The Collector of the District was snubbed by the agent for his interference and when he referred the matter to the Government of the Province, he was told in polite, but very emphatic terms, that he was not to meddle with things outside his own department. As this is a true story I could name the place, the year, and give the names of all the officers concerned, but as such methods of raising revenue were no secret, why be personal? A European, writing of the Eskimos, says: “Our civilization, our missions and our commercial products have reduced its material condition, its morality and its social order to a state of such melancholy decline that the whole race seems doomed to destruction.” Would not this be applicable to India, especially as regards the introduction of European vices?

Why did the natives continue to cultivate opium after the Government pressure had been removed? Because there was a little ready money in it. They are so desperately impoverished that the offer of money is a temptation not to be resisted. Nothing is so attractive to a native as an advance of money, peshgi. He will often make a ruinous bargain or take a losing contract if he can get a prepayment, trusting to fate to help him out in the end. Though heathen, they are not more able to resist temptation, when money is in question, than their Christian fellow men. I learned when in England that the business of a publican was considered degrading and disgraceful, yet there were many church members, both Catholic and Protestant, engaged in it.

Such is the power and worship of wealth that even Her Majesty, the Queen, and her eminent advisers make peers of brewers and distillers, and it is not wholly a concealed secret that some prominent ecclesiastics hold shares in breweries and distilleries. If such things occur in the civilized Christian light of England, is it to be wondered at, that the wretched natives of India are tempted by money?

I frequently took pleasure in tantalizing the natives connected with the distilleries for having to do with a business contrary to their religion and customs. They replied that it was utterly hateful to them in every way, but as servants of Government they had to obey orders or lose their situations, and this would be poverty and starvation to them and their families. A Tahsildar was in charge of one of the distilleries. I said to him, “You are a strict Mussalman, you say your daily prayers, you rigidly fast during all the Ramazan, and yet you superintend the manufacture of spirits forbidden by your Koran.” He replied, “I have been in the Government service over thirty years, and have to obey its orders. Should I refuse, I would receive my dismissal and this would greatly reduce my pension on which I retire soon. I am helpless in the matter and compelled to have charge of a business, of which I am ashamed and more than that, every day when I go to the distillery I am afraid that the curse of the Prophet may come upon me for doing what is contrary to my religion.”

If the natives of India were asked about the liquor and opium business, nine-tenths of them, heathen as they are, would say “abolish it at once.” Why then is it continued? For the sake of the revenue. Were there no gain from it, the Government would not tolerate it for a day. The most detestable feature of the whole matter is the philanthropic, for-the-glory-of-God air, that the Government supporters assume, when they try to uphold this crime against a conquered and helpless, ignorant people. One can have some respect for an outspoken, frank man, though he be wicked, but I have yet to learn that a truckling hypocrite has ever been regarded with anything but contempt. If the Government of India would frankly say that it didn’t care a blanked ha’penny about the morals, happiness or eternal welfare of the people of India or China, but what it wanted was revenue from opium and spirits, it would be telling the truth and one might respect its frankness, though detesting its principles. When it claims that it is cultivating opium and fostering the liquor traffic out of pure philanthropy, it is presuming too much on the capacity of human credulity. The statement that if India does not raise opium, China will do it for herself, or that India should supply the pure drug, otherwise the Chinese would get it badly adulterated, is simply twaddle of the thinnest kind, such as any villain might use as an excuse for his wrong-doing and none but a knave or an idiot would accept.

Being such as I am, I have great sympathy for these poor, oppressed people. I have seen the constantly increasing degradation of India, through opium and liquor. Year by year it is becoming worse and worse through the fostering help of this so-called Christian Government. Years ago, one might travel through the length and breadth of the country, and not see a man drunk with opium or liquor, now he can see and hear them everywhere, and the end is not yet. The seed has been sown, and the harvests are coming.

Every native, and all Europeans, who are not in the service, and have not their own selfish interests at stake, will lay the blame where it properly belongs, on the Government. All the blessings that England has conferred upon India, will never outweigh this curse of drunkenness, directly caused by Government authority.