Such was the zeal for increasing the facilities for safe vice, provoked by such military methods as described by this Memorandum, that the unwillingness of the native women to plunge into a life of shame at the behest of their conquerors, received scant consideration. A retired soldier, living at Lucknow, told us of his own observations a few years before: that, if a native policeman saw a young girl talking indiscreetly, though innocently, with a man, he would denounce her as a suspected prostitute; she would be brought before the Cantonment magistrate, and be registered to live among the soldiers. He said the police made large sums of money by threatening to thus hand over girls to the magistrate, and demanding bribes as the alternative of such a horrible fate. A Christian Englishman, holding a responsible position under the Government, vouched for by the Editor of the Bombay Guardian, relates what he saw in four Cantonments, where the instructions of the “Infamous Memorandum” were carried out, in the following language:—
“The orders specified were faithfully carried out, under the supervision of commanding officers, and were to this effect. The commanding officer gave orders to his quartermaster to arrange with the regimental Kutwal [an under-official, native] to take two policemen (without uniform), and go into the villages and take from the homes of these poor people their daughters from fourteen years and upwards, about twelve or fifteen girls at a time. They were to select the best-looking. Next morning, these were all put in front of the Colonel and Quartermaster. The former made his selection of the number required. They were then presented with a pass or license, and then made over to the old woman in charge of this house of vice under the Government. The women already there, who were examined by the doctor, and found diseased, had their passes taken away from them, and were then removed by the police out of the Cantonment, and these fresh, innocent girls put in their places.”
There is a whole volume of misery expressed in that last sentence, both for the fresh, innocent girls, and for the diseased ones turned out of the Cantonment. It has been repeatedly asserted that this system of regulating vice was so merciful, even to the girls; for their diseases, it has been claimed, were never allowed to go beyond the initial stage. But what this witness states is strictly in accordance with what we found to be the case. When we visited some of these Lock Hospitals and examined the records kept there, we noted that in the annual reports no cases of secondary stages of disease were mentioned; but when we questioned the native physicians in charge as to whether these ever arose, they answered that frequently such cases occurred, but when a woman became unfit to practise prostitution, because of that fact, she was turned out of the Cantonment.
The British officials of India have not shown the slightest concern as to the spread of disease, even when introduced by their own race among the natives, but have actually sent these women abroad to scatter disease wherever they go. And what can a poor Army slave-woman do when thus turned out? Her caste is broken, because she has lived with foreigners, and her friends will seldom receive her back; she has been compelled to follow the soldiers on the march; and when dismissed may be hundreds of miles away from any human being who ever saw her face before. Practically almost every industrial door in India is closed to women, the nurse-girl to foreign children being so exceptional as not worthy of mention among the hundreds of millions of people. The Cantonment sometimes includes all there is of city life in the whole region, and the woman has no choice but the open fields or the jungle. God alone knows the fate of these helpless creatures, and few beside care to know.
This was the exact state of things, with details too infamous to commit to paper, until 1886, when the Contagious Diseases Acts which had prevailed in the military stations of England were repealed as the result of a remarkable crusade led by Mrs. Josephine Butler. As the dependencies of Great Britain are all supposed to be governed by the same policy as that of England the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts there virtually repealed them in India. But it was not until 1888 that a despatch was sent to India by the Secretary of State for India, whose duty it is to attend to such matters, declaring that the system was “indefensible, and must be condemned.”
A copy of Lord Roberts’ “Infamous Memorandum” fell into the hands of a Christian gentleman who sent it to England. It was there reprinted and distributed to every member of the House of Commons, and created a great sensation, meeting with almost universal condemnation. Following upon the popular indignation created thereby, the House of Commons on June 5, 1888, passed a unanimous resolution that “Any mere suspension of measures for the compulsory examination of women, and for licensing and regulating prostitution in India, is insufficient; and the legislation which enjoins, authorizes, or permits such measures ought to be repealed.”
The publication of the “Infamous Memorandum” in England had shown that the existing Indian Cantonment Acts must be condemned, and they were superseded by rules made under a new law, the “Cantonments Act of 1889.” This was a very specious document, which avoided the issue by merely placing unlimited powers in the hands of the Governor-General in Council to “make rules consistent with this Act, for the prevention of the spread of infectious and contagious disorders within the Cantonment.”
It was so recognised and pronounced upon by the newspapers of India, which favoured licensed vice. Commenting on the new Cantonments Act one newspaper said: “The religious fanatics who howled until a weak Government gave way to their clamour … will probably howl again now at the way the old order of things will be enforced under another name, but with very little difference in manner.” Another said: “Their phraseology is the work of a master in the art of making a thing look as unlike itself as it well can be.” Many others spoke in the same strain. Immediately the advocates of the abolition of licensed prostitution took alarm, and began a vigorous remonstrance; for they saw great danger in any law which put large discretionary power into the hands of officials. The late Rt. Hon. Sir James Stansfeld, M.P., and Professor Stuart, M.P., addressed a letter to the Secretary of State for India concerning this new Act, in which they said, among other things: “If our interpretation of the new proposed regulations is correct, they may be used to set up again a system of compulsory examination of prostitutes, and to regulate and license, within the Cantonment, the calling of those prostitutes who submit to periodical examination, and to certify and license those who are pronounced physically fit.”
The official reply from the Secretary of State for India was to the effect that the Home Government was unwilling to believe, without positive proof, that this new Cantonments Act would be used to foster licensed prostitution.
It should be explained here that Abolitionists have always recognised that to establish the periodical examination is, in and of itself, to license prostitution; for there can be no possible excuse for the reiterated examination of healthy women, in anticipation of possible contagion, without recognising a certain right to practise prostitution, if the women be pronounced medically “fit” for such a calling. The periodical examination of women, then, constitutes the living heart of all those forms of legislation generally comprised under the term, “The Contagious Diseases Acts,” by whatever local name such regulations may be known.