In the matter of the immoral traffic in women Mr. Kennedy displayed equal activity and achieved more success. The foreign pimp and procurer, who swooped down at intervals upon Bombay to acquaint himself with the demand for fresh women and to relieve the European prostitutes of their earnings, met with no mercy at his hands. He used the provisions of the Aliens Act freely against them, deporting 30 of them in 1900 and 37 in 1901. Officers of the detective branch were entrusted specially with the duty of watching the European brothels, meeting the steamers of foreign shipping-companies, and marking down every Jewish trafficker who showed his nose in Bombay. It is only quite recently that the Indian Government, in response to domestic and international opinion, have strengthened the provisions of the Foreigners Act, in order to give the police in Bombay and other large maritime cities more effective control over these disreputable and degraded persons: and as a result of the pressure of public opinion, endorsed by the League of Nations, the activities of the international trafficker are more restricted and more easily controlled than they were at the close of the nineteenth century. It is much to Mr. Kennedy’s credit that, working with the unamended Act, he was able in two years to secure a definite reduction in the number of professional traffickers visiting Bombay.
He paid constant attention also to the offence of kidnapping or procuring minor Indian girls for immoral purposes. It is well known that both Hindu and Muhammadan recruits for the prostitutes’ profession are obtained from among the illegitimate children of courtesans, or from among female children adopted by prostitutes, or thirdly, by purchase from agents who travel throughout Gujarat, Central India, Rajputana and other districts, picking up superfluous and unwanted girls of tender age for a small sum, sometimes as little as Rs. 5 or Rs. 6, and then selling them at a profit to brothel-keepers in the large cities and towns. Leaving out of consideration the custom, prevalent among Maratha Kunbis and Mhars, of dedicating their female children to the god Khandoba, which in practice condemns the girls to a life of prostitution, and the customs of degraded nomadic tribes like the Kolhatis, Dombars, Harnis, Berads and Mang Garudas, who habitually prostitute their girls, it may be said that among the lower social strata in India female life is held very cheap. A daughter is apt to be regarded rather as a domestic calamity, owing largely to the heavy expense usually involved in getting her married. Cases therefore often occur of young girls being abandoned by their relatives, who are unable to provide the funds required for their regular betrothal; and these little derelicts sometimes drift into brothels, where they are fed, clothed and taught singing and dancing until they reach puberty, when the brothel-keeper arranges to sell their first favours for a round sum to some well-to-do libertine. Muhammadan prostitutes, who are numerous throughout India and range from the inmate of the low-class brothel to the wealthy courtesan, who earns a high fee for her singing, occupies well-furnished quarters, and drives in her own motor-car or carriage, are recruited in the same way. In one case, which occurred a few years ago, a lower class Moplah of the Malabar coast, having borrowed money at a high rate of interest to provide dowries for his two elder daughters and being unable to raise any further sum for his third daughter’s betrothal, sold her outright to a Bombay brothel-keeper for Rs. 40. The girl was about eight years of age when she entered the brothel, and by the age of thirteen she was helping to support her worthless father and two young brothers out of her earnings as a prostitute.
Mr. Kennedy also pointed out to Government that year by year “scores of young girls,” belonging chiefly to Gujarat and Kathiawar, were either picked off the streets by native pimps of both sexes or were, as mentioned above, brought down from rural areas by regular traffickers and sold to the local brothel-keepers for sums ranging from Rs. 10 to Rs. 50. In many cases the police rescued these waifs and restored them to their homes: but they could not make much headway against a system which had attained such large proportions. Moreover, in addition to the difficulty of tracing the girls’ relatives in a country like India, their task was not rendered easier by the absence of any strong public opinion against such practices, and by the non-existence of properly organized orphanages and homes. In several instances girls were discovered prostituting themselves under compulsion from a male “bully” or female brothel-keeper; and in such cases, as well as in cases of kidnapping, every effort was made by the police, under Mr. Kennedy’s orders, to arrest the offenders and bring them to trial. Wherever it was impossible to secure the conviction of an offender under the Indian Penal Code, Mr. Kennedy had resort to the provisions of Chapter VIII of the Criminal Procedure Code. Here he met with more success than his predecessor, who, as already mentioned, complained that the Magistrates required evidence under that chapter which it was extremely difficult to procure. Mr. Kennedy found in Chapter VIII, C. P. C. an invaluable weapon against “bullies” and other bad characters of the same type, whom it was inexpedient or impossible to charge with an offence under the Penal Code; and the Magistrates showed no objection whatever to supporting the action of the police in such cases. Thus for three years a very wholesome check was placed upon this deplorable traffic, at a time when there was little articulate Indian opinion to support the activity of the Commissioner. It was not till twelve or thirteen years later that the Indian Government was invited to consider Bills introduced by non-official Indian members of the Legislature, designed to check or suppress both the immigration of European unfortunates and the swadeshi traffic in minor Indian girls.
Mr. Kennedy’s personal activities during the earlier months of his Commissionership were to some extent reminiscent of the methods of Mr. Forjett. He is said to have sometimes assumed a disguise—the full-dress of an Arab or the burka or covering of a Musalman pardah-nashin,—and thus attired to have wandered about the city after nightfall in company with one of his agents. He would pay surprise visits in this way to various police-stations and chaukis, in order to discover at first hand what sort of work his European and native officers were doing; and all ranks learned to fear the consequences of their negligence or other shortcomings being discovered by the Commissioner and performed their duties with greater caution and zeal. He made himself feared by the evil-doer and the lazy, who tried occasionally to forestall him by obtaining previous information of his nocturnal visitations. They met, however, with little success; the Commissioner was more than a match for them. These constant surprise visits during 1899 and 1900 enabled him to keep his finger on the pulse of the city and to checkmate the criminal on several occasions. During the greater part of his term of office, however, an injury to one of his ankles, which produced a limp, practically deprived him of the power to pass unnoticed in disguise. The lower classes thenceforth knew him as Langada Kandi Saheb, i.e. ‘the lame Mr. Kennedy’, and he is thus spoken of to this day by the old law-breakers and disreputables who recollect his efforts to bring them to book.
Short as was his tenure of the Commissioner’s appointment, Mr. Kennedy managed to inspire the unworthy, whether belonging to the police-force or to the lower-class urban population, with a wholesome fear of retribution; and he spared no effort to tighten up the divisional police administration to discover by personal inquiry the character of his subordinates, and to place a check upon immorality. The discipline which he inculcated in the police force was evident at the census of 1901, when, in response to the request of the census authorities for assistance in enumerating the large cosmopolitan population of the city, he placed his European police officers in charge of the census-sections, directed the Sirdar Mir Abdul Ali to secure the co-operation of the leaders of the various sections and castes among the lower classes, and made the divisional police responsible on the actual night of the census for counting the large army of homeless and wandering people, who are a permanent feature of the capital of Western India. Mr. Lovat Fraser, then editor of the Times of India, wrote a graphic account in his paper of this “Counting by Candle-light”, and paid a tribute to the thoroughness of the census organization. The author of this book, who happened to be in charge of the urban census, under the orders of the Provincial Superintendent, Mr. R. E. Enthoven, can testify truly that his plans for the enumeration could not have been successful without the active assistance of a police-force inspired by its chief with a high standard of efficiency.
CHAPTER VIII
Mr. H. G. Gell, M.V.O.
1902-1909
When Mr. Kennedy left Bombay on furlough preparatory to retirement, his place was taken by Mr. Herbert G. Gell, who had held the substantive appointment of Deputy Commissioner since 1884, and on three occasions had acted for short periods as Commissioner. “Jel Saheb,” as the Indian constables called him, was thus no stranger to the police-force or to Bombay, when he took charge of the Commissioner’s office. So far as personal popularity with all classes was concerned, the Government could not have made a happier selection. In his younger days Mr. Gell had been a good cricketer and the best racket-player in Bombay; and while this counted in his favour chiefly with his own countrymen, his genial address and straight-forwardness commended themselves equally to Europeans and Indians. During his term of office, which lasted a little more than seven years, he was granted furlough twice—in 1904 when Mr. Michael Kennedy, afterwards Inspector-General of Police, Bombay Presidency, carried on his duties, and again in 1906 when Mr. W. L. B. Souter, a son of Sir Frank Souter, acted as locum tenens. During Mr. Gell’s first year of office, the Deputy Commissioner’s post was filled by Superintendent J. Crummy, a good police officer of the old type, who joined the force as a constable in 1866 and finally retired from the service in 1903. He was succeeded by Mr. R. P. Lambert (1903-1905), Mr. Reinold, who died prematurely, and Mr. R. M. Phillips (1905-09), all of whom belonged to the Imperial Indian Police service.
