RAO SAHEB DAJI GANGAJI RANE

A serious obstacle to any re-arrangement of duties was the illiteracy of the great majority of the Indian subordinate officers and constabulary. As early as 1868 the Bombay Government asked the Commissioner to mention in his annual reports the progress made by the police in simple reading and writing; to which the Commissioner replied that as each member of the force was on actual duty for twelve hours out of the twenty-four, any form of education was impracticable. In 1885, when the total strength of the force was 1,721, there were only 113 officers and 362 men able to read and write, and of these only the European officers were literate in English. These numbers had slightly increased by the end of the following decade, in consequence presumably of the gradual spread of primary education. The numbers of officers and men able to read and write in 1896 were respectively 194 and 570. Occasionally an Indian with practically no education would rise to a high grade in the force by sheer natural ability and devotion to duty. Such men were the Subehdars Ramchandra and Daji and Inspector Khan Bahadur Sheik Ibrahim Imam, of whom the latter served for 47 years and on his retirement in 1911 was granted by the Bombay Government a special jagir (landed estate) in the Poona District, in recognition of his long and meritorious service.[112] The value of these men lay in their extraordinary knowledge of the urban population, their flair for criminal investigation, and their power of mediation between conflicting sects. Their lack of education and their ignorance of English debarred them from affording any relief to the European police in the registration of complaints and the prosecution of offenders in the courts.

No effort had been made to open a career in the force for literate Indians of the upper-classes, and it became obvious during Mr. Gell’s régime that in this respect the composition of the force had not kept abreast of the spirit of the age. While the general standard of literacy in Bombay had widened appreciably, and the growth of population had resulted in an increased number of cases of all kinds, the bulk of the Indian element in the force remained ignorant of English and was also often uneducated in its own vernaculars. Consequently the whole responsibility for the routine duties of the force fell upon a limited number of European officers, many of whom could claim no higher standard of education than that provided for the rank and file of the British Army. Among the latter, however, there were men of natural ability who by dint of application and study at odd moments had acquired a fair standard of general knowledge and could frame a good report of facts. To this category belonged men like Superintendents McDermott, Grennan, Nolan, Sloane, Williamson and others; and on their reports and administrative capacity the Commissioner and his Deputy necessarily placed much reliance. There were others, however, who acquired no literary polish throughout their career and whose educational attainments were no higher than when they first joined the force as supernumerary sub-inspectors. On the other hand, these men were always a solid asset in times of popular disturbance or at seasons of public festivity requiring the preservation of order among large crowds. From the Superintendent down to the latest joined Sub-Inspector, the European police contributed the leaven, which stiffened the force at the periodical Muharram outbreaks and ensured the orderly progress of events on the occasions of Royal and Viceregal visits.

The annual pilgrimage to Mecca again assumed large proportions during these years. In 1902 the restrictions, imposed originally as a precautionary plague-measure, were abolished, and the period opened with the arrival in Bombay of about 1,000 pilgrims and with the return of 3,376 Hajis, who had to be repatriated to various districts of British India. In the following year the number of outgoing pilgrims was 8,700, and in 1904, 16,593, the large increase in the latter year being ascribable to the occurrence of the Akbari Haj, which falls once in ten years. But the traffic continued to expand. In 1905, 19,000 pilgrims embarked at Bombay for Jeddah and nearly 14,000 returned; in 1906, 24,300 embarked and 16,000 returned; and in 1907 more than 20,000 from all parts of India, from Bokhara, Turkestan and other parts of Central Asia, from Ceylon and Java, had to be shepherded on board by the Pilgrim Department of the Commissioner’s office. The majority of these people were wholly uneducated; the existing musafirkhanas (rest-houses) provided for them in the City were quite inadequate for their proper accommodation; while the vessels provided for the passage to Jeddah by two or three merchants or companies were ill-found and equipped, and were becoming unseaworthy by reason of age.

At the same time the treatment of the pilgrims at various stages of their self-imposed journey, the behaviour of the pilgrim-brokers, who arranged for the purchase of tickets and were responsible generally for assisting pilgrims under the supervision of the Pilgrim Department, the arrangements for their embarkation and the disinfection of their clothing and effects, carried out by the Port Health authorities, and various other matters connected with the annual exodus, occupied the increasing attention of the Muhammadan community and occasionally formed the subject of rather acid criticism. It was asserted that the whole subject of the pilgrimage required more attention than an overworked Police Commissioner could give it, and that more facilities should be accorded to respectable Moslem residents for expressing their views on the details of the traffic and for keeping in touch with the local arrangements for booking and embarkation. Accordingly, the Bombay Government, with a view to disarming criticism and in the hope of giving some relief to the Commissioner, appointed in 1908 a Haj Committee, composed of leading Muhammadan residents of Bombay, with the Commissioner of Police as ex-officio President. During the first year of its existence, this Committee did not do very much; but later it developed into a useful consultative body, and gave much assistance to Mr. Gell’s successor in matters connected with the comfort of the pilgrims and the local arrangements for housing and disembarkation. On several occasions the members of the Committee subscribed money from their own pockets to relieve cases of distress and secure the repatriation of penniless Moslems stranded in Jeddah.

This period witnessed the preparation of schemes for the housing of the police and the construction of police-stations. In 1902 the City Improvement Trust forwarded to Government for approval plans for stations and residential quarters at Wodehouse road in the Fort and at 1st. Nagpada: and these buildings, together with quarters for the Risaldar of the Mounted Police and stables for the sowars, were completed and occupied in 1906. Meanwhile the Commissioner was pressing for the provision of more accommodation for the constabulary, and he found a powerful ally in the Police Surgeon, Dr. Arthur Powell, who reported in 1905 that the prevalence of pneumonia and consumption in the force was primarily due to the residence of the men in dark, crowded and insanitary chals. A little relief was afforded in 1908 by the completion of a block of lines for constables and quarters for native officers in Duncan road, and a set of quarters for European officers, with lines for the men, was also completed at Sussex road in the same year. Much expenditure, however, had still to be incurred before the force could be said to be suitably housed.