It is possible that long after the details of the reorganization of the police force have passed into oblivion, Mr. Edwardes’ tenure of office will be remembered for the abolition of the dangerous and rowdy side of the annual Muharram celebration. At the time he was appointed Commissioner, the Muharram, which had been a cause of excitement and anxiety from the days of Forjett, had degenerated into an annual scandal and become a menace to the peace of the city. No respectable Musalman took part in the annual procession of tabuts, nor would permit his family to visit the tazias and tabuts during the ten days of the festival, for fear of insult and annoyance from the badmashes and hooligans, who chose the sites of the tabuts in the various mohollas as their gathering-ground. The cost of building and decorating each tazia and tabut was defrayed by a public subscription, which had degenerated into pure and simple blackmail, levied by the less respectable denizens of each moholla upon the general public. The Marwadi and other Hindu merchants suffered particularly from this practice; at times they were threatened with physical injury if they did not subscribe; on other occasions the collecting-party, composed of four or five Muhammadan roughs, would visit the shops of the Jain merchants, carrying a dead rat, and threaten to drop it into the heaps of grain and sugar if the shop-owner did not forthwith hand out a fair sum. By the exercise of pressure and threats, some mohollas contrived to raise comparatively large sums, aggregating several hundred rupees, and as only a fractional portion of this money was required to defray the cost of the tabut and the paraphernalia of the final procession, the balance was devoted to the support of the hooligans of the mohollas during the following few months. Attached to each tabut, and accompanying it whenever it was carried out in procession, was a toli or band of attendants, usually varying in numbers from 50 to 200 and composed of the riff-raff of the lower quarters. In some cases these tolis had been gradually allowed to assume a gigantic size, as for example that of the Julhai weavers of Ripon road (Madanpura), which comprised from two to three thousand men, all armed with lathis tipped with brass or lead. Similarly the notorious Rangari moholla (Abdul Rehman street), Halai Memon moholla, Kolsa moholla and Chuna Batti moholla, could count upon turning out several thousand followers, armed with sticks and staves, who could be trusted to render a good account of themselves if there was a breach of the public peace.
The time-honoured sectarian enmity between Sunni and Shia usually showed itself by the second day of the festival, in the form of insults hurled at the Bohras (Shias) by the Sunni rag-tag and bobtail in the various streets occupied by the former. The most notorious of these centres of disturbance was Doctor Street, which debouched into Grant road opposite Sulliman chauki; but none of the Bohra quarters were safe from disturbance; and year after year Bohra merchants had to leave Bombay during the festival, or had to secure special protection, and even had to disguise their women in male attire, in the hope of thereby minimising the chance of insult by the lower-class Sunnis. Muharram rioting, which had become much too frequent during the first decade of this century, usually commenced with a fracas of some sort between Sunnis and Bohras, in which the former were generally the aggressors; and when the Police intervened to restore order, the mob on one pretext or another declared war against them with the inevitable result. The Sunni hooligans would never have reached the pitch of insolence which marked their behaviour in 1910, had they not felt assured that they had the support of the leading Sunnis residing in the mohollas, many of whom, though comparatively wealthy, were almost illiterate and totally uncultured; and the latter in turn were prompted to foster the more rowdy and disreputable aspects of the festival by the belief that the Moslem community thereby acquired more importance, even though of a sinister character, in the eyes of Government, and that the possibility of disturbance could be occasionally used as a lever to secure consideration or concessions in other directions.
This belief was partly confirmed by the attitude of the authorities, who persisted in attaching undue weight to the religious character of the festival,—a character which had practically ceased to have any influence on the celebrants, and in accordance with the time-honoured principle of strict religious neutrality showed great reluctance to impose any restrictions upon the celebration. The Police, who in times of disturbance often reaped a fair harvest of tips and presents from timorous townspeople who desired protection from mob-violence, and who also discovered in the aftermath of rioting an easy means of paying off old scores, had never troubled to explain to Government the precise character and danger of the annual Muharram. The old doctrine of “the safety-valve” was still in favour, with the result that during the concluding days of the festival Bombay used to witness the spectacle of police officers of the upper ranks urging the most uncompromising rascals to lift the tabuts and form the processions, regardless of the fact that at any other season of the year they would not have hesitated to lock up most of these disreputables at sight. In short, under the cloak of religion, the worst elements in the bazaar were permitted to burst their bounds for ten days and flow over the central portion of the City in a current of excessive turbulence, to terrorize the peaceful householder and to play intolerable mischief in the streets. If the leaders and wire-pullers decided that there should be a disturbance, culminating in a conflict with the police, all they had to do was to pass the order to the various mohollas not to “lift” their tabuts on the tenth day and to the Bara Imam shrine in Khoja street not to send out the sandal-procession on the ninth night. This latter procession was, so to speak, the barometer of the Muharram, and its non-appearance in the streets invariably indicated storm. Once it had been decided not to “lift” the tabuts, the huge tolis, which should have accompanied them to their final immersion in the sea, were let loose in the streets with nothing to do, and a breach of the peace was rendered practically inevitable. When this point was reached on the last day, it was customary for the Afghans and Pathans, residing in the B division, to collect in groups in the lanes behind Parel road (Bhendy Bazar), and at the right moment to commence looting and setting fire to shops. In the Muharram riots of 1908 it was these people who set fire to a shop on Parel road and threw a Hindu constable into the middle of the flames. The only unobjectionable feature of the old Muharram was the Waaz or religious discourse, which was delivered nightly in each of the leading mohollas by a chosen Maulvi or Mulla. Unfortunately these were very little patronized by the hooligans and damaged characters, who composed the tolis and monopolized the celebration of the festival in the streets.
Mr. Edwardes’ first Muharram in 1910 ended without an actual breach of the peace: but the behaviour of the mohollas was so insolent, and the license and obscenity displayed by the mob were so intolerable, particularly in the Bohra quarter of the C division, that he determined to impose restrictions at the Muharram of January, 1911. Accordingly in December, 1910, he issued a notification closing Doctor Street and the neighbouring lanes running parallel with it to all processionists throughout the period of the festival, and from the first night he placed a strong cordon of police round the prohibited area, to prevent any attempt by the mob to break the order. Practically the whole police force was on continuous duty for ten days and nights in the streets, and commissariat arrangements for both European and Indian police had to be made on the spot. Though no serious trouble occurred during the first few days of the festival, there were several indications of trouble brewing, and the Commissioner therefore arranged with Brigadier-General John Swann to hold garrison troops in readiness. On the tenth night or Katal-ki-rat a serious disturbance broke out in Bhendy Bazar about 3 a.m., in connexion with the procession of the Rangari moholla tabut. Free fighting between the processionists and the mob from other mohollas took place all the way from Grant road to Pydhoni, and it was due solely to the efforts of Mr. Vincent, the Deputy Commissioner, and a handful of police who were escorting the procession, that the tabut was eventually brought back to its resting-place. The mob by this time had tasted blood and displayed so truculent an attitude that the Commissioner decided to telephone for the troops and picket them throughout the danger zone. By 4 a.m. on January 12th the troops had taken their places, and the mob, for the moment deeming discretion the better part of valour, melted away in the darkness. About 5 p.m., however, in the afternoon of the same day, the mob, which declined to carry out the tabuts in procession, collected on Parel road and Memonwada road and commenced stoning the troops and police. They also stopped all traffic, stoned tram-cars and private carriages, and roughly handled several harmless pedestrians. The police made several charges upon them from Pydhoni, but were unable permanently to disperse the rioters. At length the Commissioner, seeing that the two mobs refused to disperse and were practically out of hand, and that the Pathans were on the point of breaking loose, called Rao Bahadur Chunilal H. Setalwad, one of the Presidency Magistrates, who was on duty at Sulliman Chauki, and asked him to give the order to the troops (the Warwickshire Regiment) picketed at Pydhoni to fire on the mob. The order was given at once and the rioting ceased.[116]
Like Napoleon’s famous “whiff of grapeshot”, the firing of the Warwicks may be said to have blown the old Muharram into the limbo of oblivion. From that date, January 1911, the processional part of the Muharram, with its tolis, its blackmail, its terrorism and its obscenities, ceased to exist and has not up to the present 1922 been revived. Before the succeeding Muharram drew near, the Commissioner had framed new rules for the celebration, of which the deposit by tabut-license holders of ample security for good behaviour and a complete revision of the processional route for each tabut were two of the main features. He had also contrived to persuade the leaders of the various Muhammadan sections and mohollas that the orgiastic method of celebrating the festival was an anachronism, not countenanced by Islamic teaching and gravely injurious to the City. In thus securing the obliteration of the customs and practices, which for more than fifty years had been responsible for periodical outbreaks of disorder, the Commissioner was greatly assisted by some of the leading men of the Sunni jamats, of whom the most conspicuous and most helpful was Sirdar Saheb Sulliman Cassum Haji Mitha, C. I. E., of Kolsa Moholla. He led the way at succeeding Muharrams in popularizing the waaz or nightly religious discourses and in spending upon them, and upon illuminations and charitable distribution of food to the poorer classes, the money which was formerly wasted on irreverent and turbulent processions. For this fundamental change in the character of the festival none perhaps were more grateful than the Maulvis and Mullas who presided over the waaz; for with the disappearance of the tolis and their paraphernalia their audiences were enormously increased. But respectable Moslems and the general public also breathed a sigh of relief, on realizing that the longstanding annual menace to law and order had been exorcised. In December, 1914, on the conclusion of the fourth Muharram celebrated in the new manner, the Bombay Government wrote to Mr. Edwardes, expressing their thanks for his unremitting efforts and skilful management of the festival. “The result”, they remarked, “is in large measure due to the excellent relations which you established between the Muhammadan leaders and yourself, thus rendering it possible to relegate to the past the disreputable ceremonies which used to disfigure the Muharram. It is now possible to regard the new regulations as having become permanently established”.
Such, very briefly, is the history of the purification of the Bombay Muharram. The old days, when the police were on continuous duty for ten days and nights, when the Bohras were subjected to volleys of the vilest and most obscene abuse and to open assault, when the lowest and most turbulent portion of the population was permitted to take charge of the central portion of the city, and when rioting with its complement of drastic repression was liable to recur in any year—those days have passed, and one hopes that a weak administration will never permit them to recur. The present puritanical and more reverent method of celebration was firmly established during Mr. Edwardes’ Commissionership with the help and approval of leading Muhammadans, who realized at length that the annual orgy in the streets was a disgrace to Islam.
It remains only to notice the effect upon the police of the outbreak of the Great War in August, 1914. The day after War was declared, local shopkeepers, particularly the dealers in foodstuffs, commenced to raise their prices to famine level, and large numbers of the poorer classes appealed to the police for assistance. Government having decided to appoint a food-price committee, the Commissioner ordered a battaki to be beaten throughout the City for three days; several shopkeepers who were disposed to be recalcitrant were called up to the Head Police Office and warned; and in several cases constables were posted at shops to see that prices were not unduly raised. Excess amounts received by shopkeepers from mill-hands and others were in many cases recovered and paid back to the purchasers, and a series of judiciously-fabricated reports were spread by chosen agents, describing the imaginary fate which had overtaken certain shopkeepers, who had extorted fancy prices from the public. Somewhat similar action was taken with excellent effect in the case of retail-dealers, who refused to accept currency-notes of small denominations from the poorer classes. Within a few days these measures produced the required effect, and trade again became normal. The police were on constant duty day and night at the Government Dockyard, at the various military camps erected for the Indian Expeditionary Force, and during the economic disturbance in the early days of the War at the banks and Currency Office. They assisted the military authorities to find Dhobis, Bhistis and other camp-followers for enrolment, they traced absentee followers and native seamen, and during the heavy rain-storms of October, 1914, they found accommodation in permanent buildings for the troops under canvas. They took charge of coal-stacks for the Director, R. I. M., and did much extra duty at the Wadi Bandar railway goods-sheds. They displayed great tact in their management of the crowds which used to collect in the streets to hear the special editions of the vernacular newspapers read out during the early months of the War; and during the aeroplane scare, they were equally successful in dealing with the mobs which used to scan the skies for airships. While the Emden was seizing vessels in the Bay of Bengal and bombarding Madras, there was again a scare in the City and some of the more timorous merchants, taking their cash and jewellery with them, fled to their homes in Native States, where in several cases the local police kindly relieved them of most of their valuables. Others, equally timorous but more reasonable, applied to the Police Commissioner for advice, and were satisfied with his assurance that if it should become necessary to vacate Bombay, he would give them ample warning beforehand. Trusting to this promise, many Hindu merchants remained in the City, who would otherwise have fled.
During the movement of the Expeditionary Forces, the scenes in certain quarters of the bazar, which were heavily patronized by soldiers and sailors, both European and Indian, beggared description. The Japanese quarter appeared to offer special attractions to fighting-men of Mongolian type, and the divisional police had a hard task to settle disputes and maintain order in these areas. In the mill-district there was unrest for some little time; but this was at length discounted by the labours of three Hindu gentlemen, Messrs. H. A. Talcherkar, S. K. Bole, and K. R. Koregaonkar, who volunteered their services as intermediaries between the Police Commissioner and the industrial population, and by means of lectures on the war, social gatherings and so forth, helped to keep the police in touch with popular feeling and to minimise panic. Very arduous work fell upon the Harbour police in connexion with the patrol of the various bandars and wharves, the boarding of all vessels entering the harbour, and the many miscellaneous and emergent requisitions entailed by war conditions. The old police launch which at its best was never very seaworthy, broke down under the strain and had to be docked for repairs to her machinery; but the Harbour police continued to carry on their duties by borrowing launches from other departments. The desertion of lascar crews at the beginning of the submarine scare caused much trouble to the Shipping Master and to the steamship-companies, and on several occasions serangs and other Indian seamen were brought to the Head Police Office to have their apprehensions allayed. When Turkey entered the war, the Divisional police took a census and compiled a register of all Turkish subjects in the City, excluding certain wealthy Arabs of the upper class, who were visited by Muhammadan police officers specially deputed for this duty by the Commissioner.
The bulk of the confidential war work fell naturally upon the Criminal Investigation Department. Before the organization of the Postal Censor’s office, and in some cases also afterwards, the department scrutinized letters addressed to enemy subjects; it studied closely the daily and weekly newspapers in all languages, and prepared a daily report for the military authorities on the publication of war-news; it carried out requests for information and assistance from the Brigade Office, the Customs Department, and the Controller of Hostile Trading Concerns. It prepared lists for Government of hostile, allied and neutral foreigners resident in Bombay; it mustered all German and Austrian males, numbering respectively 189 and 37, at the Head Police Office, confiscated their fire-arms, and eventually dispatched them under arrest to the Ahmadnagar Detention Camp, whither were also sent many enemy foreigners subsequently removed from enemy ships in the harbour. It also kept under surveillance a certain number of persons who were permitted to remain on parole in Bombay; it kept under observation and deported a large number of transfrontier Pathans and tribesmen, under special powers granted for this purpose to the Commissioner; it arrested the officers and crew of a captured Turkish vessel and placed them in detention, and deported many Turkish subjects to Jeddah. The department also housed and fed for two months two hundred and sixty Chinese, who were removed from German prize vessels. One of the more amusing features of their arrival was the disgust shown by the Muhammadan police-officer, told off to arrange for their supply of food, when they begged him in a body to buy up all the pork he could find in the bazaar. Military prisoners from Mesopotamia were taken over and placed in charge of the proper authorities; constant inquiries were made about firms suspected of trading with the enemy; and from the end of 1915 the department had to organize a system of passes for all persons desiring to land at Basra or Mohammerah.
The process of clearing Bombay of hostile aliens of both sexes was finally completed in 1915. Among them were six ladies, a few children, one or two Jesuit priests, and eighteen prostitutes, who were sent to Calcutta for repatriation to Holland by the S. S. Golconda. This party left Bombay by special train, the respectable women and children being placed in the front carriages, the priests and the police-escort in the centre, and the unfortunate denizens of the brothels in the rear-compartments. The moment of departure was enlivened by a gentleman, belonging to the priestly class of a well-known community, who had been keeping one of the Austrian harlots. He came to see the lady off and burst into floods of tears and loud groans, as the train steamed out of the station. One of the most ticklish duties entrusted to the police occurred during the Muharram of 1915. A regiment composed of north-country Muhammadans was on the point of embarking for Mesopotamia, when one of the men murdered their English major. He was court-martialled without delay and sentenced to be hanged; and the military authorities, who handed him over to the police pending his execution, were very anxious that his punishment should be witnessed by the rest of the regiment. There was a general undercurrent of unrest at the time in the Muhammadan quarter, owing to sympathy with Turkey, and the Muharram festival was in progress. Any undue publicity given to the execution, and the overt movement of troops through the City, might have brought about an outbreak. Arrangements were therefore made by the Police to hang the culprit at the Byculla jail before daybreak and to march the regiment to the spot by a circuitous route, with a British regiment in attendance to prevent any attempt at mutiny. The execution was carried out without a hitch, and the regiment was back at its temporary quarters in the docks before the City was properly awake.