Identifier: empireofindia01full (find matches)
Title: The empire of India
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Fuller, Bampfylde, Sir, 1854-1937
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, Little, Brown, and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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creas-ing population off the land ; holdings have been sub-divided tiU they provide little beyond a bare subsistence.Families, and sometimes whole villages, rateably dividethe produce of the land on a system which takes the lifeout of individual effort. Enterprise is blunted by poverty,and by the respect that is felt by the poor for traditionalcustom—the force which regulates their lives and protectsthem from outrageous oppression. And in India agri-cultural development has been retarded by a specialand very peculiar obstacle. The Hindu Scriptures regardcultivation as a degrading pursuit, to be avoided by menof scrupulous morality. The reason given for this pre-judice is that in tilling land insects are killed and painis inflicted upon the plough bullocks. Centuries havepassed since the laws of Manu were composed in whichthese reflections occur. But at the present day very fewmen of the two highest castes—the Brahmin and theRajput—will do so much as lay hands on a plough; not 50
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FANCIFUL PREJUDICES only does their example lower the dignity of farming, butthe very large area of land that is held by them is farmedin slovenly fashion by hired labour. Some of the lowercastes have become infected by the idea that it is respect-able to be particular ; and large numbers of commonpeople will, for instance, not sow lentils because thered colour of the grain reminds them of blood. Suchcurious prejudices would be ridiculed by a people ofindustrious habits. Speaking generally, Indian cultivatorsare not industrious. They have not turned the smallnessof their holdings to advantage, like the Japanese, bydiscarding the plough for the hoe, and increasing theoutturn of their fields by hand cultivation. Ridging andtrenching require manual labour ; in Japan fields areprepared in this way for irrigation, but the Indian iscontent to flood the surface of his land, wasting the water,and injuring the crops by the subsequent caking of thesoil around them. He leaves to his women the la

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