'NO SURPLUS IN ANY OF THESE VILLAGES' 507 In obedience to the orders of the Government of India and the Assistant-Commissioner, I inquired into the question of the insufficiency of food grains from which the agricultural classes suffer. I selected fifteen villages:— 5 villages, first sort. 5 villages, average sort. From private inquiries made of these villages in regard to their food, I have been able to prepare a statement herewith submitted. From this I conclude that a villager continues to take his ordinary quantity of meal so long as he is not embarrassed, or so long as he is able to secure loans from bohras, and so long as he has a stock of grain. When they cannot get loans and their stocks are exhausted, they necessarily diminish their scale of diet, thus :— It is this diminution of the dietary scale that eventually enfeebles the body, weakens the constitution, and breaks the health of the agriculturist. The inquiry embraces the statistics for the whole of the population of the villages. Their receipts for the twenty years have been shown in columns 8, 28, and 29. Columns 9 and 30 show the state of loan and embarrassment of kashtkars and kamins. Columns 21 and 22 give the details of the old and new loans. Columns 10 and 31 give the details of yearly income. Columns 11, 12, 32, and 33 give the annual charges. At this rate there is no surplus in any of these villages. Zemindars and kamins (village menials) are for the most part embarrassed, and their income being low, they are unable to liquidate their loans. The incidence of receipts from agricultural and other sources, per head, comes to Rs.1 8a., Rs.1 12a., Rs.2; and only in selected villages to Rs. 28a. per month. It may therefore be safely said that the state of the agricultural classes is far from satisfactory, and specially of the villages of Ghoojra, Dhagal, Bargaon, Barla, and Palran, which are the least benefited by agriculture. Their livelihood is mostly derived from the sale of grass, fodder, ghi, fuel, and from working on wages. It is therefore clear that the future lot of these villages will be deplorable, since they do not engage themselves in agriculture. It is impossible under these circumstances to think that these men will liquidate any debts, or that they would get sufficient food to sustain themselves. Although it is impossible for other villages as well to support their inhabitants on a small earning of Rs.2 or Rs.2 4a. per mensem, and at the same time to pay debts and incur marriage expenses out of that small sum, the villagers are seen to subsist on onions, plum-berries, cucumbers, and melons, the produce of the harvest for the time being; and there are others who live on game. I am satisfied that the people do suffer from the insufficiency of food grains. On occasions of marriages and deaths, loans are taken from bohras, which, under the above circumstances, become a burden to them, inasmuch as they have to diminish their dietary scales, because a good deal of the produce has to be assigned to the bohras in payment of debts.1 Translation of Munshi Imamuddin's Report, p. 233, Econ. Inq.,' 1888. THE HUNGER OF ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS NEVER FULLY SATISFIED. 'I do not hesitate to say that half our agricultural population never know from year's end to year's end what it is to have their hunger fully satisfied. 'The ordinary phrase in these parts, when a man asks for employment, is that he wants half a seer of flour; and a phrase so general must have some foundation. I believe that it has this much truth in it, that 1 lb. of flour is sufficient, though meagre, sustenance for a non-labouring man. That a labouring adult can eat 2 lbs. I do not doubt; but he rarely, if ever, gets it. But take the ordinary population in a family of five, consisting of a father, mother, and three children. The father will, I would say, eat a little less than 2 lbs., the mother a little more than 1 lb., the children about 3 lbs. between them. Altogether 7 lbs. to five people is the average which, after much inquiry, I am inclined to adhere to. I am confident that with our minutely divided properties, our immense and cramped population, and our grinding poverty, any attempt at heavier taxation would result in financial failure to the Government, in widespread distress and ruin to the people.'-Sir C. A. ELLIOTT, K.C.S.I., when Settlement Officer, North-Western Provinces, subsequently Lieut.Governor of Bengal, now Chairman, Finance Committee, London School Board. 'Half our Agricultural Population' means ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE! What, it may be asked, since he has been living in England, after retirement from the service, has Sir Charles Elliott done to assuage this never-satisfied hunger? What is he doing now? What will he answer to the questions in verses 31-45, Matt. xxv.? 'Drought and scarcity were common enough before our time, and sometimes passed into actual famine; but the people were never so powerless before to prevent the development of scarcity into starvation. Every village in the country had its own reserve of grain stored up therein against famine. To this hour, nothing will induce the ryots in Lower Bengal or Orissa to part with their private food reserves of rice but necessity. . . . In Orissa the ryot never deems himself quite safe, we are told, with less than a full two years' store of rice in his homestead. Now the uniform result of introducing our rule into a Province seems to have been the gradual exhaustion of these stores, and at last their total disappearance.'-India, Before our Time and Since, by ROBert Knight (1881). 40 PER CENT. OF BEHAR PEOPLE UNDERFED 511 THE LOWER PROVINCES OF BENGAL. For Bengal, as for the Madras Presidency, the particulars of the 1881-82 inquiry are a-wanting by the present writer. The following details, however, are available for Behar:- The Settlement Officer, Mr. Collin, writing with special reference to two villages examined by him in the district, observes: 'From the foregoing description of the condition of the agricultural classes in this pergunah (Daphor), it appears that they need not at present cause any apprehension, and that in ordinary years they have suffi cient means of subsistence. The picture which I have drawn does not, however, show any great prosperity and shows that the lower classes, which, including the weaving class, amounting to twenty-five per cent. of the population, have little chance of improving their position, and that they would have no resources to fall back upon in time of scarcity.' The Collector of Monghyr remarks that he has come across many inhabitants who were thin and apparently in want of due nourishment. The Collector of Patna writes of ryots holding less than four local bighas, or two and a half acres: Their fare is of the very coarsest, consisting to a great extent of khesari dâl, and the quantity is insufficient during a considerable part of the year. They can only take one full meal instead of two. They are badly housed, and in the cold weather insufficiently clothed.' As to labourers, he adds that their condition is rather worse: 'They are almost always paid in kind, the usual allowance of a grown man being two to two and a half seers of the coarsest and cheapest grain, value about one penny farthing. Women receive about half this rate, but their employment is less regular. Ordinarily, male labourers do not find employment for more than eight months of the year. The conclusion to be drawn is that, of the agricultural population, a large proportion, say 40 per cent., are insufficiently fed, to say nothing of clothing and housing. They have enough food to support life and to enable them to work, but they have to undergo long fasts, having for a considerable part of the year to satisfy themselves with one full meal in the day.' With regard to Gaya, the Commissioner accepts a statement made by the Collector that forty per cent. of the population are insufficiently fed. Dr. Lethbridge, the Inspector-General of Gaols, writes: In Behar, the districts of Mozufferpore and Sarun, and parts of Durbhunga and Chumparun, are the worst, and there is almost constant insufficiency of food among those who earn their living by daily labour.' 6 I 1 Facts regarding the seven named districts of Behar, p. 252, Econ. Inq.,' |