I believe it to be an axiom in politics that all social convulsions have been preceded by a period of growing misery for the agricultural poor, combined with the growing intelligence of the urban populations. Certainly this was the case in Europe at the time of the Reformation, and again, following the lead of France, in the last century; and, most certainly and immediately under our own observation, it has been the case in Ireland and in Egypt at the present day. Where there is complete ignorance, misery may be accumulated almost without limit by a despotic power. Where the mass of the population is prosperous, no growth of knowledge need be feared. But it is at the point where education and starvation meet that the flame breaks forth. This is a truism. Yet there are few who recognize how absolutely true it is of India.
No one accustomed to Eastern travel can fail to see how poor the Indian peasant is. Travelling by either of the great lines of railway which bisect the Continent, one need hardly leave one’s carriage to be aware of this. From Madras to Bombay, and from Bombay again to the Ganges valley, distances by rail of seven hundred and eight hundred miles, one passes not half a dozen towns, nor a single village which has a prosperous look. The fields, considering the general lightness of the soil, are not ill-cultivated; but there is much waste land; and in the scattered villages there is an entire absence of well-built houses, enclosed gardens, or large groves of fruit trees, the signs of individual wealth which may be found in nearly every other Oriental country. The houses are poorer than in Asia Minor or Syria, or even Egypt, and are uniform in their poverty. There are no residences of any wealthier class than the poorest, and the little congregations of mud huts are without redeeming feature in the shape of stone-built mansion or whitewashed dwelling at all superior to the rest. Such exceptions one finds in every province of the Ottoman Empire, except perhaps in Irak, and one finds them in Persia. But throughout the great central plateau of the Indian peninsula, they are wholly absent.
Nor is the aspect of poverty less startling if one looks closer. Entering a Deccan[14] village one is confronted with peasants nearly naked, and if one asks for the head man, one finds him no better clothed than the rest. The huts are bare of furniture; the copper pots are rare; the women are without ornaments. These are the common signs of indigence in the East; and here they are universal. Questioning the peasants, one ascertains not only that they do not eat meat, for this is often against their religious custom, but also that they eat rice itself only on holidays. Their ordinary food is millet mixed with salt and water, and flavoured with red peppers; and of this they partake only sufficient to support life. Of luxuries other than the red peppers they seem entirely destitute.