Beast and Man in India Part 1

Beast and Man in India.

by John Lockwood Kipling.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

When, on the 21st March 1890, under the auspices of the Hon. Sir Andrew Scoble, the Legislative Council of India pa.s.sed an Act (XI. of 1890) for the prevention of cruelty to animals, some surprise was expressed in England that legislation should be necessary for a people who have long been quoted as an example of mercy. It was hinted that Orientals must have learned cruelty, as they have learned drunkenness, from brutal Britons.

Those who know India need not be told that this insinuation is groundless, since both vices have for ages been rooted in the life of Eastern as of all the nations under heaven. The general conclusion of cultivated Europe as to the temper of Orientals towards animals is expressed by Mr. Lecky, in a clause of the sentence with which he concludes a survey of a growth of consideration for animals as an element of public morals, in his _History of European Morals from Constantine to Charlemagne_, and runs thus: "The Muhammadans and the Brahmans have in this sphere considerably surpa.s.sed the Christians."

There is enough truth in this statement to give interest to an examination of it. The gulf that must exist between religious prescriptions that have earned a world-wide reputation for mercy and a practice which has led a Government, strongly adverse to unnecessary legislation, to frame an enactment for the prevention of cruelty, deserves looking into. We ought, perhaps, to distrust most of the compendious phrases which presume to label our complex and paradoxical humanity with qualities and virtues, like drugs in a drawer. At all events, it is better not to try to make another rule but to offer a few general considerations and details of actual fact, leaving the Christian to frame his summary for himself.

The wholesale ascription of tender mercy to India may not unfairly be held to be part of a wide and general misconception of Indian life and character, of which the administrator, the schoolmaster, and the missionary have reason to complain. They find on closer acquaintance that both Hindus and Muhammadans are more human and more like the rest of the world than the conventional pictures of Scholars, working from a dead and done-with literature, had led them to expect. Some of the most authoritative of these writers have never ventured to disturb their dreams by contact with the living India of to-day, and their gushing periods have, in consequence, as much actuality as Gulliver's Travels. For nearly all, the last few centuries of this era do not exist. To judge from their writings, the English power in India might have succeeded that of the Gupta kings. No mention is made of the horrible hole of the pit from which the country was digged; and the events that really shaped the character and habits of the people are ignored in favour of ancient law-givers and forgotten Vedas.

Nothing could be more scholarly, amiable, sentimental, or mistaken, and the plain result is a falsification of history which has more ill effects than are visible on the narrow horizon of an English study.

It is not a pleasant subject to dwell upon, but there is no more fitting adjective than "cruel" for the India of the late Mogul and the Pindari. We may allow that through centuries of trouble the Hindu system availed to preserve Brahmanical ordinances, but these only affected a limited portion of the community. The ma.s.ses of the people, who really have to do with animals, could not but be demoralised. So general precepts of mercy for the many shrank into ritual observances for the few. Moreover, such precepts as exist have been exaggerated in report.

Strictly speaking, the Pa.r.s.ee religious code alone, among those of Oriental races, directly enjoins a humane and considerate treatment of all animals during their life, as may be fully learned from the Book of Ardha Viraf, the Dante of the Zoroastrian _Inferno_. The Hindu worships the cow, and as a rule is reluctant to take the life of any animal except in sacrifice. But that does not preserve the ox, the horse, and the a.s.s from being unmercifully beaten, over-driven, over-laden, under-fed, and worked with sores under their harness; nor does it save them from abandonment to starvation when unfit for work, and to a lingering death which is made a long torture by birds of prey, whose beaks, powerless to kill outright, inflict undeserved torment. And the same code which exalts the Brahman and the cow, thrusts the dog, the a.s.s, the buffalo, the pig, and the low-caste man beyond the pale of merciful regard.

The loving-kindness of which we hear is, in modern fact and deed, a vague reluctance to take life by a positive sudden act, except for sacrifice,--a large exception,--and a ceremonial reverence for the cow, which does not avail to secure even for her such good treatment as the milch cows of Europe receive. There are some castes who hold it wrong even to accidentally destroy an insect, who keep a cloth before their mouths to prevent swallowing them, and who brush the ground before they seat themselves, so that they may not crush out some minute life. But they teach no gospel of mercy, inheriting only an observance of their peculiar caste, absolutely inert beyond its boundaries. Indeed, it is well for mankind that they are not propagandists, for, clearly a man who refuses to take or to interfere with animal life in any way, and who says that while the cat should be left to kill the mouse, the serpent should not by a truly pious man be prevented from entering the cradle of his sleeping child, is not a teacher of much value. No general temper of pity towards animals in service has been produced by Brahmanical law, and probably not by any merely religious ordinances in any part of the world. Feeling for the sufferings of animals, restraint in their use, and recognition of their rights to consideration, are just as modern in India as elsewhere.

The reluctance to kill, which is the main fact of Hindu animal treatment, is of itself, from a European point of view, a cause of needless suffering.

We speak of putting injured or diseased creatures out of their misery. To the mind of the orthodox Hindu there is no such thing as euthanasia, and it is impious to attempt to bring it about. An English correspondent of the _Pioneer_, 30th October 1890, writes:--

"At Chandi, near Kalka, I last week found a Government dak horse lying in a public grove, close to the road, a hind leg of which had been broken (according to the people there) three days before, through a kick. This poor beast had been hauled out and thrown down alive to die a lingering death. It was perfectly conscious. I found it surrounded by crows, which had already picked out both of its eyes, and when I arrived were in the act of devouring other tender parts. The horse attracted my attention by throwing its head up repeatedly to drive the crows off. Luckily I had a pistol, and of course shot the animal at once."

There is nothing unusual in this, for it is the fate of all animals that serve the Hindu to be left to die; and though most English people would approve of that pistol-shot, it was wrong according to the Hindu canon.

The cause of the canon is not far to seek. The doctrine of the transmigration of souls is at the root of _ahimsa_, the ancient principle of regard for animals, for it makes all living nature kin with humanity. A bull is more than a bull, he is a potential grandfather. We have all been here before, and the souls of the hosts of men and animals, birds, and fishes have pa.s.sed in these various disguises through infinite aeons of time and change. Believing this, you naturally hold your hand before dismissing a soul to another flight and another change of dwelling.

In this, as in other Indian subjects, a vast and most various population has been labelled with attributes that belong to a few of the upper cla.s.ses alone. A description of the habits and beliefs of the Bench of Bishops would scarcely be accepted as fairly representative of the ma.s.ses of Great Britain, but something like this suffices for popular estimates of India.

Those who have but little to do with animals are enjoined not to kill, but no command is laid on the low-caste Hindu, while the average Muhammadan, ignorant though devout, knows of none. Even Hindus are not, as is commonly believed, universally vegetarian. Nearly all eat fish, vast and yearly increasing numbers eat mutton and kid, Rajputs and Sikhs eat wild boar, and most low-caste Hindus are only vegetarian when flesh food is not within their reach. All Muhammadans are flesh eaters as a matter of course. A Levitical code is naturally a mother of hypocrisy, so Hindus living among Hindus of higher caste will call mutton _lal sag_--red vegetable; and fish, water beans; while prawns are enn.o.bled as Shiva biscuits, but they are eaten all the same.

Animal sacrifices, and the peculiar character of the religious ceremonies of certain Hindu Sakti worshipping castes, at whose meetings the eating of flesh and the drinking of wine and spirits form part of a ritual of orgy, also tend to lower the standard from the ideal Europeans have conceived of the Hindu. There are vast numbers of these "left-hand" worshippers. Here it may be remarked that the "official" books of mythology, etc., are no guide to modern practice, or to a comprehension of modern life. Modern Hinduism, as Sir Monier M. Williams has well said, is "a loose conglomerate," and it is a conglomerate in process of decay and change. The High G.o.ds described in the works one may call "official" may not be quite dead, but they are practically superseded in favour of witchcraft, demonolatry, and fetishism, or by vulgar manifestations, usually of an orgiastic type. Wholesale slaughter and blood are constantly a.s.sociated with these G.o.ds, G.o.dlings, and demons. Some writers claim for Hinduism a wonderful immutability; and this preposterous contention, which would be scouted if made on behalf of any other race of mankind, has been allowed to pa.s.s unchallenged. It has decay inherent in its system, and its history is one long chronicle of protest, dissent, and change.

Persons of the Vegetarian persuasion sometimes claim a moral superiority for the Hindu, in that his delicacy of feeling is not blunted by the horrors of the Western butcher's shop. This is plausible but illusory, for there are plenty of butchers' shops in India, and it should be further remembered that of the thousands who habitually pa.s.s such shops in the West, but a very small percentage have seen the act of slaughter, wherein demoralising influence may be supposed to lie. The Hindu, on the other hand, is familiar with slaughter in a most revolting form, performed as an act of sacrifice. When we talk of sacrifice we think of the grave and decent solemnities described in the Bible or in Homer. Such ideas are rudely dispelled by the reality in India. The goat and buffalo sacrifices to Kali at Kali ghat in the highly civilised metropolis of Bengal are not to be mentioned in connection with any slaughtering we know of, for there may be seen thousands of people gloating in delirious excitement over rivers of blood.

There are general injunctions of mercy in the Buddhist religion, but Buddhism has been dead and done with in India proper for centuries, and has left but little behind it. Always vague and abstract, it is doubtful whether its languid prescriptions ever effectively controlled the daily practice of the people. The Singhalese are Buddhists, and yet cruelty to animals is one of the marks of modern Ceylon. The modern Burman is a Buddhist and should not take life. But, like Gautama Buddha himself, he eats flesh, so he contents his conscience by calling the butcher a Muhammadan. We are apt to judge of the results of a creed from the aims of its commandments, which is putting the cart before the horse. Yet we ought to know better, for the main stress of our Christian commandment is to lay up no treasure on earth, to consider the lilies of the field, to sell all and follow the Christ, etc. etc. In the Christian capitals of the Western world one may see how much of this injunction is obeyed.

The ordinary Englishman will not easily be persuaded that the act of killing an animal or bird for food is necessarily a proof of cruelty. I write these lines in an English house in the country, the gracious lady whereof has just returned from a visit to some friends in the village, who had sent word that their pig was killed. Here is a delicate and refined Englishwoman going in cold blood to see a dead pig! Nothing could be more horrible from a Hindu or Muhammadan point of view, but from that of English country life it is natural enough. The lady is a valued friend of a struggling family. Their pig has been kindly treated and carefully fed for months, and its death is a sort of festival; they are proud of its weight and size, and it is one of the triumphs of their provident and thrifty lives. "And the pig?" says the master of the house at lunch. "Well, I had to look at the pig, and it seemed a fine pig enough. They said it weighed 14 score, and I said it must be the largest they had fed since their mother died, and they were all much pleased, and wanted to tell me stories of past pigs, but I managed to escape."

The topsy-turvy morality of the East would give a higher place to the Levitically clean Hindu, who would die sooner than eat flesh, but who would also rather die than touch or help a dying man of a low caste near his door, than to the English lady whose life is spent in active beneficence, but who is defiled by eating beef and approaching the dead body of a pig.

The animal hospitals of India have been frequently quoted, and with some reason, as a proof of the tender mercy of the country. There are three of these interesting inst.i.tutions on the great continent, at Bombay, Surat, and Ahmedabad, chiefly maintained by Banians of the Jain faith. The Bombay "pinjrapol," however, is said to have been largely endowed by the generous Pa.r.s.ee, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, first baronet of the name. They are not hospitals in the true sense, for ailments are not treated, but simply refuges for halt, maimed, diseased, and blind creatures for whom n.o.body cares. Until the late Mr. J. H. Steel, Princ.i.p.al of the Bombay Veterinary College, took compa.s.sion on the inmates and regularly visited the place, no attempt had ever been made to alleviate their sufferings; and the inst.i.tution is of some antiquity. Ritual reverence for life does not include the performance of acts of mercy. It is enough to save the animal from immediate death, and to place food within its reach. So you see there creatures with unset broken limbs, with hoofs eighteen inches long, and monstrous wens. The dogs, as I remember them twenty years ago, were a heartbreaking sight, confined, with nothing to do but fight, insufficiently fed, and all afflicted with one equal misery of mange. A quaint feature of the place is an apartment supposed to be full of the vermin that feed on mankind. From time to time a man is paid to spend a night in this den in order to give the cherished insects a dinner, but first he is drugged to insensibility, lest in his natural irritation he should be tempted to destroy some of them. I have always doubted this, and certainly never saw it done, but it is one of the proudest traditions of the "pinjrapol,"

vouched for by Native gentlemen of undoubted authority.

There are admirable points in the ritual respect for life, but it is not true humanity, nor is it practised with sufficient intelligence or feeling to profit the animal. We in the West may at least learn from it the reflection that all living things cling to life, nor need we in the present state of Veterinary science be always so prompt with pistol or poleaxe as is our habit.

But it must be noted that the sect which cares for animal hospitals is comparatively small, with only a local influence, and that its practice in this matter is the subject of a good deal of popular gibe. For it is not easy to respect people who collect caterpillars, and feed fleas and other vermin with human blood, nor is it only to the Occidental that a fantastic glorification of the letter of a law may show the death of its spirit.

Oriental tender mercy has always been liable to this taint of grotesque exaggeration. That renowned model of kindness and generosity, whose name is on every Oriental's lips, and whose deeds are constantly quoted--Hatim Tai--fed his brother the tiger (as St. Francis of a.s.sisi would say) with portions of flesh cut from his own limbs. This may be heroic, but, like many other ill.u.s.trious examples of Oriental goodness, it is also absurd, and so remote from every possibility of ordinary life and conduct as to exert no practical influence as a lesson.

Yet, while maintaining that no precept of mercy has protected animals in servitude in India, we may gladly admit that a more humane temper prevails with regard to free creatures than in the West. Village boys are not there seen stoning frogs or setting dogs at cats, nor tying kettles to dogs'

tails, and it has not been found necessary to forbid bird-nesting by Act of Parliament. The Indian schoolboy on his way to school pa.s.ses numbers of squirrels, much resembling the chipmunk of America, but he never throws a stone at them; and the sparrow, the crow, the maina, and the hoopoe move from his path without a flutter of fear. The india-rubber catapult or tweaker of the West has not yet reached him, while the sling and the _golel_ or pellet-bow (the "stone bow" of Shakspeare) seem to be only used when guarding fruit and crops from the hungry parrakeet and the omnivorous crow.

One of the most surprising things in the country is the patience with which depredations on the crops are endured. With far less provocation the English farmer organises sparrow clubs, and freely uses the gun, the trap, and the poisoned bait. And the Indian farmer suffers from creatures that earn no dole of grain by occasional insecticide. The monkey, the nilghai, the black buck, the wild pig, and the parrakeet fatten at his expense, and never kill a caterpillar or a weevil in return. He and his family spend long and dismal hours on a platform of sticks raised a few feet above the crops, whence they lift their voices against legions of thieves. The principle of abstaining from slaughter is pushed to an almost suicidal point in purely Hindu regions, and becomes a serious trouble at times. A large tract of fertile country in the N.-W. Provinces, bordering on the Bhurtpore State, is now lapsing into jungle on account of the inroads of the nilghai and the wild pig. The "blue cow" or nilghai is sacred, and may not be killed even by the villagers whom the creature drives from their homes, and there are not enough sportsmen or tigers to keep down the wild boar.

Gardeners try to scare the birds with elaborate arrangements of string, bamboos, old pans, and stones in their fruit trees; and sometimes a watcher sits like a spider at the centre of an arrangement of cords, radiating all over the field, so that an alarming movement may be produced at any point.

Yet their tempers do not give way, and they preserve a monumental patience.

Sometimes they say: "The peac.o.c.k, the monkey, the deer, the partridge, these four are thieves," or include other animals and birds with varying numbers, but always with more resignation than resentment. The wisdom of the village says that public calamities are seven, and are visitations of G.o.d,--drought, floods, locusts, rats, parrots, tyranny, and invasion. The professional birdcatcher, however, is never of the farmer race, and owes his victims no revenge; while a scornful proverb on his ragged and disreputable condition shows that he earns no grat.i.tude from the cultivator. Another rustic saying about bird slaughter, expanded into its full meaning, would run: "You kill a paddy-bird, and what do you get?--a handful of feathers!" Yet since Parisian milliners have decreed that civilised women shall wear birds in their head-gear, there is not sufficient respect for animal life to stay the barbarous slaughter of them now going on all over India.

The tolerance or indifference which leaves wild creatures alone is unfortunately an intimate ally of blank ignorance. That townspeople should be ignorant of nature is to be expected, but even in the country a fly-catcher, a sparrow, and a shrike are all spoken of as _chiriyas_, birds merely, and not one in fifty, save out-caste folk, can tell you anything of their habits, food, nests, or eggs. The most vague and incorrect statements are accepted and repeated without thought, a habit common to all populations, but more firmly rooted in India than elsewhere. First-hand observation and accurate statement of fact seem almost impossible to the Oriental, and education has not hitherto availed to help him. In the West public instruction becomes more real and vital year by year, but in the East it is still bound hand and foot to the corpse of a dead literature.

Educational authorities in India discern the fault, but they are themselves mainly of the literary caste and direct native Professors whose pa.s.sion is for words. We talk of science teaching, but forget to count with a national habit of mind that stands carefully aloof from facts and is capable of reducing the splendid suggestions of Darwin and Wallace, Faraday and Edison, to mechanical and inert rote work.

Indifference is intensified by the narrowness of sympathy produced by the caste system, and by the discouragement of attachment to animals among respectable people. Our modern school-books, in which lessons on animal life and humane animal treatment are wisely included, may do something in the course of time to lighten this "blind side" of Oriental character, and in a few generations we may hope for an Indian student of natural history.

At present this splendid field is left entirely to European observers, who mostly look at nature along the barrel of a gun. Which is a false perspective.

I conclude that, while admitting the need for a legislative measure for the protection of animals, consonant with the wishes and feelings of the most cultivated cla.s.ses in India, and of itself a sign of advancing civilisation and morality, it would be a task as difficult as hateful to prove that the people at large have any abnormal and inborn tendency to cruelty. The shadow of evil days of anarchy, disorder, and rapine has but lately cleared away and given place to an era of security, when, as the country proverb says, "the tiger and the goat drink at one ghat." The people are better than their creeds, but it is not easy to defend their practice, though it is often more due to necessity, custom, and ignorance than to downright brutality of intent.

To explain something of this in a familiar manner befitting an everyday, familiar subject is the purpose of this pen and pencil essay. It has seemed to me that an elementary study of Indian animals, their treatment and usage, and the popular estimates and sayings current about them, though involving much that is commonplace and trivial, opens a side door into Indian life, thought, and character, the threshold of which is still unworn.

To Anglo-Indians of long standing a word of apology is due for the apparent confidence with which native beliefs are treated. The truth is, it is hard to state briefly ideas of this nature without a seeming a.s.sumption of complete knowledge. But they will recognise the difficulty of translating nebulous Indian notions into stark English print, and make just allowances. We others know that only a fool will pretend to say with absolute confidence what a native thinks. Even in the West, where men think aloud, and the noisy newspaper proclaims the matter on the house-top, it takes a wise man to say how the popular mind is working.

India has a larger inheritance than most other countries in sacred and legendary lore of animals; but much of it has now only a literary interest, and but a remote connection with the actual life of the people. I have neither the scholarship nor the ambition to produce "one of those learned compilations which have no root in actual life, epitomise the past, and have no future." Serious students of Zoolatry and of folk-lore in its scientific sense will therefore find little to interest them in chapters wherein a living dog is frankly preferred to a dead lion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BIRD SCARING]

CHAPTER II

OF BIRDS

"Birds, companions more unknown Live beside us, but alone; Finding not, do all they can, Pa.s.sage from their souls to man.

Kindness we bestow, and praise, Laud their plumage, greet their lays; Still, beneath the feather'd breast, Stirs a history unexpress'd."