MR. R. H. VINCENT, C.I.E.
1893-1898
When Colonel Wilson left Bombay for England in April, 1893, his place
was taken by Mr. R. H. Vincent, who had previously acted as Deputy
Commissioner for a few months in 1872. A foreigner by birth, Mr. Vincent
had served in his youth in the Foreign Legion of Garibaldi’s army. He
came subsequently to India and obtained an appointment in the Bombay
District Police, in which his linguistic faculties and general capacity
soon marked him out for promotion. He was appointed Acting Commissioner
in April and was confirmed in the appointment shortly afterwards,
when Colonel Wilson sent in his papers. His five years of office were
remarkable for two grave outbreaks of disorder, one of them being the
most serious riot that ever occurred in Bombay, for the outbreak of
plague, which threw an enormous extra strain upon the police-force, and
thirdly for the initiation by political agitators of the public Ganpati
festivals, which supplied a direct incitement to sedition and disorder.
[Illustration: MR. R. H. VINCENT]
A reorganization of the police-force was finally sanctioned by Government
in an order of August 28th, 1893, in consequence whereof the strength of
the force at the close of that year was reported to be 1831, exclusive
of 99 harbour police paid for by the Port Trustees. The extra number of
men, coupled with revised rates of pay and allowances, brought the annual
cost of the force to Rs. 518,078. A further addition to the force was
sanctioned at the beginning of 1894, the net increase of men enlisted
during that year being 287, of whom five were Europeans, fourteen were
native officers, and fifty-three were mounted police. The armed police
were augmented by 66 men and the unarmed by 140, including 15 European
and 11 Indian officers. The mounted police were placed under the command
of an Inspector named Sheehy, specially recruited from a British cavalry
regiment. In consequence of these additions, the Commissioner at the
close of 1894 was in command of a total force (exclusive of the harbour
police) of 2111, costing annually Rs. 710,528. The harbour police were
also increased to 114 in 1895.
Excluding a small body of seven constables recruited in 1896 for special
duty under the Glanders and Farcy Act, the sanctioned strength and
cost of the force remained unaltered during the last three years of
Mr. Vincent’s term of office. The number, though more adequate than in
Colonel Wilson’s time, was yet barely sufficient to cope with all the
duties imposed upon the force, while the advent of the plague and other
events aggravated the strain. During the decade following upon Mr.
Vincent’s retirement appeals for more men were followed by spasmodic
additions to the force until the publication in 1905 of the report of the
Police Commission appointed by Lord Curzon. This resulted in a thorough
scrutiny of the various police administrations and led in the case of
Bombay to the preparation of a new and radical scheme of reform.
In the matter of crime, the period of Mr. Vincent’s Commissionership
was remarkable for several murders, fifteen of which occurred in the
year 1893. One of the most sensational crimes was the “double murder”
at Walkeshwar in April 1897, when a Bhattia merchant and his sister
were killed in a house near the temple by a gang of six men, all of
whom were traced and arrested by the police after a protracted and
difficult investigation. Five of the culprits were eventually hanged.
The police were also successful in 1893 in breaking up two gangs of
_dhatura_-poisoners, who had robbed a large number of people. In 1895
Superintendent Brewin, with the help of the Sirdar Abdul Ali and his
detectives, successfully unravelled a case of poisoning, perpetrated
with the object of defrauding the Sun Life Assurance Company. A Goanese
named Fonseca insured the life of a friend, Duarte, with the company and
shortly afterwards administered to him a dose of arsenic, which he had
obtained from a European employed in Stephens’ stables, who used the
poison for killing rats. Prior to insuring Duarte’s life, Fonseca had
him medically examined by two Indian Christian doctors of Portuguese
descent, well-known in Bombay, who made a very perfunctory examination.
Subsequently, when Fonseca asked them to certify the cause of Duarte’s
death, they acted even more negligently and gave a certificate of death
from natural causes without any inquiry. Certain facts, however, aroused
the suspicions of the manager of the Assurance Company; the police were
called in; and in due course Fonseca was tried and convicted of murder.
The records of 1893 mention the arrest and conviction of a leading member
of the famous _Sonari Toli_ or Golden Gang of swindlers, which for some
time made a lucrative livelihood by fleecing the more credulous section
of the public. But in the case of ordinary theft and robbery the police
were less successful in recovering stolen property than in previous
years, the percentage of recovery for the five years ending in 1894 being
only 48 and declining to 35 in 1898. Much of this crime was committed
by professional bad characters and members of criminal tribes belonging
to the Deccan and other parts of the Bombay Presidency. The prevalence
of robbery and theft was viewed with such dissatisfaction by the Bombay
Government that in 1894 they urged the Commissioner to make use of the
provisions of chapter VIII of the Criminal Procedure Code, which had
been applied with much success in up-country districts. Unfortunately
the Bombay magistracy required as a rule far more direct evidence of bad
livelihood than was procurable by the urban police, and any regular use
of that chapter of the Code was therefore declared by the Commissioner to
be impracticable.
The court-work of the police under the local Act was indirectly affected
by the closing of the opium-dens of the City in 1893. This was one
result of the appointment in that year of a Parliamentary Commission to
inquire into the extent of opium consumption in India, its effects on
the physique of the people, and the suggestion that the sale of the drug
should be prohibited except for medicinal purposes. In consequence of
the anti-opium agitation in England, the consumption of opium was from
that date permitted only on a small scale in one or two “clubs” in the
City, frequented by the lower classes. The opponents of the practice did
not foresee that opium-smoking cannot be entirely abolished by laws and
regulations, and that the stoppage of supplies of the drug merely results
in the public seeking other more disastrous forms of self-indulgence. In
Bombay the closing of the opium-shops led directly to a great increase
of drunkenness,[105] and a few years later to the far more pernicious
and degrading habit of cocaine-eating. The experience of most Bombay
police-officers is that the smoking of opium does not _per se_ incite men
to commit crime, and when practised in moderation it does not prevent a
man from performing his daily work. Cocaine on the other hand destroys
its victims body and soul, and the confirmed cocaine-eater usually
develops into a criminal, even if he was not one previously.
The practice of affixing bars to the ground-floor rooms in Duncan road,
Falkland road and neighbouring lanes, occupied by the lowest class of
Indian prostitutes, is usually supposed to have been introduced during
the period of Mr. Vincent’s Commissionership. Strangers who visit Bombay,
as well as respectable European and Indian residents, are apt to be
shocked by the sight of these Mhar, Dhed and other low-caste women
sitting behind bars, like caged animals, in rooms opening directly on the
street. It is not, however, generally known that the bars were put up,
not for the purpose of what has been styled “exhibitionism”, but in order
to save the woman from being overwhelmed by a low-class male rabble,
ready for violence on the smallest provocation. Before the women barred
the front of their squalid rooms, there were constant scenes of disorder,
resulting occasionally in injuries to the occupants; and it was on the
advice of the police that about this date the women had the bars affixed,
which oblige their low-class clientèle to form a queue outside and enable
the women to admit one customer at a time. Considering that a prostitute
of this class charges only 4 annas for her favours and lives in great
squalor, it is not surprising that venereal disease is extremely common,
and that the offering of four annas to Venus ends generally in a further
expenditure of one or two rupees on quack remedies.
As regards regular police-work, Mr. Vincent made an attempt in 1894 to
improve the regulation of traffic on public thoroughfares. This was
necessitated by the steady increase of the number of public and private
conveyances, the former having risen from 5392 in 1884 to 8301 in 1894,
and the latter at the same dates from 2674 to 5416. On the other hand
the width of the roads had, with here and there occasional setbacks,
remained constant for twenty years, and the majority of the streets
were totally inadequate for the increased volume of daily traffic. The
Commissioner’s efforts to control traffic more effectively did result
in a decrease of street-accidents, but they failed at the same time to
meet with “the approval of the entire native community”. Therein lies one
of the chief obstacles to efficient traffic-regulation in Bombay. The
ordinary Indian constable, though more able and alert than he used to
be, is still a poor performer as a regulator of traffic. He is not likely
to improve, so long as Indians persist in using the roads in the manner
of their forefathers in rural towns and villages, and so long as he is
doubtful of the support of the magistracy in cases where he prosecutes
foot-passengers and cab-drivers for neglect of his orders and of the
rule of the road. Apart also from the possibility of the constable not
being supported by the bench, as he usually is in England, the great
delays which are liable to occur in the hearing of these trivial cases,
through the procrastination of pleaders for the defence, act as a direct
discouragement to prosecutions. A real and permanent improvement in
traffic conditions cannot be secured, until the Indian public develops “a
traffic conscience” and insists upon the relinquishment of ancient and
haphazard methods of progression inherited from past centuries.
In the same year (1894) the Commissioner reported that, in accordance
with the orders of Government, he had introduced the Bertillon system of
anthropometry at the Head Police Office, but he expressed a doubt whether
results commensurate with the cost of working would be obtained. The
following year he stated definitely that the system was a failure, but
was urged by Government to persevere with it. The system, nevertheless,
was doomed, and in 1896 was superseded by the far more accurate and
successful finger-print system which was introduced into India by Mr.
(afterwards Sir Edward) Henry, the Inspector-General of Police in Bengal.
Although the Bertillon system was not finally abolished till the end of
1899, Mr. Vincent was able to report in 1898 that a finger-print bureau
had been established, that two police officers had been deputed to Poona
to learn from Mr. Henry himself the details of the system of criminal
identification, and that by the end of the year 300 finger-impressions
had been recorded. This was the origin of the Bombay City Finger-Print
bureau, which by steadily augmenting its own record of criminals and by
interchange of slips with the larger Presidency bureau at Poona, has
compiled a very useful reference-work for investigating officers.
The rapid extension of the scope of police work and the need of dealing
more quickly and effectively with various classes of offences had for
some time impressed upon the local authorities the need for a new police
law. The old Act XLVIII of 1860, under which the police worked in the
days of Mr. Forjett, had been followed by three successive Town Police
Acts, Nos. I of 1872, II of 1879 and IV of 1882. But the provisions
of these Acts needed amendment and consolidation to meet the altered
conditions of later years; and the Commissioner was justified in saying,
as he did in 1898, that the police were “working at a disadvantage
and were hampered in many ways” by the want of a comprehensive and
intelligible City Police Act, which would enable them to deal effectively
with the investigation of crime and the arrest and detention of
offenders and with the special offences peculiar to a large city. He
expressed a hope that the new City Police Bill, which had been under the
consideration of Government for several years, would be enacted without
further delay. Four years were still to elapse before this hope was
fulfilled by the passing of Bombay Act IV of 1902. In the meanwhile the
police, as well as the magistrates,[106] had to perform their respective
duties as best they could under the old law. Such success as the police
achieved in dealing with crime and other evils was due largely to the
energy and experience of the older Divisional Superintendents, such as
Messrs. Crummy,[107] Ingram, Grennan, McDermott, Sweeney, Nolan and
Brewin, of the Sirdar Mir Abdul Ali, and of tried Indian inspectors
like Rao Saheb Tatya Lakshman, Khan Saheb Roshan Ali and Khan Saheb
(afterwards Khan Bahadur) Sheikh Ibrahim Sheikh Imam.
[Illustration: KHAN BAHADUR SHEIKH IBRAHIM SHEIKH IMAM
Joined the Force, 1864—Retired, 1911.]
Mr. Vincent’s term of office was marked by the first outbreak of plague
in the later months of 1896. When the disease first assumed epidemic
form, there was a wild panic among all classes, and people fled in crowds
from the city, leaving their homes unoccupied and unprotected. This led
for the time being to a large increase of offences against property,
committed by professional bad characters who took immediate advantage of
the general exodus. The decrease of police cases in 1897 was due solely
to the fact that the constant demands upon the force for duties connected
with plague-inspection and segregation etc., left them no leisure to deal
with the criminal classes, who throughout the early days of the epidemic
indulged in an orgy of theft and house-breaking. It was estimated in
February, 1897, that 400,000 inhabitants had fled from the city, most of
whom left their houses entirely unprotected. The Bombay Government was
faced with “a difficult and delicate problem—the extent to which it was
possible in view of Indian prejudices and convictions to put into force
the scientific counsels of perfection pressed upon them by their medical
advisers. The doctors drew up plans for house-to-house visitation,
disinfection, isolation hospitals, segregation-camps, and inoculation,
all of which were intensely distasteful to the Indian population with
their caste regulations and their jealousy of any infringement of privacy
in their home life.”[108]
The police were constantly requisitioned to assist in one way or another
the official attempts to stamp out the epidemic, and considering the
extra strain thrown upon them by the various plague-preventive measures,
it is surprising that they managed to cope as effectively as they did
with their regular duties. In 1897 Mr. Rand of the Indian Civil Service
and Lieutenant Ayerst, who had been engaged on plague-work, were
assassinated at Poona. In connexion with the inquiry which followed
Superintendent Brewin was summoned from Bombay and placed on special
duty in Poona. In the following year occurred the plague-riots, to
which reference will be made in a later paragraph. The difficulties
which confronted the police during the first two or three years of the
plague epidemic were aggravated by the unscrupulous campaign against the
Government’s precautionary measures conducted by the native Press, and
the expedient then adopted of strengthening the law against seditious
publications merely served to intensify popular feeling. It was not till
after 1898 that the Indian Government, recognizing the genuineness and
sincerity of the public opposition to plague-restrictions, abandoned
their more stringent rules in favour of milder methods.
In one direction only—the annual pilgrimage to the Hedjaz—may the plague
be said to have brought any relief to the overworked police-force.
The arrangements made by Messrs. Thomas Cook and Sons for shipping
the pilgrims were discontinued about 1892, and in 1893 the Police
Commissioner, acting through his pilgrim department and with the aid of
the divisional and harbour police, shepherded the large number of 13,500
pilgrims to the embarkation sheds. Approximately the same number sailed
in 1895. Directly the plague, however, had firmly established its hold
upon Bombay, the annual exodus of pilgrims was prohibited, in response
partly to international requirements, and during the remainder of Mr.
Vincent’s term of office the Haj traffic practically ceased. A few
pilgrims from Central Asia (1300 in 1898) and other distant regions found
their way yearly to Bombay, in the hope of proceeding to Mecca: but they
were sent back every year to their homes, until the restrictions were
removed and the traffic was re-opened.
Upon the health of the police force the plague naturally exercised a
disastrous effect. A fairly high percentage of sickness was recorded in
1895 and was ascribed chiefly to overcrowding in squalid tenements. The
appearance of plague in the last quarter of 1896 raised the death-roll
of that year to 50 and increased the number of admissions to hospital by
nearly 300. The experience of 1897 was worse. Eighty-two men died, of
whom fifty-two were plague-victims: recruiting for the force entirely
ceased. More than 3,000 admissions to hospital were recorded, some of
the constables being obliged to undergo treatment there three or four
times during the year. To make up in some degree for the deficit, the
Commissioner was obliged to take men from the Ramoshi force, which
supplies night-guards to shops and offices and is paid by the employers.
Many of these semi-official watchmen also succumbed. Several years
elapsed before the police-force recovered from the effects of the early
years of the plague, when the loss of physical power of resistance to the
disease, engendered by continuous overwork, was aggravated by the lack of
commodious and sanitary lines and barracks. Those who, like the author,
can recall the panic which prevailed in those years, and who day by day
and night after night saw the sky above the Queen’s road crimson with the
glow of the funeral-pyres in the Hindu burning-ground, will not grudge
a tribute of praise to the Indian constables who went about their work
unflinchingly, while men were dying around them in hundreds and their own
caste-fellows in the factories and the docks were flying from the scourge
to their homes in the Deccan and the Konkan.
In 1893 occurred numerous strikes of mill-hands, which interfered to
some extent with the ordinary work of the police and caused loss to the
textile industry. But these outbreaks were trivial by comparison with
the grave Hindu-Muhammadan riots, which broke out on August 11th in that
year and afforded startling evidence of the deep sectarian antagonism
which underlies the apparently calm surface of Indian social life and
may at any moment burst forth in fury. The predisposing cause of the
disturbance must be sought in the rioting which had occurred earlier
in the year at Prabhas Patan in Kathiawar during the celebration of
the Muharram, when a Muhammadan mob had destroyed temples and murdered
several Hindus. For a fortnight or more before the outbreak of violence
in Bombay, agitators had been at work among the more fanatical elements
of the population and were assisted by leading Hindus, who convened
large mass-meetings to denounce the authors of the outrages at Prabhas
Patan. This agitation aroused intense irritation, which was aggravated
by the persistent demand of the Hindus that the killing of cows, and
even of sheep and goats, should be prohibited by Government. The Moslem
population became fairly persuaded that the Hindus had the sympathy of
the authorities and that their religion was in danger. They determined to
rise _en masse_ in its defence.
Shortly after midday on Friday, August 11th, a large Muhammadan
congregation emerged from the Jama Masjid and amid cries of _Din,
Din_ (“the Faith”) commenced to attack an important Hindu temple in
Hanuman Lane. The more respectable Moslem worshippers took no part in
this attempt to desecrate the temple and held aloof from all violence.
But the low-class mob, which was constantly reinforced, took control
of the neighbourhood for the time being. Mr. Vincent had foreseen the
possibility of an attack upon the Hanuman Lane temple and had kept a
large proportion of his force on duty up to 3 a.m. on Friday morning—a
precaution which resulted in postponing the rising of the mob for a few
hours. When the disturbance began, all but a small body of European and
Indian police had been withdrawn for a much-needed rest, and it fell to
the lot of these few men to hold the rioters in check, until the arrival
of reinforcements drove the mob from the temple. Meanwhile the spirit
of revenge spread rapidly, and within a short time the whole of Parel,
Kamathipura, Grant road, Mazagon and Tank Bandar were given over to
mob-law.
The tumult was enormous. The Muhammadans attacked every Hindu they
met; the Hindus retaliated; and then both sides rounded on the police.
Stones and _lathis_ (iron-shod bamboo cudgels) were the rioters’ chief
weapons, and they were used with murderous effect. Little care was taken
by the Muhammadans to confine their attacks to the enemies of the Faith.
Peaceful wayfarers were brutally assaulted; tram-cars and carriages
were murderously stoned; post-office vans were attacked; messengers
carrying money were savagely beaten and openly robbed. The crowds,
raging from street to street, demolished Hindu temples, and dragged out
and desecrated the idols in the most obscene and shameful manner. The
_Chilli-chors_ or Musalman drivers of public conveyances, most of whom
hail from the Palanpur State in Kathiawar, stormed the Hindu quarter
of Kumbharwada, while the Julhais or Muhammadan weavers from upper
India attacked the Pardeshi Hindu milk-merchants and set fire to the
milch-cattle stables in Agripada. All business was perforce suspended and
the whole city was thrown into the greatest consternation.
Noting the rapid spread of the disorder, Mr. Vincent applied early for
military assistance with a view to restricting the area of rioting. At
4 p.m. two companies of the Marine Battalion under Colonel Shortland
marched into the City and were followed in quick succession by the 10th
Regiment N. I. under Colonel Forjett, son of Mr. Charles Forjett, by the
Royal Lancashires under Colonel Ryley, and by a battery of Artillery.
The Bombay Volunteer Artillery under Major Roughton and the Bombay Light
Horse under Lieutenant Cuffe were also called out. The Government sent
reinforcements of British and Indian troops from Poona, and detachments
of armed police were also drafted into Bombay from Thana and other
districts. The troops, which numbered three thousand with two guns, were
under the orders of General Budgen. Eighteen European citizens were
appointed Special Magistrates to assist the Presidency Magistrates, Mr.
Cooper and Mr. Webb, who were on duty in the streets night and day. The
Municipal Commissioner, Mr. H. A. Acworth, and the Health Officer, Dr.
Weir, made strenuous efforts to prevent the interruption of the sanitary
service of the city, which in some wards temporarily broke down, and of
the daily supply of food to the markets. One serious feature of the early
part of the disturbance was the refusal of the butchers at Bandora to
slaughter any cattle, and it needed prompt and tactful action on the part
of Mr. Douglas Bennett, superintendent of municipal markets, to overcome
their contumacy.
The troops were posted in various parts of the city and were forced to
open fire on several occasions owing to the defiant attitude of the
mob, which was being constantly reinforced. A notable instance occurred
at the well-known Sulliman Chauki in Grant road, where a detachment of
native infantry was so furiously attacked that it had to fire several
times to avoid being overwhelmed by the rioters. Despite these measures,
the rioting and looting continued on August 12th in all parts of the
city, and many murders and assaults occurred also on the 13th. From the
evening of the latter date, however, tranquillity gradually supervened,
and eventually the efforts of the authorities, aided by the prominent
men of both communities, effected a reconciliation between the excited
belligerents.
The effects of the outbreak were for the time being serious. All business
in the City was suspended for nearly ten days, and fifty thousand people,
chiefly women and children, fled from Bombay to their homes up-country.
About one hundred persons were killed, and nearly 800 were wounded,
during the progress of the rioting, while the loss of property was
enormous. The damage done to Hindu temples and Moslem mosques amounted
respectively to Rs. 51,300 and Rs. 23,200, exclusive of the property
stolen from them, which was estimated to be worth nearly 2 lakhs of
rupees. During and for a few days after the disturbances, when the
police were fully occupied in efforts to restore order and in prosecuting
fifteen hundred persons arrested during the rioting, a great many cases
of robbery, house-trespass and theft occurred, which, though registered
by the police, could not be investigated and were never brought to court.
The second serious outbreak occurred in the last year of Mr. Vincent’s
term of office, and was due directly to the hostility of the public to
the measures adopted by Government for combating the plague. The Julhais,
or Jolahas, professional hand-weavers from the United Provinces, who
have for many years formed a colony in the streets and lanes adjoining
Ripon road, compose one of the most ignorant and fanatical sections of
Muhammadans. The trouble commenced on March 9, 1898, with an attempt by
a party of plague-searchers to remove a sufferer from a Julhai house in
Ripon cross road. The Julhais in a body took alarm, seized their _lathis_
and any weapon that came to hand, and attacked a body of police who had
been sent to keep order and protect the plague-authorities. The position
rapidly became serious; and as the mob refused to disperse and showed
signs of increasing violence, the third Presidency Magistrate, Mr. P. H.
Dastur, who had been summoned to the spot and had himself been slightly
wounded by a stone, ordered the police to fire. This served for the
moment to disperse the Julhai mob. But in a very short time the disorder
spread to Bellasis, Duncan, Babula Tank, Grant, Parel, Falkland and Foras
roads, where many Hindus were celebrating the last day of the annual
Holi festival by idling and drinking. The rioters tried to set fire to
the plague hospitals; murdered two English soldiers of the Shropshire
Regiment in Grant road; burned down the gallows-screen near the jail;
and tried to destroy the fire-brigade station in Babula Tank road. On
this occasion also the Muhammadan butchers at the Bandora slaughter-house
refused to do their work, but were eventually forced to remain on duty
by Mr. Douglas Bennett, who hurried to Bandora with a small body of
native infantry and taught the refractory a sound lesson. An unpleasant
feature of the rioting was the attacks by the mob on isolated Europeans,
several of whom were protected in the pluckiest manner by Indians of
the lower classes. The outbreak was quickly quelled by military, naval
and volunteer forces, who were wisely called out on the first sign of
trouble. By the following day peace was restored. The casualties were
officially stated to be 19 killed and 42 wounded, and the police arrested
247 persons for rioting, of whom 205 were convicted and sentenced to
varying terms of imprisonment.
The Hindu-Muhammadan riots of 1893 were directly responsible for the
establishment in Western India of the annual _public_ celebrations in
honour of the Hindu god Ganpati, which subsequently developed into one
of the chief features of the anti-British revolutionary movement in
India.[109] The riots left behind them a bitter legacy of sectarian
rancour, which Bal Gangadhar Tilak utilized for broadening his new
anti-British movement, by enlisting in its support the ancient Hindu
antagonism to Islam. “He not only convoked popular meetings in which
his fiery eloquence denounced the Muhammadans as the sworn foes of
Hinduism, but he started an organization known as the “Anti-Cow-Killing
Society,” which was intended and regarded as a direct provocation to the
Muhammadans, who, like ourselves, think it no sacrilege to eat beef.” As
his propaganda grew, assuming steadily a more anti-British character,
Tilak decided to invest it with a definitely religious sanction, by
placing it under the special patronage of the elephant-headed god Ganesh
or Ganpati. In order to widen the breach between Hindus and Muhammadans,
he and his co-agitators determined to organize annual festivals in
honour of the god on the lines which had become familiar in the annual
Muhammadan celebration of the Muharram. Their object was to make the
procession, in which the god is borne to his final resting-place in the
water, as offensive as possible to Moslem feelings by imitating closely
the Muharram procession, when the _tazias_ and _tabuts_, representing the
tombs of the martyrs at Kerbela, are immersed in the river or sea.
Accordingly, on the approach of the Ganpati festival in September, 1894,
Tilak and his party inaugurated a _Sarvajanik Ganpati_ or public Ganpati
celebration, providing for the worship of the god in places accessible
to the public (it had till then been a domestic ceremony), and arranging
that the images of Ganpati should have their _melas_ or groups of
attendants, like the Musalman _tolis_ attending upon the _tabuts_. The
members of these _melas_ were trained in the art of fencing with sticks
and other physical exercises. During the ten days of the festival, bands
of young Hindus gave theatrical performances and sang religious songs,
in which the legends of Hindu mythology were skilfully exploited to
arouse hatred of the “foreigner,” the word _mlenccha_ or “foreigner”
being applied equally to Europeans and Muhammadans. As the movement grew,
leaflets were circulated, urging the Marathas to rebel as Shivaji did,
and declaring that a religious outbreak should be the first step towards
the overthrow of an alien power. As may be imagined, these Ganpati
processions, which took place on the tenth day of the festival, were
productive of much tumult and were well calculated to promote affrays
with the Muhammadans and the police. A striking instance occurred in
Poona, where a mela of 70 Hindus deliberately outraged Moslem sentiment
by playing music and brawling outside a mosque during the hour of prayer.
These celebrations helped to intensify Tilak’s seditious propaganda;
and although they are barely mentioned in the annual reports of the
Police Commissioner, they had become firmly established in Bombay
and other places by the date of Mr. Vincent’s retirement, and were
destined to impose a heavy burden of extra work on the police-force
for several years to come. At the present date the public celebration
of the _Ganesh Chaturthi_ still takes place and necessitates special
traffic arrangements, when the crowds pour out of the city to immerse the
clay-images of the god in Back Bay. But the more disturbing political
features of the festival have gradually disappeared. This change may
be held to date roughly from Tilak’s second trial for sedition and
conviction in 1908, which dealt a severe blow to the seditious side of
the movement. A few _melas_ appeared in the following years; but the
strength of the movement was broken by the incarceration of the leader of
the Extremists and by judicious action on the part of the divisional and
detective police.
This brief record of the period 1893 to 1898 will suffice to show that
any improvement in the prevention and detection of crime, which might
have been expected to follow on the increase in the numbers of the
police force, was largely discounted by outbreaks of disorder and by the
prevalence of a disastrous epidemic. With his police constantly being
summoned to assist in plague-operations of a difficult character, and
being forced in consequence of overwork and illness to seek constant
treatment in hospital, the Commissioner was scarcely able to insist upon
a standard of police-work suitable to normal times. In spite, however, of
these difficulties and of additional work of a novel character arising
out of the gradual spread of the anti-British revolutionary movement, the
Bombay police under Mr. Vincent’s control contrived to achieve reasonable
success in their dealings with the criminal elements of the population,
and set an example of adherence to duty under very trying conditions
which earned more than once the express approbation of the Bombay
Government.
[Illustration: MR. HARTLEY KENNEDY
[Photograph taken 20 years after retirement]]