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Page 16
An objection may be taken to these figures on the ground that the
crime of infanticide is much more prevalent to India than it is in
England, and that the perpetrators of this crime are much less
frequently brought to justice in the former country than with us. That
objection is to some extent valid; at the same time it is well to
remember that infanticide in India is an offence of a very special and
peculiar character; the motives from which it springs are not what is
usually understood as criminal; these motives arise from religious
usage and immemorial custom; in short, it is English law and not the
Indian conscience which makes infanticide a crime. Of course, the
practice of infanticide is a proof that the Hindu mind has not the
same high conception of the value of infant life as one finds in the
western world, and in that respect India stands on an inferior moral
level to ourselves. But with the exception of infanticide (and it is
necessary to except it for the reasons I have just alleged) India has
not half as many homicides annually as England.[17]
[17] For the high percentage of infanticide in England see the
evidence given before the House of Lords last July (1890) by
Judges Day and Wills.
To what cause is this vast difference in favour of India to be
attributed? It is hardly probable that the difference is produced to
any appreciable extent, if at all, by the nature of the food used by
the people of India. If it were correct that a vegetable diet, such as
is almost exclusively used by the inhabitants of India, had a salutary
effect on the conduct of the population, we should witness the results
of it, not only in the Indian peninsula, but also in other quarters of
the world. The nature of the food consumed by the Italians bears a
very close resemblance in its essential constituents to the dietary of
the inhabitants of India; in both cases it is almost entirely composed
of vegetable products. If vegetable, as contrasted with animal food,
exercised a beneficial influence on human conduct; if it tended, for
example, to restrain the passions, to minimise the brute instincts,
some indisputable proof of this would be certain to show itself in the
criminal statistics of Italy. As a matter of fact, no such proof
exists. On the contrary, Italy is, of all countries within the pale of
civilisation, the one most notorious for crimes of blood. In the face
of this truth, it is impossible to believe that a vegetable diet has
anything to do either with producing or preventing crime, and the
contention that the wonderful immunity of India from offences against
the person is owing to the food used by the inhabitants must be looked
upon as without foundation.
The peculiar structure of society is unquestionably the most satisfactory
explanation of the high position occupied by the inhabitants of India
with respect to crime. The social edifice which a people builds for
itself is among all civilised communities a highly complex product, and
consists of a great agglomeration of diverse materials. These materials
are partly drawn from the primitive characteristics of the race; they
are partly borrowings from other and contiguous races; they are to a
considerable extent derived from natural surroundings of all kinds;
and in all circumstances they are supplemented by the genius of
individuals. In short, all social structures, when looked at minutely,
are found to be composed of two main ingredients--race and environment;
but these two ingredients are so indissolubly interfused that it is
impossible to say how much is to be attributed to the one, and how much
to the other, in the building up of a society. But if, it is impossible
to estimate the value of the several elements composing the fabric
of society, it is easy to ascertain the dominating idea on which all
forms of society are based. That dominating idea, if it may for the
moment be called such, is the instinct of self-preservation, and it
exercises just as great a power in determining the formation and play
of the social organism as it exercises in determining the attitude of
the individual to the world around him. In working out the idea of
self-preservation into practical forms, the social system of most
peoples has hitherto been built up with a view to protection against
external enemies in the shape of hostile tribes and nations; the
internal enemies of the commonwealth--the thieves, the housebreakers,
the disturbers of public order, the shedders of blood, the perpetrators
of violence--have been treated as only worthy of secondary consideration.
Such are the lines on which social structure has, in most cases,
proceeded, with the result that while external security was for long
periods assured, internal security remained as imperfect and defective
as ever.
The structure of society in India is, however, an exception to the
general rule. External security, or, in other words, the desire for
political freedom has, to a great extent, become extinct wherever the
principles of Brahmanism have succeeded in taking root.
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