Report of the Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for India to inquire into the rules, regulations, and practice in the Indian cantonments and elsewhere in India, with regard to prostitution and to the treatment of venereal disease : together with minutes of evidence and appendices.

Great Britain. India Office. Committee on Prostitution in India.

Date:: 1893

Credit: Report of the Committee appointed by the Secretary of State for India to inquire into the rules, regulations, and practice in the Indian cantonments and elsewhere in India, with regard to prostitution and to the treatment of venereal disease : together with minutes of evidence and appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

309/524 (page 259)

$Report. 35 XI.—PERIODICAL EXAMINATION'S OF PROSTITUTES. 82. The whole question is complicated by certain considerations peculiar The vitality of observance in India, to the country and people. In the first and the docility of the native. place, the tenacity of custom and habit ]850 in India is absolutely extraordinary to the European mind. Once establish a course of action, and its traditional observance continue-; by mere inertia, long after the stimulus of sanction and penalty has I een removed. A typical instance is afforded by the woman at Ambala who, having reported her arrival and obtained permission to reside, went straight to the doctor to be examined ; and who, when asked by ns why she did so, and whether any body had told her to do so, replied, Tell me ! Why should anybody tell me ? Have I betn a prostitute lor eleven years without knowing the custom? So, following the custom previous to 1888, women still occasionally petition at Amhala for leave to reside at .\ieerut for leave to practice as prostitutes, and i860 at Lucknow for permission to leave cantonments ; and women occasionally present themselves for examination, even at Ambala, prior to settling in canton- ments. Every Indian official's experience supplies numberless instances of a similar nature. Again, the docility of the uneducated native as a class is extraoidinary. The Englishmen, on being informed of an order, asks at once who gave it, and by what authority, and what is the penalty of disobedience. The native's first idea is to ascertain the order, or (what is to him the same thing) the custom ; and, having ascertained it, to comply with it without further question. Thus, the mere fact that it has never been found necessary to enforce a rule or practice by compulsion, or by the infliction of a penalty, is not 1870 sufficient to show that the practice has not been looked upon as authoritative by the people whom it concerned. 83. The fact is, that the question whether any particular action can be said The question oi voluntary or com- to be voluntary, presents two entirely different pulsory a two-sided one. aspects according as it is looked at from the point of a iew of the official or from that of the woman. The action of the officer may he purely persuasive, and entirely free from any tinge of com- pulsion. But for countless gem rations the marzi hakim, or pleasure of the governor, and the hukm hakim, or order of the governor, have been equivalent terms in India. The idea that the local representatives of Government do not isso always possess authority to compel people io do all that they may wish them to do, and that there is a law which limits their power, is, at any rate as regards executive matters, an entirely novel conception, which may be said to have had its birth (in the Punjab at least) within the last 15 yeais, which is still filtering slowly down through the masses of the people, and which is even now fully apprehended by but few. There is still a strong tendency to receive the expression of his wish by one in authority as equivalent to a command. Add to this the extraordinary tenacity with which observances, once established, survive in India; and it becomes impossible to say how far a given result is due to the personal influence of an official, how far to his position of authority, and i890 how far to a mere continuation of a traditional observance. 84. At Ambala, the attendance at examination was clearly voluntary. The voluntary nature of the examir.a- It was made a condition of permission to tions discussed : Ambala. reside in the regimental bazaars, or in the vicinity of a standing camp. Such permission was given in violation or evasion of standing orders. But it was Iree to every woman to accept or reject it upon the terms upon which it was offered, and at any moment to discon- tinue her attendance at examination and return to the Sadar bazaar. By doing so, the most that she forfeited was a convenient residence in close proximity to a body of customers ; and it was still open to her to pursue her calling in a place 1900 familiar to her, among old associates, and among the class of men to which she was accustomed. 85. At Lucknovr we are without precise information as to how the custom The same: Lucknow. of the general examination of prostitutes, which Dr. Ranking found in existence when he took Y 24265. M m$