Great Hedge of India

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The Great Hedge of India or Inland Customs Line was a customs barrier across India from the 1840s to the 1880s built by the British rulers to facilitate collecting the heavy salt tax. It was also used to control the profitable opium trade^[1]^[2] , which the East India Company had acquired from the Mughal Empire by conquest^[3]. The barrier consisted of fences, stone walls, and above all a nearly impenetrable barrier of trees, thorny bushes, and hedges, with periodic guard stations.

The Great Hedge was forgotten in India as well as in Britain, without even passing mentions in standard histories, until its existence was unearthed by Roy Moxham, a conservator at the University of London Library. Moxham first came across the Hedge by chance in a passing mention in a footnote of an obscure book about India.

At the peak of its existence, the Customs Line ran nearly 2000 miles, and was manned by about 12,000 personnel actively patrolling and guarding the barrier.

Moxham traveled extensively in India to search for the remains of the hedge, talking to villagers in the hinterland. The culmination of this research was the discovery of a small raised embankment in Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh which may be all that remains of the Great Hedge of India.

According to Moxham, the customs line was an instrument of exploitation employed by the most powerful empire in the world to extract money from its poorest subjects, by depriving them from the most basic food item. Moxham argues that the Hedge may have caused mass salt deficiencies.^[4]

Though the Hedge was dismantled, the salt tax remained, and later precipitated the famous Salt March of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a significant moment in the history of Indian independence.

1 Testimony
2 Notes
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Testimony

Though there is scant secondary literature on the Inland Customs Line, it is often mentioned in contemporary accounts:

[1847] a long inland customs line for salt and sugar was organized in the heart of the country (p. 3)

[1881] The inland customs line for levying the salt-duties has been at length swept away. (p. 8)^[5]

The abolition of the inland customs line, and the above-mentioned alteration in the rates of duty, relieved the people and the trade along a broad belt of country, 2,000 miles long, from much harassment.^[6]

A customs line was established, which stretched across the whole of India, which in 1869 extended from the Indus to the Mahanadi in Madras, a distance of 2,300 miles; and it was guarded by nearly 12,000 men and petty officers... it consisted principally of an immense impenetrable hedge of thorny trees and bushes, supplemented by stone wall and ditches, across which no human being or beast of burden or vehicle could pass without being subject to detention or search.^[7]

To secure the levy of a duty on salt... there grew up gradually a monstrous system, to which it would be almost impossible to find a parallel in any tolerably civilised country. A Customs line was established which stretched across the whole of India, which in 1869 extended from the Indus to the Mahanadi in Madras, a distance of 2,300 miles.^[8]

Presently Mr. Joyce remarked how much lighter it seemed on the left side of the road than on the right. As there was no moon the appearance puzzled me, as it did also our men to whom I pointed it out. We were speculating on the cause, when we came to the track which would lead us, over some fields and the great parade ground, to the back of the station. We passed through the avenue which bordered the road, and perceived the cause of the light. For miles and miles all along the horizon there stretched a line of fire; in some places it was burning brightly, elsewhere emitting only a dull glow. The spectacle was so beautiful and so singular that with one accord we pulled up to admire it. Our admiration was mingled with other feelings not so ageeable. The line of fire we conjectured to be the burning Customs' hedge, which was a bank of thorny bushes, lately erected by the Government along the Customs' frontier to prevent the smuggling of salt and opium. ^[9]