Inland Customs Line - Legacy

Legacy

Writers have described the line as infringement of the principles of free trade and the freedom of the people of India. Sir John Strachey, the minister whose tax review led to the abolition of the line, was quoted in 1893 describing the line as "a monstrous system, to which it would be almost impossible to find a parallel in any tolerably civilised country". This has been echoed by modern writers such as journalist Madeleine Bunting, who wrote in The Guardian in February 2001 that the line was "one of the most grotesque and least well known achievements of the British in India".

The massive scale of the undertaking has also been commented upon, with both Hume, the customs commissioner, and M. E. Grant Duff, who was Under-Secretary of State for India from 1868 to 1874, comparing the hedge to the Great Wall of China. The abolition of the line and equalisation of tax has generally been viewed as a good move, with one writer of 1901 stating that it "relieved the people and the trade along a broad belt of country, 2,000 miles long, from much harassment". Sir Richard Temple, governor of the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies, wrote in 1882 that "the inland customs line for levying the salt-duties has been at length swept away" and that care must be taken to ensure that the "evils of the obsolete transit-duties" did not return.

The use of the customs line to maintain the higher salt tax in Bengal is likely to have had a detrimental effect on the health of Indians through salt deprivation. The higher prices within the area enclosed by the line meant that the average annual salt consumption was just 8 pounds (3.6 kg) compared with up to 16 pounds (7.3 kg) outside the line. Indeed the British government's own figures showed that the barrier directly affected salt consumption, reducing it to below the level that regulations prescribed for English soldiers serving in India and that supplied to prisoners in British jails. The consumption of salt was further lowered during the periods of famine that affected India in the 19th century.

It is impossible to know how many died from salt deprivation in India as a result of the salt tax as salt deficiency was not often recorded as a cause of death and was instead more likely to worsen the effects of other diseases and hinder recoveries. It is known that the equalisation of tax made salt cheaper on the whole, decreasing the tax imposed on 130 million people and increasing it on just 47 million, leading to an increase in the use of the mineral. Consumption grew by 50 percent between 1868 and 1888 and doubled by 1911, by which time salt had become cheaper (relatively) than at any earlier stage of Indian history.

The rate of salt tax was increased to 2.5 rupees per maund in 1888 to compensate for the loss of revenue from falling silver prices, but this had no adverse effect on salt consumption. The salt tax remained a controversial means of collecting revenue and became the subject of the 1930 Salt Satyagraha, a civil disobedience movement led by Mohandas Gandhi against British rule. During the Satyagraha Gandhi and others marched to the salt producing area of Dandi and defied the salt laws, leading to the imprisonment of 80,000 Indians. The march drew significant publicity to the Indian independence movement but failed to get the tax repealed. The salt tax would finally be abolished by the Interim Government of India, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, in October 1946. The government of Indira Gandhi overlaid much of the old route with roads.