Darkest India | Page 9

and village destitutes come to be reckoned together, I do not
think it will be too serious a view to take of their numbers, to reckon
the absolutely workless as numbering at least 25 or 26 millions.

CHAPTER VII.
THE HOMELESS POOR.
On this question I do not propose to say much, not because there is not
much that could be said, but because in a climate like India it is a
matter of secondary importance as compared with food. The people
themselves are comparatively speaking indifferent to it. The "bitter cry"
of India if put into words would consist simply of "Give us food to fill
our stomachs. This is all we ask. As for shelter, we are content with any
hovel, or willing to betake ourselves to the open air. But food we
cannot do without."
And yet, looked at from the point of view either of a moralist, a
sanitarian, or a humanitarian, the question is one which calls for prompt
consideration and remedial action. For instance, according to the last
Government census, the average number of persons inhabiting each
house in the city of Bombay is no less than 28. The average for the
entire Presidency is six. But then it must be remembered that the great
majority of the houses of the poor in the agricultural district consist of
one-roomed huts, in which the whole family sleep together.
In the cities the overcrowding has become so excessive, and the
accomodation available for the poor is so inadequate, costly and
squalid, as to almost beggar description. Considerations of decency,
comfort and health are largely thrown to the winds. A single
unfurnished room, merely divided from the next one by a thin boarding,
through which everything can be heard, will command from five to
thirty rupees a month, and even more, according to its position, in
Bombay.
The typical poor man's home in India consists as a rule of a
single-storeyed hut with walls of mud or wattle, and roof of grass,
palm-leaf, tiles, mud, or stones, according to the nature of the country.
One or two rooms, and a small verandah, are all that he requires for
himself and his family.

In the cities the high price of the land makes even this little impossible.
Take for instance Bombay. Here the representative of the London
lodging-house is to be found in the form of what are called "chawls,"
large buildings, several storeys high, divided up into small rooms,
which are let off to families, at a rental of from three rupees a month
and upwards. Very commonly the same room serves for living,
sleeping, cooking, and eating. There being as a rule no cooking place,
the cheap earthen "choola" serves as a sufficient make-shift, and the
smoke finds its exit through the door or window best it can.
For hundreds, probably thousands, in every large city, even this poor
semblance of a home does not exist. Those who manage somehow or
other to live on nothing a month, cannot certainly afford to pay three
rupees, or even less, for a lodging. Whilst, no doubt, many of the
submerged, tenth are not absolutely houseless, inasmuch as they are
often able to share the shelter of some relation or friend, it cannot be
doubted that a very large percentage of them might say, "Foxes have
holes, and the birds of the air have nests," but we "have not where to
lay our heads."
Of the homeless poor there are two classes. The more fortunate find
shelter in those of the Dharamsalas, Temples and Mosques which
contain provision for such purposes. It must be remembered, however,
that a large number of such institutions are reserved for certain favored
castes, and are not therefore available for the out-caste poor. For the
rest, the uncertain shelter of verandahs, porticoes, market-places, open
sheds, and, in fine weather, the road-way, esplanade, or some shady
tree, have to suffice.
As already said, I am quite willing to admit that this question of shelter
for the poor is of secondary importance as compared with that of their
food-supply. And yet is it nothing to us that millions of the Indian poor
have no place that they can call "home," not even the meagre shelter of
the one-roomed hut with which they would gladly be content? Is it
nothing to us that superadded to the sufferings of hunger, they have to
face the sharp and sometimes frosty air of the cold weather with
scarcely a rag to their backs, and no doors, windows, or even walls to

keep off the chilly wind? Is it nothing to us that in the rainy season they
have to make their bed on the damp floor or ground, though to do so
means a certain attack of fever? Is it nothing to us