________________
FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONERS DIARY
background of ill-gotten wealth, but are brutalised by the pure fire of poverty.
In the years covered by the observation recorded here, the number of prisoners convicted for dacoity as well as theft kept on increasing. Those were the years (1931-1936) of aggravated impoverishment of the peasantry, and pauperisation of a considerable section of the rural population owing to the catastrophic fall of agricultural prices in consequence of the world economic crisis. The income of the peasantry, already hardly enough for bare subsistance, declined by half. On the other hand, prices of manufactured articles were artificially kept up by protective tariffs, and high customs duties levied for budgetary purposes. The consequent great disparity between the prices of what they bought and what they sold further contracted the peasants' already limited capacity to buy. Pauperisation of the bulk of the peasantry contributed to the destitution of the other productive classes of the rural population, namely, the artisans. It also ruined the petty village trader.
That was a fertile field for "crimes" of violent nature. Police reports showed alarming increase of the cases of high-way robbery, dacoity and violence against the money-lenders and landlords. Popular poverty plus high taxation always give birth to banditry which is the symptom of a deep-seated social crisis. Given a highly organised State apparatus, "law and order" can be main
182
