
The British Once Built a 1,100-Mile Hedge Through the Middle of India - kumarski
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/colonial-india-british-hedge-salt-tax?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=atlas-page
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fellellor
"On the Salt March: The Historiography of Mahatma Gandhi's March to Dandi" by
Thomas Weber is very well written, detailed account on both the salt tax and
the logistics of the march itself. I read it 4 years ago at a library in
Lakshadweep. I still find it hard to imagine, that we lived under these
extremely stupid laws made just to maximize British profit and create
monopolies by destroying free markets. And, I find it so sad that the first
independent government chose to double down on the control on the economy
rather than just open it all up.

~~~
pm90
> And, I find it so sad that the first independent government chose to double
> down on the control on the economy rather than just open it all up.

This is not accurate. The Indian economy was pretty open; the overwhelming
bureucratic red-tape started after Indira Gandhi's nationalization program
(and other such policies). India under Nehru wasn't laissez faire by any
means, but neither was it Communist.

You also have to see the context under which the politicians operated then.
Unbridled capitalism had lead to colonialism and the World Wars and led to
much oppression for workers worldwide; the Indian leaders were trying to avoid
that kind of wealth aggregation and income equality.

~~~
mr_toad
> Unbridled capitalism had lead to colonialism

Most sources state that colonialism and the associated economic policy of
mercantilism pre-date the widespread adoption of capitalism, which didn't
occur until after the industrial revolution.

I'd argue that the rise of nationalism was more directly the cause of both
colonialism and the World Wars.

Only if you ascribe to the notion that any system that isn't socialism is
capitalist could you argue that capitalism led somehow to colonialism.

~~~
fragmede
On a two-dimensional scale from socialism to capitalism, any move away from
one _is_ a move to another.

We've yet to see what "pure" capitalism even really looks like; Adam Smith's
Wealth of Nations argues that competition is required for his "invisible hand"
and that monopolies are bad because they reduce efficiency and choice, and
impede progress, but our current strategy to prevent or break up a monopoly
looks a whole lot like government regulation which is supposed to stifle
innovation, not promote it!

~~~
mr_toad
A two dimensional scale is a false dichotomy. There were many economic systems
in the past. Subsistence, Barter, Feudalism, Mercintalism. None of these were
capitalist or socialist.

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exhilaration
For anyone that hasn't heard of the salt tax (the reason they build this
hedge), here's the Wikipedia article:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India)

~~~
Xeoncross
> "In 1835, special taxes were imposed on Indian salt to facilitate its
> import. This paid huge dividends for the traders of the British East India
> Company.

The article isn't super clear to me. Was Indian salt that was sold in India
taxed?

~~~
wsxcde
Yes, the British imposed taxes on Indian salt produced and sold in India in
order to force people to buy imported (British) salt. _Millions_ of people
died because they literally couldn't afford salt any more.

This eventually led to Gandhi marching to Dandi to deliberately violate the
salt laws and was one of the key moments in the struggle for Indian
Independence.

It really breaks my heart that the British killed tens (maybe hundreds) of
millions of Indians for no reason at all and they've gotten away with it both
in terms of any actual consequences as well as in the realm of public opinion.
And to make matters worse, we still have so-called British intellectuals who
like to argue that colonization was somehow a good thing for India.

~~~
senatorobama
History will judge them harshly indeed.

~~~
moonka
Not that harshly. Just look at the new Churchill biopic with Gary Oldman.

~~~
mcny
You're right. Or just the fact that Brits voted him number one greatest
Britons of all times in 2002.

All times. Above Sir Isaac Newton. Above Charles Darwin. Above William
Shakespeare. Reality is stranger than fiction.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_Britons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Greatest_Britons)

~~~
yesenadam
Well, Princess Diana was #3. So the whole thing's pretty moronic and
irrelevant. Still, I guess everyone has their own idea what _great_ means.

------
nimbius
"First you must find... another shrubbery! Then, when you have found the
shrubbery, you must place it here, beside this shrubbery, only slightly higher
so you get a two layer effect with a little path running down the middle."

\--W.S. Halsey, Commissioner of Inland Customs

~~~
goldensnit
A path! A path!

~~~
hinkley
NI!

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afterburner
Actual map:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Inland_C...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Inland_Customs_Line_India.png)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Customs_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Customs_Line)

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INTPenis
Speaking of large projects; they also destroyed the Walls of Benin and
effectively erased mighty African empires from history.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Benin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Benin)

~~~
oh_sigh
Sure, but let's not forget that these weren't just beautiful, historic
structures sitting on display. They were used daily to inflict countless
horrors on the citizens of Benin or really anyone who was unlucky enough to be
captured by someone operating in Benin

> But the way Benin treated its slaves and the public display of large
> quantities of human remains hardened British attitudes towards Benin's
> rulers. Since 1863, the British had been trying to force the King to stop
> selling slaves to the Arab traders who had replaced the Portuguese after
> 1836 and to stop the practice of human sacrificial crucifixion.

~~~
trextrex
Surely, it was quite noble of them to stop the slave trade in Benin while
colonising, exploiting and draining their wealth.

~~~
larkeith
This is an ignoratio elenchi - the parent discussion was regarding the
destruction of the Walls of Benin; other matters of British occupation of
Benin as a whole are irrelevant unless related.

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barsonme
I can't think of anything more quintessentially British* than building a
massive shrubbery through a country they were colonizing solely because it
helped them tax the poor colonists better.

* Well, British at least through some point of the 1900s when they backed off a bit.

~~~
peteretep
I can't think of anything more quintessentially British than tea and a curry.

~~~
sundarurfriend
> tea and a curry

So, the most quintessential British things are two things taken from China and
India, things that serve as remnants of the colonial period? That does make a
sort of sense.

~~~
peteretep
You should see how we came up with our language...

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stctgion
Using an historical inflation calculator I make the yearly maintenance cost of
the customs line to be approximately £35 billion.

~~~
ggm
What is the inflation adjusted value of the trade/goods extracted from India
in the same intervals?

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Mediterraneo10
If you like this bit of history, you might be interested in the story of how
Morocco gradually built a series of huge and immensely long sand walls to
progressively shut out the indigenous Saharawi people from increasing portions
of Western Sahara after Morocco seized the territory in the wake of Spain’s
pullout from this former colony. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Western_Sahara_Wall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan_Western_Sahara_Wall)

~~~
baud147258
Well, it was built during a conflict between Morocco and the Polisario, so it
wasn't just to prevent circulation of indigenous people.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Crossing the berm to visit relatives on either side is considered a crime by
the Moroccan authorities – the Moroccans consider even crossing via Mauritania
or Algeria to be illegal. So, overall the wall was definitely designed to
limit movement of the Saharawis and make sure that those pushed out of
Moroccan Western Sahara stay out.

~~~
baud147258
Perhaps now it maintained and used as such, but when it was built, it was
during a conflict. So my point still stands.

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gadders
This was also recently discussed on an edition of the BBC Radio 4 program,
Gardeners Question Time (GQT to fans):

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09h6x6t](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09h6x6t)

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gcb0
makes a great analogy to DRM and other forms of restricting knowledge for IP
tax.

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Deebster
Well done to the author for planting the word "hegemony" in there.

