170 years ago, a debate in Britain parliament on torture in Madras

Dehumanising third-degree torture meted out to people in Madras was the subject matter of discussion in the Britain parliament 170 years ago.

On April 4, 1856, George Thomas Keppel, the Earl of Albemarle, moved a resolution in the Britain parliament to present a petition from certain inhabitants of Madras – then a British colony – complaining of the infliction of torture by the officers of the Government. Keppel went on to narrate some of the cruel punishments meted out to the citizens. These included tying a man by the hair of his head to the tail of an ass, and parading him though the public market.

Apart from depriving a man of food and water and hindering the victim from sleeping, a necklace of bones or other disgusting materials were hung on the neck. He described this punishment “peculiarly offensive to a Hindoo (Hindu).”

Compelling a man to sit on his heels, with brickbats or sharp stones under his hams; tying two persons together in a stooping posture by the hair of their heads; tying a man in a stooping posture to the wheel of a cart; forcing a man into a stooping posture with another man on his back; binding a man to one tree and hoisting his leg by a rope attached to another; suspending a man by his heels to the bough of a tree; suspending him by the wrist, and scourging him while in the air, were also common forms of torture.

“If my recollection serves me right, there is in that Report an instance of a woman who died under the infliction of this torture,” he said. “Tying to a tree with a fire underneath, in order to produce partial suffocation; forcing a man to whirl his head in a peculiar manner with his hair dishevelled, sitting in the sun, the process being assisted by scourging (called in the native collector’s office, “extracting the devil”); suspending a man by his arms tied behind his back, which, I believe, is the Indian punishment of the strappado; plunging into wells and rivers, until the victim is half, or sometimes wholly, drowned;....” the Earl told the House.

Keppel brought to the notice of the House that the petitioners were anxious that the Report of the Commission that had gone into the torture must not be considered as one adequately conveying the quantum of “suffering endured by the inhabitants of the Presidency of Madras.” This was because the Commissioners themselves had acknowledged the incompleteness of their report. Ideally, the full inquiry would have been completed in two years but in the instant case, it was done in just three months.

“Besides this, the Commission sat in the town of Madras, where, owing to the want of means of internal communication, and the extent of the Presidency, being an area of 144,889 statute square miles, or within one-fourth part of being twice as large as Great Britain, it was impossible that many of the sufferers should attend to make their complaints. The Report must, therefore, be considered simply as a sample of the way in which justice was administered, and the revenue collected under the East India Company,” he appealed.

“Without stopping to contrast the innocent surprise expressed by the home authorities at the prevalence of torture over a territory inhabited by near 23,000,000 of inhabitants, with the fact that there existed in the India House documents, written between the years 1806 and 1852, which proved the prevalence of such torture, I will proceed at once to the question of the torture itself,” he said.

Incidentally, even two years earlier, a Member had brought to the notice of the House that torture was practised in the Madras Presidency.

While discussing on the Earl’s resolution, the Duke of Argyll, George Campbell, referred to to the July 1854 motion and recalled that back then the Members of the House of Commons had denied such torture was being meted out to locals. The Duke noted that Sir C. Wood, who was President of the India Board at the time, had said he could not positively deny an accusation he had never heard before. Nonetheless, he had agreed to cause a strict inquiry to be made.

“The report of the debate was sent out to India immediately, and in September, almost as soon as it arrived, a Commission was appointed to inquire into the whole subject. So rapidly did the Commissioners execute their duty that in the April following their Report was concluded, and the whole mass of evidence was brought under the consideration of the Indian Government. That Report was sent to the Home Government, and within 10 months of the accusation being first made in the House of Commons, the matter had been sifted and thoroughly investigated,” the Duke contended.

Several other members of the House, including the Marquess of Clanricarde and the Earl of Ellenborough, chipped in with their views on the issue during the discussion that day, as per Britain parliamentary records.