a mere hedge

The great hedge of India. Sounds cool nah? At first as a banker when I read it, it sounded like some great hedge that India has that protects it from any downside in economy. Something like a hedge against inflation or something like a hedge against economic downturn or something. More like a financial hedge, an advantage that we have against any downside. A hedge is basically a good thing to have in financial markets.
But as I read further I was completely flabbergasted. This was something that could have only been possible during the British Empire. I have read a book an a half by John Keay. One was ‘discovering India’ and the other I got only half way through ‘the great arc’. The reason I couldn’t finish it was because it was loaned to me by Captain Steve Lall of Jilling Estates while I was holidaying at his property and the vacation finished faster than I could read. I am trying to get my hands on that one. Which reminds me. I should try and get that through Infibeam.com. I get all the difficult to get books from there. Cheaper than others and no postage necessary. (I am not played to plug that, in case you were wondering.) The other book by John Keay on the East India Company was too boring for words.
Coming back to the point. I read today that the Great Hedge of India (wiki link) was just that, a physical hedge, 3200 kms long. Also called the Inland Customs Line, the British used it to collect the salt tax and control the opium trade. As I quote from the wikipedia : The barrier consisted of fences, stone walls, and above all a nearly impenetrable barrier of trees, thorny bushes, and hedges, with periodic guard stations…According to Moxham, the customs line was an instrument employed by the British to enforce taxation on salt, effectively a tax on all subjects, as a result of it being a basic food item. Moxham argues that the Hedge may have caused mass salt deficiencies.

This is so believable, in line with our popular notion of the oppressive British rule in India. As I read this I can only think of a movie plot. The British come to India and begin a construction of a mammoth hedge to control the trade of salt and tax it heavily while growing rich at the expense of the natives. One of the works (our hero or his father perhaps) is beaten and made to work on this hedge. In the village the hero is a carefree individual with razor sharp cunning which we see in the games he plays while romancing the women. But slowly calamity hits the village and his fellow villagers are dying and suffering from salt deficiencies. He realizes his calling and thanks to the secrets of the hedge that his father has told him about, e attempts to get salt to his people. He smuggles to the coast, he gets his salt, he hides and runs from the British. The climax action sequence is when he runs into the jungles and has an army chasing him and he manages to run and defeat them using his skill and rustic skills, hone as a prankster and a hunter and foxes them, to take salt to his people and thereby saving lives, having a one up on the British and making thereby sparking a revolution against the British on Indian soil.

You like it. Well, it’s better than beating them at cricket just to save some tax. (a la Lagaan, duh?)

Well at the worst if you don’t have a huge budget then merely make a documentary about how Roy Moxham, a conservator at the University of London Library managed to ‘unearth’ it.

And the last clincher to the tale that will explain its ultimate relevance – from wiki again “Though the Hedge was dismantled, the salt tax remained, and later precipitated the famous Salt March of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a significant moment in the history of Indian independence.”
any takers?