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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|From Calcutta|6-111}}
{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|From Calcutta|6-111}}
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{{Style P-No indent|sees any use in a camped, inactive army, which is the source of countless troubles, the main one being the need to scrape out the last crumbs from India's rapidly drying up treasuries, bringing it closer to complete bankruptcy every day.}}
{{Style P-Quote|“The absence of any definite plan,” says Amrita, “has a bad influence on all the classes of India. The leaders of our troops in Afghanistan, having found themselves in a hole and not knowing what to do next, are completely at a loss: either they start acting like crazy, or they sit like deluded fools. Today they hang innocent people, under the pretext of intimidating the Afghans, and tomorrow they embrace tenderly traitors who positively deserve the gallows. The tribes that have been really friendly to us so far, are quite rightly beginning to suspect us and no longer dare to show us their goodwill for fear of incurring the revenge of enemies from whom we do not even know how to protect them…”}}
The ''Pioneer'' correspondent repeats the same thing, describing the recent sacking of Kabul by the Anglo-Indian troops:
{{Style P-Quote|“The Hindus and Kizil-Bashis, who relied so much on our protection, have every right to revile us now for leaving them with such cruelty to their own fate, while the Mohammedans who plundered their dwellings, insulted their women and kept them in a paroxysm of horror for ten whole days, now frankly laugh at us and at our impotence to reach them in their distant villages.”}}
And these poor things, like the Bulgarians did before the Turks, are about to flee to Hindustan, where they will die of hunger. Yet, they prefer all sorts of hardships rather than be subjected again to the frantic robbery by a terrible horde of savages.
Now, all this has ceased to be a secret, at least for the inhabitants of India. It is plain as daylight that the Anglo-Indian government, in its haste to avenge the death of poor Cavagnari,<ref>Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, a British diplomat, appointed to hold negotiations in Kabul in 1879, was killed by Afghan insurgents, who captured the residency. — Ed.</ref> did not calculate all the chances. A cry of rage drowned out the voice of reason, and they failed. True, they did avenge Cavagnari, but would revenge lose any of its sweetness if they had waited a few months? That was the vengeance incited mostly by the local Protestant clergy, the head of which went so far as to publish in the ''Englishman'' a long ''pastoral epistle'' (!), where he sternly drilled into his Christian flock that there are cases in history “when a Christian should forget his faith for the time being and, girded with the sword of destruction, ''indulge in merciless, but just vengeance''!” ''(Sic.)'' But what else is their occupying army serving them now, besides such momentary vengeance? It has ensconced itself in Sherpur and, despite the dispatches of General Roberts promising all sorts of feats in the future, sits like a mouse in a trap and drags out the most bitter existence, according to the testimony of its own officers. The treasury of India is exhausted by the army's demands and feeds 40,000 ''parasites'' with the last crumbs paid by a people groaning under this overwhelming burden of taxes. But that is not all. The real war has made recruiting volunteers almost impossible in India. Therefore, all “reinforcements” will, perhaps, have to be sent by England itself. Military service grows unpopular among the native troops every day. Here is what a correspondent of a Calcutta newspaper reported about the situation in one regiment of the 2nd Native Army after it had returned from Ali Masjid<ref> The fortress of Ali Masjid was captured by the British on November 21, 1878 — Ed.</ref> and Peshawar to Rawalpindi for replenishment. “In December, the regiment lost 68 people, while in January the entire number of people fit for service in it was only 32. In fact, this regiment has ended its miserable existence. In the native mind, the conviction is daily rooted that going to Delhi for a soldier is as good as a journey to where no traveler has ever returned,” the correspondent states. “Strong displeasure has settled among the troops in the Kurram Valley, and their mere murmur is enough to intimidate volunteers. One soldier wrote to his fellow countryman asking him to announce to his village that ''none of its residents should enter the service, as what awaited the recruit was long sufferings, with the deliverer death at the end''.” These words went like lightning through not one, but many villages, and as a result the conscription was zero in this neighborhood. The Kabul army is no less embittered against the government, and this greatly hinders the recruitment.
Meanwhile, discontent is growing in India. The native press is agitated and, despite the Black Act,<ref> The Black Act was passed by the Parliament of Great Britain in 1723 to establish severe measures against poaching, including capital punishment. It was passed in response to a series of raids by two groups of poachers, known as the Blacks, because of their practice of blackening their faces to prevent identification. Repealed in 1827, the Act introduced strong legislative measures and as a precedent influenced many subsequent laws. — Ed. </ref> is becoming bolder every day. With unusual bitterness and force of expression, it protests against the further advance of the army, and even hints that the latter's presence may soon become more necessary in India itself than in Kabul.
{{Style P-Quote|“But England wants nothing but conquest,” says ''Amrita Bazar Patrika''. “With its offensive movement, our army will temporarily escape the judgment of the British nation — and this is enough for it for the time being. Only, such a movement means the complete ruin of India and her starving population; but it is one of those “trifles” which will not stop our government from appealing to the worst instincts of the British nation, if only to save its own credit in her eyes, even if only for the shortest time!”}}
That's the whole result of this war so far.
{{Style P-Quote|“Be that as it may, we find the following as a result achieved so far: the bankruptcy of the treasury and the population; a complete cease of inner prosperity; the extermination of thousands of camels and mules; permanent tax increases; reduction of funds for cultivating the land; the weakening of trade and the resultant decrease in state revenues; a complete change in the feelings of the native army towards their British officers; the loss of a good name by England, the ever-increasing hostility of the Muslim population towards them, and finally, obvious pretexts provided by the government to unrest and rebellion among the people suppressed by ever growing taxes. The crowning glory is the withdrawal of the last troops and garrison from Bombay, and leaving the city and the entire residence to their own fate! Would not Dr. Hunter<ref> Dr. Hunter’s, ''Programme for commercial reciprocity between England and India''. — ''R.B.''</ref> include these benefits among the other good deeds done by the British for the Indian Empire?” asks bitterly the ''Bombay Review'', a purely ''English'' organ, at the end. }}
Meanwhile, things are not getting better; so, it is necessary to shift the blame on someone — at least, in the shape of some beneficent diversion. And now all the blame falls on Russia!! Again, some of her intrigues have been dug up, this time not in Kabul, but in the capital of Kashmir, and they are raising a hubbub throughout India, hoping, perhaps, to divert attention from their own tricks with such a cry. How right, how photographically exact is the description given by Malcolm McKell of the spirit of the English conservative press!
{{Style P-Quote|“Russophobes,” he writes, “positively imagine that England has received the divine right of political intrigue (he writes in one of the London weekly magazines), and intriguing ''against'' Russia in their eyes is both noble and patriotic. But as soon as Russia, even in self-defense, dares to try resistance, she is immediately put on trial as a traitorous, deceitful state, whose promises should not be given the slightest faith. It is precisely this disgusting, ''sickening'' hypocrisy of this kind of polemic that revolts me most of all.”}}
And if the Englishman himself is sick of it, one might well ask what should be happening in the soul of every Russian! Professor Wordsworth truly remarks that if any friendly relations between Russia and England ever become ''impossible'', then English ''Russophobic press'' alone will have to be thanked for this.
Meanwhile, today (February 4), a telegram brings the news that a detachment sent by General Roberts for reconnaissance and several spies have been stopped by armed men between Argandeh and Maidan, and therefore they could not reach Ghazni. Another party of Kizil-Bashis were murdered and robbed by the Jadrani tribe on the way to Kabul. In Lohar, Hassan Khan was almost killed by mountain tribes who flatly refused him tribute and directly announced that they did not recognize Mohammad-Djan as their ruler. All this does not really confirm the enthusiasm of the Afghan peoples proclaimed by official dispatches in favor of the so-called ''new'' emir Muza-Jan.
Bitter is, then, the fate of this unfortunate candidate for the shaky throne of Yaqub Khan!..
Thus, difficulties alone are the result of the Afghan expedition, so far!
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|R. B.}}