Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c6.s3.9

c6.s3.9

44. On mature consideration however of the case, it appeared to us that the tax was susceptible of some modifications as calculated to obviate any just grounds of complaint on the part of those classes of the people, who from their situation in life, were most liable to be affected by its operation. We in consequence directed that the people at Benares should be relieved from a contribution to which they were already subject, on account of the pay of chokeydars (watchmen) and the repair of the gateways, which was not paid by the inhabitants of other cities; that not only religious edifices, in the strict sense of that term, but all houses, occupied by religious mendicants, and persons belonging to the orders of devotion should be exempted from the payment of the tax. And lastly that the same exemption should extend to the houses of the most indigent classes of the people. It is scarcely necessary to add that, we hoped that on the promulgation of the foregoing orders, the inhabitants of Benares would show themselves deserving of the indulgence proposed to be extended to them by the relinquishment of their seditious designs and by a just submission to public authority.