TIBETANS WERE POOR BUT NOT PAUPER

Gopa Joshi

In 2001, on the occasion of “50 th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet” Chinese Government published a document titled Tibet's March Toward Modernization (Source: http://english.gov.cn/official/2005-07/27/content_17564.htm)    

In this document China  claimed that  “China's Tibet….through carrying out socialist construction and the reform and opening-up… has made rapid progress in its modernization drive and got onto the track of development in step with the other parts of the country, revealing a bright future for its development.” As with all Chinese publications on Tibet this document also started with a strong condemnation of pre 1949 Tibet. It said, “the feudal serfdom under theocracy became an extremely decadent social system… stifled the development of the social productive forces of Tibet, seriously hindered social progress, relegated Tibet to the state of extreme poverty, backwardness, isolation and decline, to the point verging on total collapse. This paper  further added:

“The society of old Tibet under feudal serfdom was even more dark and backward than in Europe in the Middle Ages. The three major estate-holders-officials, nobles and upper-ranking monks in monasteries-accounted for less than five percent of Tibet's total population but owned all the farmland, pastures, forests, mountains and rivers, and the majority of the livestock. The serfs and slaves, accounting for more than 95 percent of the population, owned no land or other means of production. They had no personal freedom, had to depend totally on the manors of estate-holders for livelihood or act as their family slaves from generation to generation. They were subjected to the three-fold exploitation of corvee labor, taxes and high-interest loans and their lives were no more than struggles for existence. According to incomplete statistics, there were over 200 kinds of taxes levied by the Kasha (the former local government of Tibet) alone. Slaves had to contribute more than 50 percent or even 70 to 80 percent of their labor free to the Kasha and estate-holders, and over 60 percent of the farmers and herdsmen were burdened with similar high-interest loans….( there was) “rigid hierarchy and savage political oppression. Religion and monasteries commanded the highest respect in old Tibet …. The upper-class monks and priests were Tibet's principal political rulers and also the biggest serf-owners…. The widespread temples, numerous monks and frequent religious activities consumed a huge amount of manpower and the greater part of material wealth in Tibet, greatly hindering the development of the productive forces there….Cruel oppression and exploitation by the feudal serf-owners, and especially the endless consumption of human and material resources by religion and monasteries under the theocratic system and their spiritual enslavement of the people, had gravely damped the laborers' enthusiasm for production, stifled the vitality of the Tibetan society and reduced Tibet to a protracted state of stagnancy. The paper bemoaned that even in the middle of the 20th century, Tibet was still extremely isolated and backward, almost without a trace of modern industry, commerce, science and technology, education, culture and health care; primitive farming methods were still being used; and herdsmen had to travel from place to place grazing their livestock. There were few strains and breeds of grains and animals, and some of them had even degenerated. Deaths from hunger and cold, poverty and diseases were commonplace among the serfs, and the streets in Lhasa, Xigaze, Qamdo and Nagqu were crowded with beggars of both sexes, young and old.”(italics mine) To substantiate its charges the paper quoted  Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, once a Kaloon (council minister) of the former local government of Tibet, as saying (in 1940s ) that if Tibet "goes on like this, the serfs will all die in the near future, and the nobles will not be able to live either. The whole Tibet will be destroyed." So there was a historically imperative need for the progress of Tibetan society and the happiness of the Tibetan people shake off the yoke of feudal serfdom.

This  paper claimed that after the peaceful liberation, the People's Liberation Army and people from other parts of China working in Tibet …actively helped the Tibetan people build the Xikang-Tibet and Qinghai-Tibet highways, the Damxung Airport, water conservancy projects, modern factories, banks, trading companies, post offices, farms and schools. They adopted a series of measures to help the farmers and herdsmen expand production, started social relief and disaster relief programs, and provided free medical service for the prevention and treatment of epidemic and other diseases. All this has promoted the economic, social and cultural development of Tibet, created a new social atmosphere of modern civilization and progress, produced a far-reaching influence among people of all walks of life in Tibet…. paved the way for Tibet's march toward a modern society, and opened up wide prospects for Tibet's further development. Giving a detailed account of ‘developmental projects” undertaken  in Tibet the paper added that since 1984, 43 projects have been launched in Tibet with state investment and aid from nine provinces and municipalities. The implementation of the policy of reform and opening-up and the state aid have strengthened and invigorated Tibetan industry, agriculture, animal husbandry and the tertiary industry with trade, catering and tourism as its mainstays, raised the overall level of industries and the level of commercialization of economic activities in Tibet, and helped Tibet take another step forward in its economic and social development. In 1994, the Central Government held the Third Forum on Work in Tibet ….The forum formed a mechanism for all-round aid to the modernization of Tibet, by which the state would directly invest in construction projects in the region, the Central Government provide financial subsidies, and the other parts of the country provide counterpart aid. In the meantime, Tibet has promoted all-round reform in its economic and technological systems, adjusted its economic structure and mechanism of enterprise operation and management, set up a complete social security system, enlarged its scope of opening-up, and actively encouraged and attracted funds from both home and abroad for its economic construction. In this way, the economy with diverse forms of ownership has developed rapidly, and Tibet's inner vitality for growth has been strengthened. In June 2001, the Central Government held the Fourth Forum on Work in Tibet, at which it drew up an ambitious blueprint for Tibet's overall modernization in the new century, and decided to adopt more effective policies and measures to further strengthen the support for the modernization of Tibet.

In this process of modernization of Tibet Chinese government is missing an important point—the unique environmental, and ecological positioning of Tibet--. It is this unique environmental, and ecological situation of Tibet which need to be taken into account in planning and implementing the so called modernization of Tibet. Experts say that the Tibetan people over the centuries had developed a profound understanding of their unique environment circumstances and had mastered the art of adjusting with it. It is important to note that like the rest of the developed and developing world Tibet is facing serious environmental problems. China is also not denying that. If I remember correctly china has published a White Paper on Tibet’s environmental problems too. To have a people oriented and environment oriented development the traditional wisdom of Tibetan people which was the result of many centuries of interaction of their forefathers with the environment and ecology of the regions they inhabited and roamed about. Chinese White Papers on Tibet and even on minority policy do not recognize the importance of this traditional wisdom of the people of minority regions. These White Papers make it eminently clear that it is one way dialogue. The Chinese government led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) knows what is best for the minorities. It does not want to hear from the minorities as to wht is best forthem.Secondly, the interest of minority nationalities is subservient to the interest of the nation. And finally, the Communist Party dominated by Han Chinese has the final authority to decide national interest and dictate it to the minorities. Thereafter there have been several other similar documents on Tibet documenting rapid development of infrastructure in Tibet , and progress made by Tibetan people since 1949 under the rule of the Communist Party of China. However, these documents also admit that poverty and illiteracy has not been eliminated from Tibet under the present regime. The present regime however tries to certify her achievements by juxtaposing them with the state of infrastructure and living conditions of Tibetan people before 1949. In this way China is making an unsuccessful attempt to paint present day Tibet in brighter colours. As there is no freedom of movements, it is not possible to judge the brightness of these developmental projects at the grass root level. But certain conclusions can be drawn on the basis of studies conducted on conditions of people at the margins of other industrial societies.

This paper does not plan focus on the nitty gritty of the CPC’s relationship with the minorities. It is simply trying to understand whether the modernization and industrialization of Tibet is really helping the 95 percent of poor and marginalized Tibetans in coming out of their poverty and exploitation. In 1903 Jack London published his non- fictional book The People of The Abyss. In this book he has described multidimensional impact of modernization and industrialization on working class people residing in east London ghettoes. Before writing this book he stayed in this locality as a destitute for fifteen days. Jack writes that, “1 went down into the under-world of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes…. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to measure the life of the under-world. The other book is Seven Years in Tibet by Herr Harrer (1953). It was translated from the German by RICHARD    GRAVES.  With the help of these two books attempts are made to understand how the nature of poverty in traditional Tibet and modernized and industrialized England  was different from the poverty the people of East London were suffering in 1902 when industrialized England’s prosperity was at its peak. China is also towing the same path of rapid industrialization. Before getting the first hand account of poverty and backwardness of Tibetan people in traditional (feudal)Tibet,  let us see the fate of poor and destitute in the then most modern industrialized societies.

China had criticized traditional Tibetan society for concentration of wealth in a few hands. But industrialization does not ensure equalization of wealth. Like the traditional Tibet in England also  in 1902, says London “ five hundred hereditary peers own one- fifth of England; and they, and the officers and servants under the King, and those who go to compose the powers that be, yearly spend in wasteful luxury $1,850,000,000, or 370,000,000 pounds, which is thirty-two per cent, of the total wealth produced by all the toilers of the country.” Therefore, in perpetuating concentration of wealth in a few hands, inequality and exploitation modern industrial societies are no better than traditional feudal societies.

While the rich and powerful squander wealth in luxuries the poor struggle to make both the ends meet. Jack London observes that the starvation and lack of shelter he encountered in east London in 1902, constituted a chronic condition of misery which was never wiped out, even in the periods of greatest prosperity for the country. He adds that following the summer when he stayed in this miserable slum came a hard winter. Great numbers of the unemployed daily marched through the streets of London demanding bread. He also  quoted Mr. Justin McCarthy, of New York based Independent  paper saying that in the month of January 1903 “The workhouses have no space left in which to pack the starving crowds who are craving every day and night at their doors for food and shelter. All the charitable institutions have exhausted their means in trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing residents of the garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. The quarters of the Salvation Army in various parts of London are nightly besieged by hosts of the unemployed and the hungry for whom neither shelter nor the means of sustenance can be provided." We do not have any such account of miseries  of poor Tibetans during pre-1949 period.

            The deprivation of ownership of means of production which, the industrial state ensures results in persistence of poverty and unemployment causing destitution. Below is just one account of destitution narrated by the author .  He talks about an investigation on death of a seventy-five year old woman by coroner’s officer. In his report the concerned officer stated that:
 "all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. Everything was absolutely covered with vermin." The doctor said: "He found deceased lying across the fender on her back. She had one garment and her stockings on. The body was quite alive with vermin, and all the clothes in the room were absolutely grey with insects. Deceased was very badly nourished and was very emaciated. She had extensive sores on her legs, and her stockings were adherent to those sores. The sores were the result of vermin." A man present at the inquest wrote: "I had the evil fortune to see the body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay in the mortuary shell, so starved and emaciated that she was a mere bundle of skin and bones. Her hair, which was matted with filth, was simply a nest of vermin. Over her bony chest leaped and rolled hundreds, thousands, myriads of vermin!"

This provoked London to comment that, “To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed, for the most part, in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by so narrow a  margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism . . . But below this normal state of the average workman in town and country, there is found the great band of destitute outcasts--the camp followers of the army of industry--at least one-tenth the whole proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrangement of modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of mankind.” After making these general statements, London gives a graphic account of living conditions of the poor of East London slums. Housing in East London— Jack says that his first discovery was that in the eastern part of London empty houses were very few and he could not get one. Then he looked for rooms, unfurnished rooms. There were not many. He found them, usually in the singular. For one room was considered sufficient for a poor man's family in which to cook and eat and sleep. Even in this one room many families had taken in a lodger or two. There were no bath-tubs in all the thousands of houses he had investigated. People had to take bath in a tin wash-basin. Jack London informs the reader that rent were very high. Rooms were so small that they likened to holes. There was letting and sub-letting of these small hole like rooms. Jack writes that even a portion of a room used to be rented out. Beds used to be let on the three-relay system. There used to be three tenants to a bed, each occupying it for eight hours. The floor space underneath the bed likewise used to be let on the three-relay system. The author observes that, “This Ghetto crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion. Nearly fifty per cent, of the workers pay from one-fourth to one- half of their earnings for rent. The average rent in the larger part of the East End is from four to six shillings per week for one room, while skilled mechanics, earning thirty-five shillings per week, are forced to part with fifteen shillings of it for two or three pokey little dens, in which they strive desperately to obtain some semblance of home life. And rents are going up all the time…. When land is worth from 20,000 pounds to 30,000 pounds an acre, someone must pay the landlord.” There were large number illegal residents in London. Jack London wrote that 900,000 people were illegal residents of the city. Authorities were not in a position to keep track of them. To implement the Public Health Act of 1891 authorities had to construct  500,000 rooms. The concerned  authorities were not interested in taking this trouble.

Shelter-less-- Due to high rent rates old sick and unemployed were shelter-less  and were forced to keep awake and keep moving whole night by the policemen on duty and sleep in the public parks in the day time (For strange reasons these parks were locked at night) or seek shelter in the night shelter houses (which were few in numbers) with very limited capacity to accommodate.

Struggle for a place in the workhouse –To acquaint himself  about the procedure of getting admission in the workhouse and the living conditions there Jack London tried to get a place in the shelter house. He found out that to get into the casual ward of the workhouse the applicant had to be a totally a destitute.( London’s first attempt to get night shelter failed because he had four shillings in his pocket.) Before admitting in the shelter house the shelter seekers were thoroughly frisked. He also found out that the shelter  facility was not free. The beneficiary had to slog the whole next day to repay for this facility. Getting entry into these shelters houses was itself a herculean task. The penniless had to stand in the queue  from midday. London made his second attempt to get into the casual ward in the middle of the afternoon. In his book he gives a graphic account of this whole exercise. In this process he  describes the condition of other shelter seekers. He writes next to him in the line stood a short, stout hale and hearty old man of 87years. This old man told London: "I've been out two nights now, "wet to the skin night before last, an' I can't stand it much longer. I'm gettin' old, an' some mornin' they'll pick me up dead." He added  that he was in the army and got three good-conduct stripes and the Victoria Cross. He bemoaned that this was what he was getting in return. Unfortunately  he failed to get shelter in this poor house. He was desperate and : “like a flash, for all his eighty-seven years, the old sailor was speeding away on the desperate chance of finding shelter elsewhere.” The author with other two fellow  destitute decided to walk three miles to the Poplar Workhouse. Both men were anxious for a bed. One of them  was the Carter, fifty-eight years of age. He had spent the last three nights without shelter or sleep. The other was sixty-five year old Carpenter, who had been out five nights…. (The author says there were thirty-five thousand homeless in London Town that night.) The author noticed that while walking to the Poplar Workhouse both these persons kept their eyes upon the pavement . Every now and then one or the other stooped and picked up bits of orange peels , apple skin and grape stem and ate them. They were not only shelter –less but hungry too. How important were these casual wards to sustain the jobless and homeless was explained by the carpenter to  the author. In his own words: “I go to the casual ward for a bed. Must be there by two or three in the afternoon or I won't get in. You saw what happened to- day. What chance does that give me to look for work? S'pose I do get into the casual ward? Keep me in all day to-morrow,let me out mornin' o' next day. What then? The law sez I can't get in another casual ward that night less'n ten miles distant. Have to hurry an'walk to be there in time that day. What chance does that give me to look for a job? S'pose I don't walk. S'pose I look for a job? In no time there's night come, an' no bed. No sleep all night, nothin' to eat, what shape am I in the mornin' to look for work?” The three of them did not get shelter even in this shelter house too. Incidentally,  the Carpenter’s father was also an army personnel and fought wars for British empire. Life histories of these poor reveal how England used its human resource in building a huge empire in which a few industrialists thrived and the hapless poor were left high and dry by both the state and the society. This type of ruthlessness was not witnessed by Herr and his friend in Tibet.

Housing for Poor in pre-1949 Tibet--Compare this pathetic condition of poor unable to hire a room or get some short of night shelter to get sound sleep-an essential requirement for one’s existence- in the capital of most prosperous country of the world in 1902 with living conditions of poor Tibetans (95percent of the population by  Chinese estimates during the World War ll) Tibetan Account is based on book Seven Years in Tibet by Herr Harrer (1953). It was translated from the German by RICHARD    GRAVES. The author and his friend Aufschnaiter, both German nationals, were in India for mountaineering on the eve of World War ll. As the War broke out between Allied and Axis powers they were arrested and put in internment camps. However, Herr Harrer and his friend Aufschnaiter, were committed to somehow escape from the internment camps. In 1943, in their third attempt they succeeded in escaping from an internment camp at Dehra Dun. From there they headed straight for Tibet through Himalaya. Before reaching Lhasa the author tells us that they , “had marched for seventy days and rested during only five. That meant a daily average of almost ten miles. Forty-five days of our journey had been spent in crossing the Changthang—days full of hardship and unceasing struggle against cold, hunger, and danger. ” In Tibet they  were fugitive, with no status, no papers, and very limited funds. They often disguised themselves, traveled on foot, carried their few possessions on their back, and at times slept on the ground in the open. Many a times they were offered hospitality by nomads supposed to be part of poorest of the poor population and government officials. When they finally reached Lhasa, they were in rags and penniless. Throughout their journey they were in direct touch with Tibetan people and officials rather they could safely reach Lhasa only because of liberal hospitality of the common people and officials. Secondly, as Herr Harrer writes that during their escape to Tibet they were poorer to poor Tibetans and did not move around as Sahibs. Therefore, their impressions of Tibetan people and their economic conditions were most authentic.

  Tibetans Were not Shelter-less—Throughout their journey to Lhasa they did not see hapless Tibetans looking for night shelter. Rather  they envied the cosy  abodes of Tibetans of different strata of society.  He tells us about nomad houses at Tradun. The houses of the inhabitants, the usual mud-brick dwellings, were built behind the hill to shelter them from the wind. The village houses were narrow and crowded together, but, nevertheless, every house had its own courtyard, in which wares were stored. All the inhabitants of the village were in some way connected with trade or transport; the real nomads lived scattered over the plain. They had occasion to attend several religious festivals, the most impressive of which was the harvest thanksgiving. They were interacting on a friendly footing with all the inhabitants and used to doctor them, being particularly successful in our treatment of wounds and colic.

As they were fugitives  did not have valid papers pertaining their nationality and pertaining their travel in Tibet , they were avoiding  Tibetan officials . Hence they had maximum interaction with the nomads. Almost all of them were very hospitable. They did not find the nomads suffering from the king dehumanizing poverty Jack London talked off.  Below are some the excerpts from the book.

Talking  about the hardships they faced in Tibet due to difficult terrain and the human the nomads provided Herr writes that  after eight days of march they met  a nomad and his wife  the first cheerful and friendly Tibetans. He says“ the young nomad, muffled in a long sheepskin coat and wearing a pigtail, as all Tibetan men who are not monks do. He led us to his black tent made of yak's hair, where his wife was waiting for him. She was a merry creature, always laughing.(she was wearing heavy fur garment) ”  They were not in rags as Jack London tells us. He also adds that Tibet was governed on a feudal system, whereby men, beasts, and land belonged to the Dalai Lama, whose orders have the force of law. But the poor had enough to eat, clothes to protect from adverse climate and tents or houses to shelter. Not only were the poor could manage their basic necessities of life they had healthy family, clan and social life.

 Contrary to this self-sufficient life of nomads in Tibet ,the Ghetto folk of East London had no homes. London observed that they did not know the significance and the sacredness of home life. Even the municipal dwellings, where live the better-class workers, were overcrowded barracks. They had no home life.

State is bigger exploiter than the capitalists—Jack London writes that "It is a matter of sober calculation, here in England, that it is softer to work for twenty shillings a week, and have regular food, and a bed at night, than it is to walk the streets. The man who walks the streets suffers more, and works harder, for far less return. I have depicted the nights they spend, and how, driven in by physical exhaustion, they go to the casual ward for a "rest up." Nor is the casual ward a soft snap. To pick four pounds of oakum, break twelve hundredweight of stones, or perform the most revolting tasks, in return for the miserable food and shelter they receive, is an unqualified extravagance on the part of the men who are guilty of it. On the part of the authorities it is sheer robbery. They give the men far less for their labour than do the capitalistic employers. The wage for the same amount of labour, performed for a private employer, would buy them better beds, better food, more good cheer, and, above all, greater freedom.”  He adds that in London, year in and year out, one adult in every four dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, the hospital, or the asylum. This means at least one in every three adult workers to die on public charity. London also speculates some kind of conspiracy in such segregation of different classes of people. He observes:

“Class supremacy can rest only on class degradation; and when the workers are segregated in the Ghetto, they cannot escape the consequent degradation. A short and stunted people is created-a breed strikingly differentiated from their masters' breed, a pavement folk, as it were lacking stamina and strength. The men become caricatures of what physical men ought to be, and their women and children are pale and anaemic, with eyes ringed darkly, who stoop and slouch, and are early twisted out of all shapeliness and beauty.

To make matters worse, the men of the Ghetto are the men who are left—a deteriorated stock, left to undergo still further deterioration. For a hundred and fifty years, at least, they have been drained of their best. The strong men, the men of pluck, initiative, and ambition, have been faring forth to the fresher and freer portions of the globe, to make new lands and nations. Those who are lacking, the weak of heart and head and hand, as well as the rotten and hopeless, have remained to carry on the breed. And year by year, in turn, the best they breed are taken from them. Wherever a man of vigour and stature manages to grow up, he is haled forthwith into the army.”

Agricultural workers---Jack also talks about the demand of casual workers to pick some crops during harvesting season. For example, it was estimated that Kent alone required eighty thousand of the street people to pick her hops. “And out they come, obedient to the call of their bellies …. the country does not want them. They are out of place. As they drag their squat, misshapen bodies along the highways and byways, they resemble some vile spawn from underground. Their very presence, the fact of their existence, is an outrage to the fresh, bright sun and the green and growing things. The clean, upstanding trees cry shame upon them and their withered crookedness, and their rottenness is a slimy desecration of the sweetness and purity of nature. London decries this whole process of making a beast of a man, and of his seed through the generations, “ by the artful and spidery manipulation of industry and politics.:”

Talking about poor in London Jack writes:

“The figures are appalling: 1,800,000 people in London live on the poverty line and below it, and 1,000,000 live with one week's wages between them and pauperism. In all England and Wales, eighteen per cent, of the whole population are driven to the parish for relief, and in London, according to the statistics of the London County Council, twenty-one per cent, of the whole population are driven to the parish for relief. Between being driven to the parish for relief and being an out-and-out pauper there is a great difference, yet London supports 123,000 paupers, quite a city of folk in themselves. One in every four in London dies on public charity, while 939 out of every 1000 in the United Kingdom die in poverty; 8,000,000 simply struggle on the ragged edge of starvation, and 20,000,000 more are not comfortable in the simple and clean sense of the word.

In England, every year, 500,000 men, women, and children, engaged in the various industries, are killed and disabled, or are injured to disablement by disease.

In the West End eighteen per cent, of the children die before five years of age; in the East End fifty-five per cent, of the children die before five years of age. And there are streets in London where out of every one hundred children born in a year, fifty die during the next year; and of the fifty that remain, twenty-five die before they are five years old. Slaughter! Herod did not do quite so badly.

Environmental Pollution--That industry causes greater havoc with human life than battle does no better substantiation can be given than the following extract from a recent report of the Liverpool Medical Officer, which is not applicable to Liverpool alone:-

In many instances little if any sunlight could get to the courts, and the atmosphere within the dwellings was always foul, owing largely to the saturated condition of the walls and ceilings, which for so many years had absorbed the exhalations of the occupants into their porous material. Singular testimony to the absence of sunlight in these courts was furnished by the action of the Parks and Gardens Committee, who desired to brighten the homes of the poorest class by gifts of growing flowers and window-boxes; but these gifts could not be made in courts such as these, AS FLOWERS AND PLANTS WERE SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE UNWHOLESOME SURROUNDINGS, AND WOULD NOT LIVE.

Then there are the "dangerous trades," in which countless workers are employed. Their hold on life is indeed precarious-far, far more precarious than the hold of the twentieth-century soldier on life. In the linen trade, in the preparation of the flax, wet feet and wet clothes cause an unusual amount of bronchitis, pneumonia, and severe rheumatism; while in the carding and spinning departments the fine dust produces lung disease in the majority of cases, and the woman who starts carding at seventeen or eighteen begins to break up and go to pieces at thirty. The chemical labourers, picked from the strongest and most splendidly-built men to be found, live, on an average, less than forty-eight years.

Says Dr. Arlidge, of the potter's trade: "Potter's dust does not kill suddenly, but settles, year after year, a little more firmly into the lungs, until at length a case of plaster is formed. Breathing becomes more and more difficult and depressed, and finally ceases."

Steel dust, stone dust, clay dust, alkali dust, fluff dust, fibre dust-all these things kill, and they are more deadly than machine- guns and pom-poms. Worst of all is the lead dust in the white-lead trades.

Putting Out System-- In chapter Alley and  a Glimpse of Inferno Jack London writes that he and his friends climbed up three flights, each landing was heaped with filth and refuse. There were seven rooms in this house. The size of each room was about eight feet by eight. In six of the rooms, twenty-odd people, of both sexes and all ages, cooked, ate, slept, and worked. The seventh room was smaller in which five men worked. A table was placed there on which they worked. There was barely room for the men to stand to their work. In the rest of the space was heaped with cardboard, leather, bundles of shoe uppers, and a miscellaneous assortment of materials used in attaching the uppers of shoes to their soles. In the winter a lamp burned nearly all the day and added its fumes to the over-loaded air. The income depended on demands. But it did not exceed 30 shilling per week after working for twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hours a day. They worked with the hands and teeth too. As a result the teeth were worn down by the constant friction of the metallic brads, while they were coal-black and rotten. The workers had to furnish their own tools, brads, "grindery," cardboard, rent, and light.

Condition of Woman Workers--- London writes about an old woman, broken and dying, supporting herself and four children, and paying three shillings per week rent, by making match boxes at 2.25d. per gross. In the week of ninety-eight hours' work, she made 7066 match boxes, and earned 4s. 10.25d., less per paste and thread. In 1901,says the author Mr. Thomas Holmes, a police-court missionary received a letter from a tie-maker, dated April 18, 1901 saying that after working all the week, she could not earn more than five shillings. She had a poor afflicted husband to look after who not earned a penny for more than last ten years. There was no space in the room except the bed for the missionary to sit down. This bed was partially covered with ties and silk. The sick man's lungs were in the last stages of decay. He coughed and expectorated constantly. The silken fluff from the ties was further intensifying his sickness. At the same time his cough was infecting the ties too.

Jack London talked with a woman who  he says had started on the fatal fall to the bottom. Her husband was a fitter who did not have regular employment. The pair had two daughters. For years they were suffering Malnutrition had been sapping vitality and hastening the family’s descent. This woman was making cloth dress- skirts for seven shillings a dozen. One daughter, the elder, had worked as green hand for a dressmaker, for one shilling and sixpence per week-37.5 cents per week, or a fraction over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season came she was discharged. After that she had been employed in a bicycle store for three years, for which she received five shillings per week, walking two miles to her work, and two back, and being fined for tardiness.

On this miserable state of workers Jack London comments that:

 “ At one time the nations of Europe confined the undesirable Jews in city ghettos. But to-day the dominant economic class, by less arbitrary but none the less rigorous methods, has confined the undesirable yet necessary workers into ghettos of remarkable meanness and vastness. East London is such a ghetto, where the rich and the powerful do not dwell, and the traveller cometh not, and where two million workers swarm, procreate, and die.”

Fortunately even the Chinese regime does not blame the pre 1949 Tibetan regime causing environmental pollution in Tibet. Herr does talk about poor medical and health facilities. His comments on public health are given later in this article. We do not have any such data about poor Tibetans. But the impression given by Herr shows that the quality  of life of poor Tibetans was many times better than that of workers in England.

Born Traders—    These poor Tibetans were good hosts and traders also. Herr records, that every Tibetan, whether poor or rich, is a born trader, and exchange and barter was his greatest passion. The  nomad he first met  had hunted a haunch of venison  a few days before and  a portion of this meat he sold to them for an absurdly low price on the condition that these strangers would say nothing about his hunting, or he would get into trouble. Because taking of life, ( human or animal) is contrary to the tenets of Buddhism, and consequently, hunting was forbidden. Like this Herr records many instances of sales and purchases done by them with both the poor Tibetans and officials of Tibetan government.

Tibetan Hospitality --This  book abounds  with the instances of Tibetan hospitality. The aforementioned couple  offered them shelter gave food and wine and next day took them to wild for hunting and again fed them. It seemed that the wife also enjoyed the extra burden of serving strangers as guests.

In another  place another nomad allowed Herr’s yak to graze to his heart's content in his pasture land. Inside the tent, they were well received by a young woman. She quickly made cups of butter tea and gave them. This was first time the author relished it. He recounts:

 “The warmth ran through our frozen bodies and brought us to life again. Only then did we notice what a picturesque figure our young hostess made. Over her bare skin she wore a sheepskin cloak reaching down to the ground. In her long black pigtail she wore mussel shells, silver coins, and various cheap ornaments imported from abroad. She told us that her two husbands had gone out to drive in the animals.” ( She said they had fifteen hundred sheep and a great many yaks. ) “…The two men, when they came home, greeted us as warmly as their wife had done. An abundant supper was prepared and we even got sour milk to drink. This was a pleasure we had not enjoyed since we used to help the butter makers in Kyirong. We sat for a long while in comfort by the fire and felt ourselves rewarded for the hardships of the road. We laughed and jested much, and as is usual when the company consists of several men and a single pretty young woman, the latter got her share of teasing.”

Nomads were Self- sufficient-- In winter the men living a nomad life have not much to do. They busy themselves with various household chores and for recreation go hunting with their antiquated muzzle loaders. The women collect yak dung and often carry their babies around with them as they work. In the evening the herds are driven in and the cows milked.

Nomads were not Backward— They had profound understanding of their environment, ecology, unpredictable weather conditions, etc. Accordingly they had mastered the art of adjusting with harsh nature and unpredictable weather. They lived in perfect harmony with their environment. This harmony was reflected in their food habit, clothes they wore. Herr tells us that  the nomads had the simplest methods of cooking. In winter they ate  almost exclusively meat with as much fat as possible. They also ate different kinds of soup—tsampa, the staple diet in agricultural districts, was a rarity here. He further adds that the whole life of the nomads was so organized that they tried to take maximum benefits from the scanty gifts of nature. For example, at night they sleep on skins spread upon the ground and, slipping out of the sleeves, use their sheepskin cloaks as bedclothes. Before they get up in the morning, they blow up the still live embers of their fire with a bellows and the first thing they do is to make tea. The fire is the heart of the household and is never allowed to go out. As in every peasant's house, one finds an altar in every tent, which usually consists of a simple chest on which is set an amulet or a small statue of the Buddha. There is invariably a picture of the Dalai Lama. A little butter lamp burns on the altar, and in winter the flame is almost invisible owing to the cold and the lack of oxygen.

The greatest event of the year in the life of the nomads was the annual market in Gyanyima to which they drove their flocks and bartered some of their sheep for grain household articles, needles, aluminum pots and pans, and brightly colored ornaments for the women.

 Compare this cheerful family life of nomads in difficult terrains of Tibet, hundreds of miles away from industrially advanced  modern civilized world   with the dehumanizing poverty suffered  by the people residing in the capital city of the most powerful and industrialized country of the world. Jack London talked about the young slum dwellers, many of whom were so poor that they  could not afford to get married and raise a family. The  married- ones often got so pauperized  they  found it difficult to maintain it. Jack London had gone to England to report slum dwellers’reaction to the coronation of Monarch. He writes that on the coronation night at three in the morning he strolled up the Embankment of the Thames River and found each bench jammed with sleeping occupants. On one bench he noticed a family,-- a man sitting upright with a sleeping babe in his arms, his wife asleep, her head on his shoulder, and in her lap the head of a sleeping youngster. The man's eyes were wide open. He was staring out over the water and thinking, which was not a good thing for a shelter-less man with a family to do. Because writes Jack London, “ the cases of out-of-works killing their wives and babies is not an uncommon happening.”

          In Tibet Herr writes that the slaughterer community used to be treated as an outcast  living on the fringe of the village. The slaughterer used to receive as pay the feet, the head, and the intestines of the slaughtered yak. The author does not say that he was homeless or did not have normal family life.

          True there was inequality in Tibet. There was exploitation in Tibet. But there was no dearth of compassion. Herr has narrated many incidents of Tibetan women offering them butter tea, tsamba, sour milk etc during their fugitive period. Even bonpos (government officials) provided lavish local hospitality. This is important because from their attire they looked poorer than the locals. Contrary to the behavior of ‘backward’ Tibetans Jack London describes the heartlessness of advanced modern rich London dwellers towards their poor countrymen. He narrates the incident of the coronation night When he was sitting on a bench on the Thames Embankment. “ It was approaching midnight, and before me poured the better class of merrymakers, shunning the more riotous streets and returning home. On the bench beside me sat two ragged creatures, a man and a woman, nodding and dozing…. Every little while boys and young men stopped long enough to go behind the bench and give vent to sudden and fiendish shouts. This always jerked the man and woman abruptly from their sleep; and at sight of the startled woe upon their faces the crowd would roar with laughter as it flooded past…. the general heartlessness exhibited on every hand. It is a commonplace, the homeless on the benches, the poor miserable folk who may be teased and are harmless.” He adds  “Fifty thousand people must have passed the bench while I sat upon it, and not one, on such a jubilee occasion as the crowning of the King, felt his heart-strings touched sufficiently to come up and say to the woman: "Here's sixpence; go and get a bed." But the women, especially the young women, made witty remarks upon the woman nodding, and invariably set their companions laughing.”

On the contrary when Herr and his friend had entered Lhasa virtually in rags and were trying to find a shelter the rich people of Lhasa showed utmost compassion to them. Herr writes that the sun set and bathed the scene in an unearthly light. Shivering with cold, we had to find a lodging, but in Lhasa it is not so simple to walk into a house as into a tent in the Changthang…. In the first house we found a dumb servant, who would not listen to us. Next door there was only a maid who screamed for help till her mistress came and begged us to go somewhere else. …We walked through some narrow streets and found ourselves already at the other side of the town. There we came to a house much larger and finer looking than any we had yet seen…. We hurried in to find ourselves confronted by servants, who abused us and told us to go away. We were not to be moved and unloaded our donkey. The servants were in despair when they saw that we had come to stay. They begged and implored us to go and pointed out that they would get into fearful trouble when their master returned. We, too, felt far from comfortable at the idea of exacting hospitality by force, but we did not move…. We remained deaf to all protestations. Dead-tired and half-starved we sat on the ground by our bundles, indifferent to what might befall us. We wanted only to sit, to rest, to sleep. The angry cries of the crowd suddenly ceased. They had seen our swollen and blistered feet, and, openhearted simple folk as they were, they felt pity for us. A woman began it. She was the one who had implored us to leave her house. Now she brought us butter tea. And they brought us all sorts of things—tsampa, provisions, and fuel. The people wanted to atone for their inhospitable reception. We fell hungrily on the food and for the moment forgot everything else.  Suddenly we heard ourselves addressed in perfect English…. We told him shortly what had happened to us, saying we were Germans, and begging to be taken in. He thought for a moment and then said that he could not admit us to his house without the approval of the town magistrate, but he would go to that official and ask for permission.” His name was Thangme.  He was an important official in charge of the electricity works.  After getting the approval of the town magistrate, Thangme and his young wife received them very cordially. The magistrate had allowed Thangme to give them shelter for one night. The future arrangements were to be decided by the cabinet. A nice, comfortable room was given to them with a small iron stove to warm.  Herr says , “It was seven years since we had seen a stove! The fuel used was juniper wood, which smelled very good and was a real luxury, for it needed weeks of travel on the backs of yaks to bring it into Lhasa. We hardly dared, in our ragged garments, to sit on our clean, carpet-covered beds. They brought us a splendid Chinese supper, and as we ate they all stood around and talked to us without ceasing. What we must have been through! They could hardly believe that we had crossed the Changthang in winter and climbed over the Nyenchenthangla range. Our knowledge of Tibetan astonished them. But how ugly and shabby we seemed to ourselves in these civilized surroundings. Our possessions, indispensable to our journey, suddenly lost all their attraction, and we felt we would be glad to be rid of them.Dead-tired and confused in mind, we went at last to bed….”,

Earlier at Tradun they were to meet two high officials of Tibetan government and plead for asylum. They were first taken into a house where arrangements had been made by the officials for their stay at Tradun. The servants of bonpos were very courteous. At the officers room they had prepared a bench with cushions so that westerners did not have to sit cross-legged on the floor like the Tibetans. They were served tea and cake. But the officials stubbornly insisted that the conditions laid down in their travel document be followed. “ The next day a servant brought an invitation to luncheon from bonpos—as all high personages are called in Tibet. We had a wonderful meal of Chinese noodles and I think we must have appeared to be starving, to judge from the masses of food they piled on our plates…. (italics added) At the end of the meal, beer was served and added to the cheerfulness of the gathering…. At length we returned to our quarters, happy that things had gone so well. We had hardly arrived when the door was opened, and a regular procession of heavily laden servants trooped in. They brought us sacks of flour, rice, and tsampa as well as four slaughtered sheep. We did not know from whom the gifts had come until the mayor, who had accompanied the servants, explained to us that the two high officials had sent them. When we tried to thank him, the mayor modestly disclaimed all credit, and no one seemed willing to admit the generous action. As we three sat alone in our house looking at all the gifts, we could hardly believe in our change of luck.” The Tibetan government also gave them winter garments. In Tibet, there were no public inns here. Billets in private houses used to be assigned to travelers by the authorities. This was done by rotation, so that the population was not too badly inconvenienced. This arrangement formed part of the taxation system.This is relevant in the context of labour laws passed by the modern industrial state to protect industrialists.

Herr found compassion in the nature of Tibetans. When Herr’s yak fell sick and there was no hope of its recovery .It was decided to slaughter it so that they could use the meat. Even the slaughterer showed compassion in slaughtering the sick yak. Herr witnessed him doing so.  He says, “I found the manner in which he dispatched the animal to be as speedy as possible, and more humane than, the methods of our slaughterers. “

Punishment in traditional Tibet was cruel and inhuman. He says, “We never saw any punishments as cruel as this.” He was  witness to  a public flogging. The condemned persons were a monk and a nun. The nun had cohabited with the monk and had had a child by him, which she killed when it was born. Both were denounced and put in the pillory. The guilt was publicly announced and they were condemned to a hundred lashes each. During the flogging the inhabitants begged the authorities to show mercy, offering them presents of money. This produced a reduction of the sentence, and sobs and sighs of relief were heard among the crowd of onlookers.  Herr comments that  “the sympathy shown by the whole population toward them was, to our notions, almost inconceivable. The sinners received numerous presents of money and provisions, and left Kyirong with well-filled sacks to go on a pilgrimage.”

 Talking about poverty of Tibetan people in one place he says as there was a shortage of labor in the agricultural regions, hunger and poverty were unknown. The peasants were well-off, and their wardrobes contained enough tidy clothes for the whole family to wear on feast days. The women wove their own cloth, and all the clothes were made at home. The numerous monks, who do no manual work and occupy themselves with spiritual matters, are supported by the community.when  Herr and his friend came down into the Indus Valley, they met numbers of yak-drawn caravans bearing wool to India. The drivers of these caravans too, were youths, who, “ despite the fierce cold were naked to the waist. Both men and women wore their fur coats inside out with the fur against their bare bodies. They kept their arms out of the sleeves, so as not to hamper their freedom of movement.” This shows that these drivers were not malnourished.

While the Chinese government’s documents say that before 1949, the condition of Tibetan workers was much worse than the condition of workers under feudalism in the west. Jack London surmises just the opposite. In his own words:

 “it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent, of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed, for the most part, in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism . . . ….of the average workman in town and country, there is found the great band of destitute outcasts-the camp followers of the army of industry-at least one-tenth the whole proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrangement of modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of mankind.”

Actually  under feudalism the poor lived in the margins of society mostly in the villages. Except during the calamities they constantly remained in the margins of society. The steep upward or downward mobility was very uncommon. In the modern industrial state nothing is constant and stable. Mobility has to be either upward or downward. As the industrial economy seeps in the countryside, the poor residing there loose their means of subsistence. City-ward migration in search of employment is the only option left with these rural poor. This is a sign of their downward mobility. Jack London gives a graphic account of a labourers’ family, who while living in the countryside used to manage with the help of the common-land and their labour.  With the inroads of commercial crops and encroachment of the commons this family lost  its means of subsistence. This family like many other such families  migrated to city of London. With their little savings this family could not get decent courts for lodgings. “ Food was dear and bad, water was bad, and in a short time their health suffered. Work was hard to get, and its wage was so low that they were soon in debt. They became more ill and more despairing with the poisonous surroundings, the darkness, and the long hours of work; and they were driven forth to seek a cheaper lodging. They found it in a court  which was a hotbed of crime and nameless horrors at a cruel rent. Work was more difficult for them to get now, as they came from a place of such bad repute, and they fell into the hands of those who sweat the last drop out of man and woman and child, for wages which are the food only of despair. And the darkness and the dirt, the bad food and the sickness, and the want of water was worse than before; and the crowd and the companionship of the court robbed them of the last shreds of self-respect. The drink demon seized upon them. Of course there was a public-house at both ends of the court. There they fled, one and all, for shelter, and warmth, and society, and forgetfulness. And they came out in deeper debt, with inflamed senses and burning brains, and an unsatisfied craving for drink they would do anything to satiate. And in a few months the father was in prison, the wife dying, the son a criminal, and the daughters on the street.” This kind of displacement was not there in Tibet before 1949.

The author noticed that the poor quarters of the city proper were constantly being destroyed, and the main stream of the unhoused was toward the east of London. During the last twelve years (from 1890-1902), this district had increased over sixty per cent. He called the East End as The City of Degradation. Because here the obscenities and brute vulgarities of life were rampant. There was no privacy. He opines that it was criminal for the people of the Abyss to marry. There was no place for them, in the social fabric. The world did not need them. Because there were plenty of healthy people migrating to London from the countryside.

            The author  finds city life of London unnatural for workers. The average workman or workwoman could not stand it. “The good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes in the first city generation a poor workman; and by the second city generation, devoid of push and go and initiative, and actually unable physically to perform the labour his father did, he is well on the way to the shambles at the bottom of the Abyss.”

The reason for this decline was air pollution. The air of the East End had the disease germs and smoke. According to Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, curator of Kew Gardens, no less than six tons of solid matter, consisting of soot and tarry hydrocarbons, were deposited every week on every quarter of a square mile in and about London. This was equivalent to twenty-four tons per week to the square mile, or 1248 tons per year to the square mile. The sulphuric acid in the atmosphere was constantly being breathed by the London workmen through all the days and nights of their lives. As a result the children grow up without virility or stamina, “a weak-kneed, narrow-chested, listless breed….” As a result all those professions which required physical stamina, were largely drawn from the countryside.He concludes that, “the Abyss is literally a huge man- killing machine.”

Herr was also critical of Tibetan system. For example, he did not forgive Tibetan institutions both religious and state for closing Tibetan society from modern advancements in the field of science and technology. He pointed out the Back breaking forced labour which the people had to do in liu of taxes to be paid to the state. While the nomads, the peasants and other section of people developed their lifestyles , eating habits, dresses, economies, according to their local environment, the state and the religious institutions did not try to introduce modern technological advancements in the field of backbreaking manual labour that the common people were made to   do for the state and religious institutions. Herr writes that, in Tibet “every year they put up high flagstaffs made of heavy tree trunks fitted into one another. These are brought from distant places, and it is quite a task to carry them to Lhasa. It is managed in a very primitive way, and my indignation was aroused when I saw, for the first time, a procession coming in…. About twenty men drag each trunk, which is attached to them by a rope round their waists. They sing a monotonous air as they trudge along, keeping step with one another. They sweat and pant, but their foreman, who leads the singing, gives them no pause for rest. This forced labor is in part a substitute for taxation. The carriers are picked up at villages on the road and dismissed when they come to the next settlement. The monotonous airs to which they drag their burden are said to distract their minds from the severity of their task….. The sort of fatalistic resignation with which they lent themselves to this backbreaking toil always used to infuriate me. As a product of our modern age, I could not understand why the people of Tibet were so rigidly opposed to any form of progress. There obviously must be some better means of transporting these heavy burdens than by manhandling them. The Chinese invented and used the wheel thousands of years ago. But the Tibetans will have none of it, though its use would give an immense impulse to transport and commerce, and would raise the whole standard of living throughout the country. When, later, I was engaged in irrigation works, I made various finds that strengthened my belief that the Tibetans had known and used the wheel many centuries ago. We uncovered hundreds of great blocks of stones as big as wardrobes. These could not have been carried save by mechanical means from the remote quarries where they had been hewn. When my workmen wanted to carry such a block from one place to another, they had first to hew it into eight pieces. I became more and more convinced that Tibet's great days belonged to the past. There is a stone obelisk dating from a. d. 763 that bears witness to my theory. It records the fact that in that year the Tibetan armies marched to the gates of the Chinese capital and there dictated to the Chinese terms of peace, which included an annual tribute of fifty thousand bales of silk.And then there is the Potala Palace, which must date from Tibet's days of greatness. No one today would think of erecting such a building. I once asked a stonemason who was working for me why such buildings were no longer put up. He answered indignantly that the Potala was the handiwork of the gods. Men never could have achieved anything like it. Good spirits and supernatural beings had worked by night on this wonderful building. I found in this view another instance of the indifference to progress and ambition that characterized the attitude of the men who dragged the tree trunks.”  Herr is not sure whether Tibet would “be happier for being transformed. A fine motor road to India would doubtless raise the people's standard of life very greatly, but by accelerating the tempo of existence it might rob the people of their peace and leisure. One should not force a people to introduce inventions that are far ahead of their stage of evolution. They have a nice saying here: "One cannot reach the fifth story of the Potala without starting at the ground floor."

Herr was also critical of the state of public health in Tibet. He wrote houses in Kyirong village had mice and fleas and vermin. He noticed that in Kyirong monks did not like local people interacting with them. Probably they feared that these interactions would help local people shun many of their superstitious beliefs. Thad developed a vested interest in keeping people away from advancements in science and technology in maintaining status quo.  Her was also very critical of the state of health administration in Tibet. He minced no words and wrote that the policy of the government toward medicine was a dark chapter in the history of modern Tibet. He found that the doctors of the British legations were the only qualified medical men in a population of three and a half million. But the government would not permit  foreign doctors to practice in Tibet. He adds that the whole power was in the hands of the monks, who criticized even government officials when they called in the English doctor.

He informs that Tibet did not have the problem of overpopulation. For centuries the number of inhabitants had remained about the same. In addition to the practices of polyandry and monasticism, infant mortality were the main reasons for the absence of population growth. The average expectation of life among the Tibetans was only about thirty years. Among the whole mass of officials there was only one septuagenarian.

Venereal disease  was very common in Tibet. Many cases occurred in Lhasa, but not much importance was attached to them. They were generally neglected, and the doctor was called in when it was too late to do much good. The ancient remedy of mercury is known to the monks in the schools of medicine.

            Tibetan government under the influence and pressure of vested interest ignored public health. The dismal living conditions of marginalized people, the polluted environment  of slums in  cities of industrial world degenerate the working men and women. Jack says, “at the best, city life is an unnatural life for the human; but the city life of London is so utterly unnatural that the average workman or workwoman cannot stand it. Mind and body are sapped by the undermining influences ceaselessly at work…. the good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes in the first city generation a poor workman; and by the second city generation, devoid of push and go and initiative, and actually unable physically to perform the labour his father did, he is well on the way to the shambles at the bottom of the Abyss.…Leaving out the disease germs that fill the air of the East End, ….sulphuric acid in the atmosphere is constantly being breathed by the London workmen through all the days and nights of their lives.It is incontrovertible that the children grow up into rotten adults, without virility or stamina, a weak-kneed, narrow-chested, listless breed….The railway men, carriers, omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those who require physical stamina, are largely drawn from the country; while in the Metropolitan Police there are, roughly, 12,000 country- born as against 3000 London-born.” He concludes that the Abyss is literally a huge man- killing machine….”

Nomads the Free Birds of Tibet—When they reached  Gartok , the capital of Western Tibet, and the seat of the viceroy, the highest town in the world; they saw only a few nomads' tents scattered about the immense plain. The Tibetan herdsmen spend the summer months grazing their cattle on the luxuriant mountain meadows.  For  safety they rear dogs. By all the inhabited huts are found fierce, pugnacious dogs. Mostly they are chained up and by their barking at night protect the cattle from leopards, wolves, and wild dogs. They are very powerfully built, and their usual diet of milk and calves' flesh gives them enormous strength.

Tibetan Dresses were According to the nature of Season There—Herr says when they were walking along the bank of the Tsangpo, “ the weather was continually changing. Within minutes one was alternately freezing or roasting in the sunshine. Hailstorms, rain, and sunshine followed each other in quick succession—one morning we awoke to find our tent buried in snow, which in a few hours melted in the hot sunshine. Our Europeans clothes were unsuited to these continual changes of temperature, and we envied the Tibetans their practical sheepskin cloaks, belted at the waist and with long wide sleeves to take the place of gloves.”

Farmers’ Houses at Kyirong—Kyirong was the seat of two district governors who administer thirty villages.  They stayed in the house of a farmer, which was similar to Tyrolese houses. “As a matter of fact, the whole of the village might have been transplanted from the Alps, except that instead of chimneys the roofs of the houses were decorated with prayer flags. These were always in the five colors which represented different aspects of life in Tibet. On the ground floor were the stables for cows and horses. They were separated by a thick ceiling from the living rooms of the family, which are approached by a ladder from the courtyard. Thick stuffed mattresses served as beds and easy chairs, and near them were small, low tables. The members of the household kept their clothes in brightly painted wardrobes, and before the inevitable carved wooden altar, butter lamps were burning. In winter the whole family sit on the deal floor boards around a huge open log fire and sip their tea.”

 

Tibetans were a laughter-loving folk --We went to find the bonpo and coolly informed him that we were the advance party of a powerful foreign personage on his way to Lhasa and that we had to reach the city as quickly as possible in order to find quarters for our master. The bonpo swallowed our tale and gave us an ass and a driver. Years later this story used still to set people laughing at parties in Lhasa, even in the houses of ministers. The fact is the Tibetans are very proud of their organization for keeping foreigners out of the country, and they found the manner in which we had broken through the barriers not only deserving of attention but highly humorous.  Common citizens and persons in authority in industrialized societies  suffer such insecurities that they can not think of taking such outsmarting tactics positively and laugh at them.

            herr says, “Tibetans are a happy little people full of childish humor. They are grateful for any opportunity to laugh. If anyone stumbles or slips they enjoy themselves for hours. Pleasure in the misfortune of others is almost universal, but somehow it is not ill meant. They make a mock of everything and everybody. As they have no newspapers they indulge their criticism of untoward events or objectionable persons by means of songs and satire. Boys and girls walk through the Parkhor in the evening singing the latest verses. Even the highest personages must put up with being pulled to pieces. Sometimes the government proscribes a particular song, but no one is ever punished for singing it. It is no longer sung in public, but is heard all the more in private.”

 

It is probable that no other country in the world would welcome two poor fugitives as Tibet welcomed us. Our parcel of clothes, the gift of the government, had arrived with apologies for delay caused by the fact that we were taller than the average Tibetan and there were no ready-made clothes to fit us. So our suits and shoes were made to measure. We were as pleased as children. At last we were able to throw away our lousy old rags. Our new suits, though not up to the highest sartorial standards, were decent and tidy and quite good enough for us.

 Many people whom Herr and his friend met during their journey to Lhasa visited them in Lhasa with gifts.  They told Herr that the officials who allowed them to pass through their districts were severely censured by the government. But these officials bore no grudge against Herr and his friens. They met a bonpo whom they had tricked with their old travel permit, and,” he only laughed and seemed glad to see us again.”

Staple Diet-- The staple food in Kyirong region was tsampa made puffed barleycorns,

 butter tea, usually made with rancid butter . Tibetans often drink as many as sixty cups in a day. The Tibetans of Kyirong, besides butter tea and tsampa, eat rice, buckwheat, maize, potatoes, turnips, onions, beans, and radishes.

Religion Was Everybody to be Pursued—Unlike Christianity in which poor are treated as objects of charity to atone for one’s sins , in Tibet both rich or poor, go to their religious places during Tibetan new year and other festivals, “ full of devotion and with no inner misgivings to lay their offerings before the gods and to pray for their blessing. Herr was deeply impressed by this profound religious devotion.

 Costly Religious Rituals—Religious rituals after death were quite costly. Herr writes about death ceremony soon after the new year festivity. At this ceremony appeared many monks who said prayers to the accompaniment of their own peculiar music. All this naturally costs money, and when deaths occur in the family the Tibetans usually sell some of their jewelry or the possessions of the defunct, the proceeds of which pay for the obsequies performed by the monks and the oil used in their countless little lamps.

Religious  Double Standards--- Meat was a rarity in Kyirong.  Because it was a holy place and animals could not be slaughtered there. However, meat could be brought in from another district. Herr questions this adherence to the doctrine of non violence on the ground that every autumn some fifteen thousand sheep were driven through Kyirong bound for the slaughterhouses in Nepal. Moreover, Tibetans levy export duty on them. Similarly, the Tibetan government had officially forbidden Tibetans to take honey on religious ground. (Tibetan religion does not allow them to deprive animals of their food.)  But when the Nepalese came to gather honey the law was circumvented.The Tibetans, including the bonpos, allowed the Nepalese to have the honey they collected, and then baught it back from them.

Tibetan Women as Sturdy as Men--- Herr has written about nomad Tibetan women playing active role in economy and confidently taking decisions regarding providing hospitality to unknown foreigners too. In their quest for shortest route to Lhasa they entered into the region infested by dacoits whom the locals called Khampas. To protect themselves from these dacoits they requested the local bonpo to  provide them security. Who readily agreed and ordered for escorts.  Among the persons who escorted them by turns there were a couple of sturdy women escorts who handed them over to the Tasam road “after a touching farewell.” After this they met a young couple on the way to Lhasa.  According to the author,  “their story was a remarkable one. This pretty young woman with her rosy cheeks and thick black pigtails had lived happy and contented with her three husbands— three brothers they were—for whom she kept house in a nomad tent in the Changthang. One evening a young stranger arrived and asked for lodging. From that moment everything was different. It must have been a case of this famous "love at first sight." The young people understood each other without saying anything and the next morning went off together. They made nothing of a flight over the wintry plain. Now they were happy to have arrived here, and meant to begin a new life in Lhasa. I remember this young woman as a gleam of sunshine in those hard, heavy days. Once as we were resting she took out her wallet and smilingly handed each of us a dried apricot. This modest gift was as precious to us as the white bread the nomad had given us on Christmas night. In the course of our journey, I realized how strong and enduring Tibetan women are. This very young woman kept up with us easily and carried her pack as well as a man. She had not to worry about her future. In Lhasa she would hire herself out as a daily servant and with her robust country-girl's health easily earn her living.”

Condition of women in labour colonies like east London was miserable. Jack London writes that a woman of the lower Ghetto classes was slave of her husband. The men were economically dependent on their masters, and the women were economically dependent on the men. The man releases the frustrations caused  by the exploitations of the master on his wife and beats  her up without any rime and reason. She  could do nothing. There were the kids to be looked after. Being a breadwinner he was indispensable. Therefore the women did not take recourse to law against domestic violence. As a result admit London  that even in the court of law the trampled wife and mother instead of giving evidence generally requested  the magistrate to let her husband off for the kiddies' sakes. The result was the “wives become screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and doglike, lose what little decency and self-respect they have remaining over from their maiden days, and all sink together, unheeding, in their degradation and dirt.”

Even Heinous Crime was not a Stigma in Tibetan Society--Poor Tibetans did not give up their human qualities—They did not black list convicts. After Herr and his friend started taking local bonpo’s help they were being provided lodging under his orders. One day when we came back to our lodging a surprise was awaiting us. They had given us as roommate a man wearing fetters on his ankles and able to take only very short steps. He told us smilingly, and as if it was a perfectly normal thing, that he was a murderer and a robber and had been condemned first to receive two hundred lashes and afterward to wear fetters for the rest of his life. This made my flesh creep. Were we already classed with murderers? However, we soon learned that in Tibet a convicted criminal is not necessarily looked down on. Our man had no social disadvantages: he joined in conversation with everybody and lived on alms. And he didn't live badly.”

       Unlike Tibet  where even the murder convict  bore no stigma in London all residents of the East End of London were stigmatized because of their poverty. This was clear from the quarries London made from his friends about this locality. It was out of bound for all those people who could make both the ends meet. For example his friends whose help he sought flatly said that he could not go and stay in that part of the city. On his insistence, that he wished to see things himself he was advised to contact the police. He went to O Thomas Cook & Son, (path-finders and trail-clearers, living sign-posts to all the world) for help. There he was told that travellers did not wish to go to the East End. Therefore it was not in their priority list. However, after much haggling he could get the address of a detective who lived in the East End who after collecting some information promised to keep track of him. Not only the middle class people did not have any contact with residents of the East London, the cabby who used to drive London around the City had not been to this part of the city. The streets were filled with short statured, wretched or beer-sodden appearance people. “At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption, and drawing forth morsels but partially decayed, which they devoured on the spot.” In Tibet Herr did not come across any stigmatized area which was shunned by other people. The only exception was the region inhabited by robbers. The central Tibetan government had not been able to contain robbery and decoity by khams. People either avoided passing through Kham infested regions or made their own adequate safety arrangements.

Jack London rightly says that, “ it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed, for the most part, in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism . . . But below this normal state of the average workman in town and country, there is found the great band of destitute outcasts--the camp followers of the army of industry--at least one-tenth the whole proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrangement of modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of mankind.”

          He juxtaposes this with the quality of life of the Innuit folk who lived along the banks of the Yukon River, near its mouth in Alaska and writes that, “

 They are a very primitive people, manifesting but mere glimmering adumbrations of that tremendous artifice, civilisation. Their capital amounts possibly to 2 pounds per head. They hunt and fish for their food with bone-headed spews and arrows. They never suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, largely made from the skins of animals, are warm. They always have fuel for their fires, likewise timber for their houses, which they build partly underground, and in which they lie snugly during the periods of intense cold. In the summer they live in tents, open to every breeze and cool. They are healthy, and strong, and happy. Their one problem is food. They have their times of plenty and times of famine. In good times they feast; in bad times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a chronic condition, present with a large number of them all the time, is a thing unknown. Further, they have no debts.In a fair comparison of the average Innuit and the average Englishman, it will be seen that life is less rigorous for the Innuit; that while the Innuit suffers only during bad times from starvation, the Englishman suffers during good times as well; that no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing, or housing, while the Englishman is in perpetual lack of these three essentials. In this connection it is well to instance the judgment of a man such as Huxley.”Same Thing can be said about Tibetans before 1949.