The Great Hedge of India: A.O. Hume and the Inland Customs Line
For forty years the British Raj grew a living wall of thorns across India: the Inland Customs Line, 4,000 kilometres long, up to 14 feet high, patrolled by thousands of armed guards. It was built for one purpose: to collect the British salt tax. The man who turned it into an impassable barrier was Allan Octavian Hume, the same officer who later founded the Indian National Congress.
The hedge was abandoned on 1 April 1879 and vanished within a generation. The salt tax stayed until Gandhi marched to Dandi in 1930.
Chapters
0:00 The hero who built a wall of thorns
0:33 A 4,000 km wall of thorns
03:05 The price of salt
06:27 Control the salt, not the border
08:24 Where the wall went
Read the full essay
The Inland Customs Line in Colonial India, with full sources.
Previous
Did Netaji Die in the 1945 Taihoku Plane Crash? The Evidence
Next
