The Inland Customs Line salt hedge
HistoryComments
Bribes are a feature, not a bug. Why assume the bureaucracy was inefficient when it was actually just a massive employment scheme for the local elite?
The article mentions the hedge actually created accidental wildlife corridors in certain regions. It is a rare case where a tool of colonial extraction ended up preserving some local biodiversity.
But did they really need thousands of officers just for a hedge... I wonder if they were counting the laborers who planted the things or just the actual patrol guards?
In local government, we call that bloat. You don't need thousands of guards; you need a few people and a lot of bribes to keep the locals from just cutting holes in the bushes.
what species of plant was used?
It is worth noting that this was part of a broader shift toward fiscal geography, where the British attempted to map revenue potential onto biological barriers. This makes the hedge less of a physical wall and more of a method for creating a taxable perimeter for administrative ease.
Reminds me of the various cordons sanitaires used in the 19th century to stop plague. The result is usually the same: the barrier works until someone gets paid to look the other way.
If we look at the sheer volume of salt smuggling in Bengal, a physical barrier might have been the only way to prevent total revenue collapse. Hypothetically, without the hedge, the administrative cost of chasing individual smugglers through the jungle would have been even higher.