16. Combating Salt Smuggling With a 2500 Mile Hedge
The British Raj’s extreme solution to combating salt smuggling and salt tax avoidance revolved around growing a giant hedge of thorn bushes, stretching across the subcontinent for thousands of miles. Known as “The Great Hedge of India”, it was supposed to be 2500 miles long, 14 feet wide, 12 feet high, and bristle with thorns. By 1878, the Great Hedge stretched for 1100 miles, but the thorn bushes refused to grow properly, and most of it consisted of dead branches.
The British persisted, and eventually grew over 400 miles of good live hedge, and another 1100 miles of inferior or dry hedge and stone walls, patrolled by up to 14,000 men. That army of officials had to deal with brush fires, storms, parasitic vines, and pests. It did not stop smugglers who hacked through the Hedge or simply tossed bags of salt over the barrier to accomplices on the other side. The Great Hedge was abandoned in 1879, when the authorities switched to the easier solution of imposing and collecting the salt tax at the point of manufacture, then had the manufacturers pass it on to buyers.
