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U.S. CITIZENSHIP ✰✰✰
U.S.
CITIZENSHIP
✰✰✰

A Step-by-Step Guide

Felice Primeau Devine

with Expert Adviser Joon Lee

New York
Copyright © 2001 LearningExpress, LLC.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. Published in the United States by LearningExpress, LLC, New York.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Devine, Felice.
U.S. citizenship : a step-by-step guide / by Felice Devine.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-57685-383-7 (alk. Paper)
1. Citizenship—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
2. Naturalization—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
3. Americanization—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title: US citizenship,
II. Title.
JK 1758 .D48 2001
323.6’23’0973—dc21
2001038087

Printed in the United States of America

987654321
First Edition

ISBN 1-57685-383-7

Regarding the Information in This Book

Every effort has been made ensure accuracy of directory information up until
press time. However, phone numbers and/or addresses are subject to change.
Please contact the respective organization for the most recent information.

For Further Information

For more information or to place an order, contact LearningExpress at:
900 Broadway
Suite 604
New York, NY 10003

Or visit us at:
www.learnatest.com
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I want to express my gratitude to my

talented editor Jennifer Farthing for her guidance, support and, espe-
cially, cheerleading over the course of this project.
Thanks also to Marco Annunziata for all of his work in helping to
shape the book.
Joon Lee generously shared his time and expertise in the preparation
of this project, and for that I am grateful.
Special thanks go out to Carla Asta and everyone else who shared
their experiences.
And most of all, thanks to my patient and understanding husband,
Owen.
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: How to Use This Book ix

CHAPTER 1: Naturalization —An Overview of the 1

Process of Becoming a Citizen
CHAPTER 2: Eligibility Requirements 9
CHAPTER 3: How to Apply for Citizenship 21
CHAPTER 4: The INS Interview and Oral Exam/ 39
Sample Questions and Answers
CHAPTER 5: Official INS Questions 79
and Sample Answers
CHAPTER 6: U.S. History and Civics 91
CHAPTER 7: Special Situations 105

APPENDIX A: Useful Contact Information 119

APPENDIX B: Community Based Resources 139
and Organizations
APPENDIX C: Necessary INS Forms 143
APPENDIX D: Government Acronyms 185
 INTRODUCTION

How to Use This Book

Congratulations—you’ve decided to become a U.S. citizen! While
you’ve been thinking about whether or not to seek citizenship, you have
no doubt realized that this is a big decision. This decision comes with
some very important responsibilities. But before you can realize these
responsibilities and show your commitment to the U.S. Constitution
and the American people, you first have to go though naturalization—
the process by which immigrants become citizens.
Don’t give up yet! Yes, naturalization is a complex process. There are
applications to complete, interviews to attend, and tests to take. With a
little step-by-step guidance, however, your naturalization can be as easy
as American pie!

Did You Know . . .

. . . that almost 10% of the U.S. population is foreign born? This
means that you are not alone in deciding to become a U.S. cit-
izen. In fact, the United States is a country made up of immi-
grants; when you become a citizen you will be following in the
footsteps of millions of Americans.

It All Starts Here

This book will provide you with the basic information, rules, and regu-
lations you need to know to become a U.S. citizen. It is not intended to
X ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

serve as a substitute for legal guidance. For information on resources for

legal guidance, see Appendix B.
In Chapter 1, you will be introduced to all of the steps involved in
naturalization. This chapter includes a timeline that will allow you to
easily keep track of where you are in the process and where to go next.

✰ NATURALIZATION: the process of conferring the

rights of a national on; especially: to admit to
citizenship

Chapter 2 covers how people qualify for citizenship and the eligibility
requirements for naturalization (one of the four ways to qualify for citizen-
ship). This information can be confusing for applicants, so we’ve made the
process simple by using the steps outlined in this book. This chapter will
explain exactly how to determine if you meet the naturalization require-
ments. It also will discuss where to go for additional legal help, if you need it.

✰ ELIGIBILITY: the state of being qualified to participate

or be chosen: entitlement

Chapter 3 will provide you with details on the steps for applying for
citizenship. You’ll learn what documents are necessary, see a sample
application, and gain general familiarity with the naturalization process.

Did You Know . . .

. . . that only U.S. citizens have the right to vote? (With a green
card, you can live, work, or go to school in the United States, but
you cannot vote for elected officials.)

Chapter 4 covers the most important element of naturalization—the

U.S. Citizenship Exam. In this chapter, you’ll find an overview of the
exam—what to expect and how to prepare. You’ll learn invaluable study
tips and how to deal with test anxiety. After this introduction, you’ll be
ready to test yourself with official Immigration and Naturalization
Service questions in Chapter 5.
 Introduction ◆ XI

As you will see from the sample questions, studying U.S. civics will
be a main focus during your preparation. A quick review of U.S. civics,
including history, government, general civics, and important informa-
tion on the U.S. Constitution is contained in Chapter 6.
Special situations and exceptions, such as dual citizenship and mar-
riage visas, are covered in Chapter 7. Please note that this book does not
contain legal advice, but it will provide you with the background infor-
mation and rules to follow during the naturalization process.
We have included lots of resources to help make your naturalization
process run smoothly: Appendix A contains a directory of INS offices
all over the country. Appendix B is a selective list of resources to make
your preparation easier. Appendix C contains sample forms, and
Appendix D is a list of government acronyms and abbreviations that are
sometimes hard to understand.

The Outlook on Immigration

In the summer of 2001, President George W. Bush visited Ellis Island, the
New York port where over 12 million immigrants have arrived over the
years. As you will discover in the following chapters, becoming a citizen
can take a long time. Promising to accelerate—or speed up—the immi-
gration process, President Bush welcomed 29 new citizens to the United
States at their Oath Ceremony on historic Ellis Island. He said,
“Immigration is not a problem to be solved, it is a sign of a confident and
successful nation. . . . New arrivals should be greeted not with suspicion
and resentment, but with openness and courtesy.”
Source: The New York Times. Tuesday, July 10, 2001

With the right preparation, you soon will find yourself reciting the
Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America at your swearing-in
ceremony!
U.S. CITIZENSHIP ✰✰✰
 CHAPTER 1

Naturalization—
An Overview of the
Process of Becoming
a Citizen

IN THE YEAR 2000, almost 900,000 people were naturalized as

U.S. citizens. They successfully completed the process that you are now
beginning, probably with the help of friends, family, and resources like
this book. If the process of becoming a U.S. citizen seems overwhelm-
ing at times, you can rest assured that hundreds of thousands of people
are going through the process, too. And they, like you, know that if they
are prepared, they will succeed.
The best way to be prepared is to know what to expect. This chapter
will give you an overview of naturalization in the United States. It will
tell you what you should do first and when; ultimately leading to the
day you become a citizen.

Did You Know . . .

. . . that the Hispanic population in the United States is largest
in California, Florida, and Texas? According to the 2000 U.S.
2 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

Census, Los Angeles County, California, with 4.2 million Latino

residents, leads all counties nationwide in total Hispanic popu-
lation. Dade County, Florida, which includes Miami and has 1.3
million Latinos, was a distant second to Los Angeles County.
Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, was third with
1.1 million Hispanics.
Source: Hillburg, Bill. “Immigration Sources Growing More Diverse.”
Daily News, Los Angeles. May 11, 2001

Step 1
Determine your eligibility. In general, you will meet the eligibility
requirements if one of the following applies to you:

◆ You have been a lawful, permanent resident for at least five

years, or
◆ You have been a lawful, permanent resident for at least three
years and have been married to a U.S. citizen for those three
years, and
◆ You have been physically present in the United States for at
least half of the time that you have been a lawful permanent
resident (30 or 18 months).

In addition, you may be eligible if:

◆ You are a lawful permanent resident child of U.S. citizen

parent(s).
◆ You have qualifying military service in the Armed Forces of the
U.S. (Forms N-426 and G-325B are required in addition to
Form N-400).

This will be discussed further in Chapter 2.

✰ GREEN CARD: an identity card attesting the

permanent resident status of an alien in the
United States
 Naturalization ◆ 3

Step 2
Obtain a Form N-400 from the Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS). This form is your Application for Naturalization. You can con-
tact your local INS office; visit the INS Web site at www.ins.usdoj.gov,
or call 1-800-870-FORMS.

Step 3
Gather your application material and send it to the INS with the appro-
priate application fee and supporting documents. You can file your
application up to three months in advance of your actual eligibility date.
Your application will consist of:

◆ Form N-400
◆ The filing fee of $260.00 and fingerprint fee of $50.00. These
fees may be paid in one check totaling $310.00, payable to the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. (Please confirm fees
with the INS before you send any money; this was the correct
price at time of publication.)
◆ Three color photographs, 2” x 2” (You can get these pictures
taken anywhere that makes passport photos.)
◆ A photocopy of the front and back of your green card

Step 4
Get your fingerprints taken. This step is taken after you submit your
application. After the INS receives your complete application packet, they
will send you a fingerprint appointment letter. This letter will contain
information about when and where to go to get your fingerprints taken.
(The INS has established Application Support Centers in most metropol-
itan areas, as well as mobile fingerprinting vans to facilitate fingerprint-
ing.) Read and follow the instructions in the letter carefully. Also, make
sure to take the letter with you to your fingerprint appointment.
4 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

You may be wondering why you have to be fingerprinted. The

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) will use your fingerprints to run
a criminal background check on you. This is one way of ensuring that
you fulfill the good moral character requirement, which you’ll learn
about in the next chapter.

Step 5
Study, study, study! You have completed all of the steps for filing your
application. Now you can focus on learning more about U.S. history
and government. You will be tested on these issues during your inter-
view. It is important that you study because you must answer at least
70% of the questions correctly in order to pass. Chapters 5 and 6 pro-
vide you with sample questions and an overview of U.S. civics. Use
these chapters, along with other books on how to pass the citizenship
test, when you are preparing. A great preparation guide is
LearningExpress’s Pass the U.S. Citizenship Exam (available in English
and Spanish).

How, Where, and When to Study

You can successfully carry out your study plan by:
➤ Finding a quiet location
➤ Using good reading lights
➤ Turning off the radio and television
➤ Asking your family and friends for help
➤ Organizing a study group

Setting your study goals and writing down your study schedule
will help you to master the material on your test if you follow
these five steps.

Step 6
Attend your interview and oral exam. The INS will send you a letter
telling you the date of your interview. Do not be surprised if this date is
 Naturalization ◆ 5

up to (or even well over) one year after you filed your application. Be
prepared to provide updated information, such as changes of address
and excursions outside of the United States after filing your N-400
application.
When you attend your interview, be prepared to answer questions
about your application, yourself, your family, your work, and your life
in general. Be sure to honestly answer all the questions. Chapter 4 cov-
ers the interview process in greater detail.

Step 7
If you passed your interview and oral exam, this will be the last and
most exciting step of the process. You will receive a letter from the INS
telling you the date and time of your swearing-in ceremony. At the cer-
emony, you will take the Oath of Allegiance and receive your U.S. citi-
zenship certificate.
There are two important things to remember while you are going
through the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. First, always be honest.
Answer all questions truthfully—do not lie about your situation, where
you live, where you’ve worked, any criminal matters, nothing. Second,
always be prepared. If you are filling out your Form N-400, gather all of
the information you will need before you get started. Make a few copies
of the form and practice filling it out properly and completely, in order
to prevent cross-outs and errors. If you are going to your interview, be
sure you have spent adequate time studying U.S. history and civics.
Oath of Allegiance: If you pass your test and interview, you will recite
this oath at your swearing-in ceremony:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce

and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate,
state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a sub-
ject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and
laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and
domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that
I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the
6 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces

of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform
work of national importance under civilian direction when required
by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

✰ ABJURE: to reject solemnly

✰ FIDELITY: the quality or state of being faithful

What does the Oath of Allegiance mean? Well, first of all, it means
that you are willing to leave behind your former identity as a citizen of
your native country. This is a serious thing to do, and it’s something that
you need to consider thoroughly before starting your citizenship
process. Secondly, when you pledge your allegiance to the United States,
it means that you will do your share to support your new country no
matter what—even if that means not supporting your native land. For
some people, this is a very difficult thing to do. Make sure that you are
ready and prepared to honor this part of the oath. Sometimes, this oath
will mean that you need to support the United States of America in a
war—either through combat, active duty, or civilian work at home.
And, under certain special circumstances, you may be called on to do
some work of “national importance” on behalf of the United States,
based on your national origin or special skills. The most important
thing is to understand what you are pledging yourself to and to be will-
ing to take this oath without hesitation. To help you understand more
about your new country, read the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of
Independence, both found in Chapter 6.

Now that you have an overview of the naturalization process, let’s

read on about eligibility requirements for U.S. citizenship in the next
chapter.
 Naturalization ◆ 7

✰ ✰ ✰
M I G U E L’S STO RY

I WAS 16 years old when my family and I left Colombia for the United States.
When we first arrived in New York, it felt like I was in a movie. There were all differ-
ent kinds of people on the street, just like I had imagined. Right then I knew I would
like America very much. It didn’t take me long to learn to speak English, and my
English as a Second Language teacher in high school helped me very much.
When I entered the workforce I found that not being a citizen kept me from some
career opportunities, so one day on the way home from my job as a doorman, I stopped
at the New York Public Library and did some research on gaining citizenship. I was very
torn about making the decision to become an American—I love my homeland of
Colombia—but by then I had spent half my life in the United States, and I realized that
if I were anywhere else in the world and somebody asked me where I was from, I
would proudly tell them America. So, I made the decision to go for it. I found a couple
of books in the library that helped me through the process, and my sister Daniela, who
went through the naturalization process a few years earlier, was also a great help. I also
discovered that there are many non-profit organizations to assist candidates for natu-
ralization with everything from legal help to studying for the interview test.
It is important to know that all the materials and helpful people will get you
nowhere if you don’t put 100% effort into the process of becoming a citizen. It is
not particularly difficult, but there are many details and unfortunately much paper-
work and waiting in lines, and it can be a very tedious process. It took about 16
months from the first time I contacted the INS to being sworn in as a citizen, but
it varies according to each case. My advice would be to fill in the application neat-
ly and with accurate information and use the waiting time to study for the exam in
advance. Sixteen months seems like a long time, but it was within the estimated
time given me by the INS. I didn’t really know anything about American history so
I needed that time to study. The part of the test that scared me the most was try-
ing to remember the names of the nine Supreme Court Judges; my favorite part
was learning the famous quotes by patriots of the Revolution. The more informa-
tion you know regarding history, government, and economics is relevant for the
test. When I was young I probably would have dreaded the studying, but I really
enjoyed it—and it inspired me to read up on Colombian history, as well.
In the end, the oral interview was much easier than I thought, and the swearing-in
ceremony was surprisingly solemn. I am very proud to be able to call myself an
American.

✰ ✰ ✰
 CHAPTER 2

Eligibility
Requirements

DETERMINING ELIGIBILITY can be one of the most confusing

parts of the naturalization process. It is also one of the most important
steps. If you are not eligible for naturalization, you cannot apply for cit-
izenship. This chapter will explain the eligibility requirements for natu-
ralization. Several of the requirements can be confusing for applicants.
These requirements will be covered in greater detail.

You must be at least 18 years old.

This requirement is clear-cut. If you are younger than 18 years old, you
are not eligible. You must wait until you turn 18 to apply for citizenship.
However, children of U.S. citizens may be eligible to derive citizenship
from their parent(s).
10 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

You must be a permanent resident of the United States,

and have been issued a Permanent Resident Card
(formerly called Alien Registration Card, and commonly
referred to as a “green card”).
If you have not been issued a Permanent Resident Card or “green card”
then you are not a permanent resident and cannot apply for citizenship.
If you think you are a permanent resident but you have not been issued
a Permanent Resident Card, you should contact your local INS office.
Be sure that you followed the three steps to becoming a permanent res-
ident properly.

You must have been a permanent resident for five years

or more (three years if married to a U.S. citizen).
If you have been a permanent resident for more than five years, you are
eligible. This means you hold a Permanent Resident Card. If you have
been a permanent resident for a period of time between three and five
years, you are eligible only if ALL of the following are true:

◆ You are married to and living with a U.S. citizen, AND

◆ You have been married to that U.S. citizen for the past three
years, or more, AND
◆ Your spouse has been a U.S. citizen for at least three years, AND
◆ You have not been out of the country for 18 months or more
in the last three years

If all of the following are not true, and you have been a Permanent
Resident for a period of time between three and five years, then you are
not eligible.
If you have been a permanent resident for less than three years, you
are not eligible. Also, filing taxes with the IRS as a “nonresident alien”
provides the INS with a rebuttable presumption that you have “relin-
quished/abandoned” your permanent resident status, thus making you
possibly ineligible.
 Eligibility Requirements ◆ 11

During the last five years, you must NOT have been out-
side of the United States for 30 months or more.
Immigration lawyers and counselors claim that this is one of the most
confusing requirements for their clients. Essentially, you are required to
be physically present in the United States for at least half of the mini-
mum time (five years) that you are required to be a permanent resident.
You must be a permanent resident for at least five years, or 60 months.
So, you must have been physically present in the United States for 30
months, or half of that time.
To determine whether or not you are eligible, gather your travel
records from the past five years. Add up all of the time you spent out of
the country. If it is less than 30 months, you are eligible. If the time you
spent out of the country is greater than 30 months, your date of eligi-
bility will be pushed back until you have been physically present for 30
months of the past five years.
Let’s look at Maria’s situation. She was granted Permanent Resident
status on July 1, 1996. If she were not out of the country for more than
30 months between that day and June 30, 2001, she would be eligible on
June 30, 2001. If, however, she traveled to her home country three times
for a total of 32 months during that period, she would not be eligible on
June 30, 2001.
Here’s a simplification of how her date would move back:

July 1, 1996—Permanent Resident status granted

August 1–September 30, 1996—traveled outside of the United States
February 1–July 31, 1997—traveled outside of the United States
September 1,1997–January 31,1998—traveled outside of the United States
January 1–July 31, 1999—traveled outside of the United States
March 1–August 31, 2000—traveled outside of the United States
December 1, 2000–January 31, 2001—traveled outside of the United
States

As of June 30, 2001, (five years as a permanent resident) total time

spent traveling outside of the United States = 28 months. Based on this
12 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

travel, if Maria made no other trips outside of the United States, she
would be eligible on September 1, 2001.

Since becoming a permanent resident, you must not have

taken a trip out of the United States that lasted for one
year or more. (It is strongly recommended that trips out-
side of the United States last for no longer than six
months).
If you travel, or have traveled, outside of the United States for a period
of one year or longer, you must have an approved “Application to
Preserve Residence for Naturalization Purposes” (Form N-470). If not,
you are ineligible.

Exceptions
It’s great that the government offers the N-470 form to pre-
serve your residency status if you need to leave the country.
However, you can’t count on this getting approved. With so
many people applying for citizenship every year, the process
gets harder and harder to complete early. Just keep in mind that
if you leave the United States for over six months, you may have
to start over as you work toward getting five years of permanent
residency.

You must have resided in the district or state in which you

are applying for citizenship for the last three months.
There are no tricky calculations here. You simply must live in the dis-
trict or state for three months. If you do not fulfill this requirement, you
must wait until you do. While you are waiting, you can prepare your
application so that it is ready once you have lived in your state or dis-
trict for three months.
 Eligibility Requirements ◆ 13

You must be able to read, write, and speak basic English.

There are three exceptions to this requirement. These may apply to you if:

◆ You are over age 50 and have lived in the United States for over
20 years since becoming a permanent resident, OR
◆ You are over age 55 and have lived in the United States for over
15 years since becoming a permanent resident, OR
◆ You have a disability preventing you from fulfilling this require-
ment. If this is true, you must file a “Medical Certification for
Disability Exceptions” (Form N-648).

You must be able to pass the civics portion of the

oral exam.
There are exceptions to this requirement, as well. These may apply to
you if:

◆ You are over age 50 and have lived in the United States for over
20 years since becoming a permanent resident, OR
◆ You are over age 55 and have lived in the United States for over
15 years since becoming a permanent resident, OR
◆ You have a disability preventing you from fulfilling this require-
ment. If this is true, you must file a “Medical Certification for
Disability Exceptions” (Form N-648).

Read Chapter 4 for more information on the language and civics sec-
tion of the oral exam.

You must be a person of good moral character.

No exceptions here! If your moral character can be disputed, you prob-
ably are not eligible. You should note that it is not worth lying about
your character and any crimes you may have committed. When you are
14 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

fingerprinted, the FBI will use your prints to run a criminal background
check on you.

✰ MORAL CHARACTER: one of the attributes or

features that make up and distinguish an individual

See the following list of examples of things that would tarnish your
good moral character.

Examples of Things that Might Show a Lack of Good

Moral Character
◆ Any crime against a person with intent to harm
◆ Any crime against property or the Government that involves
“fraud” or evil intent
◆ Two or more crimes for which the aggregate sentence was five
years or more
◆ Violating any controlled-substance law of the United States,
any state, or any foreign country
◆ Habitual drunkenness or drunk driving
◆ Illegal gambling
◆ Prostitution
◆ Polygamy (marriage to more than one person at the same time)
◆ Lying to gain immigration benefits
◆ Failing to pay court-ordered child support or alimony payments
◆ Confinement in jail, prison, or similar institution for which
the total confinement was 180 days or more during the past
five years (three years if you are applying based on your mar-
riage to a United States citizen)
◆ Failing to complete any probation, parole, or suspended sen-
tence before you apply for naturalization
◆ If you have recently been ordered deported or removed, you
are not eligible for citizenship. If you are in removal proceed-
ings, you may not apply for citizenship until the proceedings
are complete and you have been allowed to remain in the
country as a permanent resident
 Eligibility Requirements ◆ 15

◆ Terrorist acts
◆ Persecution of anyone because of race, religion, national ori-
gin, political opinion, or social group
Source: www.ins.usdoj.gov

✰ FRAUD: an act of deceiving or misrepresenting

If you are male, you are required to register with the

Selective Service. In order to be eligible for naturaliza-
tion, one of the following must be true:
You are a female, OR
You are a male registered with the Selective Service, OR
You are a male who did not enter the United States under any status
until after your 26th birthday, OR
You are a male who was born before January 1, 1960, OR
You are a male who was in the United States between the ages of 18
and 26 but who did not register with the Selective Service, and you
will send a “Status Information Letter” from the Selective Service,
explaining why you did not register, with your application.

✰ SELECTIVE SERVICE: a system under which

men are called up for military service

If you are female, you do not need to worry about registering with
the Selective Service. If you are male, however, you do. This only
applies to men who entered the U.S. under any status before their
26th birthday. For some men, this requirement is more confusing
than the physical presence requirement. “Status” can mean non-
immigrant visa classification, asylee, refugee, temporary protected,
or parolee.
The background on this requirement is that U.S. Federal law requires
that all men who are at least 18, but not yet 26, register with the
Selective Service. This applies to U.S. citizens, non-citizen immigrants,
and undocumented aliens—all men living in the United States.
16 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

This requirement does not mean you are joining the U.S. military.
Many immigrants may think this is the case, but it is not. Registering
only means that you are telling the U.S. government who you are and
how to contact you if there is a national emergency requiring men to be
called to serve in the military. Keep in mind that even if there were a
national emergency at some time in the future, not all men would be
called to serve in the military.

Did You Know . . .

. . . if you are a member of the Armed Forces, you may be eligi-
ble for citizenship after only three years of permanent resi-
dence in the United States, two years faster than the custom-
ary five-year residency period. In addition, your application (the
N-400 Military Naturalization Packet) is screened by the Armed
Forces and forwarded directly to the INS, considerably speed-
ing up the application process. For more information, contact
your personnel officer or the INS.

If you entered the United States before you turned 26, you must reg-
ister or you will not be eligible for naturalization. Furthermore, if you
entered the United States before you turned 18, you must register with-
in 30 days of your 18th birthday. If you failed to register within those 30
days, or if you have not yet turned 26 and have not registered, do it now.
The Selective Service will accept late registrations only up to your 26th
birthday, so it is critical for you to fulfill this requirement immediately.
Even though late registration will be accepted, you are still in violation
of the law if you do not register within 30 days of turning 18, or within
30 days of becoming a permanent resident if you are older than 18.
To register, pick up the forms at your local post office or visit the
Selective Service website at www4.sss.gov/regver/Register1.asp.
If you registered with the Selective Service, you must provide your
Selective Service number on your application. If you have misplaced
your Selective Service number, you can call 1-847-688-6888 to get your
number.
If you are 26 or older and were required to register with the Selective
 Eligibility Requirements ◆ 17

Service but did not do so, you must contact Selective Service directly.
You can call them at 1-847-688-6888 and you will be instructed to fill
out a questionnaire and receive a “Status Information Letter.”

If a man does not register with the Selective Service as per

Federal law, he is barred from:
➤ U.S. citizenship (if applying)
➤ Government jobs
➤ Federal student loans and grants for college or graduate
study
➤ JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act) Program vocational
training

You must never have deserted from the United States

Armed Forces.
If you left any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces before you were dis-
charged, you deserted. This means you are not eligible for naturalization.

You must never have received an exemption or discharge

from the United States Armed Forces on the grounds that
you are an alien.
If you had to leave the U.S Armed Forces because you are an alien, you
are not eligible for naturalization.

You must be willing to perform either military OR civilian

service for the United States if required by law.
If your religious teachings and beliefs prohibit you from performing
military service, you must be willing to perform non-military service.
You will be required to send a letter explaining why your religious
beliefs preclude you from fighting or serving in the military. Be concise
and truthful in your explanation. In your letter, you should ask for a
modified Oath of Allegiance to the United States.
18 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

✰ PROHIBIT: to prevent from doing something

If the INS accepts your request, you will take the Oath, omitting the
words “to bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by
law.”

You must support the U.S. Constitution.

This is also called attachment to the Constitution. By supporting or
attaching yourself to the U.S. Constitution, you are saying that you are
willing to support the United States and the Constitution. You will
declare your support when you recite

“ . . . I will support and defend the Constitution and the laws of

the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and
domestic; that I will bear faith and allegiance to the same . . . ”

in the Oath of Allegiance to the United States.

You must understand and be willing to take an Oath of

Allegiance to the United States.
You are not a citizen until you take the Oath of Allegiance to the United
States! It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Oath of
Allegiance now. Get comfortable with the words and what they mean.
If you feel that you cannot, in good conscience, take the oath then you
are not ready to become a U.S. citizen.

Did You Know . . .

. . . that the U.S. law allots 226,000 green cards each year in
the family-based immigration category. Here’s why: The INS
processes immigration applications for immediate relatives
faster than for non-immediate relatives. According to the INS,
foreign nationals may be eligible to immigrate to the United
States through a family member. Family members are classified
 Eligibility Requirements ◆ 19

as either immediate relatives or non-immediate relatives.

Immediate relatives will be granted a green card soon after they
apply, while non-immediate relatives must often wait years before
getting a green card. Immediate relatives are: husband or wife of a
U.S. citizen, an unmarried child (under 21) of a U.S. citizen, a par-
ent of a U.S. citizen, and a U.S. citizen who is at least 21 years old.
Source: www.MyCounsel.com

If you have read through this chapter and you have questions about
whether or not you are eligible, use the resources listed in Appendices A
and C. If you still question your eligibility, you may wish to consult with
an immigration lawyer. One legal resource we discovered online is
www.mycounsel.com. They offer flat-fee legal advice and will answer
some immigration and naturalization questions for free. Once you fig-
ure out your eligibility status, go on to Chapter 3 for information on
how to fill out the N-400 application to apply for citizenship.

✰ ✰ ✰
B R I G IT’S STO RY

I HAVE been living in the United States for about twenty-five years. My fami-
ly moved from England to the United States when I was eight years old. Adjusting
from a small town in the English countryside to New York City was definitely a try-
ing experience for a little girl. On my first day of school in the States it seemed like
all the American kids were trying to imitate my British accent, and all I could think
was, “You’re the ones with funny accents!” Funny accents aside, being a native
speaker of English definitely helped me to adjust to life in my new country. I
enjoyed growing up in the United States, but I never contemplated becoming a cit-
izen until the presidential elections in 1992. I was twenty-five and had made a life
for myself in the United States, and the election would directly affect me, yet
because I couldn’t vote, I had no voice in the election. That’s when I decided to
become a citizen.
Getting started was the most difficult part of the citizenship application process.
The first step I took was to call the INS hotline. I quickly discovered that it was very
20 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

hard to get information over the phone. Once my paperwork was in the system it
was a little better, although it was impossible to find out any information about the
status of my application in advance. I just had to wait until I received something in
the mail about the next step. The best advice I can give anyone applying for citi-
zenship is to be extremely patient, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
As for the test, mine was an oral interview with just ten questions, and there
was no writing required. I studied hard for the interview, but the questions I was
asked were pretty basic. I think it took about 11 months from filling out the very
first form to getting sworn in. The swearing-in ceremony was really great. I was
sworn in in Brooklyn along with about 400 others from all over the world. I was
amazed to discover that they have three ceremonies a week, each with about the
same number of new citizens. People were all dressed up with family members
there to witness their naturalization. The judge gave a great speech about how the
only pieces of paper he has on his office wall are his grandfather’s naturalization
papers and the letter appointing him as a judge. Even though I viewed the whole
process as a bureaucratic hassle up to that point, I was really touched by the cer-
emony, and very glad to become a citizen of the United States.

✰ ✰ ✰
 CHAPTER 3

How to Apply
for Citizenship

YOU HAVE DECIDED that you are ready to become a U.S. citizen
and you have determined that you are fully eligible. The next step you
need to take is to apply for citizenship.
To do this, you need a Form N-400: Application for Naturalization.
You will need to contact the INS to get this form. You can contact your
local INS office, visit the INS Web site at www.ins.usdoj.gov, or call 1-
800-870-FORMS.

Advantages of Naturalization
➤ The right to vote in federal, state, and local elections
➤ Freedom from deportation—U.S. citizens cannot be deported
➤ The ability to travel with a U.S. passport, thus reducing
the need for applying for visas
➤ Greater employment opportunity—some jobs, including
government jobs, require U.S. citizenship
22 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

Completing Form N-400

For 2002, the INS has published a completely new version of the N-400
form. All older versions are unacceptable; so make sure that you are using
the current form. A sample form is included in Appendix C on page 145
of this book. It is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the form. You
also may want to make a few copies of it and fill out a first draft. This will
help you to be sure that you have all the information you need in order to
answer all of the questions. The form that you hand in to the INS should
be neat, easy to read, and free of errors and cross outs. In 2002 the INS is
releasing a form that can be filled out online and printed out. At the time
of publication, more information concerning the online application was
not yet available.

Part 1. Your name:

This first part asks you about your name. Here you should answer with
your current legal name. If your name on your Permanent Resident Card
is different from your legal name (even if it is misspelled on your card),
make sure you document this in question B. You will also be asked to pro-
vide any other names you may have ever used. In addition, when you are
being naturalized you have the option to legally change your name. You
can find out more about this option in the INS’s Guide to Naturalization.

Part 2. Basis for eligibility:

Here you will be asked to select the way in which you are eligible. Have
you lived in the United States as a lawful permanent resident for at least
five years? Have you lived in the United States as a lawful permanent
resident for at least three years and been married to a U.S. citizen for
those three years? Do you have qualifying military service?
Check only one box in Part 2.

Part 3. Information about you:

This part asks for basic information—the date you became a permanent
resident, date of birth, country of birth, Social Security number, and your
 How to Apply for Citizenship ◆ 23

alien registration number (A-number) found on your alien registration

card. Are you married? Are you the child of U.S. citizens? Also, if you are
requesting accommodations and/or waivers of certain requirements
based on disability or impairment, this part is where you would state that
information. Be sure to answer these questions honestly!

Part 4. Addresses and telephone numbers:

This part asks you for your home and mailing addresses (if they are dif-
ferent from each other), as well as giving you the option to provide your
telephone number and e-mail addresses.

✰ A-NUMBER: your alien registration number

Part 5. Information for criminal records search:

The information asked for in this part is used, in conjunction with your
fingerprints, by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to search for
criminal records.

Part 6. Information about your residence and employment:

Complete this part with details about your residence and employment
for the past five years. Be specific and honest.

Part 7. Time outside the United States:

You will need to know specific details regarding your travel history to
answer the questions in this part. This means that you must provide
information about all trips outside of the United States (even if only for
a day) for the preceding five (or three) year period, as of the date of your
application. Attach additional sheets of paper, if necessary.

Part 8. Information about your marital history:

If you are married, you will need to provide information about your
spouse including his or her name, address, date of birth, country of
birth, citizenship, and Social Security number. You also need to provide
your spouse’s A-number, immigration status, and information about
naturalization, if these are applicable.
24 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

If you or your spouse has been married previously, you will need to
provide information on those marriages.

Part 9. Information about your children:

This part requires information regarding the total number of children
you have, if any. If you have children, you will provide their full name,
date and country of birth, citizenship, A-number, and address.

Part 10. Additional questions:

This part asks 39 questions designed to determine what additional eli-
gibility factors apply to you, if any. These are in addition to those listed
in Part 2. Check yes or no to answer each question. You will be asked to
list any and all organizations, funds, groups, clubs, etc., to which you
belong or have belonged in the past. If you have never belonged to any
clubs, check no in the space provided. In Part 10 you will also find a sec-
tion with six questions called Oath Requirements that questions the level
of your commitment to the United States. If you answer no to any of the
questions, you will have to supply an explanation for your answer on a
separate sheet. Again, it is important that you answer each question
honestly.
Providing honest answers is essential to the process. The bottom line
is to understand what you are being asked and to answer the questions
accurately. It is advisable to provide explanations to any questions
regarding circumstances and final results of arrest and any supporting
documents.

Part 11. Signature:

Make sure you sign your application! Your application will not be
accepted if it is not signed.

Part 12. Signature of person preparing form if other

than above:
If you have someone prepare your form for you, this person will have to
sign your application form as well.
 How to Apply for Citizenship ◆ 25

Part 13. Signature at interview:

This part requires you and your interviewer to sign at the time and
place of your interview. Do not complete this section until you are
instructed to do so by the person interviewing you.

Part 14. Oath of Allegiance:

By signing this final part, you acknowledge your willingness to take the
Oath of Allegiance if your application is accepted. As with Part 13, do
not complete this section until you are instructed to do so by the per-
son interviewing you.
After you have filled out your form, review it and make sure you have
completed all of the questions honestly and completely. Put your name
and A-number on any additional sheets that you have attached to your
application.
Note: It is critical that you answer all questions. If you do not, the INS
may have to send your application back to you so you can complete it.
This can considerably delay your application.

Your Cover Letter

Your cover letter should list the information included in your applica-
tion. If you are sending only a Form N-400, you should write that. If
you are sending additional forms, list them. This also is your opportu-
nity to request that your interview/test be given at the same time and
place as another applicant, if you wish. Be sure to include the applicant’s
name and A-number.
On the next page is a sample cover letter to help you create your own
letter.
26 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

Antonio A. Gianninni
314 West 178 Street, #4R
New York, NY 10024
212-555-5434
Alien Registration #A0123456789

November 17, 2001

U.S. Department of Justice

Immigration and Naturalization Service
Vermont Service Center
75 Lower Welden Street
Saint Albans, VT 05479-9400

To Whom It May Concern:

Please accept my enclosed and complete Application

for Naturalization. Included with my application you
will find 1) a photocopy of my Alien Registration
Card, 2) three color photographs as per your
specifications, 3) a photocopy of my passport, and 4)
a check for $310.00 U.S. dollars for the application
and fingerprinting fees, payable to the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.

If possible, I would like to request that my interview

be scheduled at the same time and place as my wife,
Alba Gianninni, Alien Registration #A0987654321.

I thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Antonio Antonello Gianninni

Enclosures.
 How to Apply for Citizenship ◆ 27

Payment
Please double check with your service center, as some may prefer checks
to be made out to the U.S. Treasury. Your payment will consist of a
$260.00 filing fee and a $50.00 fingerprinting fee. These fees can be com-
bined in one payment of $310.00. (Check with the INS before sending
money to make sure this fee hasn’t increased since the publishing of this
book.) You will make a check or money order payable to the Immigration
and Naturalization Service. The INS does not accept cash. Be sure that
you send only a check or a money order. Whether you send a check or a
money order, your payment must be drawn on a bank or institution
located in the United States and must be payable in U.S. dollars.
There are two exceptions to the above. If you live in Guam, you should
make your check or money order payable to “Treasurer, Guam.” If you live
in the U.S. Virgin Islands, you should make your check or money order
payable to “Commissioner of Finance of the Virgin Islands.”

Photographs
You are required to submit three photographs of yourself along with
your application. These should be color photos taken within 30 days of
submitting your application. The photos should measure 2 x 2 inches.
You can get your pictures taken at any place where passport photos are
done. Check the Yellow Pages in your local phone book.
Specifically, INS requires that your photos:

◆ Are glossy, unretouched, and unmounted

◆ Have a white background
◆ Show a face dimension of about 1 inch from chin to top of hair
3
◆ Show a 4 frontal view of the right side of your face with your right
ear visible (see INS Guide to Naturalization, page 33 for details)

You should write your name and A-number on the back of each photo.
Try to do so lightly so that your writing pressure does not damage the
front of the photo. Refer to Form M-378 on page 183 in Appendix C for
exact requirements.
28 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

Permanent Resident Card (Alien Registration Receipt

Card or “Green Card”)
Make a photocopy of the front and back of your card. This copy should
be clear enough so that anyone looking at it can easily read all informa-
tion. Also, photocopy your passport information.

Red Tape
Often, government agencies have very formal procedures that
don’t seem to have an immediately clear reason for existence.
In the United States, we call this form of bureaucracy “red tape.”
Having to handle red tape can lead to frustration. When you find
yourself losing your temper because of red tape, imagine your-
self tangled up in miles of red masking tape. This should make
you laugh or smile, defusing your anger.

✰ BUREAUCRACY: a system of administration

marked by strict adherence to many rules

Assembling Your Application

Before you assemble your application and mail it, use this checklist to
ensure you have all of the required elements:

Application Checklist
_____ Cover letter
_____ Complete Form N-400
_____ One check for $310.00 payable to the Immigration
and Naturalization Service to cover the filing fee of
$260.00 and fingerprint fee of $50.00
_____ Three color photographs, 2" x 2"
_____ Copy of the front and back of your Permanent
Resident Card (green card)
_____ Supporting documents, such as income tax returns
_____ Envelope addressed to the INS Service Center with
jurisdiction over your state
 How to Apply for Citizenship ◆ 29

Once your application is complete, you should make a photocopy of

every page. Keep your copies in a safe place. It is recommended that you
use the return receipt option at the post office or a delivery confirma-
tion from express carrier.

Where to Send Your Application

There are four INS Service Centers that accept Form N-400. Where you
will send your application depends upon where you currently live. Use
the following list to determine where to send your application.

If you live in:

Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
New Mexico
North Carolina
South Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas

You will send your application to:

USINS Texas Service Center
P.O. Box 851204
Mesquite, TX 75185-1204

If you live in:

Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia (Washington, DC)
Maine
30 ◆ U.S. CITIZENSHIP

Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
Vermont
U.S. Virgin Islands
Virginia
West Virginia

You will send your application to:

USINS Vermont Service Center
75 Lower Welden Street
St. Albans, VT 05479-9400

If you live in:

Arizona
California
Guam
Hawaii
Nevada

You will send your application to:

USINS California Service Center
P.O. Box 10400
Laguna Niguel, CA 92607-0400

If you live in:

Alaska
Colorado
Idaho
Illinois
 How to Apply for Citizenship ◆ 31

Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
North Dakota
Ohio
Oregon
South Dakota
Utah
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming

You will send your application to:

USINS Nebraska Service Center
P.O. Box 87400
Lincoln, NE 68501-7400

After You Have Submitted Your Application

The first thing that will happen after you submit your application is that
you will receive a letter from the INS telling you when and where to go
to be fingerprinted. You should make every attempt to go to this
appointment and not reschedule. At every step in this process, resched-
uling causes long delays. Bring your appointment letter with you when
you go to be fingerprinted. Also, you also should bring your Permanent
Residence Card and another photo ID. We will discuss fingerprinting
again in the next chapter.

Changing Your Address

It is important that you notify the INS every time you change
your address after you have submitted your application. If you
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 From the moment of his arrest, Tilak’s agents and followers
descended upon the mill-area of Bombay and sedulously spread the
story that Tilak had been arrested because he was the friend of the
industrial workers and had tried to obtain better wages for them.
Some of them were reported to have declared during the trial that
there would be a day’s bloodshed for every year to which he might
be sentenced by the Court. Most of the ‘jobbers’ who control the
supply of labour were easily won over, and Tilak’s Brahman
emissaries from Poona found many co-adjutors among their own
caste-men in Bombay, and among the Bhandaris and Konkani
Marathas living in Parel, Tardeo, Chinchpugli and Dadar sections.
Curiously enough the Ghatis, or Marathas from the Deccan, showed
far less interest in the trial of Tilak and far less disposition to
violence than their caste-fellows from Ratnagiri and other districts of
the western seaboard. The Deccan mill-hands at Sewri, for example,
at the very height of the rioting, informed an Englishman with whom
they were familiar that he need fear no harm from them, and they
confirmed their words by taking no share in the disturbance which
lasted for six days. The hostile attitude of the Konkani Marathas was
due to the continuous efforts of agitators, and this was particularly
the case in the neighbourhood of Currey and De Lisle roads, where
special agents from their own districts had been introduced by
Tilak’s revolutionaries.
The probability of a disturbance was foreseen by the authorities,
and Mr. Gell took various precautions to circumscribe the area of the
outbreak. British regiments, Indian infantry and cavalry were held in
readiness; a barricade was erected on Mayo road leading to the High
Court; several officials and non-officials were appointed Special
Magistrates and were posted at important points to watch the
progress of events, assist the police, and take all feasible measures
for securing the peace of the City. The Special Magistrates were a
curiously mixed body. Among them were Mr. James Macdonald, a
sexagenarian Scotsman, who had served the City for years as a
member of the Municipal Corporation; Colonel Cordue, R. E., the
Master of the Mint; Mr. Philip Messent, Engineer of the Port Trust;
Mr. Arthur Leslie of Messrs. Greaves, Cotton and Co., who filled his
pockets with lemon-grass oil for the benefit of the men of the Royal
Scots, who were posted at the old police chauki in Jacob’s Circle and
had their bare knees badly bitten by the mosquitoes and other forms
of low life which shared the chauki with the police-constables; the
author of this work, who was at the time enjoying a spell of
comparative ease in the literary backwaters of the Bombay City
Gazetteer; and last but not least, the Hon. Arthur Hill-Trevor, a
commercial free-lance and honorary magistrate, who regarded
himself as a sort of Honorary and Supernumerary Deputy
Commissioner of Police, and in that capacity executed various blood-
curdling manœuvres which caused no little apprehension to his more
pacific colleagues.
It so happened that some of the precautions proved superfluous.
There was no attempt on the part of the rioters to rush the High
Court or even to attend the trial of Tilak: there was no organized
attempt to march on the European residential quarter or to attack
the European population en masse. Although the rioting assumed at
times a very threatening character, it was confined wholly to the
mill-area, except on one afternoon, when the Bania merchants,
employed in the cloth-market of the C division, turned out in force
and had to be dispersed by firing. A consideration of all the
circumstances of the Tilak riots leads one to infer that the
Commissioner was not as well served by his detective agency as he
might have been, and that the disturbances might have been more
disastrous and have lasted longer, if Tilak’s emissaries and agents
had had more time at their disposal in which to foster the spirit of
violence. By the end of the first day’s rioting it was clear that
outlying areas like the Fort and Malabar Hill were exposed to no
danger, and consequently most of the Special Magistrates gravitated
from their original posts to Jacob’s Circle, which divided the
industrial quarters from the central portion of the City and served as
a gathering-ground for the forces of law and order.
Within the mill-district the rioting was fairly continuous and
occasionally serious, and isolated Europeans whose duties obliged
them to reside in the area north of Jacob’s Circle found it wise to
vacate their houses for the time being and seek shelter in Mazagon,
the Fort and other parts. Much damage was done to mill-property,
and in several encounters with the mob the European police were
forced to use their revolvers and the troops had to fire in self-
defence. The Indian cavalry were stoned from the chals on more
than one occasion, and small parties of unarmed police fared badly
at the hands of the rioters, who had accumulated considerable
stores of brick-bats and road-metal at convenient vantage-points.
The Bombay Government, realizing that the trouble was not a
sudden and spontaneous outburst of popular feeling and that the
rebellious mill-hands were the victims of an unscrupulous agitation,
based on malevolent falsehood, had issued strict orders for the
avoidance of bloodshed as far as possible: and both the military
forces and the police exercised such steady self-restraint that the
casualties were relatively few. Nevertheless the continuance of
rioting and the dislocation of business in the City set many people
wondering whether other methods of restoring peace might not be
tried. About the fifth day of the disturbance the Chamber of
Commerce sent a deputation to the Governor, to point out the loss
sustained by the commercial and trade-interests of the City and to
urge upon Government a stronger effort to dissuade the mill-
population from violence. The author of this history, who had
witnessed the whole sequence of events at Jacob’s Circle and had on
one occasion accompanied a detachment of the Northampton
Regiment to Dadar to protect certain isolated Europeans, had
already asked permission of Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Jenkins,
Member of Council, to visit the heart of the disturbed area in
company with certain Indian gentlemen who had offered their
assistance, and endeavour to produce a milder feeling among the
mill-hands. The permission was granted. Accordingly the writer,
accompanied by the late Rao Bahadur Narayan T. Vaidya, Dr.
Dinanath Naik Dandekar and four or five others, visited a large
number of mill-hands’ chals and dwellings in Parel and Dadar, spoke
to several groups of mill-hands, and urged them to resume their
regular duties. In places the party was met with sullen hostility and
with shouts of Tilak Maharaj ki Jai, but the eloquence of the Indian
members of the party was not without effect, and when Rao
Bahadur N. T. Vaidya urged them to substitute Satya Narayan ki Jai
for their Tilakite war-cry, some of them seemed disposed to accept
the suggestion.
Though some were inclined to look askance at their intervention,
the efforts of this little peace-party did engender a better feeling,
and this, coupled with a natural weariness of prolonged hostilities
and the loss of their wages, resulted in the gradual return of
tranquillity after the sixth day. By the end of the first week of
August, affairs had resumed their normal course, the mill-hands
were again at work, and the Bombay Government were at liberty to
consider the salient features and lessons of the outbreak. Sir George
Clarke, the Governor, was blamed in some quarters for having paid a
sympathetic visit, after the close of the riots, to wounded mill-hands
in the Sir J.J. Hospital. But his policy in this matter was dictated by
an earnest desire to smooth away the bitterness which measures of
repression are calculated to provoke, and by a conviction that there
had been an absence of contact between the local authorities and
the industrial population, which had been permitted to fall
completely under the lawless influence of Tilak and his immediate
followers. The fact that the disturbances lasted for a whole week
invited a doubt whether the police arrangements were as effective
as they might have been, and whether indeed a more efficient
intelligence organization might not have facilitated a speedier
conclusion of the unsatisfactory duties which the military were called
upon to perform. An impression prevailed that, although the mill-
hands who defied the police and troops had been severely punished,
the real authors and fomenters of the disturbances had managed to
escape scot-free, and that they could not have enjoyed such
immunity, if the police had had their fingers more closely upon the
pulse of the City.
So far as concerns the prosecution and conviction of Tilak, Sir
George Clarke won “the respect of the vast majority of the
community, and although he failed to secure the active support
which he might have expected from the ‘moderates’, there were few
of them who did not secretly approve and even welcome his action.
Its effects were great and enduring, for Tilak’s conviction was a
heavy blow to the forces of unrest, at least in the Deccan; and some
months later, one of the organs of his party, the Rashtramat,
reviewing the occurrences of the year, was fain to admit that ‘the
sudden removal of Mr. Tilak’s towering personality threw the whole
province into dismay and unnerved the other leaders’”.[114]
Having thus secured the discomfiture of the revolutionary party in
Western India, the Governor applied himself to the problem of the
Bombay City Police administration, which appeared to him to need
revision, not only in response to the general findings of the Police
Commission, but also by reason of its apparent failure to keep
closely in touch with political intrigue, such as that which
precipitated the riots of July 1908. Apart from the mere question of
numbers and pay, the force appeared to the Governor to be working
on somewhat obsolete lines and to need keying up to the pitch at
which it might cope more successfully both with its regular duties of
watch and ward and with the large amount of confidential
investigation necessitated by the rapid and alarming growth of
political unrest and sedition. These were the main reasons
underlying the appointment of the Morison Committee, which has
been described in an earlier paragraph. One of the most important
sections of that committee’s report was concerned with the
reorganization of the old detective branch of the police-force,
hereafter to be called the Criminal Investigation Department (C. I.
D.), upon which devolved the task of watching the trend of political
movements and of accumulating knowledge of the antecedents and
actions of the chief fomenters of unrest.
The work of a police-officer in an Indian city has always been
extremely arduous, and few men in these days are able to bear the
strain for many years without some loss of vitality and health. There
is little doubt that the extra work and anxiety entailed by the Royal
Visit of 1905, which was followed a few days later by the arrival of
Lord Minto and the departure of Lord Curzon, had much to do with
the temporary breakdown of health which obliged Mr. Gell to take
furlough in 1906; while the strain inevitably imposed upon him by
the Muharram and Tilak riots of 1908 was partly the cause of his
again taking leave to England in the early part of 1909. In doing so,
his long service in the City came to an end: for by the time his leave
had expired, his successor was in the midst of a comprehensive
reorganization scheme, which would have suffered in the event of
his reversion to his own grade in the Indian Civil Service. In order,
therefore, to enable him to complete his full period of pensionable
service, Mr. Gell, on his return from England, was appointed Deputy
Inspector-General of Police for the Presidency and a little later for
Sind. It was in Sind that he completed his official career, and from
Karachi that he sailed finally for England. His long connexion with
the City of Bombay is commemorated, though not perhaps
adequately, in the name of one of the newer streets opened by the
City Improvement Trust in the neighbourhood of Ripon road.
Memories of his equability of temper and his impartiality are still
cherished by the older officers and men of the police-force, who pay
a willing tribute to his character as an officer and a gentleman.
 CHAPTER IX
Mr. S. M. Edwardes, C.S.I., C.V.O.
1909-1916

Mr. S. M. Edwardes, who succeeded Mr. Gell as head of the

Bombay City Police Force, was the first member of the Indian Civil
Service to hold that appointment. He had previously held various
appointments in Bombay ranging from Assistant to the Collector and
Chief Inspector of Factories to acting Municipal Commissioner, and
had acquired considerable knowledge of the population and past
history of Bombay by his work as Census Officer in 1901 and later as
Compiler of the Gazetteer. Shortly after the Tilak riots in 1908, he
was nominated a member of the Morison Committee which, as
previously stated, was appointed by the Bombay Government to
consider the working of the urban police administration and make
proposals for its future organization.
 Mr. S. M. EDWARDES

This Committee, which met in the Secretariat, directed particular

attention to the provision of properly equipped police stations, to the
reconstitution and enlargement of the detective branch, hereafter to
be known as the C. I. D., to the creation of a trained Indian staff for
the investigation of crime in the Divisions, and to the numbers and
personnel of the European and Indian branches of the force. The
Committee came to the conclusion from the facts and evidence
before them that in dealing with political crime and seditious
movements, planned, promoted and carried out by an Indian
intelligentsia, the police were handicapped by the absence of
educated Indians in the subordinate ranks of the force, and that the
investigation of ordinary crime by the divisional police suffered from
being in the hands of an old-fashioned agency, which conducted its
inquiries in a multiplicity of small and sometimes obscure chaukis
and kept no proper record of its cases. Concentration of the staff in
a definite number of properly-equipped stations in each division, and
the inclusion in the force of a new cadre of Indian officers for the
divisional investigation of crime were two obvious desiderata, upon
which the Committee laid particular stress. They decided also that
the time had arrived to place the C. I. D. under the immediate
control of a gazetted officer of the Imperial Police, who would
occupy the position of a Deputy Commissioner, leaving the existing
Deputy Commissioner to deal with the divisional police and with the
large amount of miscellaneous work requiring the attention of the
headquarters staff. Proposals, of a more or less tentative character,
were also made regarding the numbers, grading and duties of the
European police, the recruitment of Indian constables, and the
numbers and work of the Harbour, Docks and Mounted Police.
After drafting the report of the Committee and arranging for its
submission to Government in October, 1908, Mr. Edwardes took
leave to England. While there, he received an intimation from the
Bombay Government of their intention to appoint him Commissioner
of Police vice Mr. Gell, who proposed to take leave in 1909. He was
at the same time instructed to visit Scotland Yard and study at first
hand the organization of the Metropolitan Police. Armed with a letter
from the Home Office to the Chief Commissioner, Sir Edward Henry,
Mr. Edwardes accordingly spent some time in the early part of 1909
in acquainting himself with the distribution of work and the
machinery for the prevention and detection of crime in a typical
London police division, with the details of the Metropolitan beat-
system, with the work of the constables’ training-school in
Westminster, with the organization of the Finger Print Bureau, and
with the staffing, equipment, structural features and general
management of one of the latest and most up-to-date London
police-stations. The knowledge thus acquired was of the greatest
value, when his own proposals for the reorganization of the Bombay
City Police were under preparation.
Mr. Edwardes assumed charge of the Commissioner’s office on
May 7th, 1909, with Mr. R. M. Phillips as his Deputy Commissioner
and Superintendent Sloane as head of the Criminal Investigation
Department. The former was succeeded in July by Mr. Hayter, who
made way in September for Mr. Gadney. The latter served as Deputy
Commissioner until November, 1913, when his place was taken by
Mr. O. Allen Harker, who held the appointment until after the expiry
of Mr. Edwardes’ term of office. In pursuance of the
recommendations of the Morison Committee, an additional
appointment of Deputy Commissioner in charge of the C. I. D. was
sanctioned by G. R. J. D. 3253 of June 8th, 1909; and,
Superintendent Sloane having been promoted to the cadre of the
Imperial Police and transferred to a district, the new post was given
to Mr. F. A. M. H. Vincent, son of the former Commissioner of Police,
who held it until the beginning of 1913, when he was appointed
Deputy Director of Criminal Intelligence at Simla. He was succeeded
in Bombay by Mr. F. C. Griffith, who remained in charge of the C. I.
D. during the remainder of Mr. Edwardes’ term of office. Both Mr.
Vincent and Mr. Griffith subsequently succeeded in turn to the
Commissioner’s appointment. In 1914 a third appointment of Deputy
Commissioner was sanctioned by G. R. J. D. 9249 of December 19th,
1914, under the style and title of Deputy Commissioner of Police for
the Port of Bombay. Mr. G. S. Wilson was chosen for this post and
became responsible, under the general authority of the
Commissioner, for all work connected with the Harbour and Dock
Police and the Pilgrim Traffic. This period thus witnessed the
permanent appointment of three Deputy Commissioners in place of a
single officer of that rank, and the consequent delegation to them by
the Commissioner of much of the work which he had hitherto been
expected to perform without adequate assistance.
 Mr. Edwardes’ appointment was not received favourably at first by
the members of the Imperial Police Service, who naturally felt some
resentment at such a post being given to one who was not a
professional police-officer. This feeling led to the submission of
memorials on the subject to the Bombay Government, who were
able without difficulty to justify their departure from the usual
practice. The discontent also communicated itself to the rank and file
of the City police, who during the first few months of Mr. Edwardes’
régime displayed a spirit of captious criticism, which was fanned at
last by a few malcontents into overt disobedience. The movement
culminated on January 7th, 1910, in the refusal of a certain number
of Indian constables to receive their pay. The Commissioner, who
had kept himself informed of the course of the movement, had
arranged with the European officers of the Divisions what action
should be taken in the event of open insubordination. The men who
declined to accept their pay were therefore marched immediately to
the Head Police Office and, after inquiry into their conduct, were
dismissed from the force. This action completely quashed the
movement, which was based upon no real grievance and was
designed merely to cause trouble to a Commissioner, whose policy
and plans they had been taught to regard with suspicion.
The strength and cost of the City Police Force underwent much
alteration during this period of seven years, in consequence of the
reorganization scheme prepared by the Commissioner. His proposals
for the future constitution and character of the force, which were
submitted in July, 1910, were sanctioned by the Government of India
in September, 1911; but owing to very heavy work connected with
the visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen in November of that
year, the scheme was not actually introduced until the beginning of
1912. As early as 1909, however, certain changes were made in
consonance with the proposals of the Morison Committee, and to
meet emergent requirements, which resulted in an increase of the
total number to 2,408. This total included additions to the Dockyard
police, temporary sanitary police for service under the Port Health
Officer, temporary constables for traffic-duty at various railway level
crossings, and finally the revised strength of the C. I. D., which was
fixed by G. R. J. D. 2708 of May 10th, 1909, at 1 Superintendent, 6
Inspectors, 7 Sub-Inspectors, 23 Head Constables and 41
Constables. In 1910 an additional Inspector was sanctioned for the
Motor Vehicles department; and 9 Indian sub-inspectors, 3 head
constables and 9 constables were added to the force, to enable the
Commissioner to introduce tentatively in three areas the new
divisional organization which formed the salient feature of his
administrative proposals. Thus by 1911 the force numbered 2,505,
which was equivalent to a proportion of one policeman to every 394
of population, and cost annually, inclusive of temporary police and
contingent charges, Rs. 10,93,351. In 1913, when the reorganization
was well in hand, the total strength of the force stood at 2,844 and
cost Rs. 12,73,834; while at the end of 1915, a few months before
Mr. Edwardes relinquished office, the total number, inclusive of a
small temporary staff for watching transfrontier Pathans in the City,
was 3,011, and the annual cost amounted to Rs. 13,37,208. The
proportion of police to population at this date was 1 to 327, which
compared unfavourably with the proportions in Calcutta and London.
Had the Commissioner’s first proposals been sanctioned without
alteration, the proportion of police to population in Bombay would
have been far more favourable; for he had worked out a complete
beat-system on the London model for the whole of the City. The
number of men, however, required for this purpose was naturally
large, and as the Bombay Government were compelled by the
Government of India to restrict the additional annual cost of the
force to 2½ lakhs of rupees, the Commissioner was obliged to
jettison the beat-system and utilize the available funds in other
directions, such as perfecting the divisional machinery for the
investigation of crime, increasing the number of fixed traffic posts,
and augmenting the inadequate pay of the European police.
This force of just over 3,000 men was distributed among the
following divisions at the close of 1916:—

Division Sub-divisions or Sections

 A Colaba, Fort South, Fort North, Esplanade
B Mandvi, Chakla, Umarkhadi, Dongri
C Market and Dhobi Talao, Bhuleshwar and Khara Talao
D Khetwadi, Girgaum, Chaupati, Walkeshwar
E Mazagon, Tarwadi, Kamathipura, New Nagpada,
Mahalakshmi, Jacob’s Circle
F Parel, Dadar, Matunga, Sion
G Mahim, Worli
H and I Harbour and Docks
L Head Quarters Armed and Unarmed Police
M Mounted Police
N The Government Dockyard

and The Criminal Investigation Department (formerly the K division).

With the appointment of Mr. F. A. M. H. Vincent as Deputy
Commissioner, C. I. D., and the increase in its personnel, the
Criminal Investigation Department entered upon a period of
remarkable activity. The staff was divided into four branches—
Political, Foreign, Crime, and Miscellaneous—each in control of one
or more Inspectors; work-books were introduced, which fixed
responsibility upon individual officers for cases entrusted to them for
inquiry and served as a check upon delay in the submission of final
reports of investigations; a confidential strong-room was provided,
and the card index system and upright filing of records were
substituted for the old methods in vogue at this date in most official
departments. In addition to the investigation of cases, some of the
more remarkable of which will be mentioned hereafter, the
department made confidential inquiries, often of a delicate character,
into political, religious and social movements; it scrutinized plays for
performance licenses, amending or rejecting those that were
objectionable; it took vigorous action under the Press Act,
confiscating on occasions as many as twenty-one thousand copies of
proscribed books; it maintained a constant watch upon the arrivals
and departures of steamers, assisted the Excise authorities,
collaborated with the police of other districts and provinces,
supervised and, if necessary, prohibited the songs sung by the melas
at the annual Ganpati celebration, and performed an immense
amount of confidential work in connexion with the Muharram. It also
assisted or secured the repatriation of all manner of destitute
persons stranded in Bombay, including English theatrical artistes,
Arabs belonging to French territories, ladies from Mauritius, Bengali
seamen, Pathan labourers expelled from Ceylon, and deportees from
the Transvaal.
The establishment at the beginning of 1911 of a “Police Gazette”,
appearing thrice in the twenty-four hours and containing full details
of all reported crimes, persons wanted, property stolen or lost, etc.,
was a further step in the direction of increased efficiency. Prior to
this date, when a case of theft occurred, the first duty of the
Inspector, in whose jurisdiction it took place, was to prepare with his
own hand thirty or forty notices for dispatch to other police-stations
in the City. Much valuable time was thus wasted; and when the
notices were ready, several constables had to be released from their
proper duties to act as messengers. Under the system introduced in
1911 the duty of the sectional officer consisted simply in telephoning
full details to the Deputy Commissioner C. I. D., who arranged for
their insertion in the next issue of the “Gazette”, copies of which
were delivered at every police station within a few hours of the
occurrence. The arrangements were adapted from the system
followed in London and effected a great saving of time and trouble
in the divisions. In 1915 the Police Notice Office, composed of a
European Inspector and an Indian head constable, circulated in this
way nearly 10,000 paragraphs and 67 supplements dealing with
murders, thefts, deserters and persons wanted, and also published
and circulated to the divisions forty pages of special orders
concerned with daily routine.
Another salient feature of the reorganization, as mentioned above,
was the creation of a special agency for the divisional investigation
of crime. This was dependent upon the provision of properly-
equipped police stations of a definite type, recommended by Mr.
Edwardes, comprising the necessary offices, charge-room, cells,
quarters for the European and Indian staff, and barracks for the
constabulary. The scheme, as sanctioned, contemplated the
provision of 17 stations of this character. At the date when Mr.
Edwardes was appointed Commissioner, none of the existing police-
stations fulfilled these requirements, and in some divisions paucity of
accommodation directly hampered the daily work of the police. In
1911, for example, the station of the Khetwadi section of the D
division was described as practically non-existent. The lease of a
building having expired, and no alternative accommodation being
available, the Inspector was holding his office in the dressing-room
of an Indian theatre in Grant road, the station-stores and constables’
kit-boxes were temporarily placed in a tea-shop in Falkland road, and
the two European officers of the section were forced to reside in
very poor quarters in an adjoining section. Most of the older stations
were very inconvenient and insanitary. The only office consisted of
one of the sectional Inspector’s dwelling-rooms or of a portion of a
verandah screened off; prisoners and witnesses were herded
together on the stairs or in the street; the residence was surrounded
by old-fashioned and odoriferous latrines; and every odd corner was
choked with kit-boxes and with the recumbent forms of constables
taking a rest before going on duty.
By the end of 1910, however, a complete programme for new
stations had been prepared, and sanctioned by Government, and a
commencement had been made in Colaba, Nagpada and Agripada,
where the newer police-stations erected by the Improvement Trust
were subjected to structural alterations and additions, in order to
make them conform with the plan adapted from the London model.
Each of these stations was equipped with a staff composed of one
Inspector, one Deputy Inspector, three Indian Sub-Inspectors for
criminal investigation, plain-clothes constables and a clerical staff;
the first information sheet, case-diary and other records used by the
District Police were so adapted to urban requirements as to secure a
complete record of every case taken up by the police; and the time-
table of duties was arranged so that at any moment during the
twenty-four hours an English-knowing officer, with power to record
complaints and commence inquiries, would be found in the general
charge-room of the station. At the outset most of the Indian Sub-
Inspectors were chosen from among the few English-knowing
Jemadars and Havildars, already in the force; but from 1910
onwards a regular supply of such officers was secured by choosing
young Indians of good middle-class standing and deputing them to
the Provincial Police Training School at Nasik for an eighteen months’
course of tuition in law and police-work.
At the beginning of 1913 the Commissioner opened two more
stations on the new model at Princess Street—a building erected by
the Improvement Trust in 1910, and at Maharbaudi: and two more
in 1914 in the new buildings of the Harbour and Dock police at Mody
Bay and Frere road respectively, which were completed and occupied
in January. At the beginning of January, 1916, three more stations
were established under the reorganization scheme at Khetwadi,
Hughes road, and the Esplanade, while at the close of the same year
similar stations were organized in the new buildings erected at
Gamdevi, Lamington road and Palton road. Thus, by the end of 1916
thirteen out of the seventeen model police-stations, originally
proposed by the Commissioner, had been opened with a full
complement of officers and men, while plans had been approved for
similar accommodation in Mahim, Parel and other places in the
northern portion of the Island of Bombay. Where it was found
impossible to build full residential accommodation for both officers
and men on the site allotted for these new stations, ancillary
accommodation schemes were prepared, which, when completed,
would ensure the proper housing of the majority of the force as it
existed at the date of Mr. Edwardes’ departure.
A sustained effort was made during these years to teach English
to the Indian constabulary, with the object of giving the men
themselves a better chance of promotion and enabling them to hold
their own more confidently with the large English-speaking
population. In 1910 the number of officers, exclusive of Europeans,
able to read and write was 127, of whom only 36 were literate in
English, while literate constables, of whom only one or two knew
English, numbered 584. In July 1911 the Commissioner commenced
sending a chosen number of Muhammadan and Hindu constables to
two free night-schools for instruction in English and one vernacular
language. The success attending this experiment led the Bombay
Government to sanction a proposal to open an English school for
constables at the Head Police Office, under a qualified teacher from
one of the official training-schools maintained by the Educational
Department. This school was attended by 150 constables from the
various branches of the force, who were given a three years’ course
of tuition in English, and on Saturdays attended lectures on their
duty to the public, their powers under the Police Act, and matters of
simple hygiene. In 1913 the number of men attending the school
had risen to 200, and the master had been forced to obtain
gratuitous assistance in teaching the various classes. The question of
accommodation also became urgent, and during 1915 and 1916 the
classes had to be assembled in the Elphinstone Middle School, which
the educational authorities allowed the police to use during the early
morning and evening hours. The men, who were encouraged to
study by the grant of small rewards and occasionally of promotion, if
they were successful in the periodical examinations, derived distinct
advantage from the school-course, and the number of constables
literate in the English language showed a steady increase between
1911 and 1916. In the latter year 846 constables were reported to
be able to read and write, and 72 of them were literate in English.
Connected with the subject of education was the foundation of a
fund in the name of the Commissioner—the S. M. E. Memorial Fund
—subscribed by Hindu and Muhammadan residents, with the object
of assisting Indian constables of the force to educate their sons. The
proposal was made in the first instance by Mr. Kazi Kabiruddin, a
barrister and Justice of the Peace, and at his instance sufficient
funds were subsequently provided to admit of the grant of monthly
scholarships and stipends to the sons of constables attending
primary schools maintained by the Municipal Corporation.
 A large amount of routine work devolved upon the police under
the Arms, Explosives, Petroleum and Poisons Acts. Under the Arms
Act licenses of various kinds were granted or cancelled, the shops
and store-rooms of licensed dealers were regularly inspected and
their stocks checked, and constant inquiries, numbering several
thousand annually, were made to verify purchases from local dealers
and trace the whereabouts of fire-arms. In 1911, just before the
arrival of Their Majesties the King and Queen, five revolvers were
stolen from a licensed dealer’s shop. The C. I. D. were successful in
recovering the arms and in obtaining the conviction of the thieves:
but in consideration of the approach of the Royal Visit, the
Commissioner decided to take charge of the entire stock of arms and
ammunition held by five Indian dealers, and kept it in deposit in the
Head Police Office until after the departure of Their Majesties. Under
the Explosives Act licenses were issued for manufacture, possession
and sale; and magazines for the storage of explosives were regularly
inspected by the special branch maintained for this purpose at
headquarters. Similar duties were carried out under the Petroleum
Act; while from April 1st, 1909, the Police became responsible for
licensing the sale of poisons and checking stocks,—duties which up
to that date had been performed by the Municipality. The task of
licensing theatres and granting performance licenses, which was
transferred to the Arms department at the close of 1909, imposed a
heavy additional burden on the special staff. Most of the theatres at
this date were devoid of proper exits and of means of protection
against fire, and these seven years witnessed a continuous struggle
to secure the erection of fire-proof staircases etc. and the provision
of fire-proof drop-curtains. Fortunately the Police were able to obtain
the help of the Chief of the Fire-brigade and of the Government
engineering and electrical experts, in deciding what improvements
were essential in each case, and it was chiefly due to this
collaboration that a better fire-service had been installed by 1913 in
each of the thirteen theatres of the City, and that many important
structural alterations in both theatres and cinematographs had been
introduced by the close of 1916. Perhaps the most notable
achievement of the headquarters staff under Chief Inspector M. J.
Giles was the preparation of a set of theatre rules, applicable to all
structures used for public performances, which were brought into
force in August 1914, and gave the police power to insist upon the
provision of fire-appliances, water supply, exits, and fire-proof
materials. As mentioned in a previous paragraph, the C. I. D. was
made responsible for the scrutiny of plays, for which a performance
license was required, and licenses were granted only to such plays
as were declared by that department to be unobjectionable on
political, moral or general grounds.
The growth in the number of motor-vehicles continued unchecked
and ultimately necessitated the promulgation of new rules under the
Motor Vehicles Act in 1915. In 1909, the total number of motor-
vehicles registered since 1905 was 1,295, while in 1915 this figure
had increased to 4,947. But a good many of these gradually
disappeared in the course of ten years, and the actual number
estimated to be on the roads in 1915 was 2,482 as compared with
only 814 in 1909. Heavy motor-vehicles of the lorry type also
appeared during this period and numbered 70 in 1915. This increase
of motor-traffic synchronized with, and was partly responsible for, a
steady increase in the number of street accidents. While reckless
driving was unquestionably the cause of many accidents, despite
energetic action in several directions to prevent it, the large majority
of the casualties reported from year to year were the outcome of
that carelessness and lack of alertness on the part of the average
Indian pedestrian, with which all who have driven cars or carriages
in Bombay are only too well acquainted. Accustomed as they are to
the peace of a sequestered country life, many of the foot-passengers
in the streets of the city seem totally unable to exercise any caution
or to acquire the habit of keeping to the side of the road, while in
the case of the mill-workers, whom one meets in Parel and
elsewhere, the sense of hearing seems to have been permanently
dulled by the constant rattle and clatter of the machinery at which
they labour during the greater part of the day.
The Haj traffic continued to expand between 1909 and 1911, the
total number of pilgrims who left Bombay for Jeddah in those years
being 19,748 and 21,965 respectively. From 1912 the numbers
commenced to decline until the year after the outbreak of the War,
when the traffic virtually ceased altogether. The period witnessed a
struggle on the part of a British shipping-firm to secure the
monopoly of the Red Sea trade, including the pilgrim traffic, by
ousting the few Muhammadan-owned vessels which had hitherto
catered for the pilgrims. The firm in question was unquestionably in
a position to offer better vessels and a better organization for the
return journey than the Indian ship-owners: but one or two of the
latter resented the effort to drive them out of the traffic, with the
result that the Commissioner of Police and the Pilgrim department,
who endeavoured to act in a strictly neutral manner, ran the risk of
blame from both parties for showing undue preference to their
rivals. At the moment of the Declaration of War all the vessels
engaged in the traffic were owned by the British firm, except one or
at most two which belonged to a well-known Muhammadan resident.
It might have been supposed that, considering the wholly Islamic
character of the pilgrimage, a British firm would have acquiesced in
the continued presence of a Muhammadan-owned vessel, and have
trusted to time and the ordinary economic law for its ultimate
disappearance from the Jeddah route. Such, however, was not the
case; and at the instance of the local manager of the firm, a pushing
Scot from Aberdeen, the Bombay Government was asked practically
to insist upon the Commissioner and the Pilgrim department refusing
all facilities to the Muhammadan ship-owner to sell his tickets and
dispatch his vessel. The outbreak of War in 1914, and the
consequent cessation of the traffic to and from Jeddah, solved a
dispute which for some time imposed additional work upon the
Police and Pilgrim authorities.
The Finger Print Bureau steadily maintained its efficiency and had
compiled a record of more than 45,000 slips by the end of 1915. At
the request of the municipal authorities, it commenced about 1912
to take the finger-impressions of hundreds of candidates for
employment as sweepers in the Health department, and was able to
prove annually from its records that a certain proportion of these
people had previous convictions under the Penal Code. In another
direction—revolver-practice by the European police—a considerable
improvement was effected. Up to 1914 it was customary to arrange
for the practice in a field at the back of the China Mill at Sewri,
which was sufficiently remote and secluded to obviate danger to the
public. But the distance of the site from the centre of the City
rendered the regular attendance of all officers practically impossible,
and in consequence, on the rare occasions when the European
police were called upon to use their revolvers at disturbances, their
shooting was inclined to be a trifle erratic. In the Muharram riots of
1908, for example, when Mr. Gell ordered the European officers to
fire on the mob in Bhendy Bazar, a Parsi who was watching the
rioting from the window of a third upper-storey was unfortunately
killed by a revolver-shot, directed at the crowd in the street. To
ensure more regular practice by all officers, therefore, the
Commissioner obtained the approval of Government to the erection
of a safety revolver range in the compound of the Head Police
Office, which was opened in September, 1914.
Before dealing with the record of crime, a brief reference is
desirable to the extraordinary volume of miscellaneous work
performed under the orders of the Commissioner. Derelict children
were constantly being picked up in the streets by the divisional
police and forwarded to the Head Office, when the Commissioner
had to make the best arrangements he could for their maintenance
and welfare; penniless women and children were repatriated to
various parts of India, to Persia, Mauritius, Egypt, South Africa and
Singapore, with funds collected by the Police Office for each
individual case from charitable townspeople; penurious women were
assisted to get their daughters married, and on one occasion a
Muhammadan and his wife, who desired a divorce and applied for
police assistance, were granted facilities for the ceremony at police
headquarters. On another occasion the Commissioner was asked to
assist in the rebuilding of a mosque belonging to the Sidis or African
Musalmans of Tandel Street, and was able to obtain the necessary
funds from several well-to-do Muhammadans in the city. The Police
dealt also with a large number of lunatics; they traced deserters
from the Army and Navy; they made inquiries into the condition of
second-class hotels and drinking bars in the European quarter and
took action, when necessary, in consultation with the Excise
authorities; they dealt with a very large number of prostitutes under
the Police Act. The number of summonses which they were called
upon to serve annually on behalf of magisterial courts in Bombay
and other Provinces was enormous, and their work in connexion with
the grant of certificates of identity to persons proceeding to Europe,
with the grant of passes for processions and for playing music in the
streets, and of permits to enter the Ballard Pier on the arrival and
departure of the English mail-steamer, was heavy and continuous.
Appeals for unofficial assistance from private individuals and from
societies like the League of Mercy, engaged in rescue-work among
women, were also never refused. Miscellaneous activities of this
varied type formed no small portion of the annual task of the force
and were rendered effective by the close collaboration of the staff at
headquarters, the C. I. D., and the divisional police.
The difficulty of providing suitable shelter and guardianship for the
many derelict girls of tender age found wandering in the streets by
the police led directly to the foundation by the Commissioner of the
Abdulla Haji Daud Bavla Muhammadan Girls’ Orphanage. With the
possible exception of one or two Christian missionary institutions, to
which it would have been impolitic on political and religious grounds
to send children, no organization or society existed in 1909, which
was prepared to take charge of homeless girls. Consequently, many
little waifs gravitated into the brothels of the city or were gradually
absorbed in the floating criminal population. Moreover, when a child
was found in the streets, homeless and friendless, the police had no
shelter to offer her except the cells at the sectional police-station;
and these, being regularly filled with the dregs of the criminal
population, were a most undesirable environment for girls of tender
years. As caste-prejudices offered peculiar obstacles to any scheme
for the benefit of Hindu girls belonging to the Shudra class, the
Commissioner determined to concentrate his attention upon a home
for Muhammadan girls, and accordingly drew up a scheme and
issued an appeal, which was widely circulated among the
Muhammadan community. The appeal was favourably received, and
about 2 lakhs of rupees were collected within a few weeks. To this
sum were added more than 3 lakhs from the estate of the late
Abdulla Haji Daud Bavla, whose executors offered the amount on
condition that the orphanage should bear his name, that his trustees
should be represented on the managing committee of the
orphanage, and that the objects, constitution and maintenance etc.
of the orphanage should be embodied in a legal deed of trust. At the
request of the Commissioner, the Bombay Government agreed to
become a party to the deed and bound themselves to appoint the
Commissioner of Police, or any other of their officers resident for the
time being in Bombay, as chairman of the board of trustees of the
orphanage. The legal preliminaries having been completed and the
funds duly invested in gilt-edged securities, a suitable building was
taken on a lease, and furnished at the expense of a philanthropic
Muhammadan merchant, and in December, 1910, the orphanage
was formally opened by Sir George Clarke (now Lord Sydenham) and
Lady Clarke. The institution soon justified its existence; the number
of girl-inmates steadily increased, their physical health and welfare
being under the general supervision of a trustworthy Englishwoman,
and their religious exercises and elementary lessons being given by a
Mullani and her assistants. The problem of the girls’ future was
solved in the only feasible way by arranging for their marriage with
Muhammadans of their own class, as soon as they reached the age
of maturity. These hymeneal arrangements were made by a chosen
officer of the C. I. D., Khan Saheb M. F. Taki, in consultation with the
jamats and leaders of the various Musalman sections. Experience
has proved that the establishment of institutions like this
Muhammadan Girls’ Orphanage is an essential preliminary to any
serious effort to combat the deplorable traffic in children, which still
flourishes in India and constitutes the chief means of recruitment for
the brothels of the larger towns and cities.
 This period witnessed a steady increase in crime up to 1915, when
the stringent measures taken during the pendency of the War to
clear the City of undesirables imposed a notable check upon the
normal increase in reported crime. Previous to that date the rapid
increase in recorded crime was the natural result of the changes
which took place in the force after 1909, and particularly of the
improvement in registration which followed the introduction of the
new divisional police-stations. Not only did these stations offer
increased facilities for the reporting and detection of crime, but it
was also impossible under the new system for cases to escape
registration and final inclusion in the returns. The improvement in
the registration of cases was manifested also in a marked diminution
of the number of complaints classed as made under a
misapprehension of law or fact. By 1916 the sanctioned strength of
the police force had been augmented by one-third since 1906, and
this fact by itself would have sufficed to account for a large increase
in the amount of crime brought to light. When coupled with the
reorganization of the various police-stations, each of which was
furnished with a strong registering and investigating staff, the
increase in recorded crime became inevitable. It was likewise due to
more accurate estimates of the value of property stolen that the
percentage of recovery declined from 56 in 1908 to about 40 in
succeeding years.
Murder and attempts at murder were still deplorably frequent,
including cases of infanticide which are extremely difficult to detect
in an Oriental city. The number of murder cases varied from 16 in
1909 to 31 in 1910, 25 in 1911, 31 in 1912, and 24 in both 1913 and
1915. The largest number, 35, occurred in 1914. The most notable
murder was that of a young and wealthy Bhattia widow, residing in
her own house on Malabar Hill. Her husband, Lakhmidas Khimji, who
had died some time previously in circumstances which gave rise to
ill-founded rumour, had been a well-known figure in Indian
commercial circles. His widow Jamnabai, was brutally strangled by a
gang of six men from northern India, two of whom belonged to well-
known criminal tribes in the United Provinces and a third was a
night-watchman in the employ of a Jain resident on Malabar Hill. At
first there appeared to be no clue whatever to the crime; but a few
days after its occurrence the commissioner received an anonymous
letter in Hindi, which was translated for him by the Subehdar of the
Armed Police, who happened to be a north-Indian Brahman
conversant with that language. The letter, which was written by one
of the criminals in revenge for not receiving what he regarded as a
fair share of the ornaments stolen from the widow’s house, gave
sufficient details to enable the Police to arrest five of the gang the
same evening. The sixth accused was subsequently arrested at
Bassein. All of them were placed on trial for murder and convicted.
By the year 1909, the vice of cocaine-eating had attained an
extraordinary hold upon the lower classes of the population. Women
and even children had fallen victims to a habit which plainly
exercised a deplorable effect upon their health and morals. The
supplies of the drug came in the first instance from Germany in
packets bearing the name of Merk, and were frequently smuggled
into India in ways that defied detection. Moreover the traffic in the
drug, which was international in character, was so cleverly organized
that it was practically impossible to trace and prosecute the
importers and distributors. Action was therefore confined to
prosecuting the smaller fry for the offences of illicit sale and
possession, and the majority of such cases occurred in the notorious
Nal Bazar area of the C division, which for the last thirty or forty
years has sheltered a large population of disreputables. The Police
were not held primarily responsible for the control of the cocaine-
traffic. This duty devolved upon the Collector of Bombay, who
maintained a large and well-paid excise staff for the purpose.[115]
But the obligation which rested on the police to assist the excise
authorities as far as possible, and the direct stimulus to crime
provided by the cocaine-habit, rendered the question of combating
the traffic of more than ordinary importance. With this in view, the
Commissioner in 1909 put a special police-cordon on the area
devoted to the traffic for about six weeks. This produced satisfactory
results for the time being, but had to be abandoned, to allow of the
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