Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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The old Raja, Bikramajit, died in June, 1834; and, though his death
had been some time expected, he no sooner breathed his last than
charges of 'dinai', slow poison, were got up, as usual, in the zenana
(seraglio).

Here the widow of Raja Bahadur, a violent and sanguinary woman, was
supreme; and she persuaded the present Raja, a weak old man, to take
advantage of the funeral ceremonies to avenge the death of his
brother. He did so; and Bihari, and his three brothers, with above
fifty of his relations, were murdered. The widows of the four
brothers were the only members of all the families left alive. One of
them had a son four months old; another one of two years; the four
brothers had no other children. Immediately after the death of their
husbands, the two children were snatched from their mothers' breasts,
and threatened with instant death unless their mothers pointed out
all their ornaments and other property. They did so; and the spoilers
having got from them property to the amount of one hundred and fifty
thousand rupees, and been assured that there was no more, threw the
children over the high wall, by which they were dashed to pieces. The
poor widows were tendered as wives to four sweepers, the lowest of
all low castes; but the tribe of sweepers would not suffer any of its
members to take the widows of men of such high caste and station as
wives, notwithstanding the tempting offer of five hundred rupees as a
present, and a village in rent-free tenure.[8] I secured a promise
while at Tehri that these poor widows should be provided for, as they
had, up to that time, been preserved by the good feeling of a little
community of the lowest of castes, on whom they had been bestowed as
a punishment worse than death, inasmuch as it would disgrace the
whole class to which they belonged, the Parihar Rajputs.[9]

Tehri is a wretched town, without one respectable dwelling-house
tenanted beyond the palace, or one merchant, or even shopkeeper of
capital and credit. There are some tolerable houses unoccupied and in
ruins; and there are a few neat temples built as tombs, or cenotaphs,
in or around the city, if city it can be called. The stables and
accommodations for all public establishments seem to be all in the
same ruinous state as the dwelling-houses. The revenues of the state
are spent in feeding Brahmans and religious mendicants of all kinds;
and in such idle ceremonies as those at which the Raja and all his
court have just been assisting--ceremonies which concentrate for a
few days the most useless of the people of India, the devotee
followers (Bairagis) of the god Vishnu, and tend to no purpose,
either useful or ornamental, to the state or to the people.

This marriage of a stone to a shrub, which takes place every year, is
supposed to cost the Raja, at the most moderate estimate, three lakhs
of rupees a year, or one-fourth of his annual revenue.[10] The
highest officers of which his government is composed receive small
beggarly salaries, hardly more than sufficient for their subsistence;
and the money they make by indirect means they dare not spend like
gentlemen, lest the Raja might be tempted to take their lives in
order to get hold of it. All his feudal barons are of the same tribe
as himself, that is, Rajputs; but they are divided into three clans--
Bundelas, Pawars, and Chandels. A Bundela cannot marry a woman of his
own clan, he must take a wife from the Pawars or Chandels; and so of
the other two clans--no member of one can take a wife from his own
clan, but must go to one of the other two for her. They are very much
disposed to fight with each other, but not less are they disposed to
unite against any third party, not of the same tribe. Braver men do
not, I believe, exist than the Rajputs of Bundelkhand, who all carry
their swords from their infancy.[11]

It may be said of the Rajputs of Malwa and Central India generally,
that the Mogul Emperors of Delhi made the same use of them that the
Emperors of Germany and the Popes made of the military chiefs and
classes of Europe during the Middle Ages. Industry and the peaceful
arts being reduced to agriculture alone under bad government or no
government at all, the land remained the only thing worth
appropriating; and it accordingly became appropriated by those alone
who had the power to do so--by the Hindoo military classes collected
around the heads of their clans, and powerful in their union. These
held it under the paramount power on the feudal tenure of military
service, as militia; or it was appropriated by the paramount power
itself, who let it out on allodial tenure to peaceful peasantry. The
one was the Zamindari, and the other the Malguzari tenure of
India.[12]

The military chiefs, essentially either soldiers or robbers, were
continually fighting, either against each other, or against the
peasantry, or public officers of the paramount power, like the barons
of Europe; and that paramount power, or its delegates, often found
that the easiest way to crush one of these refractory vassals was to
put him, as such men had been put in Germany, to _the ban of the
empire_, and offer his lands, his castles, and his wealth to the
victor. This victor brought his own clansmen to occupy the lands and
castles of the vanquished; and, as these were the only things thought
worth living for, the change commonly involved the utter destruction
of the former occupants. The new possessors gave the name of their
leader, their clan, or their former place of abode, to their new
possession, and the tract of country over which they spread. Thus
were founded the Bundelas, Pawars, and Chandels [_sic_] upon the ruin
of the Chandels of Bundelkhand, the Baghelas in Baghelkhand, or Riwa,
the Kachhwahas, the Sakarwars, and others along the Chambal river,
and throughout all parts of India.[13]

These classes have never learnt anything, or considered anything
worth learning, but the use of the sword; and a Rajput chief, next to
leading a gang of his own on great enterprises, delights in nothing
so much as having a gang or two under his patronage for little ones.

There is hardly a single chief of the Hindoo military class in the
Bundelkhand or Gwalior territories, who does not keep a gang of
robbers of some kind or other, and consider it as a very valuable and
legitimate source of revenue; or who would not embrace with
cordiality the leader of a gang of assassins by profession who should
bring him home from every expedition a good horse, a good sword, or a
valuable pair of shawls, taken from their victims. It is much the
same in the kingdom of Oudh, where the lands are for the most part
held by the same Hindoo military classes, who are in a continual
state of war with each other, or with the Government authorities.
Three-fourths of the recruits for native infantry regiments are from
this class of military agriculturists of Oudh, who have been trained
up in this school of contest; and many of the lads, when they enter
our ranks, are found to have marks of the cold steel upon their
persons. A braver set of men is hardly anywhere to be found; or one
trained up with finer feelings of devotion towards the power whose
salt they eat.[14] A good many of the other fourth of the recruits
for our native infantry are drawn from among the Ujaini Rajputs, or
Rajputs from Ujain,[15] who were established many generations ago in
the same manner at Bhojpur on the bank of the Ganges.[16]

Notes:

1. A purohit is a Brahman family priest.

2. Four hundred thousand rupees, worth at that time more than forty
thousand pounds sterling.

3. The magistrate was the author.

4. 'That' in author's text.

5. The water of the Ganges, with which the image of the god Vishnu
has been washed, is considered a very holy draught, fit for princes.
That with which the image of the god Siva, alias Mahadeo, is washed
must not be drunk. The popular belief is that in a dispute between
him and his wife, Parvati, alias Kali, she cursed the person that
should thenceforward dare to drink of the water that flowed over his
images on earth. The river Ganges is supposed to flow from the top-
knot of Siva's head, and no one would drink of it after this curse,
were it not that the sacred stream is supposed to come first from the
_heel_ of Vishnu, the Preserver. All the little images of Siva, that
are made out of stones taken from the bed of the Nerbudda river, are
supposed to be absolved from this curse, and water thrown upon _them_
can be drunk with impunity. [W. H. S.] The natural emblems of Siva,
the Bana-linga quartz pebbles found in the Nerbudda, have already
been referred to in the note to Chapter 19, _ante_, note 9. In the
Maratha country the 'household gods' generally comprise five sacred
symbols, namely, the _salagrama_ stone of Vishnu, the _bana-linga_ of
Siva, a metallic stone representing the female principle in nature
(Sakti), a crystal representing the sun, and a red stone representing
Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. The details of the tiresome ritual
observed in the worship of these objects occupy pp. 412 to 416 of
Monier Williams's _Religious Thought and Life in India_.

6. 'Beearee' in author's text.

7. Then worth more than thirty thousand pounds sterling.

8. On the customs of the sweeper caste, see _ante_, Chapter 8,
following note [11].

9. The Parihars were the rulers of Bundelkhand before the Chandels.
The chief of Uchhahara belongs to this clan.

10. Wealthy Hindoos, throughout India, spend money in the same
ceremonies of marrying the stone to the shrub. [W. H. S.] Three lakhs
of rupees were then worth thirty thousand pounds sterling or more.

11. The numerous clans, more or less devoted to war, grouped together
under the name of Rajputs (literally 'king's sons'), are in reality
of multifarious origin, and include representatives of many races.
They are the Kshatriyas of the law-books, and are still often called
Chhattri (_E.H.I._, 3rd ed., pp. 407-15). In some parts of the
country the word Thakur is more familiar as their general title.
Thirty-six clans are considered as specially pure-blooded and are
called, at any rate in books, the 'royal races'. All the clans follow
the custom of exogamy. The Chandels (Chandella) ruled Bundelkhand
from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries. Their capital was Mahoba,
now a station on the Midland Railway. The Bundelas became prominent
at a later date, and attained their greatest power under Chhatarsal
(_circa_ A.D. 1671-1731). Their territory is now known as
Bundelkhand. The country so designated is not an administrative
division. It is partly in the United Provinces, partly in the Central
Provinces, and partly in Native States. It is bounded on the north by
the Jumna; on the north and west by the Chambal river; on the south
by the Central Provinces, and on the south and east by Riwa and the
Kaimur hills. The traditions of both the Bundelas and Chandellas show
that there is a strain of the blood of the earlier, so--called
aboriginal, races in both clans. The Pawar (Pramara) clan ranks high,
but is now of little political importance (See _N.W.P. Gazetteer_,
1st ed., vol. vii, p. 68).

12. The paramount power often assigned a portion of its reserved
lands in 'Jagir' to public officers for the establishments they
required for the performance of the duties, military or civil, which
were expected from them. Other portions were assigned in rent-free
tenure for services already performed, or to favourites; but, in both
cases, the rights of the village or land owner, or allodial
proprietors, were supposed to be unaffected, as the Government was
presumed to assign only its own claim to a certain portion as
revenue. [W. H. S.] The term 'ryotwar' (raiyatwar) is commonly used
to designate the system under which the cultivators hold their lands
direct from the State. The subject of tenures is further discussed by
the author in Chapters 70, 71.

13. For elaborate comparisons between the Rajput policy and the
feudal system of Europe, Tod's _Rajasthan_ may be consulted. The
parallel is not really so close as it appears to be at first sight.
In some respects the organization of the Highland clans is more
similar to that of the Rajputs than the feudal system is. The Chambal
river rises in Malwa, and, after a course of some five hundred and
seventy miles, falls into the Jumna forty miles below Etawa. The
statement in the text concerning the succession of clans is confused.
The ruling family of Riwa still belongs to the Baghel clan. The
Maharaja of Jaipur (Jeypore) is a Kachhwaha.

14. The barbarous habit of alliance and connivance with robber gangs
is by no means confined to Rajput nobles and landholders. Men of all
creeds and castes yield to the temptation and magistrates are
sometimes startled to find that Honorary Magistrates, Members of
District Boards, and others of apparently the highest respectability,
are the abettors and secret organizers of robber bands. A modern
example of this fact was discovered in the Meerut and Muzaffarnagar
Districts of the United Provinces in 1890 and 1891. In this case the
wealthy supporters of the banditti were Jats and Muhammadans.

The unfortunate condition of Oudh previous to the annexation in 1856
is vividly described in the author's _Journey through the Kingdom of
Oude_, published in 1858. The tour took place in 1849-50. Some
districts of the kingdom, especially Hardoi, are still tainted by the
old lawlessness.

The remarks on the fine feelings of devotion shown by the sepoys must
now be read in the light of the events of the Mutiny. Since that time
the army has been reorganized, and depends on Oudh for its recruits
much less than it did in the author's day.

15. Ujain (Ujjain, Oojeyn) is a very ancient city, on the river
Sipra, in Malwa, in the dominions of Sindhia, the chief of Gwalior.

16. Bhajpore in the author's text. The town referred to is Bhojpur in
the Shahabad district of South Bihar.

CHAPTER 24

Corn Dealers--Scarcities--Famines in India.

Near Tehri we saw the people irrigating a field of wheat from a tank
by means of a canoe, in a mode quite new to me. The surface of the
water was about three feet below that of the field to be watered. The
inner end of the canoe was open, and placed to the mouth of a gutter
leading into the wheat-field. The outer end was closed, and suspended
by a rope to the outer end of a pole, which was again suspended to
cross-bars. On the inner end of this pole was fixed a weight of
stones sufficient to raise the canoe when filled with water; and at
the outer end stood five men, who pulled down and sank the canoe into
the water as often as it was raised by the stones, and emptied into
the gutter. The canoe was more curved at the outer end than ordinary
canoes are, and seemed to have been made for the purpose. The lands
round the town generally were watered by the Persian wheel; but,
where it [_scil._ the water] is near the surface, this [_scil._ the
canoe arrangement] I should think a better method.[1]

On the 10th[2] we came on to the village of Bilgai, twelve miles over
a bad soil, badly cultivated; the hard syenitic rock rising either
above or near to the surface all the way--in some places abruptly, in
small hills, decomposing into large rounded boulders--in others
slightly and gently, like the backs of whales in the ocean-in others,
the whole surface of the country resembled very much the face of the
sea, not after, but really in, a storm, full of waves of all sizes,
contending with each other 'in most admired disorder'. After the dust
of Tehri, and the fatiguing ceremonies of its court, the quiet
morning I spent in this secluded spot under the shade of some
beautiful trees, with the surviving canary singing, my boy playing,
and my wife sleeping off the fatigues of her journey, was to me most
delightful. Henry was extremely ill when we left Jubbulpore; but the
change of air, and all the other changes incident to a march, have
restored him to health.

During the scarcity of 1833 two hundred people died of starvation in
this village alone;[3] and were all thrown into one large well, which
has, of course, ever since remained closed. Autumn crops chiefly are
cultivated; and they depend entirely on the sky for water, while the
poor people of the village depend upon the returns of a single season
for subsistence during the whole year. They lingered on in the hope
of aid from above till the greater part had become too weak from want
of food to emigrate. The Raja gave half a crown to every family;[4]
but this served merely to kindle their hopes of more, and to prolong
their misery. Till the people have a better government they can never
be secure from frequent returns of similar calamities. Such security
must depend upon a greater variety of crops, and better means of
irrigation; better roads to bring supplies over from distant parts
which have not suffered from the same calamities; and greater means
in reserve of paying for such supplies when brought--things that can
never be hoped for under a government like this, which allows no man
the free enjoyment of property.

Close to the village a large wall has been made to unite two small
hills, and form a small lake; but the wall is formed of the rounded
boulders of the syenitic rock without cement, and does not retain the
water. The land which was to have formed the bed of the lake is all
in tillage; and I had some conversation with the man who cultivated
it. He told me that the wall had been built with the money of _sin_,
and not the money of _piety_ (_pap ke paisa se, na pun ke paisa se
bana_), that the man who built it must have laid out his money with a
_worldly_, and not a _religious_ mind (_niyat_); that on such
occasions men generally assembled Brahmans and other deserving
people, and fed and clothed them, and thereby _consecrated_ a great
work, and made it acceptable to God, and he had heard from his
ancestors that the man who had built this wall had failed to do this;
that the construction could never, of course, answer the purpose for
which it was intended--and that the builder's name had actually been
forgotten, and the work did him no good either in this world or the
next. This village, which a year or two ago was large and populous,
is now reduced to two wretched huts inhabited by two very miserable
families.

Bundelkhand suffers more often and more severely from the want of
seasonable showers of rain than any other part of India; while the
province of Malwa, which adjoins it on the west and south, hardly
ever suffers at all.[5] There is a couplet, which, like all other
good couplets on rural subjects, is attributed to Sahdeo [Sahadeva],
one of the five demigod brothers of the Mahabharata, to this effect:
'If you hear not the thunder on such a night, you, father, go to
Malwa, I to Gujarat;'--that is, there will be no rain, and we must
seek subsistence where rains never fail, and the harvests are secure.

The province of Malwa is well studded with hills and groves of fine
trees, which intercept the clouds as they are wafted by the
prevailing westerly winds, from the Gulf of Cambay to the valley of
the Ganges, and make them drop their contents upon a soil of great
natural powers, formed chiefly from the detritus of the decomposing
basaltic rocks, which cap and intersect these hills.[6]

During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain of
every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large streams from
this favoured province towards Bundelkhand; and the population of
Bundelkhand, as usual in such times of dearth and scarcity, flowed
off towards Malwa against the stream of supply, under the assurance
that the nearer they got to the source, the greater would be their
chance of employment and subsistence. Every village had its numbers
of the dead and the dying; and the roads were all strewed with them;
but they were mostly concentrated upon the great towns and civil and
military stations, where subscriptions were open[ed] for their
support, by both the European and native communities. The funds
arising from these subscriptions lasted till the rains had set fairly
in, when all able-bodied persons could easily find employment in
tillage among the agricultural communities of villages around. After
the rains have fairly set in, the _sick_ and _helpless_ only should
be kept concentrated upon large towns and stations, where little or
no employment is to be found; for the oldest and youngest of those
who are able to work can then easily find employment in weeding the
cotton, rice, sugar-cane, and other fields under autumn crops, and in
preparing the lands for the reception of the wheat, gram,[7] and
other spring seeds; and get advances from the farmers, agricultural
capitalists[8] and other members of the village communities, who are
all glad to share their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay
liberally for the little service they are able to give in return.

It is very unwise to give from such funds what may be considered a
full rate of subsistence to able-bodied persons, as it tends to keep
concentrated upon such points vast numbers who would otherwise be
scattered over the surface of the country among the village
communities, who would be glad to advance them stock and the means of
subsistence upon the pledge of their future services when the season
of tillage commences. The rate of subsistence should always be
something less than what the able-bodied person usually consumes, and
can get for his labour in the field. For the sick and feeble this
rate will be enough, and the healthy and able-bodied, with unimpaired
appetites, will seek a greater rate by the offer of their services
among the farmers and cultivators of the surrounding country. By this
precaution, the mass of suffering will be gradually diffused over the
country, so as best to receive what the country can afford to give
for its relief. As soon as the rains set in, all the able-bodied men,
women, and children should be sent off with each a good blanket, and
a rupee or two, as the funds can afford, to last them till they can
engage themselves with the farmers. Not a farthing after that day
should be given out, except to the feeble and sick, who may be
considered as hospital patients.[9]

At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated, the
scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for, in spite of the best
dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of Government and its
officers, and the European and native communities, thousands commonly
die of starvation. At Sagar, mothers, as they lay in the streets
unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants, and imploring the
passing stranger to take them in slavery, that they might at least
live--hundreds were seen creeping into gardens, courtyards, and old
ruins, concealing themselves under shrubs, grass, mats, or straw,
where they might die quietly, without having their bodies torn by
birds and beasts before the breath had left them. Respectable
families, who left home in search of the favoured land of Malwa,
while yet a little property remained, finding all exhausted, took
opium rather than beg, and husband, wife, and children died in each
other's arms. Still more of such families lingered on in hope till
all had been expended; then shut their doors, took poison and died
all together, rather than expose their misery, and submit to the
degradation of begging. All these things I have myself known and
seen; and, in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes
which present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail
to remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit
to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting acts
which have characterized the famines of which he has read in other
countries--such as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers
devouring their own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian
famines;[10] here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real
cause, the want of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of
hatred against their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in
society who happen to live beyond the range of such calamities. They
gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are
always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and, though
their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride, the pride
of caste, they rarely ever drive the people to acts of violence. The
stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the
agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries,
must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it
takes a greater number of people than they have the means of
relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say that
I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems to
animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing
occasions.

In such seasons of distress, we often, in India, hear of very
injudicious interference with grain dealers on the part of civil and
military authorities, who contrive to persuade themselves that the
interest of these corn-dealers, instead of being in accordance with
the interests of the people, are entirely opposed to them; and
conclude that, whenever grain becomes dear, they have a right to make
them open their granaries, and sell their grain at such price as
they, in their wisdom, may deem reasonable. If they cannot make them
do this by persuasion, fine, or imprisonment, they cause their pits
to be opened by their own soldiers or native officers, and the grain
to be sold at an arbitrary price. If, in a hundred pits thus opened,
they find one in which the corn happens to be damaged by damp, they
come to the sage conclusion that the proprietors must be what they
have all along supposed them to be, and treated as such--_the common
enemies of mankind_--who, blind alike to their own interests and
those of the people, purchase up the superabundance of seasons of
plenty, not to sell it again in seasons of scarcity, but _to destroy
it_; and that the whole of the grain in the other ninety-nine pits,
but for their _timely interference_, must have inevitably shared the
same fate.[11]