Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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5. All near relatives succeed to a Muhammadan's estate, which is
divided, under complicated rules, into the necessary number of
shares. A son's share is double that of a daughter. As between
themselves all sons share equally.

6. Bernier's _Revolutions of the Mogul Empire_. [W. H. S.] The author
seems to have used either the London edition of 1671, entitled _The
History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogul_, or
one of the reprints of that edition. The anecdote referred to is
called by Bernier 'an uncommonly good story'. Aurangzeb made a long
speech, ending by dismissing the unlucky pedagogue with the words:
'Go! withdraw to thy native village. Henceforth let no man know
either who thou art, or what is become of thee.' (Bernier, _Travels
in the Mogul Empire_, pp. 154-161, ed. Constable and V. A, Smith,
1914.) Manucci repeats the story with slight variations (_Storie da
Mogor_, vol. ii, pp. 29-33).

7. Compare the forcible description of the state of the Delhi royal
family in Chapter 76, _post_. The old emperor's pension was one
hundred thousand rupees a month. The events of the Mutiny effected a
considerable clearance, though the number of persons claiming
relationship with the royal house is still large. A few of these have
taken service under the British Government, but have not
distinguished themselves.

8. The author, unfortunately, does not give the dimensions of this
piece. Rumi Khan's gun at Bijapur, which was cast in the sixteenth
century at Ahmadnagar, is generally considered the largest ancient
cannon in India. It is fifteen feet long, and weighs about forty-one
tons, the calibre being two feet four inches. Like the gun at Datiya,
it is painted with red lead, and is worshipped by Hindoos, who are
always ready to worship every manifestation of power. Another big gun
at Bijapur is thirty feet in length, built up of bars bound together.
Other very large pieces exist at Gawilgarh in Berar, and Bidar in the
Nizam's dominions. (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. Gun,
Bijapur, Gawilgarh Hill Range, and Beder.)

9. The Dasahra festival, celebrated at the beginning of October,
marks the close of the rains and the commencement of the cold season.
It is observed by all classes of Hindus, but especially by Rajas and
the military classes, for whom this festival has peculiar importance.
In the old days no prince or commander, whether his command consisted
of soldiers or robbers, ever undertook regular operations until the
Dasahra had been duly observed. All Rajas still receive valuable
offerings on this occasion, which form an important element in their
revenue. In some places buffaloes are sacrificed by the Raja in
person. The soldiers worship the weapons which they hope to use
during the coming season. Among the Marathas the ordnance received
especial attention and worship. The ceremony of worshipping certain
leguminous trees at this festival has been noticed _ante_, Chapter 26
note 8.

10. Few Europeans nowadays could join in the author's enthusiastic
admiration of the Datiya garden. The arrangements seem to have been
those usual in large formal native gardens in Northern India.

11. This lad has since succeeded his adoptive father as the chief of
the Datiya principality. The old chief found him one day lying in the
grass, as he was shooting through one of his preserves. His elephant
was very near treading upon the infant before he saw it. He brought
home the boy, adopted him as his son, and declared him his successor,
from having no son of his own. The British Government, finding that
the people generally seemed to acquiesce in the old man's wishes,
sanctioned the measure, as the paramount power. [W. H. S.] The old
Raja died in 1839, and the succession of the boy, Bijai Bahadur, thus
strangely favoured by fortune, was unsuccessfully opposed by one of
the nobles of the state. Bijai Bahadur governed the state with
sufficient success until his death in 1857. The succession was then
again disputed, and disturbances took place which were suppressed by
an armed British force. The state is still governed by its hereditary
ruler, who has been granted the privilege of adoption (_N.W.P.
Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, p. 410, s.v. Datiya).

12. The fact is that all Oriental rulers thoroughly enjoy the most
outrageous flattery, and would feel defrauded if they did not get it
in abundance. Even Akbar, the greatest of them, could enjoy it, and
allow the courtly poet to say 'See Akbar, and you see God'. Indians
find it difficult to believe that European officials really dislike
attentions which are exacted by rulers of their own races.

13. December, 1835.

14. This theory is probably incorrect. See _ante_, Chapter 14, note
7, on formation of black soil.

15. Nilgai, or 'blue-bull', a huge, heavy antelope of bovine form,
common in India, scientifically named _Portax pictus_. By 'antelope'
the author means the common antelope, or black buck, the _Antilope
bezoartica_, or _cervicapra_ of naturalists. The spotted deer, or
'chital', a very handsome creature, is the _Axis maculata_ of Gray,
the _Cervus axis_ of other zoologists.

CHAPTER 33

'Bhumiawat.'

Though no doubt very familiar to our ancestors during the Middle
Ages, this is a thing happily but little understood in Europe at the
present day. 'Bhumiawat', in Bundelkhand, signifies a war or fight
for landed inheritance, from 'bhum', the land, earth, &c.; 'bhumia',
a landed proprietor.

When a member of the landed aristocracy, no matter how small, has a
dispute with his ruler, he collects his followers, and levies
indiscriminate war upon his territories, plundering and burning his
towns and villages, and murdering their inhabitants till he is
invited back upon his own terms. During this war it is a point of
honour not to allow a single acre of land to be tilled upon the
estate which he has deserted, or from which he has been driven; and
he will murder any man who attempts to drive a plough in it, together
with all his family, if he can. The smallest member of this landed
aristocracy of the Hindoo military class will often cause a terrible
devastation during the interval that he is engaged in his bhumiawat;
for there are always vast numbers of loose characters floating upon
the surface of Indian society, ready to 'gird up their loins' and use
their sharp swords in the service of marauders of this kind, when
they cannot get employment in that of the constituted authorities of
government.

Such a marauder has generally the sympathy of nearly all the members
of his own class and clan, who are apt to think that his case may one
day be their own. He is thus looked upon as contending for the
interests of all; and, if his chief happens to be on bad terms with
other chiefs in the neighbourhood, the latter will clandestinely
support the outlaw and his cause, by giving him and his followers
shelter in the hills and jungles, and concealing their families and
stolen property in their castles. It is a maxim in India, and, in the
less settled parts of it, a very true one, that 'one Pindhara or
robber makes a hundred'; that is, where one robber, by a series of
atrocious murders and robberies, frightens the people into non-
resistance, a hundred loose characters from among the peasantry of
the country will take advantage of the occasion, and adopt his name,
in order to plunder with the smallest possible degree of personal
risk to themselves.

Some magistrates and local rulers, under such circumstances, have
very unwisely adopted the measure of prohibiting the people from
carrying or having arms in their houses, the very thing which, above
all others, such robbers most wish; for they know, though such
magistrates and rulers do not, that it is the innocent only, and the
friends to order, who will obey the command. The robber will always
be able to conceal his arms, or keep with them out of reach of the
magistrate; and he is now relieved altogether from the salutary dread
of a shot from a door or window. He may rob at his leisure, or sit
down like a gentleman and have all that the people of the surrounding
towns and villages possess brought to him, for no man can any longer
attempt to defend himself or his family.[1] Weak governments are
obliged soon to invite back the robber on his own terms, for the
people can pay them no revenue, being prevented from cultivating
their lands, and obliged to give all they have to the robbers, or
submit to be plundered of it. Jhansi and Jalaun are exceedingly weak
governments, from having their territories studded with estates held
rent-free, or at a quit-rent, by Pawar, Bundela, and Dhandel barons,
who have always the sympathy of the numerous chiefs and their barons
of the same class around.

In the year 1832, the Pawar barons of the estates of Noner, Jigni,
Udgaon, and Bilhari in Jhansi had some cause of dissatisfaction with
their chief; and this they presented to Lord William Bentinck as he
passed through the province in December. His lordship told them that
these were questions of internal administration which they must
settle among themselves, as the Supreme Government would not
interfere. They had, therefore, only one way of settling such
disputes, and that was to raise the standard of bhumiawat, and cry,
'To your tents, O Israel!' This they did; and, though the Jhansi
chief had a military force of twelve thousand men, they burnt down
every town and village in the territory that did not come into their
terms; and the chief had possession of only two, Jhansi, the capital,
and the large commercial town of Mau,[2] when the Bundela Rajas of
Orchha and Datiya, who had hitherto clandestinely supported the
insurgents, consented to become the arbitrators. A suspension of arms
followed, the barons got all they demanded, and the bhumiawat ceased.
But the Jhansi chief, who had hitherto lent large sums to the other
chiefs in the province, was reduced to the necessity of borrowing
from them all, and from Gwalior, and mortgaging to them a good
portion of his lands.[3]

Gwalior is itself weak in the same way. A great portion of its lands
are held by barons of the Hindoo military classes, equally addicted
to bhumiawat, and one or more of them is always engaged in this kind
of indiscriminate warfare; and it must be confessed that, unless they
are always considered to be ready to engage in it, they have very
little chance of retaining their possessions on moderate terms, for
these weak governments are generally the most rapacious when they
have it in their power.

A good deal of the lands of the Muhammadan sovereign of Oudh are, in
the same manner, held by barons of the Rajput tribe; and some of them
are almost always in the field engaged in the same kind of warfare
against their sovereign. The baron who pursues it with vigour is
almost sure to be invited back upon his own terms very soon. If his
lands are worth a hundred thousand a year, he will get them for ten;
and have this remitted for the next five years, until he is ready for
another bhumiawat, on the ground of the injuries sustained during the
last, from which his estate has to recover. The baron who is
peaceable and obedient soon gets rack-rented out of his estate, and
reduced to beggary.[4]

In 1818, some companies of my regiment were for several months
employed in Oudh, after a young 'bhumiawati' of this kind, Sheo Ratan
Singh. He was the nephew and heir of the Raja of Partabgarh,[5] who
wished to exclude him from his inheritance by the adoption of a
brother of his young bride. Sheo Ratan had a small village for his
maintenance, and said nothing to his old uncle till the governor of
the province, Ghulam Husani[6], accepted an invitation to be present
at the ceremony of adoption. He knew that, if he acquiesced any
longer, he would lose his inheritance, and cried, 'To your tents, 0
Israel!' He got a small band of three hundred Rajputs, with nothing
but their swords, shields, and spears, to follow him, all of the same
clan and true men. They were bivouacked in a jungle not more than
seven miles from our cantonments at Partabgarh, when Ghulam Husain
marched to attack them with three regiments of infantry, one of
cavalry, and two nine-pounders. He thought he should surprise them,
and contrived so that he should come upon them about daybreak. Sheo
Ratan knew all his plans. He placed one hundred and fifty of his men
in ambuscade at the entrance to the jungle, and kept the other
hundred and fifty by him in the centre. When they had got well in,
the party in ambush rushed upon the rear, while he attacked them in
front. After a short resistance, Ghulam Husain's force took to
flight, leaving five hundred men dead on the field, and their guns
behind them. Ghulam Husain was so ashamed of the drubbing he got that
he bribed all the news-writers[7] within twenty miles of the place to
say nothing about it in their reports to court, and he never made any
report of it himself. A detachment of my regiment passed over the
dead bodies in the course of the day, on their return to cantonments
from detached command, or we should have known nothing about it. It
is true, we heard the firing, but that we heard every day; and I have
seen from my bungalow half a dozen villages in flames, at the same
time, from this species of contest between the Rajput landholders and
the government authorities. Our cantonments were generally full of
the women and children who had been burnt out of house and home.

In Oudh such contests generally begin with the harvests. During the
season of tillage all is quiet; but, when the crops begin to ripen,
the governor begins to rise in his demands for revenue, and the
Rajput landholders and cultivators to sharpen their swords and
burnish their spears. One hundred of them always consider themselves
a match for one thousand of the king's troops in a fair field,
because they have all one heart and soul, while the king's troops
have many.[8]

While the Pawars were ravaging the Jhansi state with their bhumiawat,
a merchant of Sagar had a large convoy of valuable cloths, to the
amount, I think, of forty thousand rupees,[9] intercepted by them on
its way from Mirzapur[10] to Rajputana. I was then at Sagar, and
wrote off to the insurgents to say that they had mistaken one of our
subjects for one of the Jhansi chiefs, and must release the convoy.
They did so, and not a piece of the cloth was lost. This bhumiawat is
supposed to have cost the Jhansi chief above twenty lakhs of
rupees,[11] and his subjects double that sum.

Gopal Singh, a Bundela, who had been in the service of the chief of
Panna,[12] took to bhumiawat in 1809, and kept a large British force
employed in pursuit through Bundelkhand and the Sagar territories for
three years, till he was invited back by our Government in the year
1812, by the gift of a fine estate on the banks of the Dasan river,
yielding twenty thousand rupees[13] a year, which his son now enjoys,
and which is to descend to his posterity, many of whom will, no
doubt, animated by their fortunate ancestor's example, take to the
same trade. He had been a man of no note till he took to this trade,
but by his predatory exploits he soon became celebrated throughout
India; and, when I came to the country, no other man's chivalry was
so much talked of.

A Bundela, or other landholder of the Hindoo military class, does not
think himself, nor is he indeed thought by others, in the slightest
degree less respectable for having waged this indiscriminate war upon
the innocent and unoffending, provided he has any cause of
dissatisfaction with his liege lord; that is, provided he cannot get
his land or his appointment in his service upon his own terms,
because all others of the same class and clan feel more or less
interested in his success.

They feel that their tenure of land, or of office, is improved by the
mischief he does; because every peasant he murders, and every field
he throws out of tillage, affects their liege lord in his most tender
point, his treasury; and indisposes him to interfere with their
salaries, their privileges, or their rents. He who wages this war
goes on marrying his sisters or his daughters to the other barons or
landholders of the same clan, and receiving theirs in marriage during
the whole of his bhumiawat,[14] as if nothing at all extraordinary
had happened, and thereby strengthening his hand at the game he is
playing.

Umrao Singh of Jaklon in Chanderi, a district of Gwalior bordering
upon Sagar,[15] has been at this game for more than fifteen years out
of twenty, but his alliances among the baronial families around have
not been in the slightest degree affected by it. His sons and his
grandsons have, perhaps, made better matches than they might, had the
old man been at peace with all the world, during the time that he has
been desolating one district by his atrocities, and demoralizing all
those around it by his example, and by inviting the youth to join him
occasionally in his murderous enterprises. Neither age nor sex is
respected in their attacks upon towns or villages; and no Muhammadan
can take more pride and pleasure in defacing idols--the most
monstrous idol--than a 'bhumiawati' takes in maiming an innocent
peasant, who presumes to drive his plough in lands that he chooses to
put under the _ban_.

In the kingdom of Oudh, this bhumiawat is a kind of nursery for our
native army; for the sons of Rajput yeomen who have been trained in
it are all exceedingly anxious to enlist in our native infantry
regiments, having no dislike to their drill or their uniform. The
same class of men in Bundelkhand and the Gwalior State have a great
horror of the drill and uniform of our regular infantry, and nothing
can induce them to enlist in our ranks. Both are equally brave, and
equally faithful to their salt--that is, to the person who employs
them; but the Oudh Rajput is a much more tameable animal than the
Bundela. In Oudh this class of people have all inherited from their
fathers a respect for our rule and a love for our service. In
Bundelkhand they have not yet become reconciled to our service, and
they still look upon our rule as interfering a good deal too much
with their sporting propensities.[16]

Notes:

1. Since the author's time conditions have much changed. Then, and
for long afterwards, up to the Mutiny, every village throughout the
country was fall of arms, and almost every man was armed.
Consequently, in those tracts where the Mutiny of the native army was
accompanied by popular insurrection, the flame of rebellion burned
fiercely, and was subdued with difficulty. The painful experience of
1857 and 1858 proved the necessity of general disarmament, and nearly
the whole of British India has been disarmed under the provisions of
a series of Acts. Licences to have and carry ordinary arms and
ammunition are granted by the magistrates of districts. Licences to
possess artillery are granted only by the Governor-General in
Council. The improved organization of the police and of the executive
power generally renders possible the strict enforcement of the law.
Some arms are concealed, but very few of these are serviceable. With
rare exceptions, arms are now carried only for display, and knowledge
of the use of weapons has died out in most classes of the population.
The village forts have been everywhere dismantled. Robbery by armed
gangs still occurs in certain districts (_see ante_, Chapter 23, note
14), but is much less frequent than it used to be in the author's
days.

2. Many towns and villages bear the name of Mau (_auglice_, Mhow),
which may be, as Mr. Growse suggests, a form of the Sanskrit _mahi_,
'land' or 'ground'. The town referred to in the text is the principal
town of the Jhansi district, distinguished from its homonyms as Mau-
Ranipur, situated about east-south-east from Jhansi, at a distance of
forty miles from that city. Its special export used to be the
'kharwa' cloth, dyed with 'ai' (_see ante_., Chapter 31, note 4).

3. This insurrection continued into the year 1833. 'The inhabitants
were reduced to the greatest distress, and have, even to the present
day, scarcely recovered the losses they then sustained' (_N.W.P.
Gazetteer_, vol. i (1870), p. 296).

4. See the author's _Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, passim_.

5. Partabgarh is now a separate district in the Fyzabad Division of
Oudh. The chief town, also called Partabgarh, is thirty-two miles
north of Allahabad, and still possesses a Raja, who, at present
(1914), is a most respectable gentleman, with no thoughts of
violence. Further details about the Partabgarh family are given in
the _Journey_, vol. i, p. 231.

6. Transcriber's note:- The author then uses the spelling 'Husain'
consistently.

7. 'The news department is under a Superintendent-General, who has
sometimes contracted for it, as for the revenues of a district, but
more commonly holds it in _amani_, as a manager. . . . He nominates
his subordinates, and appoints them to their several offices, taking
from each a present gratuity and a pledge for such monthly payments
as he thinks the post will enable him to make. They receive from four
to fifteen rupees a month each, and have each to pay to their
President, for distribution among his patrons or patronesses at
Court, from one hundred to five hundred rupees a month in ordinary
times. Those to whom they are accredited have to pay them, under
ordinary circumstances, certain sums monthly, to prevent their
inventing or exaggerating cases of abuse of power or neglect of duty
on their part; but, when they happen to be really guilty of great
acts of atrocity, or great neglect of duty, they are required to pay
extraordinary sums, not only to the news-writers, who are especially
accredited to them, but to all others who happen to be in the
neighbourhood at the time. There are six hundred and sixty news-
writers of this kind employed by the king, and paid monthly three
thousand one hundred and ninety-four rupees, or, on an average,
between four and five rupees each; and the sums paid by them to their
President for distribution among influential officers and Court
favourites averages [sic] above one hundred and fifty thousand rupees
a year. . . . Such are the reporters of the circumstances in all the
cases on which the sovereign and his ministers have to pass orders
every day in Oudh. . . . the European magistrate of one of our
neighbouring districts one day, before the Oudh Frontier Police was
raised, entered the Oudh territory at the head of his police in
pursuit of some robbers, who had found an asylum in one of the King's
villages. In the attempt to secure them some lives were lost: and,
apprehensive of the consequences, he sent for the official news-
writer, and _gratified_ him in the usual way. No report of the
circumstances was made to the Oudh Darbar; and neither the King, the
President, nor the British Government ever heard anything about it'
(_Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, vol. i, pp. 67-69). Such a
System of official news-writers was usually maintained by Asiatic
despots from the most ancient times.

8. full details of the rotten state of the king's army are given in
the _Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_.

9. Then worth L4,000, or more.

10. Mirzapur (Mirzapore) on the Ganges, twenty-seven miles from
Benares, was, in the author's time, the principal depot for the
cotton and cloth trade of Northern India. Although the East Indian
Railway passes through the city, the construction of the railway has
diverted the bulk of the trade from Mirzapur, which is now a
declining place. The population, which wag 70,621 in 1881, fell to
32,332 in 1911. The carpets made there are well known.

11. Then equal to L200,000, or more.

12. The Panna State lies between the British districts of Banda, in
the United Provinces, on the north, and Damoh and Jabalpur, in the
Central Provinces, on the south. The chief is a descendant of
Chhatarsal. For description and engraving of the diamond mines see
_Economic Geology_ (1881), p. 39.

13. Then equivalent to L2,000, or more.

14. The words 'of the same clan' are inexact. The author has shown
(_ante_, Chapter 23 following [10], and Chapter 26 following [32])
that Rajputs never marry into their own clan.

15. 'The Raja of Chanderi belonged to the same family as the Orchha
chief. Sindhia annexed a great part of the Chanderi State in 1811.
Chanderi was for a time British territory, but is now again in
Sindhia's dominions. Its vicissitudes are related in _N.W.P.
Gazetteer_ (1870), vol. i, pp. 351-8.

16. In Oudh the misgovernment, anarchy, and cruel rapine, briefly
alluded to in the text, and vividly described in detail by the author
in his _Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, lasted until the
annexation of the kingdom by Lord Dalhousie in 1856, and, after a
brief lull, were renewed during the insurrection of 1857 and 1858.
The events of those years are a curious commentary on the author's
belief that the people of Oudh entertained 'a respect for our rule
and a love for our service'. The service of the British Government is
sought because it pays, but a foreign Government must not expect
love. Respect for the British rule depends upon the strength of that
rule. Oudh still sends many recruits to the native army, though the
young men no longer enjoy the advantage of a training in 'bhumiawat'.
An occasional gang-robbery or bludgeon fight is the meagre modern
substitute. The Rajputs or Thakurs of Bundelkhand and Gwalior still
retain their old character for turbulence, but, of course, have less
scope for what the author calls their 'sporting propensities' than
they had in his time.