Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

W >> William Sleeman >> Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68

Notes:

1. The author's figure of 'eighty millions' was a mere guess, and
probably, even in his time, was much below the mark. The figures of
the census of 1911 are:
Total population of India, excluding
Burma . . . . 301,432,623
Hindus . . . . 217,197,213
The proportions in different provinces vary enormously.

2. See _ante_. Chapter 1, note 3.

3. The word _amoka_ is corrupt, and even Sir George Grierson cannot
suggest a plausible explanation. Can it be a misprint for _anka_, in
the sense of 'stamp'?

4. Akbar levied a tax on marriages, ranging from a single copper coin
(_dam_ = 1/40th of rupee) for poor people to 10 gold mohurs, or about
150 rupees, for high officials. Abul Fazl declares that 'the payment
of this tax is looked upon as auspicious', a statement open to doubt
(Blochmann, transl. _Ain_, vol. i, p. 278). In 1772 Warren Hastings
abolished the marriage fees levied up to that time in Bengal by the
Muhammadan law-officers. But I am disposed to think that a modern
finance minister might reconsider the propriety of imposing a
moderate tax, carefully graduated.

5. Extravagance in marriage expenses is still one of the principal
curses of Indian society. Considerable efforts to secure reform have
been made by various castes during recent years, but, as yet, small
results only have been attained. The editor has seen numerous painful
examples of the wreck of fine estates by young proprietors assuming
the management after a long term of the careful stewardship of the
Court of Wards.

CHAPTER 7

The Purveyance System,

We left Jubbulpore on the morning of the 20th November, 1835, and
came on ten miles to Baghauri. Several of our friends of the 29th
Native Infantry accompanied us this first stage, where they had a
good day's shooting. In 1830 I established here some venders in wood
to save the people from the miseries of the purveyance system; but I
now found that a native collector, soon after I had resigned the
civil charge of the district, and gone to Sagar,[1] in order to
ingratiate himself with the officers and get from them favourable
testimonials, gave two regiments, as they marched over this road,
free permission to help themselves gratis out of the store-rooms of
these poor men, whom I had set up with a loan from the public
treasury, declaring that it must be the wish and intention of
Government to supply their public officers free of cost; and
consequently that no excuses could be attended to. From that time
shops and shopkeepers have disappeared. Wood for all public officers
and establishments passing this road has ever since, as in former
times, been collected from the surrounding villages gratis, under the
purveyance system, in which all native public officers delight, and
which, I am afraid, is encouraged by European officers, either from
their ignorance or their indolence. They do not like the trouble of
seeing the men paid either for their wood or their labour; and their
head servants of the kitchen or the wardrobe weary and worry them out
of their best resolutions on the subject. They make the poor men sit
aloof by telling them that their master is a tiger before breakfast,
and will eat them if they approach; and they tell their masters that
there is no hope of getting the poor men to come for their money till
they have bathed or taken their breakfast. The latter wait in hopes
that the gentleman will come out or send for them as soon as he has
been tamed by his breakfast; but this meal has put him in good humour
with all the world, and he is now no longer unwilling to trust the
payment of the poor men to his butler, or his _valet de chambre_.
They keep the poor wretches waiting, declaring that they have as yet
received no orders to pay them, till, hungry and weary, in the
afternoon they all walk back to their homes in utter despair of
getting anything.

If, in the meantime, the gentleman comes out, and finds the men, his
servants pacify him by declaring either that they have not yet had
time to carry his orders into effect, that they could not get copper
change for silver rupees, or that they were anxious to collect all
the people together before they paid any, lest they might pay some of
them twice over. It is seldom, however, that he comes among them at
all; he takes it for granted that the people have all been paid; and
passes the charge in the account of his servants, who all get what
these porters ought to have received. Or, perhaps the gentleman may
persuade himself that, if he pays his valet or butler, these
functionaries will never pay the poor men, and think that he had
better sit quiet and keep the money in his own pocket. The native
police or revenue officer is directed by his superior to have wood
collected for the camp of a regiment or great civil officers, and he
sends out his myrmidons to employ the people around in felling trees,
and cutting up wood enough to supply not only the camp, but his own
cook-rooms and those of his friends for the next six months. The men
so employed commonly get nothing; but the native officer receives
credit for all manner of superlatively good qualities, which are
enumerated in a certificate. Many a fine tree, dear to the affections
of families and village communities, has been cut down in spite, or
redeemed from the axe by a handsome present to this officer or his
myrmidons. Lambs, kids, fowls, milk, vegetables, all come flowing in
for the great man's table from poor people, who are too hopeless to
seek for payment, or who are represented as too proud and wealthy to
receive it. Such always have been and such always will be some of the
evils of the purveyance system. If a police officer receives an order
from the magistrate to provide a regiment, detachment, or individual
with boats, carts, bullocks, or porters, he has all that can be found
within his jurisdiction forthwith seized--releases all those whose
proprietors are able and willing to pay what he demands, and
furnishes the rest, which are generally the worst, to the persons who
require them. Police officers derive so much profit from these
applications that they are always anxious they should be made; and
will privately defeat all attempts of private individuals to provide
themselves by dissuading or intimidating the proprietors of vehicles
from voluntarily furnishing them. The gentleman's servant who is sent
to procure them returns and tells his master that there are plenty of
vehicles, but that their proprietors dare not send them without
orders from the police; and that the police tell him they dare not
give such orders without the special sanction of the magistrate. The
magistrate is written to, but declares that his police have been
prohibited from interfering in such matters without special orders,
since the proprietors ought to be permitted to send their vehicles to
whom they choose, except on occasions of great public emergency; and,
as the present cannot be considered as one of these occasions, he
does not feel authorized to issue such orders. On the Ganges, many
men have made large fortunes by pretending a general authority to
seize boats for the use of the commissariat, or for other Government
purposes, on the ground of having been once or twice employed on that
duty; and what they get is but a small portion of that which the
public lose. One of these self-constituted functionaries has a boat
seized on its way down or up the river; and the crew, who are merely
hired for the occasion, and have a month's wages in advance, seeing
no prospect of getting soon out of the hands of this pretended
Government servant, desert, and leave the boat on the sands; while
the owner, if he ever learns the real state of the case, thinks it
better to put up with his loss than to seek redress through expensive
courts, and distant local authorities. If the boat happens to be
loaded and to have a supercargo, who will not or cannot bribe high
enough, he is abandoned on the sands by his crew; in his search for
aid from the neighbourhood, his helplessness becomes known--he is
perhaps murdered, or runs away in the apprehension of being so--the
boat is plundered and made a wreck. Still the dread of the delays and
costs of our courts, and the utter hopelessness of ever recovering
the lost property, prevent the proprietors from seeking redress, and
our Government authorities know nothing of the circumstances.

We remained at Baghauri the 21st to enable our people to prepare for
the long march they had before them, and to see a little more of our
Jubbulpore friends, who were to have another day's shooting, as black
partridges[2] and quail had been found abundant in the neighbourhood
of our camp.[3]

Notes:

1. Or Saugor, the head-quarters of the district of that name in the
Central Provinces. The town is 109 miles north-west of Jabalpur. The
author took charge of the Sagar district in January 1831.

2. _Francolinus vulgaris_.

3. The purveyance system (Persian _rasad rasani_) above described is
one of the necessary evils of Oriental life. It will be observed that
the author, though so keenly sensitive to the abuses attending the
system, proposes no substitute for it, and confesses that the small
attempt he made to check abuse was a failure. From time immemorial it
has been the custom for Government officials in India to be supplied
with necessaries by the people of the country through which their
camps pass. Under native Governments no officials ever dream of
paying for anything. In British territory requisitions are limited,
and in well ordered civil camps nothing is taken without payment
except wood, coarse earthen vessels, and grass. The hereditary
village potter supplies the pots, and this duty is fully recognized
as one attaching to his office. The landholders supply the wood and
grass. None of these things are ordinarily procurable by private
purchase in sufficient quantity, and in most cases could not be
bought at all. Officers commanding troops send in advance
requisitions specifying the quantities of each article needed, and
the indent is met by the civil authorities. Everything so indented
for, including wood and grass, is supposed to be paid for, but in
practice it is often impossible, with the agency available, to ensure
actual payment to the persons entitled. Troops and the people in
civil camps must live, and all that can be done is to check abuse, so
far as possible, by vigilant administration. The obligation of
landholders to supply necessaries for troops and officials on the
march is so well established that it forms one of the conditions of
the contract with Government under which proprietors in the
permanently settled province of Benares hold their lands. The extreme
abuses of which the system is capable under a lax and corrupt native
Government are abundantly illustrated in the author's _Journey
through the Kingdom of Oudh_. 'The System of Purveyance and Forced
Labour' is the subject of article xxv in the Hon. F, J, Shore's
curious book, _Notes on Indian Affairs_ (London, 1837, 2 vols. 8vo).
Many of the abuses denounced by Mr. Shore have been suppressed, but
some, unhappily, still exist, and are likely to continue for many
years.

CHAPTER 8

Religious Sects--Self-government of the Castes--Chimney-sweepers--
Washerwomen[1]--Elephant Drivers.

Mir Salamat Ali, the head native collector of the district, a
venerable old Musalman and most valuable public servant, who has been
labouring in the same vineyard with me for the last fifteen years
with great zeal, ability, and integrity, came to visit me after
breakfast with two very pretty and interesting young sons. While we
were sitting together my wife's under-woman[2] said to some one who
was talking with her outside the tent-door, 'If that were really the
case, should I not be degraded?' 'You see, Mir Sahib',[3] said I,
'that the very lowest members of society among these Hindoos still
feel the pride of caste, and dread exclusion from their own, however
low.'[4]

'Yes', said the Mir, 'they are a very strange kind of people, and I
question whether they ever had a real prophet among them.'

'I question, Mir Sahib, whether they really ever had such a person.
They of course think the incarnations of their three great divinities
were beings infinitely superior to prophets, being in all their
attributes and prerogatives equal to the divinities themselves.[5]
But we are disposed to think that these incarnations were nothing
more than great men whom their flatterers and poets have exalted into
gods--this was the way in which men made their gods in ancient Greece
and Egypt. These great men were generally conquerors whose glory
consisted in the destruction of their fellow creatures; and this is
the glory which their flatterers are most prone to extol. All that
the poets have sung of the actions of men is now received as
revelation from heaven; though nothing can be more monstrous than the
actions attributed to the best incarnation, Krishna, of the best of
their gods, Vishnu.[6]

'No doubt', said Salamat Ali; 'and had they ever had a real prophet
among them he would have revealed better things to them. Strange
people! when their women go on pilgrimages to Gaya, they have their
heads shaved before the image of their god; and the offering of the
hair is equivalent to the offer of their heads;[7] for heads, thank
God, they dare no longer offer within the Company's territories.'

'Do you. Mir Sahib, think that they continue to offer up human
sacrifices anywhere?'

'Certainly I do. There is a Raja at Ratanpur, or somewhere between
Mandla and Sambalpur, who has a man offered up to Devi every year,
and that man must be a Brahman. If he can get a Brahman traveller,
well and good; if not, he and his priests offer one of his own
subjects. Every Brahman that has to pass through this territory goes
in disguise.[8] With what energy did our emperor Aurangzeb apply
himself to put down iniquities like this in the Rajputana states, but
all in vain. If a Raja died, all his numerous wives burnt themselves
with his body--even their servants, male and female, were obliged to
do the same; for, said his friends, what is he to do in the next
world without attendants? The pile was enormous. On the top sat the
queen with the body of the prince; the servants, male and female,
according to their degree, below; and a large army stood all round to
drive into the fire again or kill all who should attempt to
escape.'[9]

'This is all very true, Mir Sahib, but you must admit that, though
there is a great deal of absurdity in their customs and opinions,
there is, on the other hand, much that we might all take an example
from. The Hindoo believes that Christians and Musalmans may be as
good men in all relations of life as himself, and in as fair a way to
heaven as he is; for he believes that my Bible and your Koran are as
much revelations framed by the Deity for our guidance, as the
Shastras are for his. He doubts not that our Christ was the Son of
God, nor that Muhammad was the prophet of God; and all that he asks
from us is to allow him freely to believe in his own gods, and to
worship in his own way. Nor does one caste or sect of Hindoos ever
believe itself to be alone in the right way, or detest any other for
not following in the same path, as they have as much of toleration
for each other as they have for us.[10]

'True,' exclaimed Salamat Ali, 'too true! we have ruined each other;
we have cut each other's throats; we have lost the empire, and we
deserve to lose it. You won it, and you preserved it by your _union_-
-ten men with one heart are equal to a hundred men with different
hearts. A Hindoo may feel himself authorized to take in a Musalman,
and might even think it _meritorious_ to do so; but he would never
think it meritorious to take in one of his own religion. There are no
less than seventy-two sects of Muhammadans; and every one of these
sects would not only take in the followers of every other religion on
earth, but every member of every one of the other seventy-one sects;
and the nearer that sect is to its own, the greater the merit in
taking in its members.'[11]

'Something has happened of late to annoy you, I fear, Mir Sahib?'

'Something happens to annoy us every day, sir, where we are more than
one sect of us together; and wherever you find Musalmans you will
find them divided into sects.'

It is not, perhaps, known to many of my countrymen in India that in
every city and town in the country the right of sweeping the houses
and streets is one of the most intolerable of monopolies, supported
entirely by the pride of caste among the scavengers, who are all of
the lowest class. The right of sweeping within a certain range is
recognized by the caste to belong to a certain member; and, if any
other member presumes to sweep within that range, he is
excommunicated--no other member will smoke out of his pipe, or drink
out of his jug; and he can get restored to caste only by a feast to
the whole body of sweepers. If any housekeeper within a particular
circle happens to offend the sweeper of that range, none of his filth
will be removed till he pacifies him, because no other sweeper will
dare to touch it; and the people of a town are often more tyrannized
over by these people than by any other.[12]

It is worthy of remark that in India the spirit of combination is
always in the inverse ratio to the rank of the class; weakest in the
highest, and strongest in the lowest class. All infringements upon
the rules of the class are punished by fines. Every fine furnishes a
feast at which every member sits and enjoys himself. Payment is
enforced by excommunication--no one of the caste will eat, drink, or
smoke with the convicted till the fine is paid; and, as every one
shares in the fine, every one does his best to enforce payment. The
fines are imposed by the elders, who know the circumstances of the
culprit, and fix the amount accordingly. Washermen will often at a
large station combine to prevent the washermen of one gentleman from
washing the clothes of the servants of any other gentleman, or the
servants of one gentleman from getting their clothes washed by any
other person than their own master's washerman. This enables them
sometimes to raise the rate of washing to double the fair or ordinary
rate; and at such places the washermen are always drunk with one
continued routine of feasts from the fines levied.[13] The cost of
these fees falls ultimately upon the poor servants or their masters.
This combination, however, is not always for bad or selfish purposes.
I was once on the staff of an officer commanding a brigade on
service, whose elephant driver exercised an influence over him that
was often mischievous and sometimes dangerous;[14] for in marching
and choosing his ground, this man was more often consulted than the
quarter-master-general. His bearing was most insolent, and became
intolerable, as well to the European gentlemen as to the people of
his caste.[15] He at last committed himself by saying that he would
spit in the face of another gentleman's elephant driver with whom he
was disputing. All the elephant drivers in our large camp were
immediately assembled, and it was determined in council to refer the
matter to the decision of the Raja of Darbhanga's driver, who was
acknowledged the head of the class. We were all breakfasting with the
brigadier after muster when the reply came-the distance to Darbhanga
from Nathpur on the Kusi river, where we then were, must have been a
hundred and fifty miles.[16] We saw men running in all directions
through the camp, without knowing why, till at last one came and
summoned the brigadier's driver. With a face of terror he came and
implored the protection of the brigadier; who got angry, and fumed a
good deal, but seeing no expression of sympathy on the faces of his
officers, he told the man to go and hear his sentence. He was
escorted to a circle formed by all the drivers in camp, who were
seated on the grass. The offender was taken into the middle of the
circle and commanded to stand on one leg[17] while the Raja's
driver's letter was read. He did so, and the letter directed him to
apologize to the offended party, pay a heavy fine for a feast, and
pledge himself to the offended drivers never to offend again. All the
officers in camp were delighted, and some, who went to hear the
sentence explained, declared that in no court in the world could the
thing have been done with more solemnity and effect. The man's
character was quite altered by it, and he became the most docile of
drivers. On the same principle here stated of enlisting the community
in the punishment of offenders, the New Zealanders, and other savage
tribes who have been fond of human flesh, have generally been found
to confine the feast to the body of those who were put to death for
offences against the state or the individual. I and all the officers
of my regiment were at one time in the habit of making every servant
who required punishment or admonition to bring immediately, and give
to the first religious mendicant we could pick up, the fine we
thought just. All the religionists in the neighbourhood declared that
justice had never been so well administered in any other regiment; no
servant got any sympathy from them--they were all told that their
masters were far too lenient.

We crossed the Hiran river[18] about ten miles from our last ground
on the 22nd,[19] and came on two miles to our tents in a mango grove
close to the town of Katangi,[20] and under the Vindhya range of
sandstone hills, which rise almost perpendicular to the height of
some eight hundred feet over the town. This range from Katangi skirts
the Nerbudda valley to the north, as the Satpura range skirts it to
the south; and both are of the same sandstone formation capped with
basalt upon which here and there are found masses of laterite, or
iron clay. Nothing has ever yet been found reposing upon this iron
clay.[21] The strata of this range have a gentle and almost
imperceptible dip to the north, at right angles to its face which
overlooks the valley, and this face has everywhere the appearance of
a range of gigantic round bastions projecting into what was perhaps a
lake, and is now a well-peopled, well-cultivated, and very happy
valley, about twenty miles wide. The river crosses and recrosses it
diagonally. Near Jubbulpore it flows along for some distance close
under the Satpura range to the south; and crossing over the valley
from Bheraghat, it reaches the Vindhya range to the north, at the
point where it reaches the Hiran river, forty miles below.

Notes:

1. This is a slip, probably due to the printer's reader. There are no
chimney-sweepers in India. The word should be 'sweepers'. The members
of this caste and a few other degraded communities, such as the Doms,
do all the sweeping, scavenging, and conservancy work in India.
'Washerwomen' is another slip: read 'Washermen'.

2. The 'under-woman', or 'second ayah', was a member of the sweeper
caste.

3. The title Mir Sahib implies that Salamat Ali was a Sayyid,
claiming descent from Ali, the cousin, son-in-law, and pupil of
Muhammad, who became Khalif in A.D. 656.

4. The sweeper castes stand outside the Hindoo pale, and often
incline to Muhammadan practices. They worship a special form of the
Deity, under the names of Lal Beg, Lal Guru, &c.

5. No _avatar_ or incarnation of Brahma is known to most Hindoos, and
incarnations of Siva are rarely mentioned. The only _avatars_
ordinarily recognized are those of Vishnu, as enumerated ante.
Chapter 2, note 4.

6. This theory is a very inadequate explanation of the doctrine of
_avatars_.

7. 'Women . . . are most careful to preserve their hair intact. They
pride themselves on its length and weight. For a woman to have to
part with her hair is one of the greatest of degradations, and the
most terrible of all trials. It is the mark of widowhood. Yet in some
sacred places, especially at the confluence of rivers, the cutting
off and offering of a few locks of hair (_Veni-danam_) by a virtuous
wife is considered a highly meritorious act' (Monier Williams,
_Religious Thought and Life in India_, p, 375). Gaya in Bihar, fifty-
five miles south of Patna, is much frequented by pilgrims devoted to
Vishnu.

8. All the places named are in the Central Provinces. Ratanpur, in
the Bilaspur District, is a place of much antiquarian interest, full
of ruins; Mandla, in the Mandla District, was the capital of the
later Gond chiefs of Garha Mandla; and Sambalpur is the capital of
the Sambalpur District. If the story is true, the selection of a
Brahman for sacrifice is remarkable, though not without precedent.
Human sacrifice has prevailed largely in India, and is not yet quite
extinct. In 1891 some Jats in the Muzaffarnagar District of the
United Provinces sacrificed a boy in a very painful manner for some
unascertained magical purpose. It was supposed that the object was to
induce the gods to grant offspring to a childless woman. Other
similar cases have occurred in recent years. One occurred close to
Calcutta in 1892. In the hill tracts of Orissa bordering on the
Central Provinces the rite of human sacrifice was practised by the
Khonds on an awful scale, and with horrid cruelty, It was suppressed
by the special efforts of Macpherson, Campbell, MacViccar, and other
officers, between the years 1837 and 1854. Daring that period the
British officers rescued 1,506 victims intended for sacrifice
(_Narrative of Major-General John Campbell, C.B., of his Operations
in the Hill Tracts of Orissa for the Suppression of Human Sacrifices
and Female Infanticide_. Printed for private circulation. London:
Hurst and Blackett, 1861). The rite, when practised by Hindoos, may
have been borrowed from some of the aboriginal races. The practice,
however, has been so general throughout the world that few peoples
can claim the honour of freedom from the stain of adopting it at one
time or another, Much curious information on the subject, and many
modern instances of human sacrifices in India, are collected in the
article 'Sacrifice' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd edition,
1885. Major S. C. Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_ (1865),
and Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 3rd edition, Part V, vol. i (1912), pp.
236 seq., may also be consulted.