Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 28

Among the Muhammadan princes there was no law that bound the whole members of a family to obey the eldest son of a deceased prince.

Every son of the Emperor of Hindustan considered that he had a right to set up his claim to the throne, vacated by the death of his father; and, in antic.i.p.ation of that death, to strengthen his claim by negotiations and intrigues with all the territorial chiefs and influential n.o.bles of the empire. However _prejudicial to the interests_ of his elder brother such measures might be, they were never considered to be an _invasion of his rights_, because such rights had never been established by the laws of their prophet. As all the sons considered that they had an equal right to solicit the support of the chiefs and n.o.bles, so all the chiefs and n.o.bles considered that they could adopt the cause of whichever _son_ they chose, without incurring the reproach of either _treason_ or dishonour. The one who succeeded thought himself justified by the law of self-preservation to put, not only his brothers, but all their sons, to death; so that there was, after every new succession, an entire _clearance_ of all the male members of the imperial family.

Aurangzeb said to his pedantic tutor, who wished to be raised to high station on his accession to the imperial throne, 'Should not you, instead of your flattery, have taught me something of that point so important to a king, which is, what are the reciprocal duties of a sovereign to his subjects, and those of the subjects to their sovereign? And ought not you to have considered that one day I should be obliged, with the sword, to dispute my life and the crown with my brothers? Is not that the destiny, almost of all the sons of Hindustan?'[6] Now that they have become pensioners of the British Government, the members increase like white ants; and, as Malthus has it, 'press so hard against their means of subsistence' that a great many of them are absolutely starving, in spite of the enormous pension the head of the family receives for their maintenance.[7]

The city of Datiya is surrounded by a stone wall about thirty feet high, with its foundation on a solid rock; but it has no ditch or glacis, and is capable of little or no defence against cannon. In the afternoon I went, accompanied by Lieutenant Thomas, and followed by the best _cortege_ we could muster, to return the Raja's visit. He resides within the walls of the city in a large square garden, enclosed with a high wall, and filled with fine orange-trees, at this time bending under the weight of the most delicious fruit. The old chief received us at the bottom of a fine flight of steps leading up to a handsome pavilion, built upon the wall of one of the faces of this garden. It was enclosed at the back, and in front looked into the garden through open arcades. The floors were spread with handsome carpets of the Jhansi manufacture. In front of the pavilion was a wide terrace of polished stone, extending to the top of the flight of the steps; and, in the centre of this terrace, and directly opposite to us as we looked into the garden, was a fine _jet d'eau_ in a large basin of water in full play, and, with its shower of diamonds, showing off the rich green and red of the orange-trees to the best advantage.

The large quadrangle thus occupied is called the 'kila', or fort, and the wall that surrounds it is thirty feet high, with a round embattled tower at each corner. On the east face is a fine large gateway for the entrance, with a curtain as high as the wall itself.

Inside the gate is a piece of ordnance painted red, with the largest calibre I ever saw.[8] This is fired once a year, at the festival of the Dasahra.[9]

Our arrival at the wall was announced by a salute from some fine bra.s.s guns upon the bastions near the gateway. As we advanced from the gateway up through the garden to the pavilion, we were again serenaded by our friends with their guitars and excellent voices.

They were now on foot, and arranged along both sides of the walk that we had to pa.s.s through. The open garden s.p.a.ce within the walls appeared to me to be about ten acres. It is crossed and recrossed at right angles by numerous walks, having rows of plantain and other fruit trees on each side; and orange, pomegranate, and other small fruit trees to fill the s.p.a.ce between; and anything more rich and luxuriant one can hardly conceive. In the centre of the north and west sides are pavilions with apartments for the family above, behind, and on each side of the great reception room, exactly similar to that in which we were received on the south face. The whole formed, I think, the most delightful residence that I have seen for a hot climate. There is, however, no doubt that the most healthy stations in this, and every other hot climate, are those situated upon dry, open, sandy plains, with neither shrubberies nor basins.[10]

We were introduced to the young Raja, the old man's adopted son, a lad of about ten years of age, who is to be married in February next.

He is plain in person, but has a pleasing expression of countenance; and, if he be moulded after the old man, and not after his minister, the country may perhaps have in him the 'lucky accident' of a good governor.[11] I have rarely seen a finer or more prepossessing man than the Raja, and all his subjects speak well of him. We had an elephant, a horse, abundance of shawls, and other fine clothes placed before us as presents; but I prayed the old gentleman to keep them all for me till I returned, as I was a mere voyageur without the means of carrying such valuable things in safety; but he would not be satisfied till I had taken two plain hilts of swords and spears, the manufacture of Datiya, and of little value, which Lieutenant Thomas and I promised to keep for his sake. The rest of the presents were all taken back to their places. After an hour's talk with the old man and his ministers, attar of roses and pan were distributed, and we took our leave to go and visit the old palace, which as yet we had seen only from a distance. There were only two men besides the Raja, his son, and ourselves, seated upon chairs. All the other princ.i.p.al persons of the court sat around cross-legged on the carpet; but they joined freely in the conversation, I was told by these courtiers how often the young chief had, during the day, asked when he could have the happiness of seeing me; and the old chief was told, in my hearing, how many _good things_ I had said since I came into his territories, all tending to his honour and my credit. This is a species of barefaced flattery to which we are all doomed to submit in our intercourse with these native chiefs; but still, to a man of sense, it never ceases to be distressing and offensive; for he can hardly ever help feeling that they must think him a mere child before they could venture to treat him with it. This is, however, to put too harsh a construction upon what in reality, the people mean only as civility; and they, who can so easily consider the grandfathers of their chiefs as G.o.ds, and wors.h.i.+p them as such, may be suffered to treat _us_ as heroes and sayers of good things without offence.[12]

We ascended to the summit of the old palace, and were well repaid for the trouble by the view of an extremely rich sheet of wheat, gram, and other spring crops, extending to the north and east, as far as the eye could reach, from the dark belt of forest, three miles deep, with which the Raja has surrounded his capital on every side as hunting grounds. The lands comprised in this forest are, for the most part, exceedingly poor, and water for irrigation is unattainable within them, so that little is lost by this taste of the chief for the sports of the field, in which, however, he cannot himself now indulge.

On the 19th[13] we left Datiya, and, after emerging from the surrounding forest, came over a fine plain covered with rich spring crops for ten miles, till we entered among the ravines of the river Sindh, whose banks are, like those of all rivers in this part of India, bordered to a great distance by these deep and ugly inequalities. Here they are almost without gra.s.s or shrubs to clothe their hideous nakedness, and have been formed by the torrents, which, in the season of the rains, rush from the extensive plain, as from a wide ocean, down to the deep channel of the river in narrow streams.

These streams cut their way easily through the soft alluvial soil, which must once have formed the bed of a vast lake.[14] On coming through the forest, before sunrise we discovered our error of the day before, for we found excellent deer-shooting in the long gra.s.s and brushwood, which grow luxuriantly at some distance from the city. Had we come out a couple of miles the day before, we might have had n.o.ble sport, and really required the _forbearance and humanity_ to which we had so magnanimously resolved to sacrifice our 'pride of art' as sportsmen; for we saw many herds of the nilgai, antelope, and spotted deer,[15] browsing within a few paces of us, within the long gra.s.s and brushwood on both sides of the road. We could not stay, however, to indulge in much sport, having a long march before us.

Notes:

1. Some readers may be shocked at the notion of the author shooting pig, but, in Bundelkhand, where pig-sticking, or hog-hunting, as the older writers call it, is not practised, hog-shooting is quite legitimate.

2. The common antelope, or black buck (_Antilope bezoartica_, or _cervicapra_) feed in herds, sometimes numbering many hundreds, in the open plains, especially those of black soil. Men armed with matchlocks can scarcely get a shot except by adopting artifices similar to those described in the text.

3. Sixteen species of hawks, belonging to several genera, are trained in India. They are often fed by being allowed to suck the blood from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of live pigeons, and their eyes are darkened by means of a silken thread pa.s.sed through holes in the eyelids. 'Hawking is a very dull and very cruel sport. A person must become insensible to the sufferings of the most beautiful and most inoffensive of the brute creation before he can feel any enjoyment in it. The cruelty lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the hawks' (_Journey through the Kingdom of Oude_, vol. i, p, 109). Asoka forbade the practice by the words: 'The living must not be fed with the living' (Pillar Edict V, _c._ 243 B.C., in V. A. Smith, _Asoka_, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 188).

4. The wording of this sentence is unfortunate, and it is not easy to understand why the author mentioned Bhopal. The princ.i.p.ality of Bhopal was formed by Dost Mohammed Khan, an Afghan officer of Aurangzeb, who became independent a few years after that sovereign's death in 1707. Since that time the dynasty has always continued to be Muhammadan. The services of Sikandar Begam in the Mutiny are well known. Malwa is the country lying between Bundelkhand, on the east, and Rajputana, on the west, and includes Bhopal. Most of the states in this region are now ruled by Hindoos, but the local dynasty which ruled the kingdom of Malwa and Mandu from A.D. 1401 to 1531 was Musalman. (See Thomas, _Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Dehli_, pp.

346-53.)

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, ent.i.tled _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 relations.h.i.+p 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 Bij.a.pur, 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 wors.h.i.+pped by Hindoos, who are always ready to wors.h.i.+p every manifestation of power. Another big gun at Bij.a.pur 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, Bij.a.pur, 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 cla.s.ses of Hindus, but especially by Rajas and the military cla.s.ses, 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 wors.h.i.+p the weapons which they hope to use during the coming season. Among the Marathas the ordnance received especial attention and wors.h.i.+p. The ceremony of wors.h.i.+pping 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 princ.i.p.ality. The old chief found him one day lying in the gra.s.s, 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 n.o.bles 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 G.o.d'. 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 cla.s.s 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 const.i.tuted authorities of government.

Such a marauder has generally the sympathy of nearly all the members of his own cla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed through the province in December. His lords.h.i.+p 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 cla.s.ses, 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, s.h.i.+elds, 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.s, 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 cla.s.s 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 s.e.x 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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]