The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume II Part 11

The cultivators rarely get fair treatment from the Banias, as the odds are too much against them. They must have money to sow their land, and live while the crops are growing, and the majority who have no capital are at the moneylender's mercy. He is of a different caste, and often of a different country, and has no fellow-feeling towards them, and therefore considers the transaction merely from the business point of view of getting as much profit as possible. The debtors are illiterate, often not even understanding the meaning of figures, or the result of paying compound interest at twenty-five or fifty per cent; they can neither keep accounts themselves nor check their creditor's. Hence they are entirely in his hands, and in the end their villages or land, if saleable, pa.s.s to him, and they decline from landlord to tenant, or from tenant to labourer. They have found vent for their feelings in some of the bitterest sayings ever current: 'A man who has a Bania for a friend has no need of an enemy.' 'Borrow from a Bania and you are as good as ruined.' 'The rogue cheats strangers and the Bania cheats his friends.' 'Kick a Bania even if he is dead.' "His heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he goes in like a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbour he is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Bania is on the other side of a river you should leave your bundle on this side for fear he should steal it. If a Bania is drowning you should not give him your hand; he is sure to have some pecuniary motive for drifting down-stream. A Bania will start an auction in a desert. If a Bania's son tumbles down he is sure to pick up something. He uses light weights and swears that the scales tip up of themselves; he keeps his accounts in a character that no one but G.o.d can read; if you borrow from him your debt mounts up like a refuse-heap or gallops like a horse; if he talks to a customer he debits the conversation in his accounts; and when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on the wall so that they can easily be rubbed out." [131]

20. His virtues.

Nevertheless there is a good deal to be said on the other side, and the Bania's faults are probably to a large extent produced by his environment, like other people's. One of the Bania's virtues is that he will lend on security which neither the Government nor the banks would look at, or on none at all. Then he will always wait a long time for his money, especially if the interest is paid. No doubt this is no loss to him, as he keeps his money out at good interest; but it is a great convenience to a client that his debt can be postponed in a bad year, and that he can pay as much as he likes in a good one. The village moneylender is indispensable to its economy when the tenants are like school-boys in that money burns a hole in their pocket; and Sir Denzil Ibbetson states that it is surprising how much reasonableness and honesty there is in his dealings with the people, so long as he can keep his transactions out of a court of justice. [132] Similarly, Sir Reginald Craddock writes: "The village Bania is a much-abused individual, but he is as a rule a quiet, peaceable man, a necessary factor in the village economy. He is generally most forbearing with his clients and customers, and is not the person most responsible for the indebtedness of the ryot. It is the casual moneylender with little or no capital who lives by his wits, or the large firms with shops and agents scattered over the face of the country who work the serious mischief. These latter encourage the people to take loans and discourage repayment until the debt has increased by acc.u.mulation of interest to a sum from which the borrower cannot easily free himself." [133]

21. The moneylender changed for the worse.

The progress of administration, bringing with it easy and safe transit all over the country; the inst.i.tution of a complete system of civil justice and the stringent enforcement of contracts through the courts; the introduction of cash coinage as the basis of all transactions; and the grant of proprietary and transferable rights in land, appear to have at the same time enhanced the Bania's prosperity and increased the harshness and rapacity of his dealings. When the moneylender lived in the village he had an interest in the solvency of the tenants who const.i.tuted his clientele and was also amenable to public opinion, even though not of his own caste. For it would clearly be an impossibly unpleasant position for him to meet no one but bitter enemies whenever he set foot outside his house, and to go to bed in nightly fear of being dacoited and murdered by a combination of his next-door neighbours. He therefore probably adopted the motto of live and let live, and conducted his transactions on a basis of custom, like the other traders and artisans who lived among the village community. But with the rise of the large banking-houses whose dealings are conducted through agents over considerable tracts of country, public opinion can no longer act. The agent looks mainly to his princ.i.p.al, and the latter has no interest in or regard for the cultivators of distant villages. He cares only for his profit, and his business is conducted with a single view to that end. He himself has no public opinion to face, as he lives in a town among a community of his caste-fellows, and here absolutely no discredit is attached to grinding the faces of the poor, but on the contrary the honour and consideration accruing to him are in direct proportion to his wealth. The agent may have some compunction, but his first aim is to please his princ.i.p.al, and as he is often a sojourner liable to early transfer he cares little what may be said or thought about him locally.

22. The enforcement of contracts.

Again the introduction of the English law of contract and transfer of property, and the increase in the habit of litigation have greatly altered the character of the money-lending business for the worse. The debtor signs a bond sometimes not even knowing the conditions, more often having heard them but without any clear idea of their effect or of the consequences to himself, and as readily allows it to be registered. When it comes into court the witnesses, who are the moneylender's creatures, easily prove that it was a genuine and _bona fide_ transaction, and the debtor is too ignorant and stupid to be able to show that he did not understand the bargain or that it was unconscionable. In any case the court has little or no power to go behind a properly executed contract without any actual evidence of fraud, and has no option but to decree it in terms of the deed. This evil is likely to be remedied very shortly, as the Government of India have announced a proposal to introduce the recent English Act and allow the courts the discretion to go behind contracts, and to refuse to decree exorbitant interest or other hard bargains. This urgently needed reform will, it may be hoped, greatly improve the character of the civil administration by encouraging the courts to realise that it is their business to do justice between litigants, and not merely to administer the letter of the law; and at the same time it should have the result, as in England, of quickening the public conscience and that of the moneylenders themselves, which has indeed already been to some extent awakened by other Government measures, including the example set by the Government itself as a creditor.

23. Cash coinage and the rate of interest.

Again the free circulation of metal currency and its adoption as a medium for all transactions has. .h.i.therto been to the disadvantage of the debtors. Interest on money was probably little in vogue among pastoral peoples, and was looked upon with disfavour, being prohibited by both the Mosaic and Muhammadan codes. The reason was perhaps that in a pastoral community there existed no means of making a profit on a loan by which interest could be paid, and hence the result of usury was that the debtor ultimately became enslaved to his creditor; and the enslavement of freemen on any considerable scale was against the public interest. With the introduction of agriculture a system of loans on interest became a necessary and useful part of the public economy, as a cultivator could borrow grain to sow land and support himself and his family until the crop ripened, out of which the loan, princ.i.p.al and interest, could be repaid. If, as seems likely, this was the first occasion for the introduction of the system of loan-giving on a large scale, it would follow that the rate of interest would be based largely on the return yielded by the earth to the seed. Support is afforded to this conjecture by the fact that in the case of grain loans in the Central Provinces the interest on loans of grain of the crops which yield a comparatively small return, such as wheat, is twenty-five to fifty per cent, while in the case of those which yield a large return, such as juari and kodon, it is one hundred per cent. These high rates of interest were not of much importance so long as the transaction was in grain. The grain was much less valuable at harvest than at seed time, and in addition the lender had the expense of storing and protecting his stock of grain through the year. It is probable that a rate of twenty-five per cent on grain loans does not yield more than a reasonable profit to the lender. But when in recent times cash came to be subst.i.tuted for grain it would appear that there was no proportionate reduction in the interest. The borrower would lose by having to sell his grain for the payment of his debt at the most unfavourable rate after harvest, and since the transaction was by a regular deed the lender no longer took any share of the risk of a bad harvest, as it is probable that he was formerly accustomed to do. The rates of interest for cash loans afforded a disproportionate profit to the lender, who was put to no substantial expense in keeping money as he had formerly been in the case of grain. It is thus probable that rates for cash loans were for a considerable period unduly severe in proportion to the risk, and involved unmerited loss to the borrower. This is now being remedied by compet.i.tion, by Government loans given on a large scale in time of scarcity, and by the introduction of co-operative credit. But it has probably contributed to expedite the transfer of land from the cultivating to the moneylending cla.s.ses.

24. Proprietary and transferable rights in land.

Lastly the grant of proprietary and transferable right to land has afforded a new incentive and reward to the successful moneylender. Prior to this measure it is probable that no considerable transfers of land occurred for ordinary debt. The village headman might be ousted for non-payment of revenue, or simply through the greed of some Government official under native rule, and of course the villages were continually pillaged and plundered by their own and hostile armies such as the Pindaris, while the population was periodically decimated by famine. But apart from their losses by famine, war and the badness of the central government, it is probable that the cultivators were held to have a hereditary right to their land, and were not liable to ejectment on the suit of any private person. It is doubtful whether they had any conception of owners.h.i.+p of the land, and it seems likely that they may have thought of it as a G.o.d or the property of the G.o.d; but the cultivating castes perhaps had a hereditary right to cultivate it, just as the Chamar had a prescriptive right to the hides of the village cattle, the Kalar to the mahua-flowers for making his liquor, the k.u.mhar to clay for his pots, and the Teli to press the oil-seeds grown in his village. The inferior castes were not allowed to hold land, and it was probably never imagined that the village moneylender should by means of a piece of stamped paper be able to oust the cultivators indebted to him and take their land himself. With the grant of proprietary right to land such as existed in England, and the application of the English law of contract and transfer of property, a new and easy road to wealth was opened to the moneylender, of which he was not slow to take advantage. The Banias have thus ousted numbers of improvident proprietors of the cultivating castes, and many of them have become large landlords. A considerable degree of protection has now been afforded to landowners and cultivators, and the process has been checked, but that it should have proceeded so far is regrettable; and the operation of the law has been responsible for a large amount of unintentional injustice to the cultivating castes and especially to proprietors of aboriginal descent, who on account of their extreme ignorance and improvidence most readily fall a prey to the moneylender.

25. The Bania as a landlord.

As landlords the Banias were not at first a success. They did not care to spend money in improving their property, and ground their tenants to the utmost. Sir R. Craddock remarks of them: [134] "Great or small they are absolutely unfitted by their natural instincts to be landlords. Shrewdest of traders, most business-like in the matter of bargains, they are unable to take a broad view of the duties of landlord or to see that rack-renting will not pay in the long run."

Still, under the influence of education, and the growth of moral feeling, as well as the desire to stand well with Government officers and to obtain recognition in the shape of some honour, many of the Marwari proprietors are developing into just and progressive landlords. But from the cultivator's point of view, residence on their estates, which are managed by agents in charge of a number of villages for an absent owner, cannot compare with the system of the small cultivating proprietor resident among tenants of his own caste, and bound to them by ties of sympathy and caste feeling, which produces, as described by Sir R. Craddock, the ideal village.

26. Commercial honesty.

As a trader the Bania formerly had a high standard of commercial probity. Even though he might show little kindliness or honesty in dealing with the poorer cla.s.s of borrowers, he was respected and absolutely reliable in regard to money. It was not unusual for people to place their money in a rich Bania's hands without interest, even paying him a small sum for safe-keeping. Bankruptcy was considered disgraceful, and was visited with social penalties little less severe than those enforced for breaches of caste rules. There was a firm belief that a merchant's condition in the next world depended on the discharge of all claims against him. And the duty of paying ancestral debts was evaded only in the case of helpless or hopeless poverty. Of late, partly owing to the waning power of caste and religious feeling in the matter, and partly to the knowledge of the bankruptcy laws, the standard of commercial honour has greatly fallen. Since the case of bankruptcy is governed and arranged for by law, the trader thinks that so long as he can keep within the law he has done nothing wrong. A banker, when heavily involved, seldom scruples to become a bankrupt and to keep back money enough to enable him to start afresh, even if he does nothing worse. This, however, is probably a transitory phase, and the same thing has happened in England and America at one stage of commercial development. In time it may be expected that the loss of the old religious and caste feeling will be made good by a new standard of commercial honour enforced by public opinion among merchants generally. The Banias are very good to their own caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and provide funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars are very rare in the caste. Rich Marwaris are extremely generous in their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that the small Bania is not very charitably inclined, though he doles out handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system by which he exacts from those who deal with him a slight percentage on the price received by them for religious purposes. This is called Deodan or a gift to G.o.d, and is supposed to go into some public fund for the construction or maintenance of a temple or similar object. In the absence of proper supervision or audit it is to be feared that the Bania inclines to make use of it for his private charity, thus saving himself expense on that score. The system has been investigated by Mr. Napier, Commissioner of Jubbulpore, with a view to the application of these funds to public improvements.

Bania, Agarwala

_Bania, Agarwala, Agarwal._--This is generally considered to be the highest and most important subdivision of the Banias. They numbered about 25,000 persons in the Central Provinces in 1911, being princ.i.p.ally found in Jubbulpore and Nagpur. The name is probably derived from Agroha, a small town in the Hissar District of the Punjab, which was formerly of some commercial importance. Buchanan records that when any firm failed in the city each of the others contributed a brick and five rupees, which formed a stock sufficient for the merchant to recommence trade with advantage. The Agarwalas trace their descent from a Raja Agar Sen, whose seventeen sons married the seventeen daughters of Basuki, the king of the Nagas or snakes. Elliot considers that the snakes were really the Scythian or barbarian immigrants, the Yueh-chi or Kushans, from whom several of the Rajpat clans as the Tak, Haihayas and others, who also have the legend of snake ancestry, were probably derived. Elliot also remarks that Raja Agar Sen, being a king, must have been a Kshatriya, and thus according to the legend the Agarwalas would have Rajput ancestry on both sides. Their appearance, Mr. Crooke states, indicates good race and breeding, and would lend colour to the theory of a Rajput origin. Raja Agar Sen is said to have ruled over both Agra and Agroha, and it seems possible that the name of the Agarwalas may also be connected with Agra, which is a much more important place than Agroha. The country round Agra and Delhi is their home, and the shrine of the tutelary G.o.ddess of some of the Agarwalas in the Central Provinces is near Delhi. The memory of the Naga princess who was their ancestor is still, Sir H. Risley states, held in honour by the Agarwalas, and they say, 'Our mother's house is of the race of the snake.' [135] No Agarwala, whether Hindu or Jain, will kill or molest a snake, and the Vaishnava Agarwalas of Delhi paint pictures of snakes on either side of the outside doors of their houses, and make offerings of fruit and flowers before them.

In the Central Provinces, like other Bania subcastes, they are divided into the Bisa and Dasa or twenty and ten subdivisions, which marry among themselves. The Bisa rank higher than the Dasa, the latter being considered to have some flaw in their pedigree, such as descent from a remarried widow. The Dasas are sometimes said to be the descendants of the maidservants who accompanied the seventeen Naga or snake princesses on their marriages to the sons of Raja Agar Sen. A third division has now come into existence in the Central Provinces, known as the Pacha or fives; these are apparently of still more doubtful origin than the Dasas. The divisions tend to be endogamous, but if a man of the Bisa or Dasa cannot obtain a wife from his own group he will sometimes marry in a lower group.

The Agarwalas are divided into seventeen and a half _gotras_ or exogamous sections, which are supposed to be descended from the seventeen sons of Raja Agar Sen. The extra half _gotra_ is accounted for by a legend, but it probably has in reality also something to do with illegitimate descent. Some of the _gotras_, as given by Mr. Crooke, are as a matter of fact named after Brahmanical saints like those of the Brahmans; instances of these are Garga, Gautama, Kaus.h.i.+ka, Kasyapa and Vasishtha; the others appear to be territorial or t.i.tular names. The prohibitions on marriage between relations are far-reaching among the Agarwalas. The detailed rules are given in the article on Bania, and the effect is that persons descended from a common ancestor cannot intermarry for five generations. When the wedding procession is about to start the k.u.mhar brings his donkey and the bridegroom has to touch it with his foot, or, according to one version, ride upon it. The origin of this custom is obscure, but the people now say that it is meant to emphasise the fact that the bridegroom is going to do a foolish thing. The remarriage of widows is prohibited, and divorce is not recognised. Most of the Agarwalas are Vaishnava by religion, but a few are Jains. Intermarriage between members of the two religions is permitted in some localities, and the wife adopts that of her husband. The Jain Agarwalas observe the Hindu festivals and employ Brahmans for their ceremonies. In Nimar the caste have some curious taboos. It is said that a married woman may not eat wheat until a child has been born to her, but only juari; and if she has no child she may not eat wheat all her life. If a son is born to her she must go to Mahaur, a village near Delhi where the tutelary G.o.ddess of the caste has her shrine. This G.o.ddess is called Mohna Devi, and she is the deified spirit of a woman who burnt herself with her husband. After this the woman may eat wheat; but if a second son is born she must stop eating wheat until she has been to the shrine again. But if she has a daughter she may at once and always eat wheat without visiting the shrine. These rules, as well as the veneration of a snake, from which they believe themselves to be descended on the mother's side, may perhaps, as suggested by Sir H. Risley, be a relic of the system of matriarchal descent. It is said that when Raja Agar Sen or his sons married the Naga princesses, he obtained permission as a special favour from the G.o.ddess Lakshmi that the children should bear their father's name and not their mother's. [136]

In Nimar some Agarwalas wors.h.i.+p Goba Pir, the G.o.d of the sweepers. He is represented by a pole some 30 feet long on which are hung a cloth and cocoanuts. The sweepers carry this through the city almost daily during the month of Shrawan (July), and people offer cocoanuts, tying them on to the pole. Some Agarwalas offer vermilion to the G.o.d in token of wors.h.i.+p, and a few invite it to the compounds of their houses and keep it there all night for the same purpose. When a feast is given in the caste the Agarwalas do not take their own bra.s.s vessels according to the usual practice, but the host gives them little earthen pots to drink from which are afterwards broken, and leaf-plates for their food. The Agarwalas will take food cooked without water (_pakki_) from Oswal, Maheshri and Khandelwal Banias. The Agarwalas of the Central Provinces hold some substantial estates in Chhattisgarh; these were obtained at the first settlements during 1860-70, when considerable depression existed, and many of the village headmen were unwilling to accept the revenue a.s.sessed on their villages. The more enterprising Banias stepped in and took them, and have profited enormously owing to the increase in the value of land. Akbar's great minister, Todar Mal, who first introduced an a.s.sessment of the land-revenue based on the measurement and survey of the land, is said to have been an Agarwala.

Bania, Agrahari

_Bania, Agrahari._ [137]--This subcaste numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, resident princ.i.p.ally in Jubbulpore, Raipur and Bilaspur, and some of the Feudatory States. Mr. Crooke states that they claim partly a Vaishya and partly a Brahmanical descent, and wear the sacred thread. Like that of the Agarwala Banias their name has been connected with the cities of Agra and Agroha. There is no doubt that they are closely connected with the Agarwalas, and Mr. Nesfield suggests that the two groups must have been sections of one and the same caste which quarrelled on some trifling matter connected with cooking or eating, and have remained separate ever since. The Agrahari Banias are Hindus, and some of them belong to the Nanakpanthi sect. They are princ.i.p.ally dealers in provisions, and they have acquired some discredit as compared with their kinsfolk the Agarwalas, through not secluding their women and allowing them to attend the shop. They also retail various sweet-smelling woods which are used in religious ceremonies, such as aloe-wood and sandalwood, besides a number of medicines and simples. The richer members of the caste are bankers, dealers in grain and p.a.w.nbrokers.

Bania, Ajudhiabasi

_Bania, Ajudhiabasi, Audhia_.--A subcaste of Bania, whose name signifies a resident of Ajodhia, the old name of Oudh. Outsiders often shorten the name to Audhia, but, as will be seen, the name Audhia is regularly applied to a criminal cla.s.s, who may have been derived from the Ajudhiabasi Banias, but are now quite distinct from them. The Ajudhiabasis numbered nearly 2000 persons in 1911, belonging chiefly to the Jubbulpore, Narsinghpur and Hoshangabad Districts. This total includes any persons who may have returned themselves as Audhia. The Ajudhiabasis are nearly all Hindus with a small Jain minority. Though Oudh was their original home they are now fairly numerous in Cawnpore and Bundelkhand as well, and it may have been from this last locality that they entered the Central Provinces. Here they form a separate endogamous group and do not marry with their caste-fellows in northern India. They have exogamous sections, and marriage is prohibited within the section and also between first cousins. They permit the remarriage of widows, but are said not to recognise divorce, and to expel from the caste a woman guilty of adultery. It may be doubted, however, whether this is correct. Brahmans serve as their priests, and they invest boys with the sacred thread either at marriage or at a special ceremony known as Gurmukh. The dead are either buried or burnt; in the case of burial men are laid on the face and women on the back, the body being first rubbed with salt, clarified b.u.t.ter, turmeric and milk. A little earth from the grave is carried away and thrown into a sacred river, and when the dead are burnt the ashes are similarly disposed of. Their princ.i.p.al deity is the G.o.ddess Devi, and at the Dasahra festival they offer a goat to her, the flesh of which is distributed among members of the caste.

The Audhias are a well-known criminal tribe, whose headquarters is in the Fatehpur District. They say that they are Banias, and use the name Ajudhiabasi in speaking of themselves, and from their customs and criminal methods it seems not unlikely that they may originally have been an offshoot from the Ajudhiabasi Banias. They are now, however, perfectly distinct from this group, and any confusion between them would be very unjust to the latter. In northern India it is said that the Audhias deal largely in counterfeit coin and false jewellery, and never commit crimes of violence; [138] but in Bombay they have taken to housebreaking, though they usually select an empty house. [139]

From their homes in the United Provinces they wander over Central India, the Central Provinces, Bengal and Bombay; they are said to avoid the Punjab and Sind owing to difficulties of working, and they have made it a caste offence to commit any crime in the Ganges-Jumna Doab, probably because this is their home. It is said also that if any one of them is imprisoned he is put out of caste. They wander about disguised as religious mendicants, Brahmans or Bairagis. They carry their bedding tied on their back with a cloth, and a large bag slung over the shoulders which contains food, cooking-vessels and other articles. Sometimes they pretend to be Banias and hawk about sweets and groceries, or one of the gang opens a shop, which serves as a rendezvous and centre for collecting information. [140] In the Districts where they reside they are perfectly well-behaved. They are well-to-do and to all appearance respectable in their habits. Their women are well-dressed with plenty of ornaments on their persons. They have no apparent means of support; they neither cultivate land nor trade; and all that appears on the surface is that most of the men and boys go off after the rains and return at the end of the cold weather. If asked how they support themselves they reply by begging. Their marriage rules are those of high-caste Hindus. They are divided into two cla.s.ses, Unch or high and Nich or low, the former being of pure blood, and the latter the descendants of kept women. These are practically endogamous. A man may not have more than two wives. If a girl is detected in immorality before marriage, she is permanently excommunicated, and a married woman can be turned out by her husband on proof of adultery. A bridegroom-price is usually paid, the father of the bride visiting the bridegroom and giving him the money in secret. The dead are burnt, and Brahmans are duly fed. If a man has died through an accident or from cholera, smallpox, poison or leprosy, the corpse, if available, is at once consigned to the Ganges or other river, and during the course of the next twelve months a Mahabrahman is paid to make an image of the deceased in gram-flour, which is cremated with the usual rites. As in the case of the Ajudhiabasi Banias, the tribal deity of the Audhias is the G.o.ddess Devi. [141]

Bania, Asathi

_Bania, Asathi._--This subcaste numbers about 2500 persons in the Central Provinces, belonging princ.i.p.ally to the Damoh and Jubbulpore Districts. They say that their original home was the Tikamgarh State in Bundelkhand. They do not rank very high, and are sometimes said to be the descendants of an Ahir who became a Bania. The great bulk are Hindus and a small minority Jains. It is told of the Asathis that they first bury their dead, in accordance presumably with a former practice, and then exhume and burn the bodies; and there is a saying--

Ardha jale, ardha gare Jinka nam Asathi pare,

or, 'He who is an Asathi is half buried and half burnt.' But this practice, if it ever really existed, has now been abandoned.

Bania, Charnagri