The North-western provinces of India, their history, ethnology, and administration

Preface

HIS book is an attempt to tell the story of one of the greatest of our Indian Provinces from the social point of view. If some space has been given to the geography of the country, it has been intended to explain the environment of the people. The sketch of the history up to the establishment of our rule has been written with the same object. I have then endeavoured to discuss briefly some of the chief social problems which the Government has attempted to solve — the repression of crime, the crusade against filth and disease, the relief of famine, of the depressed classes, the development of agriculture and trade.

This is followed by an account of the people themselves, largely based on information collected in the course of the Ethnographical Survey of the Province, which has been recently completed under my superintendence. I have tried to describe briefly the more interesting tribes, and to show what are the religious beliefs of the peasantry. This is a subject which I have dealt with more fully from the standpoint of Folklore in another book. Lastly, I have described how the revenue is “ settled ” and collected, how the peasant is protected from extortion, how he farms the land and makes his living.

I have used throughout information stored in a mass of v

PREFACE

Blue Books — Census, Settlement, and Administrative Reports, a body of literature practically beyond the ken of English readers ; and I have largely used information derived from Sir W. W. Hunter’s Imperial Gazetteer, and those of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh prepared under the orders of the Local Government. For access to many of these, I have to thank the authorities of the India Office Library.

For the illustrations I am indebted to Mr J. O’Neal and Sergeant Wallace, R.E., of the Rurki College.

Since this book has been in type the true site of Kapilavastu, the birth-place of the Buddha (p. 66), has been discovered by Dr Fiihrer, in the Nepal Tarai.

vi

Chapter I Page

The name of the Province now unsuitable — the scene of important historical events — its extent — the river basins — the boundaries — readjustment of its frontiers — compared with Egypt — its great divisions — the climate of tropical intensity — the Himalayan tract — its productions, people, and scenery — the Siwalik range — the Dehra Dun valley — the Tarai and Bhabar — the Vindhyan and Kaimfir ranges — the character and scenery of the southern hills — the great Plain, its character and scenery — the great rivers — the Khadir and the Bangar — the ravine country — the Duab, its appearance and scenery — the seasons — the teeming village life — the sterile tracts — the Usar plains — reserves for fuel and fodder — destruction of trees — the forests — the sugar-cane crop — the rice — the groves — the tanks — the lakes — the flora — the fauna — large game : the tiger, the leopard, the wolf — snakes — the black buck, other deer — the soils — the climate — fever — storms . , 1-57

Chapter II The Province Under Hindu And Musalman Rule

The Aryan colonisation — the Dasyus — the origin of the Hindu polity and of caste — the triumph of Brahmanism — the conversion of the Dravidian races —the reformed Brahmanism — the two great epics — the rise of Buddhism — Asoka — Megasthenes — the influence of Greece — the Indo-Skythian invasions— the Gupta dynasty — the downfall of Buddhism — the Chinese pilgrims — the beginnings of Jainism — the uprising of the servile races — condition of things in the seventh century — first inroads of the Musalmans — the kingdoms of Delhi, Kanauj, and Mahoba— Shihab-ud-din — the architecture of the Hindus — Mahmfid of Ghazni — Marco Polo — the movement of the Rajputs to the east — the Slave dynasty — the house of Khilji — the raid of Timflr— Sikandar Lodi — the Mughals — Babar — the kingdom of Jaunpur — the Mughal conquest — Shir Shah — Humayun — the reign of Akbar and the condition of the country in his time — the revenue system — his attitude towards Hindus — the failure of the Mughal government — the

vii

CHAPTER II — continued

PAGE

ministry, the aristocracy, the Church — the reign of Jahangir, of Shahjahan, of Aurangzeb — the downfall of the Empire — the kingdom of Oudh — the Rohillas — the Marhattas — the Jats — Muhammadan architecture — the European adventurers — the Begam Samru — the Skinner and Gardner estates — the conquest by the British and the formation of the Province 58-124

Chapter III

THE PROVINCE UNDER BRITISH RULE The law of Islam — mode of trial — corruption of the courts — official morality — canals under the Mughals — state of the roads — the camps of the Emperors — anarchy on the break up of the Empire — Sikh raids — desolation of Rohilkhand — the beginnings of the British rule — the freebooting Pindaris — control of the police — causes of failure in police administration — Thagi — road poisoning — secret poisoning — infanticide — infanticide a cause of violent crime — dacoity — the criminal gipsy tribes — the repression of the Sansiyas — canal irrigation — the Upper Ganges Canal — the Lower Ganges Canal — the Eastern Jumna Canal — the Agra Canal — the Betwa Canal — the Sarda Canal — the canal officers — protection from famine by means of artificial irrigation — the fever mortality — waste of canal water — Bardwan fever — education — the extent of illiteracy — the Babu — the native press — want of a popular literature — the illiteracy of the masses — female education — medical and surgical relief — ophthalmic surgery — distribution of quinine — sanitation — the city population— the crusade against filth — village sanitation — extension of communications— the roads — the increase of travelling — the revolution in trade — the old trading houses — famine — famines in the period preceding our rule — famines after our conquest — the principles of famine relief — the congested districts — the District and Municipal Boards — the policy of decentralisation— the Mutiny — its causes — the heroes of the revolt — the incapacity of the rebel leaders — religious riots — the crusade against cow-killing— general result of British administration — employment of natives — the post office — the feeling of the people .... 125-194

Chapter IV

THE PEOPLE : THEIR ETHNOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY The earlier colonists— the Nagas— the Dasyus— the affinities of the Dravidians — the Negritic element — the submerged continent — the Skythian immigrants— the age of stone — the essential unity of the present race — the evidence of anthropometry — the Brahmans and Rajputs a mixed race — the theory of caste — caste based on function — the example given by the

viii

CHAPTER IV — continued

PAGE

Brahmans — the people classified according to their traditional occupations —the village menials— the decay of handicrafts— the creation of new groups — the vagrant tribes — the Baheliya — the Nat — the criminal gipsies — the Bengali— the Kanjar— the Dom— the Tharu— the pure Dravidian fringe— the Korwas— Northern India as a field for the ethnologist— depreciation of labour — the Sfidra — village and city life — the size of the village — houseroom — urban and rural mortality — the conditions of marriage — infant marriage — widow marriage — fecundity of the people — the occupations of women and children — industrial aspect of rural life . . . 195-233

Chapter V

The two great religions— Brahmanism and Isl4m— Buddhism— Jainism— Sikhism — the Parsis — the Jews — the Aryas — Christianity — the external characteristics of the main religions — the definition of a Hindu — Brahmanism defined— Animism defined — the faiths of the people classified — the beliefs of the peasant — the low level of social morality — his theory of disease and death — his pilgrimages — Saivism — the Vaishnava cultus — S4ktism — the growth of sects — the spread of Brahmanism among the forest tribes — the worship of saints and martyrs — tribal godlings — the Fakirs — the reformed sects — the Ramanandi — the Nanakshahi — the Ra£d4si — Hinduism in its general aspect — its power of self-defence —

Islam in India — causes of the increase of Muhammadanism — distribution of Musalmans — the sects of Islam — the Shiah — the Sunni— the social life of the people — the Zamindar — the house — the hut — furniture — fashion in dress — absence of privacy in village life — stagnation of life — amusement — the food of the peasant — his clothing — the depressed classes — rise in the condition of the peasant class ..... 234-279

Chapter VI

The village community — local sub-divisions — survivals of the primitive constitution— the Mauza — waste land — the village mark — the size of the village — the Raja and the Talukdar of Oudh — the Oudh settlement — Mathura a land of peasant proprietors — the recuperative power of the people — the evils of the village system — the village council — the headman — payment of revenue through the post office — the power of procuring partition — the joint responsibility for the revenue demand — the Mahal — State ownership of the soil — Shir Sh&h and his settlement — Todar Mall — the settlement b ix

CHAPTER VI — continued

PAGE

under Akbar — forms of tenure — the Zamindari tenure — the Pattid&ri tenure — the village records — the new system of revision of settlement — the Permanent Settlement — attempts to apply it to the Province — share of the produce taken as revenue— pressure of the early assessments— the sale of landed property — the Court of Wards — assessment on rates of produce — decentralisation of the district ..... 280-319

Chapter VII

The population dependent on agriculture— the pressure of the population on the soil— the area of the holding— the margin available for cultivationdouble cropping — immigration of the rural population into the towns — conditions of city life— the growth of cities— new industries — emigrationreligious migration — migration of women — foreign migration — efficiency of native agriculture — the lack of enterprise of the farmer — adoption of new machinery — the native plough — the use of manure — the exhaustion of the soil — the average produce — planting of waste lands — canal and well irrigation— advances for agricultural improvements— agricultural banks— provision of seed grain — rise in the value of food grains — the rise in rents — rural indebtedness — the methods of the usurer — alleged extravagance of the peasant — litigiousness — the protection of the peasant — the rent law of the North-Western Provinces — of Oudh — classes of tenants — ejectment — enhancement of rents — the fixation of rents — serfage — the budget of the peasant — want of utilisation of by-products — the building of wells — the

X

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Thk Pillar of the State, a Jat Cultivator . Frontispiece

Bhotiya Buddhists . . . . . . n

An Agariya Metal Smelter ...... 18

Group of Mallah Boatmen ...... 167

Group of Kols ........ 197

Baheliya Shikaris ....... 212

Group of Korwas ....... 218

A Vaishnava Fak!r ....... 247

FakIr’s Hermitage ....... 253

A Ramanandi FakJr ....... 255

Dravidian Cultivators ...... 280

BrAhmans, with Registers of Clients .... 327

A Banya Grain Merchant ...... 343

THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES OF INDIA

Chapter I

THE LAND IN ITS PHYSICAL ASPECT WIDE open Plain, the alluvial valley of the Ganges,

Jumna and their tributaries, with a slight uniform slope to the east and south in the direction of the course of the great river seaward towards the Bay of Bengal ; a tract to the north including some of the highest mountains in the world, and separated by a series of valleys from a lower range which bounds the alluvial Plain ; to the south of the Jumna a poorer country, rising from the river bank to the edge of the Vindhyan plateau, part of the backbone of Central India — such is the country known by the clumsy and inappropriate name of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh.

This is a name which comes down from the time when our arms had not yet crossed the Jumna and the centre of gravity of our power in northern India lay in Bengal and Calcutta. Times have changed since then, and now the official title of the Province is more unsuitable than ever.

We have been, in truth, unfortunate in our provincial nomenclature, in so far that it has little historical continuity. It is only natural that the name of Assam, for instance, a newly occupied country, should be little more than three centuries old. But Panjab, though it represents the old Sanskrit Panchanada, “ the land of the five rivers,” is a Persian word. Bengal, the land of the Vanga tribe, is not found in common use before the eleventh century ; Bombay, the shrine of the goddess Mamba Devi, is at least as old as the middle of the fifteenth, and Madras, the original A i meaning of which is obscure, dates from the middle of the seventeenth century. While Wessex, Sussex and many other English localities hand down the names of early colonists, there is here no trace of the kingdom of Panchala in the centre or of Kosala to the east. It was the Muhammadans who for religious motives were most anxious to discard the old Hindu names. In some cases, as when they rechristened the old Pray&ga as Allahfib&d, they succeeded in obliterating the ancient title save in the lips of priests and pilgrims ; but few would now recognise Agra in Akbarabad, Delhi as Sh&hjah&n&b&d, or Gorakhpur as MuazzamcLb&d. With us the loss of the old names has been more the result of lack of historical instinct than from any desire to widen the gulf between the past and the present.

Yet it would be hard to find a really suitable name for this rather heterogeneous slice of the Empire. It occupies pretty much the same area as that which the Musalmans called Hindustan, the seat of the early Hindus, who knew the land between the two rivers as Madhyadesa, “ the middle land,” or Mesopotamia. The western part and the adjoining portion of the Panjab they called Punyabhumi, “ the holy land ” : Aryavarta or Brahmavarta, “ the land of the Aryans and their gods.” The term Hindustan has now been extended by the geographers to denote the whole north of the peninsula, as contrasted with the Deccan (Dakkhin), the southern country, or even to all that we now include in India, exclusive of Burma. In the early days of our occupation we called it the government of Agra after the Mughal capital ; and if we were now to rename it it would be difficult to suggest a better title. The more ancient Hindu names are too indefinite and have passed too completely from the memories of the people ever to be again revived.

Of all the provinces of the Empire none is of greater interest than this. It is the veritable garden of India, with a soil of unrivalled fertility, for the most part protected from the dangers of famine by a magnificent series of irrigation works : occupied by some of the finest and most industrious of the native races : possessing in its roads and railways an 2 unusually perfect system of internal communications. Within its borders or close to its western frontier was the earliest settlement of the Hindu race, and here its religion, laws and social polity were organised. Beneath the ruins of Hastinapura and Ajudhya lie the remains of the two ancient capitals commemorated in the two famous national epics. Here Buddhism supplanted Brahmanism, only in its turn to succumb to the older faith, and to sink into such utter insignificance in the land of its birth that it has hardly retained a single adherent, while it has given a religion to half the human race. Here are nearly all the shrines of the discredited creed, the scenes of the birth, the preaching, the death of the Teacher. But since they were visited by the old Chinese pilgrims they have fallen into utter neglect, and it is only within the last generation that the sites of most of them have been identified. The interest which some of the modern Buddhists have recently shown in the temple at Gaya may perhaps by and by extend to places like Kusinagara, Sravasti, Sarnath or Sankisa.

In later times the country was the prize of one conqueror after another — Ghaznivide, Pathan, Mughal and Sikh, Marhatta and Englishmen. Agra yielded to none of the other Mughal capitals in magnificence; at Jaunpur and Lucknow two subordinate Musalm&n dynasties reigned, which profoundly influenced its history. This was the ground on which the final struggle for Empire took place, in which the British came out victorious. Here was the chief scene of the Sepoy Mutiny which resulted in the final downfall of the royal family of Delhi, in the course of which Englishmen and Englishwomen shared a common fate at the hands of a faithless soldiery, and the heroism of the imperial race, suddenly driven to bay, was most nobly displayed. Yet curiously enough, except where Jay Chand of Kanauj fell at the hands of the invading Musalman, Shihabuddin, the battle near Agra where D&ra Shikoh was defeated by Aurangzeb and the fights of the Mutiny, there is no important battle-field within its boundaries. The rout of Humayun by the Afghan Shir Shah occurred just beyond its eastern limits ; the historic 3 field ot Panipat, where the fate of India was thrice decided, lies a short distance beyond its border to the west.

Mere figures and small scale maps do little to help us to realise the importance of the charge which the conditions of our Indian Empire impose upon a small body of English officers. It conveys little practical information to be told that the area of the province is 107,503 square miles, and the population 47I millions. To put this in another way — the total population is about the same as that of the whole German Empire in an area rather smaller than that of Italy. Its area is slightly less than that of the Transvaal, but between black men and white men President Kruger governs only 800,000 souls, which would be smaller than the average charge of an Indian Collector. The North-West Provinces alone have a population little less than that of the United Kingdom ; Oudh includes twice as many souls as Belgium, which, again, has less people than one division, that of Gorakhpur. The Lucknow division alone contains more people than Ireland or Scotland, Sweden, Portugal or Holland, Canada or Ceylon. One district, Basti, exceeds in population New South Wales and New Zealand put together.

Geographically speaking, the Province may be said to include the upper basins of three great rivers — the Ganges, Jumna and Gh&gra, and their tributaries. The two former rising in the Native State of Garhwfil at the extreme north-west corner from the snows of the inner Himalaya, debouch at once into the open plain through which they pass till they join at Allahabad. Just beyond the eastern frontier, in the province of Bihar, the united stream, henceforward known as the Ganges, is met by three other great rivers. Of these two, the Ghagra and the Gandak are also snow-fed, and after passing through Nepal, pour their waters into the lower Plain, the Ghfigra with its tributary the Rapti draining Oudh and Gorakhpur, while the Gandak only just touches the Province to the east and then trends away through Bihar. The third important river, the Son, is not like the others fed by the snows. It drains part of the Vindhyan plateau, and after passing through a part of the Mirzapur district to the south- 4 east, sweeps round to meet the Ganges further on in its course.

The boundaries of the Province nowhere exactly agree with the physical conditions by which it is dominated ; its limits, in fact, everywhere indicate that it was formed not on ethnical or geographical considerations, but was the result of historical influences. It does not follow to the north the natural frontier of the lower Himalaya, because to the north-west it includes a portion of the inner and higher range with the intervening valleys, and on the extreme east it has surrendered a part of the Tarai or malarious jungle at the foot of the hills to Nepal. To the west and south its natural limits would have been the Jumna ; but opposite Mathura and Agra it includes patches of territory, which from a geographical point of view should form part of Rajput&na, and further south the Bundelkhand country, which on physical and ethnical grounds would naturally be included among the States of Central India. Its proper frontier to the east would be either the river Ghagra or the Gandak. With the former as its border it would lose a valuable part of Oudh and Gorakhpur : with the latter it would gain from Bengal a rich piece of Bihar.

Before long some readjustment of the Provincial administrations of northern India is inevitable, if only to relieve Lower Bengal, which has an area equal to that of the United Kingdom with the addition of a second Scotland, and a population as great as that of the United States and Mexico combined — a charge quite beyond the powers of any single governor. Bengal will probably be relieved for the present by combining the division of Chittagong to the east with Assam. But sooner or later a more radical redistribution of territory must be effected, and this will probably result in the addition of the eastern districts of the North-West provinces to the new Province of Bihar, which would then be as large as a quarter of the German Empire with a population as great as that of England and Wales. This tract will then be physically and ethnically homogeneous and administered under the same revenue system, that of the Permanent 5

Settlement. We shall lose, by the severance of Benares and the neighbouring districts, some of the most fertile parts of the Province ; but the relief to the already overburdened Local Government will be welcome.

The present frontier, again, is neither ethnical nor linguistic. To include all the Hindi-speaking peoples it would be necessary to absorb the eastern Panjab and BiMr with a still larger area annexed from Rajputana and Central India ; and men of the same race are found both east and west of the Jumna and Gandak and north and south of the Ganges. But it is only in newly settled countries like Canada and western America that administrative divisions can be marked off by straight lines on a map, and the limits of a Province formed on the ruins of ancient empires must conform to historical or political considerations and to none other.

Looking at the country merely from the physical point of view, it may perhaps be best compared with Egypt — the river system of the Jumna and Ganges representing the Nile, the Arabian and Lybian hills, the mountain barrier to the north and the Vindyan and Kaimur ranges to the south. But the Nile valley with an area of 1 1,000 square miles is only about the size of the division of Rohilkhand and its population is about equal to that of the Faizabad division. In other respects the contrast is no less striking. The Indian province is ours whether for good or ill by right of conquest ; no foreign power can or does claim rights of co-dominion with us. We have no frontier to guard against a Khalifa and his Dervishes ; there are no jealous neighbours and we are quite beyond the dangers arising from European statecraft. But in the antiquity of the relics of an ancient civilisation there is no comparison. The monumental history of Egypt begins some forty centuries before the beginning of our era ; the oldest building in northern India cannot be fixed with certainty before the time of Asoka, who lived about the era of the first Punic war. We have nothing which can be compared with the Pyramids, the temples like those of Karnak or the rock sepulchres with their wall paintings and sculptures which so vividly represent the life of those early times.

The Province, as a whole, includes perhaps greater diversities of physical aspect, scenery and climate than any other country of the same area on the face of the earth. The only country with which a comparison is possible is Peru, with its Sierra or lofty mountain tract and the Montana, or region of tropical forests in the valley of the Amazon. To the north are stupendous mountains covered with eternal snow ; beneath them a lower range with a more equable climate, clothed with dense jungle and abundant vegetation ; below these, again, a line of malarious woodland and vast savannahs of grass and reeds. Passing these we reach the alluvial Plain, populated almost up to the limits of subsistence by a most industrious population, subject to a tropical climate, swept by winds at one time of the year whose breath is as the breath of a furnace, at another gasping under the damp heat of the rainy season, at a third chilled by the sharp touch of frost ; and beyond these, again, clusters of low hills covered with scrub jungle and exposed in summer to the fiercest heat of the sun.

The Province may then naturally be divided into three tracts — the northern mountain region : the central Plain : the southern hill country. The following table illustrates their varied conditions : —

Tract.

Districts.

Area in Square Miles.

Density of Population per square mile.

Rainfall in inches.

Himalayan,

13,973

62". 1 3

Plains —

(a) Submontane, . .

1 8,202

46"43

( b ) Upper Duab, . .

io,i33

(c) Central Duab,

10,139

28". 38

(d) North Central,

* 7

14,166

38".29

( e ) South Central,

i5

25,300

38".42

Plains, Total,

77,890

—

Southern,

15,639

I

37"- 5 1

These figures bring out the enormous predominance in area and population of the Plains as compared with the rest of the Province. Some of the southern districts, such as Mirzapur and part of Bundelkhand, include a hilly tract on the skirts of the central Plain ; but this fact does not to any considerable degree affect the figures, which show that the Plain tract includes about 72 per cent, of the area and 89 per cent, of the total population.

This enables us to dispose of a misapprehension which very generally prevails among English people, and is mainly based on the inexpressive title of the province. It is very commonly supposed that when an officer is lucky enough to escape the Bengal delta, or the less favoured Presidencies of Madras or Bombay, he necessarily spends most of his time in the Hills. The globe-trotter sees him here in the cold weather enjoying an excellent climate and pleasant surroundings, and wonders what is the justification for the higher rates of pay which the Anglo-Indian enjoys as compared with officials of a similar grade in Europe. But as a matter of fact, the average official has little concern with the Hills. The mountainous tract to the south contains no health stations, and the heat of Bundelkhand is even more trying than that of the Plains north of the Jumna. In the Himalayan tract there are two leading health resorts, Mussoorie and Naini T&1, the latter the headquarters of the Provincial Government during the more unhealthy season. Besides a small number of Secretaries and the normal civil staff of these Hill districts, there is a considerable influx of visitors, ladies and children, and those officers who can be spared from regimental cjuty, or civil officials who are unable to utilise short leave for a visit to England. But the number of officials who are able to retire to the Hills periodically, or are permanently posted there, is very small.

The ordinary servant of the Crown, military or civil, spends most of his time in the Plains or in the southern hill country. Most of the European and native troops are posted in the Plains, at great cantonments like Meerut, Lucknow, Bareilly, or Allahabad. The High Court sits 8 permanently in the Plains, and there the chief offices of the Provincial Government are established. Only a very small proportion of the executive staff, magistrates, police officers, engineers, school inspectors, Custom officers, and so on, serve anywhere but in the Plains. It is, in short, the great tropical Plain which dominates everything ; those parts of the territory ruled by the Lieutenant-Governor which lie beyond it are in all but mere area inconsiderable ; from the political and executive point of view they are distinctly a negligeable quantity. Any candidate for the public service who selects this Province in the expectation that he will spend most of his service in an excellent climate will be sorely disappointed.

Taking up these three physical divisions of the Province, we have first the Himalayan tract, which includes three districts— Garhw&l, Almora and Naini Tal, all under the charge of the Commissioner of Kumaun. Of these, two districts, Garhwal and Kumaun, are well within the higher mountain zone ; while Naini Tal includes the tract of malarious swamp and jungle at the foot of the lower hills, and between them and the Plains, which is known as the Tarai and Bhabar, and must be separately described. Of the purely mountainous districts, a mass of tangled peaks and valleys, it is difficult to give a general sketch. It includes some of the most lofty mountains in the world, clothed with eternal snow. Nanda Devi, consecrated in the Hindu faith as the guardian goddess of the range, soars to a height of 25,661 feet; Kamet and Badarin&th are respectively 25,413 and 22,901 feet above sea level. These are a little lower than Mount Everest, the giant of the eastern part of the range. But they are slightly higher than the South American Andes, and we have to go to the Pamir or Karakorum range to find a worthy rival to these magnificent peaks.