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CIRCUMAMBULATIONS IN SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY

BRILLS
INDOLOGICAL
LIBRARY
EDITED BY

JOHANNES BRONKHORST
IN CO-OPERATION WITH

RICHARD GOMBRICH OSKAR VON HINBER


KATSUMI MIMAKI ARVIND SHARMA
VOLUME 19

CIRCUMAMBULATIONS
IN SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY
Essays in Honour of Dirk H.A. Kolff
EDITED BY

JOS GOMMANS & OM PRAKASH

BRILL
LEIDEN BOSTON
2003

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Circumambulations in South Asian history : essays in honour of Dirk H.A. Kolff /
edited by Jos Commans & Om Prakash.
p. cm. (Brills indological library ; 19)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-04-13155-8
1. South AsiaHistory. I. Kolff, D.H.A., 1938- II. Gommans, Jos J. L.
III. Prakash, Om. IV. Series.
DS335.C55 2003
954dc21
2003051885

ISSN 0925-2916
ISBN 90 04 13155 8

Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal
use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ......................................................................

vii

List of Contributors ..................................................................

ix

Introduction ................................................................................
Jos Gommans and Om Prakash

The Tides of the Indian Ocean, Islamization and the


Dialectic of Coast and Inland ..............................................
Jan Heesterman
Shah Jahan wore Glasses: Remarks on the Impact of the
Dutch East India Company on Northern India and
Some Suggestions for Further Research ..............................
Hans van Santen

29

47

To be a Servant of His Catholic Majesty: Indian Troops


of the Estado da ndia in the Eighteenth Century ..............
Ren Barendse

69

The Trials of Captain Hackert and Engineer


Andries Leslorant at the Malabar Council of War ............
Mark de Lannoy

105

Bedara Revisited: A Reappraisal of the Dutch Expedition


of 1759 to Bengal ..................................................................
Hugo sJacob

117

Between Fact and Fictions: Khoja Gregory alias


Gurgin Khan, the Evil Genius of Mir Qasim ................
Bhaswati Bhattacharya

133

Two Captains of the Jawnpur Sultanate ................................


Simon Digby

159

vi

Slavery and Naukar among the Bangash Nawabs of


Farrukhabad ............................................................................
Jos Gommans

179

The Legitimation of Kingship in India: Bundelkhand ..........


Godard Schokker

217

The Short Career of Walter Dickens in India ......................


Dick Kooiman

233

Writing and Reading Tods Rajasthan: Interpreting the


Text and its Historiography ..................................................
Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph

251

The Idea of Modernity: European Progress for the Rest of


the World? ..............................................................................
Victor van Bijlert

283

Modern Media of Communication and Indigenous


Knowledge in India and Europe: Towards an
Anthropological Perspective ..................................................
Jan Brouwer

307

From Chariot to Atom Bomb: Armament and Military


Organisation in South Asian History ..................................
Dietmar Rothermund

325

Bibliography of D.H.A. Kol ..................................................

353

Index ..........................................................................................

359

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This Festschrift serves to mark Dirk Kol s retirement as Professor of


Modern Indian History at Leiden University. The contributors are
some of his friends and colleagues, from within and beyond his own
country (the Netherlands) and discipline (history). The result is a
polyphonic tribute to a many-sided and wide-ranging scholar.
This volume could not have been produced without the friendly
help of Annemarie Kol who provided us with some essential biographical information; the generous cooperation of Marc de Haan
who made and donated the photograph; the understanding assistance of Lia ten Brink and Carolien van Zoest for helping us by
copying and scanning some unprocessed manuscripts. We are also
very grateful to Ian Wendt who saved this volume from the most
dubious manifestations of Duglish. Finally we are most obliged to
E.J. Brill Publishers for agreeing to publish the volume and doing
an excellent job of it.
A volume including essays written by such a wide range of authors
drawing from such a wide variety of linguistic sources makes standardised transliteration not only problematic but also undesirable. In
general, we have avoided the use of diacritics for personal and geographical nameswith the exception of Schokkers paper that retains
the spirit of its Braj sourcesand instead have employed their most
common and modern spelling. In the essays that use or refer to
indigenous Indian or Indo-Persian sources, transliteration has been
employed for institutional and technical terms. In these cases, as with
personal and geographical terms, spelling has been standardised.

This page intentionally left blank

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

R B is fellow of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences


(KNAW).
B B is associated to Kolkata University and
publishes on the early-modern social-economic history of South Asia.
V B is professor at the Management Centre for
Human Values at the Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata.
J B is professor of cultural anthropology at the NorthEastern Hill University in Shillong.
S D is presently based at Jersey but has been a fellow of
Wolfson College, Oxford, and a member of the Oriental Faculty at
the University of Oxford.
J G is associate professor at the Kern Institute of Leiden
University.
J H is emeritus professor of Indian Civilisations at the
Kern Institute of Leiden University.
H J was associate professor at the History Department of
the University of Groningen.
D K is associate professor at the History Department of
the Free University of Amsterdam.
M L is research assistant at the National Archives in
The Hague.
O P is professor of economic history at the Delhi School
of Economics, University of Delhi.
D R is emeritus professor of modern South Asian
history at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg.

L R is professor of political science and the social sciences at the University of Chicago. Together with his wife, S
H R, he publishes extensively on a wide range of issues
involving modern South Asian society.
H S is a diplomat in the Dutch foreign service. At
present he is Head of the Security and Defence Policy Division in
The Hague.
G S was associate professor at the Kern Institute of
Leiden University.

INTRODUCTION
Jos Gommans and Om Prakash

Als iemand die de geschiedenis en cultuur van India doceert aan een universiteit in
ons land, schaam ik me eigenlijk het toe te geven, want ik ben medeverantwoordelijk
voor de stagnatie van ons India-beeld. Toch kunnen alle universiteiten van Europa
tezamen hier weinig aan veranderen. Om ten lange leste een idee van India te
verkrijgen dat recht doet aan die samenleving, hebben we kunstenaars nodig. Als
we af willen van de vele clichs, waarvan ik er enkele noemde, zullen we heel wat
lagen van vooroordelen van ons af moeten pellen en India de kans geven ons te
verrassen en zich te laten zien in een nieuwe vorm.1
D.H.A. Kol

On the rst of March 2003, Dirk H.A. Kol became emeritus professor of Leiden University. From the very beginning, Kol s career
has been closely connected to that academic institution. After taking
his MA in History there in 1967, he became lecturer at the Kern
Institute in 1971. In 1983 he nished his PhD thesis and in 1991
became Leiden professor of the Modern History of South Asia.
This volume is a collective tribute to Kol s scholarship by some
of his friends and colleagues. As usual with tributes, everyone brings
valuable oblations from his own exotic homeland, the result being
as rich as it is variegated. Perhaps the latter should be tolerated in
a volume dedicated to a scholar who discards one-dimensional views
and prefers the pluriform conveyed by multiplicity of voices. Reading
all these dierent papers certainly evokes Kol s own metaphor of
the circumambulation which oers no certainty or nality but merely

Speech of D.H.A. Kol at the opening of the exhibition of Rameshwar Singh


in March 2001 at art-gallery Jan Steen in Amsterdam (Schilderijen van Rameshwar
Singh: Kennismaking met een Indiaas kunstenaar, Beeldaspecten, 13, 4/5 (2001),
p. 13). As someone who teaches the history and culture of India at one of our
countrys universities, I really feel ashamed to admit it, since I am partly responsible for the stagnation of our image of India. Still, all of Europes universities
together can hardly change this. Ultimately, to get an idea of India that does justice to that society we need artists. If we want to get rid of the many clichs, I
mentioned a few of them, we shall have to peel our layers of prejudice and give
India the chance to surprise us and to show itself in a new form. (translation JG)

reections on the ongoing mystery. Om Prakash, himself a monetary historian, will attempt to convert these dierent tributes into
one currency and carefully estimate its overall value. Before that,
however, Jos Gommans will discuss Kol s own scholarly circumambulations at the periphery of history, or to use Kol s own phrase,
at the conuence of anthropology, history and indology. Although
he has not been a particularly prolic writer, it is all the more
remarkable that Kol s work stands at the root of what has become
a most ourishing South Asian branch of ethnohistory, including that
most uncanny of oshoots: the new military history of South Asia. And
there is denitively more to come, as his most recent work anticipates his explorations into yet another fringe of the historical discipline: South Asian psychohistory.
By highlighting his published scholarly work in this volume, it is
not intended to underplay his considerable contributions as a teacher.
Many who have attended his classes have been inspired by the way
he leads his students from one surprise to the other, slowly but surely
breaking down preconceived notions about a static and backward
Indian civilisation.2 Besides, it should not be ignored that Kol was
an enthusiastic university manager; this being a somewhat rare phenomenon among his Leiden colleagues.3 Moreover, beyond the purely
academic, were his repeated attempts to stimulate the social and
spiritual cohesion of the university community. Although his idea of
a university meditation centre failed to materialise, thanks to his concerted eorts, the Leiden Faculty Club was realised in 1999.4 All in
all, though, we feel Kol was most successful as a writing scholar.
Hence, the following will turn to his internationally recognised contributions to various elds of South Asian studies.
2
Kol s fondness for teaching, particularly to the general public, is most clearly
demonstrated in his involvement in the development of a very successful course
in world history at the Dutch Open University of Heerlen. See the report by
M. Broesterhuizen in Katern Hoger Onderwijs ( Juni 1985), pp. 58.
3
From 1992 until 1997, he served as the director of the Centre for Asian, African
and Amerindian Studies (CNWS) (see D.H.A. Kol, Aziatische, Afrikaanse
en Amerindische talen en culturen (het niet-westen), in H.J. de Jonge and
W. Otterspeer (eds), Altijd een vonk of twee. De universiteit Leiden van 1975 tot 2000
(Leiden, 2000), pp. 5965. Kol himself said about this period: . . . a large part
of it was a waste of time. Nothing remains [er ligt niks], it vaporizes (Dirk van
Delft, De vrijgestelde onderzoeker, Hypothese, July 2000, p. 11).
4
The plan for the meditation centre reminds one of one of the ancestors of the
Kol family, Ds Gualtherus Kol (16441705), who was a Protestant minister in
Vuren en Dalem, Noordeloos and Maassluis (N. Manneke, Kol in zeven eeuwen

1. Exploring the periphery of history: from ethnohistory to psychohistory


Kol and Huizinga
About a hundred years ago the Dutch sanskritist Johan Huizinga
decided to leave the eld of Indian studies. As foreshadowed already
in his dissertation on Indian drama, he now became frustrated with
the civilisation of India as a whole. In both he sorely missed a sense
of cause and eect, the destiny of history and the conicts of people of esh and blood. According to Huizinga the visual image of
India remained necessarily vague in line and but faintly coloured,
especially in those parts where a real historical narrative, a sense
of living will always be extremely essential for our understanding.
He was probably not only missing proper historical sources, but also
adequate schemes and forms to reveal to the historian the connections of past events. As in its drama, Indian history presented
itself as a succession of poetical tableaux vivantsas merely a presentation in sequence of lyrical impressions. At this time, Huizinga himself was looking for a solid middle ground between, on the one hand,
his earlier impressionistic mood, i.e. his tendency to nd visual images
that could create order in otherwise unrelated sequences of events,
and, on the other hand, his more recent interest in a more positivistic approach, in other words, to let the sources speak for themselves. The combination of these two contradictory emotions implied
that Huizinga not only distrusted all-embracing and all-explaining
paradigms but also that he had a certain aversion against specialisation. Perhaps this inner dualism was the source of Huizingas later
success as one of the most imaginative and innovating historians of
the European Middle Ages.5

(Rotterdam, 2001, pp. 189). But as Kol observed himself, more than this religious background, the familys common riverine connections are striking (D.H.A.
Kol, De familie en onze rivieren, De Colve, 7 (2002).
5
For Kol s writings on Huizinga, see Huizingas proefschrift en de stemmingen van Tachtig, in: Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden
104 (1989), pp. 38092; Huizingas Dissertation and the Stemmingen of the
Literary Movement of the Eighties, in W. Otterspeer (ed.), Leiden Oriental Connections 18501940 (Leiden, 1989), pp. 141152; Huizinga en de Vedisch-Brahmaanse
Religie: Zijn college als privaat-docent te Amsterdam in 190304, in Hanneke van
den Muyzenberg en Thomas de Bruijn (eds), Waarom Sanskrit? Honderdvijfentwintig jaar
Sanskrit in Nederland (Kern Institute Miscellanea, 4) (Leiden, 1991), pp. 6473;
Huizinga and the Vedic-Brahmanic Religion. His rst series of lectures at the

This fascinating picture of Huizinga, struggling to bring his inner,


personal mood in tune with indology, derives form Dirk Kol s
insightful biographical studies of Huizingas journey into the eld of
history. I feel that the early trials and tribulations of Huizinga the
indologist-turned-historian, must have appealed to the imagination
of the historian-turned-indologist Dirk Kol. Although coming from
opposite directions, both were to meet each other on one and the
same path that linked history to indology, and Europe to India. Of
course, they never physically met as they lived almost a century apart
from each other. In this century, Kol was happy to observe, the
eld of Indian studies had signicantly developed: many new facts
had come to light and old and unappealing paradigms had been
found inadequate. Huizinga, had he lived in Kol s time, would
probably have found more than enough to inform and enrich his
historical imagination and thus would most probably have stuck to
Indian civilisation.6
Nonetheless, one cannot avoid being struck by the common struggle of both Huizinga and Kol to come to terms with the multiformity of Indias civilisation. Even a century after Huizinga, Kol
was still very much aware that the assumed unity and continuity
of Indian civilisation proves as dicult to fathom as its obvious multiplicity. The sanskritic great tradition is not only far from univocal
in itself, but also seems scarcely concerned about its inconsistencies
or about the recurrent discrepancies between text and reality, precept and practice.7 Here we almost hear the last sighs of Huizinga
the indologist. Although clearly recognising Huizingas struggle with
Indian history, Kol, however, decided to stay on. Was it the right
decision and was it worthwhile?
Before delving into this question, by having a closer look at Kol s
contribution to the eld of South Asian studies, I would rst like to
briey elaborate on this dualism that he seems to share with Huizinga,
and perhaps with innumerable other South Asianists, when trying to

University of Amsterdam in 190304, in A.W. van der Hoek, D.H.A. Kol and
M.S. Oort (eds.), Ritual, State and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman
(Leiden, 1992), pp. 578586.
6
D.H.A. Kol, Indische geschiedenis een overwonnen contradictie?, in Groniek,
92 (1985), pp. 289.
7
Taken from Kol s introduction to J.C. Heestermans Festschrift (Kol et al.,
Ritual, State and History in South Asia, p. ix).

come to grips with the so-called unity-in-diversity dilemma of Indian


civilisation. For Kol it is not so much the contradiction between
impressionism and positivism. This clearly remains Huizingas dilemma.
But like Huizinga, Kol does not seem to like the universal, the general and the timeless, but instead has a better taste for the particular, the local and the timely. Here he clearly sympathises with
postmodernist thinking as he distrusts the modern mind ever aiming at certainty and nality. This sense of scepticism may be labelled
postmodern, but for Kol it is probably more closely related to
sixteenth-centurythat is pre-Cartesianintellectuals like Erasmus
and Montaigne, those humanists who still fully respected the complexity and diversity of human existence.8 Anyway for Kol, this critique on modernity cannot tell the whole story, as he warily realises
that Indian studies cannot do without universal concepts. For Indian
history, for example, he emphatically makes the point that universal concepts should bring it within the compass of where it belongs:
world history. As he further explains, though of universal validity,
the relative importance of such concepts in the conguration of
Indian society and civilisation may be dierent from its importance
elsewhere, just as the linkages between the elements of the structure
may be dierent in India. Hence Kol aims at the combination of
universal and particularthat is specically Indiancategories and
to weld them into an image that does justice to the ux as well as
the facts of history.9
Looking at Huizinga and Kol, one may wonder to what extent
this particular problem, to make the chaotic diversity of the Indian
experience into some kind of digestible unity, is a consequence of
the subject of their inquiries itself. For sure, Kol was familiar with
the idea of the so-called inner conict, the paradoxical dualism of
Indian tradition as worked out by his supervisor Jan Heesterman.10
Kol, although a bit wary of its essentialist undercurrent, clearly

8
This view derives from Stephen Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of
Modernity (New York, 1990). He once mentioned in one of his classes that the book
had had a great deal of inuence on his thinking.
9
D.H.A. Kol, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy. The Ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 14501850 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 193.
10
See J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship,
and Society (Chicago, 1985); The Broken World of Sacrice. An Essay in Ancient Indian
Ritual (Chicago, 1993).

elaborates on this idea in his dissertation, albeit in the specic historical context of the early Mughal period. In a very enlightening
venture into the eld of Indian law, one nds Kol struggling with
yet another, but closely related Indian incompatibility: that of universal dharma against the practical reality of customary local lawways. Although there is a mediating middle ground consisting of
positive royal (and colonial) decrees, the British sadly fail to recognise this organic whole of the Indian law system.11
Apart from being faced with dualities that are more or less part
of Indian civilisation, Kol experienced another dual conict in his
brief but ongoing involvement with Indo-British colonial history. Now
it was the Battle of the Two Philosophies, that between Romantic
paternalism on the one hand and Benthamite utilitarianism on the
other.12 This dualism was suggested by Erik Stokes to divide the two
main strands in nineteenth-century colonial thinking. Although very
much inspired by Stokes work, Kol again insists in providing a
more complicated picture that brings together or goes beyond this
beautifully printed menu. Again it shows that Kol feels rather
unhappy with too easy models and dichotomies that caricaturise
instead of clarify the complexities of the human experience. In this
context, as well as on many other occasions, Kol is not seeking the
comfort of the comradely consensus but prefers to be a dissenting
voice; its echoes resound in the elds of ethnohistory, colonial history and psychohistory.
From history and anthropology to ethnohistory
Let me start with Kol s dissertation, nished in 1983 and, in a
slightly revised form, published by Cambridge University Press in
1990.13 It grew out of his earlier work on two themes: the history

11

D.H.A. Kol, The Indian and the British Law Machines: Some Remarks on
Law and Society in British India, in W.J. Mommsen and J.A. de Moor (eds.),
European Expansion and Law: The Encounter of European and Indigenous Law in 19th- and
20th-Century Africa and Asia (Oxford and New York, 1992), pp. 20135 (in particular pp. 2067).
12
Most explicitly in Kol, The Indian and British Law Machines, p. 221, and
again in his inaugural lecture (A British Indian Circumambulation, Itinerario, 16,2
(1992), p. 89. This refers to E.T Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford,
1959).
13
Respectively An Armed Peasantry and its Allies: Rajput Tradition and State

of Bundelkhand in the late-nineteenth century and editorial work on


the Dutch chronicle of Mughal history written by the Dutch East
India Company servant Francisco Pelsaert in 1626. At rst sight
these are two completely dierent research issues. What is the connection between the two?
First of all, in both cases Kol was strongly attracted by the social
dimensions of his topic.14 Of course, during the 1960s this was nothing very peculiar considering the rising tide of both social sciences
at the university and socialism in the society at large. In South Asian
studies also, there was a strong tendency to write social-economic
history based on the enormous amount of as yet neglected local
settlement records. In this line, Kol too started in 1968 to collect
material from the district archives of Bundelkhand. Reading the
results of what must have been a painstaking investigation, one wonders whether Kol became really that much inspired by the possibilities oered by the archives. Here we already see an attempt to
break away from the almost exclusive emphasis on quantitative agrarian economics as presented by the bulk of the ocial correspondence. Here he was struck by the fact that there was hardly any
information of a sociological nature. How to bring life into such dry,
unimaginative, statistical material? Nonetheless, he nally succeeded
in tracing some socially signicant, long-term developments behind
these statistics. Looking at the social background of upcoming and
declining landholders in the Mau tasl of Jhansi district, he concluded that the bases on which their power was founded changed
signicantly during the nineteenth century. The very principle of old
Rajput politics, the maintenance of extensive networks of men, now
had lost its value. In other words, the all-important change introduced by British rule was not to confer the right of property, but
to supplant the diusion that was bound up with a medieval, dynamic
political culture of adaptation and negotiation by the inexible, legal

Formation in Hindustan, 14501850; and Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy. In 2002 the
Delhi branch of Oxford University Press issued a paperback.
14
This already appears in his rst two publications on the early history of the
Dutch Revolt in Leiden when he studies the socio-economic background of religious strife in the city (D.H.A. Kol, Libertatis Ergo: De beroerten binnen Leiden
in de jaren 1566 en 1567, Leids Jaarboekje (1966), pp. 11848; with A.C. Duke,
The Time of Troubles in the County of Holland, 15661567, Tijdschrift voor
Geschiedenis, 82 (1969), pp. 31637. Cf. J. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness
and Fall 14771806 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 13754.

idiom of zamndr right, the so-called village republics. At the same


time, the tradition of bhmiyvat, the struggle for land, was criminalized as dacoity. In the long term, it meant the eective de-Thakurisation
of the Mau area: Thakur clans became castes or gotras of castes,
stressing the endogamous or exclusive principle rather than the exogamous or inclusive and political idiom of birder. Hence, Kol concludes, rural society was changed radically by being thus frozen into
the crystals of settlement rules. Transcending local restrictions was
something to be left to moneylenders in the nineteenth century and
urban politicians in the twentieth century.15
All this strongly anticipates Kol s dissertation topic as he became
aware that there had been an earlier period in which these extensive Rajput networks, in Bundelkhand and elsewhere in Hindustan,
had thoroughly inuenced the process of state-formation.16 What
must have been an intellectual thrill was the sudden awareness that,
despite the break of colonial rule, there was in fact a long-term continuity in the military service tradition of Bundelkhand and southern Bihar, connecting the Bhojpuri Ujjainiyas of Sher Shahs time
to the Baksariya sepoys of the British Raj. Hence, we see Kol s
nineteenth-century social history of Bundelkhand logically ending up
in his sixteenth-century military history of his dissertation. Looking
at the roots of this military interest, one also understands why Kol s
work was so inuential in launching what hasperhaps a bit prematurelybeen called the new military history of South Asia; that
is the military history with a human, sociological face. Moreover,
Kol s focus of the Indian military was instrumental in breaking
down the caricature of an idyllic non-violent, pre-colonial Indian
society that still reigned at that time.17

15
D.H.A. Kol, A Study of Land Transfers in the Mau Tahsil, District Jhansi,
in K.N. Chaudhuri and C.J. Dewey (eds.), Economy and Society. Essays in Indian Economic
and Social History (Delhi, 1979), pp. 5385. See also his Economische ontwikkeling
zonder sociale verandering; de katoen van Hindoestan, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis,
87 (1974), pp. 54553.
16
This extensiveness of Indian commercial and military networks was already
stressed by Kollf in his rst published note on an Indian subject: his Sanyasi
Trader-Soldiers in Indian Economic and Social History Review, 8,2 (1971), pp. 2138.
17
For a more detailed discussion on this, see the introduction to Jos J.L. Gommans
and D.H.A. Kol (eds.), Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia 10001800 (Themes in
Indian History) (Oxford, 2001), pp. 142. In the eld of South Asias new military
history Kol s contribution to J.A. de Moor and H.L. Wesseling (eds.), Imperialism
and War. Essays on Colonial Wars in Asia and Africa (Leiden, 1989) was also important

How to t this in to his work on Pelsaert?18 As indicated already,


from the sociological point of view, Pelsaert has much to oer. His
reports on the political and commercial history of the Mughal Empire
are enriched by detailed descriptions of the real life of nobles, peasants, and merchants, their social customs and their faiths.19 More
importantly, though, Pelsaert describes the lively political culture of
negotiating and adapting politicians, traders, and peasants, struggling
to survive in a highly dynamic Mughal society. As a consequence,
though widely dierent areas of enquiry, both the studies on Bundelkhand and Pelsaert suggested questions about the traditions of Rajput
service to Muslim and colonial rulers and, more generally, about the
importance of military earnings in the survival strategies of the NorthIndian peasantry. But this required an entirely dierent theoretical
working kit than the existing, rather worn-out anthropological apparatus still grounded in British census report classication.
It was in this context that the military labour market of Hindustan
emerged as a more useful research concept than older, static categories like caste or the Asiatic Mode of Production. In fact, the military labour market brought together the survival strategies of both
the peasantry and the empire, ideally uniting elites and subalterns.
As such, it changed the whole perception on medieval Indian states.
For example, the perception of the Mughal Empire changed from
a highly centralised, despotic kind of state imposing a unilateral law
and order on the peasant strata of society into a uid polity held
together by a political economy that was constantly fed by ows of
honours, gifts and intelligence.20 Mughal power was in its essence
a Personenverbandstaat in which caste, as a description of the social

(The End of an Ancien Rgime Colonial War in India, 17981818, pp. 2249).
Kol elaborated on the theme of Indian violence in his Geweld en geweldloosheid:
de twee gezichten van India, Reector (February 1987), pp. 22631. For his strong
dismissal of the idea that rational terror in South Asia is an imported, western
phenomenon, see his Terreurfantasie op het ISIM, Mare, 8 (18 October 2001)
and 9 (1 November 2001).
18
D.H.A. Kol and H.W. van Santen (eds), De geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over
Mughal Indi, 1627: Kroniek en Remonstrantie (Werken uitgegeven door de Linschoten-Vereeniging,
LXXXI) (The Hague, 1979).
19
It also gives us a most lively insight into the Christian community or nation
in seventeenth-century Surat. For this, see D.H.A. Kol, La Nation Chrtienne
Surate au dbut du XVIIme Sicle, in J.L. Mige (ed.), La femme dans les socits
coloniales (Aix-en-Provence, 1984), pp. 716.
20
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, p. 19.

10

reality of Mughal India in its entirety, obscured rather than illuminated political and social dynamics.21 In fact, Kol found that caste
and other social identities were not yet those rigid and ascriptive
social phenomena as analysed for the late-nineteenth and twentieth
centuries but they were still open, conscriptive categories and, as
such, most tting corollaries of the extensive and ever-shifting alliances
that dominated the military labour market.
But Kol would not be Kol if he had not attempted to combine the universal concept of a labour market into something specically
Indian. Hence, in stead of caste, tribe or nation, Kol turned to the
idea of naukar, a term that originated from a Central Asian context
but was widely current in medieval Hindustan to describe the negotiable service of a free retainer to his master-cum-employer.22 According
to Kol, naukar was the driving force of groups and networks of
groups participating in the military labour market. Apart from studying the usual Persian chronicles and European travelogues, Kol
turned towards the colonial material he knew so well from his earlier enquiries: the enormous amount of information gathered in district gazetteers and numerous volumes on tribes and castes. Moreover,
in his eagerness to nd proper Indian notions and to come as close
as possible to the village level, he enthusiastically looked at the Indian
folk traditions collected and studied by indologists like Grierson and
Vaudeville. Without too much hyperbole, one may say that for
medieval North-Indian history, this combination of sources was not
only unprecedented but also proved extremely fruitful. As a result,
we rediscover concepts like the military labour market and naukar
in the guise of the viraha, i.e. the separation of a woman and her
husband, a theme so evocatively expressed in Indias numerous folk
songs, ballads and legends.23 In this fascinating exercise, soon to be
coined ethnohistory, Kol not only managed to connect the universal (military labour market) with the specically Indian (naukar)
but also to bring real village life into these concepts. Perhaps, one
may even say that, with the introduction of ethnohistory, Kol succeeds where Huizinga had failed.24

21
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, p. 30. Probably, the use of a German concept derives
from Kol s classes with the Leiden Germanist Bas Schot.
22
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, pp. x, 20, 25, 76, 7982, 1813, 193.
23
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, pp. 7485.
24
At about the same time, Nicholas Dirks opened up southern India for ethno-

11

Kol s dissertation cannot be understood in isolation from the


academic context in which it came to fruition. Here, I feel, it should
be acknowledged that Kol worked under the strong inuence of
his supervisor Jan Heesterman. As we have indicated already, Kol s
attempt to combine the universal with the particular was partly
inspired by Heestermans observation of Indias inner conict.25 It
implied the inner paradox of Indian civilisation which cannot and
will not realise in this world a transcendent ideal that exactly renounces
that world. Like his Leiden colleague at that time, Andr Wink,
Kol succeeded in translating this idea into the practice of medieval
Indian history. This is as true for Winks concept of tna, as for
Kol s military labour market.26 In both we nd the rather abstract
concept of the inner conict at work in the daily practice of medieval
Indian politics. To use his own phrase, Kol demonstrated that the
complementary alternation between the roles of householder and
wanderer, suggested by Heesterman for a pre-axial age India, remains
of uninterrupted importance throughout ancient and medieval North
Indian history.27 Again, this achievement was the result of Kol s
ethnohistorical combination of historical, indological and anthropological sources.
Overall, I feel, Kol s dissertation was a great success thanks to
its highly original and innovative approach. To quote a reviewer,
the book had provided revisionists from a number of elds with a
convenient starting point for the renewal of their enquiries.28 It
should be stressed, though, that the bulk of the book is not about
method at all. Most of the book provides a great deal of historical
detail, in particular about the pre- and early-Mughal working of the
military labour market. Most of the criticism was directed at his
uncritical extrapolation of what was considered the spatially and temporarily restricted case of sixteenth-century southern Hindustan. Andr
Wink, for example, would have wished Kol to have ventured into
a more elaborated and precise discussion on the developments in

history (N.B. Dirks, The Hollow Crown. Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge,
1987). Perhaps one can say that it was the anthropologist among the historians
Bernard Cohn who paved the way for both Kol and Dirks.
25
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, p. 193.
26
For Wink, see his Land and Sovereignty in India. Agrarian Society and Politics under
the Eighteenth-century Maratha Svarjya (Cambridge, 1986).
27
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, p. 199.
28
R.S. Cooper in Modern Asian Studies, 26,1 (1992), p. 208.

12

Rajasthan.29 Be as it may, Wink, studying the eighteenth-century


Marathas, can only but agree with Kol s overall conclusions connected with the political behaviour in the medieval Indian military
labour market.30 Although acclaiming his innovative approach, Seema
Alavi disputes Kol s claim that the military labour market was
declining under British rule. She denies such a break when she insists,
with other revisionists like C.A. Bayly, that the Companys participation intensied the dynamism of the market and made it even
more volatile. At the same time, though, she also denies Kol s argument for the long-term continuity of the role of the armed peasant.
In this instance, Alavi sees a sharp caesura between the armed peasant of the sixteenth century and the professional peasant soldier, or
sepoy, of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For Alavi precisely this break explains why ethnic and social identities changed
the way Kol had indicated but had not quite demonstrated.31
Nonetheless, the work by Alavi and other historians show how Kol s
notion of open and negotiable social categories has opened up an
entirely new agenda for research.32
Apart from a few critical comments by these historians, who both
have been working on the much-debated eighteenth century, the dissertation has been very well received by historians working on the
earlier Mughal period. One of its chapters has been incorporated in
a recent collection of inuential contributions to the eld of Mughal
studies.33 As the revisionist editors claim, it was to show that the
ability to command the services of free-oating military groups was
a key element in the pre-Mughal era of precociously market-driven
polities based on horizontal ties, both of marriage and negotiation.34
29

The Journal of Asian Studies, 52,3 (1993), p. 759.


The close agreement between Kol and Wink in this regard is also demonstrated in P. Price, Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India (Cambridge, 1996),
pp. 189.
31
Studies in History, 9,1 (n.s.) (1993), pp. 1536.
32
S. Alavi, The Sepoys and the Company. Tradition and Transition in Northern India
1770 1830 (Delhi, 1995). Two examples of his inuence in other studies focusing
on the construction of identities are W.R. Pinch, Peasants and Monks in British India
(Berkeley, 1996) and even more recently P. Constable, The Marginalization of a
Dalit Martial Race in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Western India,
The Journal of Asian Studies, 60,2 (2001), pp. 43978.
33
A Warlords Fresh Attempt at Empire, Muzaar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds.), The Mughal State 15261750 (Themes in Indian History) (Delhi, 1998),
pp. 75114.
34
Alam and Subrahmanyam, The Mughal State, p. 21.
30

13

Among Mughal historians, especially Douglas Streusands work extensively draws on Kol s conclusions about the important role of the
armed peasantry in the North-Indian military labour market.35 Somewhat remarkably, considering the fact that it undermines the idea
of a highly-centralised Mughal state, the book has also been positively reviewed by the doyen of Mughal studies, Irfan Habib. Although
he criticises Kol for using only printed sourcesamong these he
forages widely and insightfullythe material from other, documentary evidence is likely to support, rather than throw doubt on
Kol s main thesis. Rather less surprisingly, the Aligarh historian,
and thus very much against current revisionist opinion, is particularly happy with the discontinuity that, according to Kol, followed
on the rural demilitarisation under British rule and turned zamndrs
from armed magnates into landlords.36 Considering the turbulence
of the historical debate in the 1980s, the books acclaim on the part
of both Aligarh and revisionist scholars is indeed a most remarkable
feat of scholarship.
Comparative colonial studies
During the rst decade after his research trip to Jhansi (196870)
and his appointment as a lecturer at the Kern Institute of Leiden
University (1971), Kol was working on his dissertation which he
defended in 1983. Meanwhile, in 1979, he published his article on
Bundelkhand land transfers and edited, with one of his students Hans
van Santen, Pelsaerts writings for the Linschoten Vereniging. In that
same year, he wrote an article in which, for the rst time, he made
a few preliminary comments comparing the colonial administration
of British India with that of the Dutch East Indies. This he did
mainly through the eyes of the Dutch colonial administrator Van
Hogendorp who on his 1875 mission to India was to report on
British methods to calculate, register and collect the land revenue.

35
Douglas E. Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1989), pp.
413; 456; 73, 81, 144. My own recent survey Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and
High Roads to Empire 15001700 (London, 2002) extensively builds on Kol s concept of the military labour market.
36
In Irfan Habib (ed.), Medieval India 1: Researches in the History of India 12001750
(Delhi, 1992), pp. 21011. Remarkably, in the same volume M. Athar Ali, another
Aligarh scholar, ercely reviews Streusands work (pp. 2167).

14

In this article, Kol, while working with the equally dry facts and
gures of the Bundelkhand district archives, must have sympathised
with Van Hogendorps aim to use endless and complicated statistics
to come as close as possible to the social and economic reality on
the ground. In his conclusion Kol anticipates his later theme, published in several comparative articles, that European categories like
conservative and liberal did not count as much in the East as at
home. On the contrary, both in India and Indonesia, the character
of the colonial administration was strongly determined by the local,
social-economic circumstances.37
Kol s rst strides into comparative colonial history were soon to
be further stimulated by the so-called Cambridge-Delhi-LeidenYogyakarta conferences, taking place during the mid-1980s, which
specically aimed at a comparison between the Indian and Indonesian
experience with colonialism.38 In this stimulating academic context,
Kol, at one of these instances together with the Indonesianists Cees
Fasseur, threw doubt over the widely held opinion, informed by
Furnivall and Emerson, that the British colonial ocials were rst
of all magistrates and relatively distant referees in a boxing match
while the Dutch civil servants were welfare ocers, planners and
social engineers. According to Kol, this picture of British indirect
rule versus Dutch direct rule was far too simplistic. He stressed that
similarities and dierences between the British and the Dutch were
rooted in the Asian societies they ruled. For him dwelling on the
dierent national characteristics of the two soon comes down to sentimental twaddle.
For Kol there are at least two important structural dierences
between Indian and Indonesian societies that have caused the two

37
D.H.A. Kol, De kontroleur G.K. van Hogendorp (18441879): Een enthousiast statisticus, in F. van Anrooij, D.H.A. Kol, J.T.M. van Laanen, and G.J.
Telkamp (eds.), Between People and Statistics. Essays on Modern Indonesian History presented
to P. Creutzberg (The Hague, 1979), pp. 175206.
38
D.H.A. Kol, Administrative Tradition and the Dilemma of Colonial Rule:
an Example of the Early 1830s, in C.A. Bayly and D.H.A. Kol (eds.), Two Colonial
Empires: Comparative Essays on the History of India and Indonesia in the Nineteenth Century
(Dordrecht, 1986), pp. 95109; C. Fasseur and D.H.A. Kol, Some Remarks on
the Development of Colonial Bureaucracies in India and Indonesia, in Itinerario,
10,1 (1986), pp. 3155. Two years later he wrote with V.J.H. Houben a similarly
comparative essay, about the pre-colonial period: Between Empire Building and
State Formation. Ocial Elites in Java and Mughal India, Itinerario, 12,1 (1988),
pp. 165194.

15

types of European rule to vary signicantly. Firstly, Indian society


was more complex and its economy more dynamic from the very
beginning of colonialism. Secondly, whereas Java in the nineteenth
century, prodded by the Dutch, exported a large proportion of its
agricultural produce, in India colonial rule could not aord to base
itself on the management of exports, always a small percentage of
the gross national product, but assumed a scal rather than a commercial character. Hence, the Dutch were primarily port-based entrepreneurs, the most successful shahbandars of Java, whereas the British
were compelled to become tax gatherers, the most ecient dwns
of the Mughal Empire.39 Here we see the old stereotype turned
upside down: the Dutch becoming the rather detached kontroleurs
building on the cooperation of the priyayi aristocracy, the British
becoming locally involved collectors of the land revenue pushing the
traditional Indian aristocracy back to the indirectly ruled Indian
princely states. But even within British-ruled India proper, distinctions should be made, for example, between the administration of
the Non-Regulated area of the Panjab and the Regulated province
of Bengal, the rst coming much closer to the experience on Java.40
Apart from these spatial discontinuities, it was important to see
dierences in time as well. For example, the distinction between the
two systems becomes most articulate around 1830: the British turning to a more utilitarian kind of interventionism, the Dutch introducing the indirect approach of the cultivation system. After the
Mutiny of 1857, British social engineering was somewhat modied
but in the 1870s Van Hogendorp still felt tired of British rules and
technicalities, longing back for the veranda of his house in Java, discussing and ridiculing all these formalities with the regent (bupati ),
his aristocratic complement in the dualistic bureaucracy of the Dutch.41
All this changed again at the end of the nineteenth century, following Dutch ethical policy, when foreign observers in Java became
impressed by the omnipresence of the Dutch government and its

39
Fasseur and Kol, Some Remarks, pp. 323. This dierence props up again
in Kol s recent survey De Engelse Oostindische Compagnie, in Tijdschrift voor
Geschiedenis, 115,4 (2002), pp. 54465.
40
Fasseur and Kol, Some Remarks, pp. 334.
41
Kol, Administrative Tradition, p. 96. Here, with Van Hogendorp, Kol
appears to contradict himself as he rst praises Java for its smaller distance between
Europeans and natives (see Kol, De kontroleur, p. 200).

16

continuous interference with the Javanese society.42 For Kol, though,


even the most modern of Dutch administrators, the likes of Douwes
Dekker alias Multatuli, remained more aloof from local society than
those most paternalistic of British collectors in the tradition of Bird
and Thomason. Hence he makes the illuminating observation that,
as a consequence and despite Multatuli, Dutch colonial literature
lacks the personal intimacy as expressed by authors like Sleeman,
Kipling and Forster.43
No doubt, since Furnivalls time, these observations were big steps
forward. But it also raised new questions about the traditional perception of colonial rule in India, straddling between Stokes two
philosophies of Romantic paternalism and Benthamite utilitarianism
or, alternatively, between Deweys Gospel of Uplift and Cult of
Friendship.44 For Kol, it appears that at the root of all this was the
psychological dilemma of colonial rule: whether to refer to European
values and comradeship as an inspiration for rule or to open ones
mind to what the institutions and dynamics of Asian societies seemed
to call for.45 This implied, for example, that modern statistical surveys could be as attractive to the utilitarian as to the romantic mind,
the rst in order to achieve certainty and nality, the latter in order
to acquire an instrument from below to do justice to the historically dened indigenous institutions.46 But he wondered to what extent
these dierent colonial mentalities were homemade or derived from
circumstances in India. In his articles he clearly tends to the latter
position but it may be too early to formulate denite conclusions as
these questions will probably be more thoroughly discussed in his
forthcoming work.
From history and psychology to psychohistory?
In 1991 Kol succeeded Jan Heesterman to the Leiden chair of
South Asian history. One year later, he became the director of the

42

Fasseur and Kol, Some Remarks, p. 40.


D.H.A. Kol, Waarom was er geen Multatuli in Brits-Indi?, in Theo Dhaen
en Gerard Termorshuizen (eds), De geest van Multatuli: Proteststemmen in vroegere Europese
kolonin (Semaian 17) (Leiden, 1998), pp. 23344.
44
Kol, Waarom was er geen Multatuli, pp. 2403. This refers to C. Dewey,
Anglo-Indian Attitudes. The Mind of the Indian Civil Service (London, 1993).
45
Kol, Administrative Tradition, p. 108.
46
Kol, Administrative Tradition, p. 107.
43

17

Centre of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS). This


meant that, until he left that job in 1997, he was almost fully occupied by administrative responsibilities. In his few publications of the
1990s he primarily elaborates on his earlier work. It was only after
1997 that Kol found time to do research again, both in London
and in India.47 Now having more leisure as an emeritus, his second
book is to be expected rather sooner than later. Looking at his beautifully-written inaugural lecture of 1991, one may detect a few hints
about the course he is to embark on.48
Kol s current work is mainly of a biographical nature as he
extensively uses the personal diary and letters, the ocial correspondence, and the public essays of Frederick Shore, a colonial civil
servant during the rst part of the nineteenth century. In this material, we are once again confronted by the contradiction that although
Shore is aware that Europeans and Indians are living under one and
the same heaven, a universe which could be described in one language, he also knows that to understand India demands a palette
all its own. Kol agrees with Shore that this palette is not primarily about those endless nineteenth-century reications of India, in
censuses, in gazetteers, language descriptions, archaeological surveys,
ethnographical works, all of which left no caste or sect unnoticed
but which did not yield an insight into Indian consciousness or man,
to use the Indian word preferred by Shore. Taking up the example
of Tulsidas circumambulation of Lake Manasarovar, Kol invites us
to accompany him in a circumambulation of Shores psyche and
personality. This in order to construct, like Shore himself, a BritishIndian discourse that is not conned within a colonial horizon, but
that is open to Indian notions and to Indians themselves. In order
to succeed, the historian should not only look into the periphery of
the colonial system and study such dissenting outsiders like Shore,
but also into the periphery of his own discipline. In this regard, Kol
expects a great deal from psychologists, non-western psychiatrists and

47
For this he took up a sabbatical leave of 6 months that was spent at the
Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) at Wassenaar. For a brief, personal report of this period, see Van Delft, De vrijgestelde onderzoeker, p. 11.
48
D.H.A. Kol, Een Brits-Indische omwandeling (Oratie Rijksuniversiteit Leiden,
1991), subsequently published in De Gids, 156 (1993), pp. 63545. My references
are to the English translation published as A British Indian Circumambulation
in Itinerario, 16,2 (1992), pp. 85100.

18

novelists as they can help the historian to understand some of the


pathological ingredients that accompany the inevitable alienating relationship between the colonised and the colonisers.49
How can we expect Shore, as a British outsider, to lead us out
of the colonial predicament and to restore, as it were, Indian agency?
Of course, this is something that is not yet fully articulated but his
lecture does suggest that Shore, by always standing in front of a
mirror, not only came face to face with himselfthereby giving us
a better understanding of the colonisers societybut also recognised
the multitude of images India reected in his direction. While going
native like a Rustam or a Su pr, he listened to the best of his ability to the Indians he met and did justice to their man or manas, their
self, their consciousness. Kol acknowledges, though, that even this
cannot oer more than a circumambulation and a variety of reections
on the mystery.50
Looking at the methodological message of his lecture, one gets the
impression that, after successfully venturing into ethnohistory, so connecting history with anthropology, Kol now strives to take up another
new eld, that of psycho-history connecting history with psychology.
As said already, this brings him very close to postmodernism.51 As
a fellow historian, one should perhaps be a bit concerned that this
approach will rather mystify than clarify the issues at stake. Kol
may sympathise with Shore but should be careful not to identify
with him. This admittedly rather positivistic critique may sound outdated but is still relevant as Kol admits that Shore himself attempted
to understand the Indian conscience. If the latter exists at all, one
would like to know what is true understanding and what is construction. This nearly comes down to the old question of how we
can have universal knowledge of something that is specically Indian?

49
Kol mentions the French work of Mannoni, Fanon and Memmi and the
Indian work of Sudhir Kakar and Ashis Nandi. In this context he also speaks favorably of Jan Bremans work on Dutch colonial excesses (British Indian Circumambulation, p. 92).
50
Kol, British Indian Circumambulation, p. 97. In another context, Shores
problematic involvement with pre-colonial Indian society seems to reappear in Kol s
recent comments on the Dutch novelist Jacob Haafner (Jacob Haafners Journey in
a Palanquin: A Passionate Farewell from a Colonial Ancien Rgime, in D.W. Loenne
(hrsg), Tohfa-e-Dil. Festschrift Helmut Nespital, Bd 2: Kulturwissenschaften (Reinbek, 2001),
pp. 72747, more in particular p. 746.
51
Kol himself mentions Lacan and Levinas in this context (British Indian
Circumambulation, p. 92).

19

Whereas in his dissertation, Kol came up with the combination of


military labour market and naukar, one wonders whether, by following in the footsteps of Tulsidas, he is not giving up, like Huizinga,
the rst by being fully immersed in the latter. But surely Kol will
come up with another convenient, mediating middle ground. Does
this imply a South Asian variety of psychohistory? One cannot but
most eagerly await Kol s forthcoming observations on this.52

2. Circumambulations in South Asian History


In the rst part of this introductory essay, Jos Gommans has commented in some detail on the considerable diversity and expanse of
the canvas around which the scholarly work of Dirk Kol has been
carried out over the last three decades and more. The essays written by his friends and colleagues in his honour and included in this
collection cover an even wider range both in terms of the themes
handled as well as the time period spanned. It is, I believe, a great
tribute to Kol s scholarship that in spite of their wide range, each
of the contributions has something or the other to do with Kol s
writing and research.
The unifying theme of the rst block of six essaysthose by
Heesterman, Van Santen, Barendse, De Lannoy, sJacob and Bhattacharyais the various facetsranging from the military to the economic to the diplomatic and to the religiousof the European
presence in the Indian subcontinent in the pre-colonial and the early
colonial period. Jan Heestermans is by far the most wide ranging
of these articulating and making an innovative use of his well-known
thesis on the frontier and the interior in relation to the spread of
Islam in the Indian Ocean region. Heesterman argues that it was
in the context of increasing maritime activity that Islam expanded
along the coasts of the Ocean. The coastal culture, he points out,
was characterized by openness and exibility in contrast to the restrictive nature of the inland agrarian regimes. But the Indian or the
Southeast Asian seaports were not a particularly fertile ground for
52
A rst avoring of what is forthcoming we may consult his De bajonet erin!
Een kleine oorlog in Brits-Indi, in A. Huusen, J. de Jong, G. Prince (eds.),
Cultuurcontacten: Ontmoetingen tussen culturen in historisch perspectief (Historische Studies IV)
(Groningen, 2001), pp. 12336.

20

the expansion of Islam which like other scriptural religions needed


durable centres for maintaining, developing, transmitting and propagating its scriptural tenets. The absence of such centres on the coast
prevented the availability of stable patronage and generous endowments which were necessary conditions for Islams owering. The
inland agrarian zones in the subcontinent were also not conducive
to the promotion of the religion. Barred from the agrarian zones,
Islam had to create its own permanent space in the open frontier
where there was land suitable to be turned into arable. In tune with
the argument of Richard Eaton, Heesterman suggests that the agents
bringing this about were in the rst place Su holy men and their
followers. So Susm, he concludes, was practically predestined to
be the vehicle of the propagation of Islam, penetrating into the agrarian interior and pushing forward the agricultural frontier.
In his contribution, Hans van Santen delves into the economic as
well as the political domain of the Dutch East India Companys
operations in northern India in the seventeenth century. He begins
by talking about the tight rope walking that the Company was obliged
to do in its quest of achieving a nely tuned balance between its
objective of attaining a position of dierential advantage over rival
Indian merchants moving in the direction of monopoly even if violence had to be used in the process, and the necessity of maintaining the goodwill of the Mughal Indian authorities to be able to
engage successfully in its trading activities in the Empire. To Van
Santens justied emphasis on the Mughal states realization of the
superior naval power of the Europeans as an important factor in
conditioning its own response structure, one might add that the sizeable accretion to imperial revenues in the form of customs duties
paid by the Europeans coupled with their import into the Empire
of enormous quantities of precious metals critically needed for running the Empires monetary system from Europe as well as other
parts of Asia were by no means insignicant considerations at work.
In the context of the procurement of textiles, Van Santen correctly
emphasizes the important regional dierences within the Empire. For
example, the buoyant market one encounters in Gujarat is conspicuous by its absence in Awadh in the interior. Another important
area that Van Santen comments upon is the relationship between
the Company and the Mughal elite not only in the political domain
but also in the economic. He points out, for example, that the investment in the procurement of textiles in Awadh was channelled at

21

Agra through a daughter of Shah Jahan who had her jgr in Awadh.
There were also cases of the Company borrowing directly from the
imperial treasury. However, for fear that such interaction might eventually have undesirable consequences, the scale of such contacts was
deliberately kept limited. Finally, in an important case study of a
major Surat magnate, Virji Vohra, Van Santen demonstrates in some
detail the nature of the complex relationship between Indian merchants,
the Mughal state ocials and the European trading companies.
The essay by Ren Barendse is concerned mainly with the role
of the indigenous soldiers in maintaining order in eighteenth-century
Portuguese Goa and adjoining territories. He begins by using the
notion of the military scal state and argues that it applied to
the Portuguese state in India as much as it did to the English and
the Dutch in India and elsewhere in Asia. The 1762 annexation of
provinces adjacent to Goa which had eectively tripled the size of
the Estado da ndia territories necessitated a substantial accretion
to the military forces available to it. Barendse discusses in some detail
the distinguishing characteristic features such as amenability to discipline etc. of the dierent companies of the Estado forces. He argues
that the new sepoy force in Portuguese service from the 1770s onwards
represented a transition from the ancien rgime to the military scal
state in Portuguese India. He thus disagrees with the hypothesis of
continuity in this respect between the pre-colonial and the colonial
periods. There are according to him two basic dierences between
the situation in the seventeenth century and that in the eighteenth.
One new feature was that the frontier raids were now nanced
through permanently assigning the incomes of villages in Bicholim
to the invading army, a practice that did not exist in the seventeenth century. The second dierence was the taking of hostages
which was also a new phenomenon.
The contribution of Mark de Lannoy is also concerned with military history in the eighteenth century though the corporate enterprise discussed this time is the Dutch East India Company on the
Malabar Coast, the only region of the subcontinent in which the
Company enjoyed territorial rights. Following the loss of the fortress
at Colachel to the Travancore forces in 1740, a trial of the President
of the Dutch Council of War in Malabar, Captain Johannes Hackert
and of Andries Leslorant, the engineer who had been responsible
for the fortications at the Colachel fort was conducted between
1740 and 1742 by a Council of War established by Stein van

22

Gollenesse, the Dutch Commander of Malabar. De Lannoys paper


contains interesting details regarding the process and clearly brings
out the weaknesses and the deciencies characterizing the trial. In
May 1742, Leslorant was sent to Ceylon and in December of the
same year Hackert was sent to Batavia but the nal outcome of the
trials is not recorded.
The following two papersby Hugo sJacob and Bhaswati Bhattacharyahave a great deal in common in so far as both are concerned with the very early years of the English take-over of Bengal
and attempts by groups adversely aected in the process to try and
restore the status quo ante. sJacobs contribution deals with the little
known attempt made by the Governor-General and Council of the
Dutch East India Company at Batavia in 1759 to dislodge the English
from their newly found position of authority and privilege in Bengal
following the victory at Plassey two years earlier. The adventure was
both ill-conceived and disastrously executed but it nevertheless merits notice because, dierent from Malabar where the VOC enjoyed
territorial rights, this particular episode constituted the only organized attempt by the Company to employ naval-cum-land forces in
the Indian subcontinent. sJacob deals with the matter in great detail.
He rst establishes the critical role of Bengal in the overall EuroAsian and intra-Asian trading network of the Company through the
seventeenth and the rst half of the eighteenth century. The role of
Bengal opium as an important generator of revenue both for the
Company as well as for its employees is also brought out clearly.
While until the 1740s, the employees participated in the opium trade
on a clandestine basis, this was done legally following the establishment of the Opium Society in Batavia in 1745. All this was gravely
endangered by the English take-over of Bengal in 1757. sJacob provides a blow by blow account of both the conception and the execution of the project and argues that given the nature and extent
of the information available to the authorities at Batavia, particularly in relation to the strength of the English in Bengal, the decision to send an expedition was not really as bizarre as is generally
believed to have been the case in the literature.
Following the so-called Plassey Revolution, the English East India
Company had replaced Siraj al-Daula as the Nawab of Bengal by
the puppet Mir Jafar. Not long after, however, the latter was also
replaced by his son-in-law Mir Qasim (176064). Bhaswati Bhattacharyas contribution in this volume deals with an Armenian adven-

23

turer Khoja Gregory alias Gurgin Khan who had started his career
as a merchant but who eventually ended up as the principal military condant of Mir Qasim and the commander-in-chief of his
army. This man has almost found a place in the folklore of Bengal
guring prominently in one of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyays novels Chandrasekhar. The novelist portrays the man essentially as an
opportunist with an eye on the throne of Bengal. Be as it may,
Gurgin Khan at any rate played an important role in modernizing
Mir Qasims army in the latters quest to get rid of the English yoke.
In August 1763, however, Gurgin Khan was murdered while in the
entourage of Mir Qasim between Monghyr and Patna. Was Mir
Qasim himself behind the murder? Bhattacharya speculates in detail
on this point.
The next block of three papersby Digby, Gommans and Schokkerbelong to a very dierent genre. They deal basically with issues
of kingship, legitimacy, rebellion, slavery, military recruitment and
so forth in parts of northern India, now broadly in the state of Uttar
Pradesh and which Kol in his work on the ethnohistory of the military labour market had termed Hindustan. Simon Digbys essay
deals with the revolt against the Indo-Afghans which temporarily dispossessed the Lodis of their capital of Jawnpur shortly after the accession of Sultan Sikandar (1489 AD). In reconstructing the event, Digby
uses, among other sources, a Su biographical work and a collection of orally-derived anecdotes regarding the Indo-Afghans and their
campaigns. Digbys argument is that eective military manpower
could be raised from the armed peasantry of Awadh at the time of
the rebellion to establish an eective administration over the heartland of the Jawnpur Sultanate north of the Ganga and that this military force could be deployed only by a leader who had also established
a defensive military base south of the Ganga.
The piece by Jos Gommans on the Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad
ties in rather neatly with Dirk Kol s work on the military labour
market. Indeed, the history of the Bangash Nawabs is an interesting case study of Indian military slavery. Being introduced from a
Turko-Persian context, military slaves were instrumental in conquering
and establishing a new homeland for their Afghan masters. The rst
Muslim raids into India in the twelfth century and the eventual conquest of parts of northern India at the end of the thirteenth century was achieved by Turkish mamlks or bandagn in the service of
the Ghaznavid and Ghurid dynasties in Afghanistan and Khorasan.

24

Under the Mughals, slaves played only a minor part both in the
administration as well as in the army. According to Abul Fazl, Akbar
believed that mastership belonged to no one but God. He, therefore, borrowed the term chela from the Hindu bhakti and the Indianized
Su tradition, signifying the complete attachment of a faithful disciple or pupil (chela or murd) to a venerable, holy leader ( guru or
pr). Here the relationship is not one of ownership but one of
unqualied and unconditional love. In due course, though, chela
became the current Indian name for a mamlk-like or ulm-like
slave. This departure from a Turko-Persian Islamic expression reected
not only the reduced importance of slaves under the Mughals but
also Akbars reorientation to an Indianized Indo-Islamic culture.
Gommans argues that Indias short-lived experience of the mamlk
system owed a great deal to the vibrancy of the extensive free labour
market in the subcontinent. The large availability of cheap military
labour and of ready cash to pay for it in a relationship of naukar
made slavery increasingly redundant. The opportunities oered by
the naukar relationship brought to the Bangash Nawabs enormous
riches and honours which further strengthened their position both
in Farrukhabad and among the Mughal nobility.
The essay by G.H. Schokker is concerned with the legitimation
of kingship in Bundelkhand. Schokker provides a detailed analysis
of two genealogies written in Braj, a variant of Hindi, as source
material on the legitimacy of the Bundela kingship. Both the genealogies claim the descent of the Bundelas from the Gaharavaras whose
last king Jayachandra was defeated and killed by Muhammad Ghuri
at Candravara in the Etawah district. Schokker questions the validity of this claim. He also suggests that the manner in which the
Bundela genealogies seek to legitimise kingship has a close parallel
in the tradition of the Rathor Rajputs at Jodhpur similarly claiming
descent from the Gaharavara king Jayachandra.
The following two contributionsthe ones by Kooiman and the
Rudolphstake one well into the heart of British India. The paper
of Dick Kooiman deals with the short military career of Walter
Dickens, one of the sons of the author Charles Dickens, in the subcontinent in the immediate post-Mutiny years. The paper contributes
signicantly to an analysis of the process of patronage in inuential
quarters that was a necessary precondition to nding a position in
the service of the East India Company. Dickens arrived in Calcutta
on 30 August 1857 just as the Mutiny had gotten underway and

25

was assigned to Her Majestys 42nd Highlanders. His regiment participated in the battle of Kanpur (December 1857) and took part in
the relief of Lucknow (March 1858). Young Walter gained rapid
promotion as well as a medal for his part in the Lucknow operations. But both his career and life were rather short. He rapidly contracted large debts, fell ill and died in India in February 1864.
Kooimans account also uses Charles Dickens fairly close personal
connection with India in the form mainly of several of his sons
including Walter trying their luck out there to delineate his projection of the country in his writings. The fact that Walter was in the
thick of the Mutiny made Dickens take an unusual amount of interest in the reports regarding the uprising. News regarding English
women and children being massacred was evidently behind Dickens
outburst of October 1857 in which he declared that in case he had
held the oce of the Commander-in-Chief in India, he would have
done his utmost to exterminate the Race upon which the Stain of
the late cruelties rested. Exaggerated notions of loyalty often evoke
strange reactions from otherwise sensible individuals!
The contribution by Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph on Colonel
James Tods classic Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan brings out in
sharp relief Tods seminal contribution in facilitating the understanding of aspects of Indian society in the great tradition of British
administrators-cum-scholars such as William Moreland, Malcolm
Darling and many others. Tod arrived in Calcutta in 1799 at the
age of seventeen to begin service in the East India Companys Bengal
army. For a long period of twenty four years, he served the Company
in central and western India in military, surveying, intelligence and
political capacities. In 1818 he became the Companys rst political
agent at Mewar. It was during the following four years that he collected the enormous amount of material for his Annals. In the process
he mastered Mewars language, culture and history. Most of the writing of the Annals was done in London between 1823 and 1831 when
he held the position of the rst Librarian of the recently founded
Royal Asiatic Society. The rst volume of the Annals was published
in 1829 while the second appeared in 1832. This is not only a work
of considerable scholarship about history and ethnography and legend and myth but also as a text which can be explicated as intellectual history. In the course of his Indian career, Tod was also
instrumental in having geographical material relating chiey to the
region between the Indus (in the northwest) and Bundelkhand, the

26

Jamuna and the Narbada (in the east and south) collected and preserved. The Rudolphs also credit him with creating the rst British
intelligence service in India, a service that proved decisive in making the Company and via the Company Britain the victors in the
contest with the Marathas to succeed the Mughals as the hegemonic
power on the Indian subcontinent.
The following two papersby Victor van Bijlert and Jan Brouwer
respectivelyare essentially theoretical pieces. Van Bijlerts essay on
the Idea of Modernity is an exhaustive review of the literature on
this theme. Van Bijlert also discusses in some detail specic issues
such as the eurocentricity of the notion of modernity as opposed to
the more reasonable view of modernity as the multicultural mixture that one can experience in large cities such as Rio, Calcutta or
Mombasa. Some other issues considered are modernity and ethics
and modernity and cultural studies. Another area considered at some
length is the relationship between modernity, colonialism and nationalism with special reference to the case of India. Jan Brouwer provides an interesting anthropological perspective on the relationship
between modern media and indigenous knowledge in India and
Europe. He argues that the advent of television and internet make
for a new cognitive revolution: television being eective in the eld
of life style but not in that of world view while internet technology
is to be seen as a means of reinforcing indigenous knowledge.
The last contribution in the volume is an excellent survey by
Dietmar Rothermund of military organization in South Asian history over a very long period of time starting in the pre-Christian
era and going on to the present day. The instruments of warfare
that Rothermund discusses include weapons as well as animals such
as elephants and horses used extensively in warfare. He also considers the social consequences of warfare as well as its impact on
the composition and the functions of warrior elites. The rst professional warrior elite of South Asia was that of the people who
called themselves rya (noble). Their main instrument of warfare was
the chariot and Rothermund goes into a fair amount of detail on
chariot warfare including its impact on the stratication of early
Aryan society. The nobility consisted of a hereditary segment from
which the kings were drawn and an inferior one appointed in consideration of its military skills. The nature of this type of early kingship is reected in the rituals preceding the avamedha used as the
mechanism for establishing the kings sovereignty. Later when the

27

war-elephant replaced the chariot, say under the Mauryas, the nature
of social stratication also changed. Imperial ocers rather than
noble warriors were the new ruling elite. With the establishment
of the Delhi Sultanate at the beginning of the thirteenth century,
the war elephant was replaced by the cavalry as the principal instrument of warfare. The system of military feudalism based on the
assignment of revenue grants (iq' ) which were given to ocers for
supporting cavalry troops did have a certain amount of centralizing
eect. This became the precursor of the Mughal manabdr system.
In the domain of weaponry, eld-artillery remained the mainstay of
Mughal power throughout. The principal distinguishing feature of
warfare under the East India Company was the rise of a modern
infantry. It was only much later that a new type of armamentthe
tankwas introduced in the British Indian army. The ocer corps
in this army continued to be exclusively British until World War II.
Rothermund also covers the post-Independence era and goes into
the imperatives of the social structure of the Indian and the Pakistan
armies in the second half of the twentieth century. The last section
of the paper deals with the nuclear tests carried out by the two
countries in 1998 and the implications of this development for the
security of the region.

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THE TIDES OF THE INDIAN OCEAN, ISLAMIZATION


AND THE DIALECTIC OF COAST AND INLAND1
Jan Heesterman

1
We have come to seek Christians and spices. This proud declaration by the Portuguese emissario sent ashore by Vasco da Gama
on reaching Calicut has entered the standard lore of the Age of
Discoveries. The striking point, however, is that the Portuguese on
arrival promptly found interlocutors with whom they could communicate in a Mediterranean lingua franca. That is, they met and
conversed as Mediterraneans among each other. In contrast to
Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama never left the old and familiar worlda world that had its centre in the Middle East, which in
various ways linked the Mediterranean to that other, far larger,
mediterranean of the Indian Ocean. The rst entry of the Portuguese
into the Indian Ocean was no more than adding an alternative channel of communication to the already existing overland route. Along
this channel they introduced the violent competition and enmities of
the Mediterranean.
It is not that the Indian Ocean was an area of peaceful proceedings, cruelly disturbed by ruthless Portuguese violence, not to
speak of the later coming Dutch and English. The Indian waters
had their well-established erce competition, conict and piracy.
However, there is a striking dierence. While the Mediterranean
since the fall of the Roman Empireactually already beforeshows
a pattern of progressively splitting up, the Indian Ocean oers a picture of increasing integration. The Mediterraneans evermore complicated pattern of shifting and criss-crossing dividing lines was not
primarily a matter of the clash of the Christian and Islamic worlds.

1
This essay is the revised and annotated text of a lecture delivered at a conference on Eurasia and Africa during the last Thousand Years, convened by F.M.
Clover, University of Wisconsin, 1112 October 1999.

30

In fact, it must be counted to be typical of the European world,


where eventually it gave rise to the conguration of mutually exclusive, modern national states. Similarly, it was through the intensied
intervention of the West-European powers since the end of the eighteenth century that this divisive pattern came to impose itself in the
Indian Ocean worldas elsewhereand eventually broke up the
secular process of its integration.
On the face of it one might be inclined to see the clash between
Islam and Hinduism or Buddhism as the source of the break-up, as
it dramatically manifested itself in the Indian subcontinents partition which accompanied Independence in 1947. However, as in the
case of the Mediterranean, the clash with Islam was part of the divisiveness, not its cause. Moreover, how should one explain the sudden upsurge in India of irreparable communal conict against the
background of seven centuries of give-and-take symbiosis? It is unlikely
that such an irreparable conict could have been suppressed for so
long. In fact, far from causing disruption, the expansion of Islam
went hand in hand with the on-going integration of the Indian Ocean
area. But again without being its cause. The tides of integration
amply preceded Islam. One might say that, like Buddhism and scriptural Hinduism before, Islam rode the crest of the integrative waves.

2
Speaking of waves and tides here, is no mere, conveniently vague
metaphor. The channel of communication was indeed the Indian
Ocean with its currents, its trade winds and its coasts. And it was
along this channel that Islam expanded. The expansion of Islam,
then, can give us interesting insights in the integration process of the
Indian Ocean.
It is well-known that Islam was in the rst place carried all over
the Indian Ocean by maritime trac, stimulated by the economic
preponderance of the Middle East and the steadily increasing activity along the sea-lanes, which in turn were linked via the Mediterranean
with the growth of the European economy. From the other end of
the Indian Ocean economic activity was further intensied since the
late tenth century by Chinese involvement leading to Chinese commercial settlements in Southeast Asia and culminating in the great
maritime expeditions under the Ming dynasty in the rst half of the

31

fteenth century (14051431), after which ocial Chinese involvement came to an end. Chinese merchants remained active, though
especially in Southeast Asia.
It was in this context of increasing maritime activity that Islam
primarily could expand along the coasts.2 And for a long time Islam
remained very much a coastal phenomenon. Armed conquest of the
South Asian mainland had to wait till the break-through of Central
Asian mounted archers at the beginning of the thirteenth century.3
But their lightning actions had nothing to do with the strong presence of Islam on the coasts, nor did they bring aboutforcibly or
otherwisesomething even distantly approaching mass conversion.

3
Now, it lies near at hand to suppose that once having a foothold
on the coast Islam easily expanded into the interior. However, on
further consideration it may be doubted, whether the coastal areas
oered the conditions for Islam rmly to take root. And in as far
as this may have been the case, can we safely assume that Islam
automatically penetrated into the interior?
In order to become rmly established and expand, Islam, like
other scriptural religions, needs durable centres for maintaining, developing, transmitting and propagating its scriptural tenets; that is, it
needs stable patronage and generous endowments. Islam, after its
rise in the Arabian peninsula, found the resources for such support
in the Hellenised cities of the Middle East. It was there that it
received its typically urban imprint. But exactly there is the rub.
We tend to think of seaports as permanent towns with a stable
population and properly looked after harbour facilities and defences.
However, in general towns and cities were institutionally of a dierent
naturea point to which we shall have to come back. Seaports,

2
On the historical role of the coasts cf. J.C. Heesterman, Littoral et intrieur de
lInde, in: L. Bluss, H.L. Wesseling and G. Winius (eds.), History and Underdevelopment:
Essays on Underdevelopment and European Expansion in Asia and Africa (Leiden, 1980), pp.
8792; J.C. Heesterman, The Hindu Frontier, Itinerario 13 (1989), pp. 116.
3
On the Opening of the Gates of Hind by Turkish mounted archers, see
A. Wink, Al-Hind, The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. II: The Slave Kings and the
Islamic Conquest, 11th13th Centuries (Leiden, 1997), Chs. 3 and 4.

32

moreover, diered also for other reasons. Although there was no


dearth of big, ocean-going ships, the craft that was mostly in use
was relatively small, low-slung and at-bottomed or with shallow
draught, capable of negotiating shallows, estuaries and mudats. Such
craft did not need elaborate facilities and accordingly did not require
considerable investments in harbour facilities.4 This was as well, since
the seaports were exposed to hostile action and piracy. Harbours
were decidedly low-costs aairs. Consequently there was no strong
urge to make great eorts to develop and maintain seaports. Each
beach, creek, estuary or lagoon could be a harbour, each shore might
have an adequate roadstead. Thus an unassuming shing village on
the Coromandel Coast that hardly seemed destined for such a future
could within a few decades develop into the dominant port-city of
Madras, which was turned into an European type fortied portcity5a costly type, new to the area, originally introduced by the
Portuguese.

4
A typical example is provided by the great port of Melaka, dominating the straits between the Malaccan peninsula and the island of
Sumatra. It was the exchange point between the Indonesian Archi-

4
For a brief survey of Asian ships and shipbuilding, see K.N. Chaudhuri, Trade
and Civilization in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750
(Cambridge, 1985), pp. 138159. On the great variety of types according to diverging local and regional needs, see p. 141. For Javanese shipbuilding, see D. Lombard,
Le carrefour javanais: Essai dhistoire globale, Vol. II: Les rseaux asiatiques (Paris, 1990),
p. 85f.
5
Cf. K.N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East Asia Company,
1660 1760 (Cambridge, 1978), p. 51. When Niels Steensgaard speaks of Goa or
Batavia (meaning generally the European creation of port-cities in the Indian Ocean
area) as false centres, dislocating the Indian Ocean network, we should keep in
mind the fundamental instability of the traditional harbour towns and the ease of
their replacement. Actually, the multicentred Indian Ocean network had a long history of dislocations, cutting same lines of communication and redirecting same
activities before the European entry into the area. The dierence was not that
these dislocations were caused by interests external to the Indian Oceanthe
Indian Ocean never was a closed worldbut, so to say, the stabilitas loci of newly
created or refurbished port-cities (see N. Steensgaard, The Indian Ocean Network
and the Emerging World-Economy, in Satish Chandra (ed.), The Indian Ocean (New
Delhi, 1987), p. 149). Below we shall nd occasion to come back to this point with
regard to towns or cities in general.

33

pelago and the South China coast on the one hand and South and
West Asia on the other. So, when the Portuguese attacked Melaka
one would expect that they would have been confronted with a determined resistance. But there was no sign of it. Instead, the sultan
simply withdrew to the hinterland at a distance of a days journey.
The attack was seen as a raid after which the assailants would retire
with the loot or the agreed ransoma not unusual event. The
Portuguese, however, did something very unusual. They did not retire
but, on the contrary, stayed and built a fortress. A legendary version of the conquest of Melakawritten down 200 years later, around
the end of the seventeenth centurysingles out the building of the
fortress for a fulsome treatment in a curious mixture of half-way
realistic and half-mythic-cosmogonic detail, thus stressing the unusual
importance of the event. The sultan on the other hand, resignedly
goes elsewhere to found new seaports, Bintang and Johore, equally
on the straits.6 This well illustrates the relative ease of founding new
seaports as well as their disposability. More generally we see here that
the fall of Melaka to the Portuguese instead of concentrating maritime and commercial power gave rise to the growth of other seaports (including Aceh and Jambi). This in turn also signals the rising
tide of intensication of maritime trade in the Indian Ocean, bringing further integration, as well as sharper competition, to which the
Portuguese contributed a tinge of often berserker-like warriordom.
Now, for all its fame and importance as a seaport and entrept
Melaka had no hinterland of its own. But even Surat on the Indian
west coast, the main maritime outlet of northern India and as such
favoured by the imperial Mughal government, was far from a portcity, even from the contemporary European point of view. Thus
Hendrik Zwaardecroon, director of the Dutch East India Company
at Surat from 1699 to 1701, noted with dismay that even raging
res did not move the Mughal authorities to any action. Nor did
the silting up of the harbour; on top of that ballast was freely dropped
there. Such neglect was not just incidental.7 Some seventy years
6
The chronicles story is quoted by Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Portuguese Empire in
Asia, 1500 1700 (London and New York, 1993), pp. 36 (for the building of the
fort see p. 4f.; next comes the Dutch conquest of Melaka). Cf. also A. Reid, Southeast
Asia in the Age of Commerce, 14501680, Vol. I: The Lands below the Winds (New Haven
and London, 1988), p. 123f.
7
See A. Dasgupta De VOC en Suratte in de 17e en 18e eeuw in M.A.P.
Meilink Roelofsz (ed.), De V.O.C. in Azi (Bussum, 1976), p. 77f.

34

before another Company servant, Francisco Pelsaert, had already


commented on similar signs of ocial neglect. The fort protecting
the harbour would not be able to stand up to a short bombardment. Moreover, the forces of a nearby raja used to come pillaging
up to and into the town. As to Surats function as a market for buying textilesnext to indigo the most important export product
Pelsaert pointed out that there was locally no worthwhile production;
to obtain the coveted textiles one had to go to the markets and production centres up-country, into the interior. Surat, he observed,
owed its importance not to trade and production but to transhipment business.8 Even though this may have been exaggerated, it
makes to same extent the lack of care spent on the town understandable. The time of the great coastal metropolis, such as Madras,
Calcutta and Bombay combining various functionsmarket, nance,
production, entrept and transport as well as governmentwas still
to come in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.9
The uidity and impermanence of the seaports were reected in
the mobility of their heterogeneous and oating population of merchants and sailors whose movements were ruled by the rhythm of
the trade winds. But however heterogeneous they were, through their
mobility, mutual contact and the similarity of their living conditions
the orang laut or sea nomads shared a common culture that markedly
diered from the culture of the interior. It still resonates in the work
of Joseph Conrad. The coastal culture was characterised by openness and exibility as well as competition in contrast to the restrictive features of the agrarian inland regimes. Here, in the coastal
milieu, Islam readily gained access.
However, the same features of uidity and impermanence through
which Islam gained access to the littoral world militated against its
full deployment, notably the coastal world did not oer much opportunity for the founding and the growth of durable institutions for
maintaining and propagating scriptural tradition. Islam needed, as
already mentioned, the permanence of the city and its urban civil-

8
See Pelsaerts Remonstrantie in D.H.A. Kol and H.W. van Santen (eds.),
De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal India, 1627 (The Hague, 1979), pp.
287, 289, 308.
9
On the Making of the Modern Indian Ocean Forts, see the contribution of
F.J.A. Broeze, K.E. McPherson and P.D. Reeves in Satish Chandra, The Indian
Ocean, pp. 254316.

35

isation. And it was exactly this that was lacking on the coasts. Typically
an eighteenth-century Arab chronicle remarked on the Muslim
Mappilas of the Malabar coast that they were people of great
courage and zeal for Islam but added that they had few scholars
among them and no more of Islam than the mere name of it.10
Notwithstanding its wealth, the maritime world was not known for
its centres of learning. Moreover, given the contrast between the libertarian coastal milieu and the restrictive regimes of the interior,
penetration of Islam into the inland areas was far from self-evident.

5
But how then could Islam gain a rm foothold in the interior? As
already pointed out we should in the rst place think of the city as
the economic and political centre capable of providing generous support to religious institutions. However, the matter is not so clearcut. We encounter here again the problem of impermanence we
already noticed on the coasts. Though not to the same extent as the
coastal port town, the inland towneven imperial citieslacked the
determination to persevere that characterised even the smallest
European town. Basically, what distinguished the European town,
was its corporate freedom, harking back to the late Roman coloniae,
municipia and civitates with their formal constitutions and autonomy.
This particular jural status had far-reaching consequences. It meant
that it was protable to invest in ones town, in its prosperity, institutions and defence. This again was a powerful incentive not to relinquish ones town in adversity and to defend it till the bitter end. All
this made for the permanence of the European town and gave it its
unique character. Its counterpart, however, in the world of the Indies
was utterly disposable. Thus the Mughal Empire, precisely at the
time of its vigorous expansion, did not have a permanent capital.
The name of the imperial centre, urd"i mu'all, the exalted army
camp, is signicant. It was indeed a mobile court and army camp
and as such it did move about. Only during the long decline of
imperial power it became xed at Delhi.
10
See Stephen F. Dale, Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: The Mappilas of
Malabar, 14981922 (Oxford, 1980), p. 53 (referring to an Arabic chronicle quoted
by R.B. Serjeant, The Portuguese o the South Arabian Coast, p. 117).

36

Whatever permanence there was did not depend on durable towns


and cities but on the zones of intensive agriculture; in South and
Southeast Asia this meant especially the highly productive irrigated
rice cultivation. The durability of towns situated in these areas did
not arise from their intrinsic strength but from the permanence of
sedentary agriculture and its tight web of social relations. Such towns
were mostly centres providing services to the surrounding agricultural tractssuch as market facilities, nance and manufactures. They
also were an important prop in the expansion of agriculture. In short,
they were closely tied up with the agrarian world.11
Although, as we shall discuss further on, agriculture did play an
important part in the expansion and consolidation of Islam, the old
established agricultural areas were, by themselves, least amenable to
islamization. Densely populated and covered by an intricate web of
rights to shares in the produce of the soil, as well as no less intricate networks of dependence and interdependence, the agricultural
areas oer little if any room for extraneous movements and innovation. Everything is geared to preserve a precarious balance, the
more so because it is forever threatened by the vagaries of the monsoon and other natural or man-made misfortunes.12
Also the conquerorand especially hecannot do otherwise than
to try and further the existing order, lest he endangers his conquest.
A dynamic event like islamization, however, requires free space, unencumbered by restrictive arrangements, which not only allows but is
characterised by change and mobility. This was the case in the coastal
areas, where Islam did indeed nd ready access.

11
Cf. A.H. Hourani in A.H. Hourani and S.M. Stern (eds.), The Islamic City
(Oxford, 1970), pp. 1620, where he speaks of the agro-city as the basic unit
of Near Eastern society. His description also ts South Asian cities. It should be
noted that the Middle Eastern Islamic cities Hourani has in mind, though originally endowed with Roman constitutions, had already by the fth century practically lost their autonomythis in contrast to those in the western part of the Roman
world (see A. Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity (London and New
York, 1993), p. 168).
12
On the heavy impact of environmental change in the Indian Ocean area
through natural causes see A. Wink, From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean:
Medieval History in Geographic Perspective, Comparative Studies on Society and History,
44 (2002), pp. 416445. Wink rightly draws attention to the part of the uncontrollably shifting course of the great rivers in the impermanence of cities, turning
the Indian Ocean area into one of environmentally disrupted human settlement,
of lost civilizations, of lost cities (p. 439).

37

6
In this respect the coasts do not stand by themselves. They share
their characteristicsopenness, mobility, uidity, a oating and heterogeneous population and facility of long-distance tracwith particular mainland areas that form frontier zones, as coastal areas also
do. As the littoral (and its coastal shipping) forms a frontier zone
between the open sea and the agrarian inland, so do the passages
stretching between the uncultivated wilds and the densely settled agricultural areas.
When we speak here of frontiers, we should not think of boundaries in the modern sense of imaginary lines enclosing a particular
territory and setting it o from similarly enclosed territories surrounding it. These modern borderlines do not facilitate mobility and
communication but, on the contrary, cut through and obstruct the
cross-boundary lines of communication. The notion of enclosing and
separating boundaries by itself is, of course, not only modern. Typically
modern is only its exclusive practice. We know the cruel consequences of this practice.
Traditionally there was also a contrasting, more organic, notion
that starts from lines of communication andas opposed to the
enclosing and excluding boundarystresses mobility and complementarity. This notion is exemplied by the pattern formed by a
small centre from which start radial lines, or rather paths or roads,
running to the tour quarters. This pattern is attested in ancient and
classical Indian texts. It corresponds to the Javanese notion of montjopat, that is a quincunx formed by a central settlement and four
outlying villages. It is equally present in the premier princely state
of Malaysia, Negri Sembilan, the Nine Negeris, consisting of a
small centre surrounded by two rings of four districts.13
This centre-cum-radials pattern we can recognize also in classical
Rome and the great roads that, starting from there, ran through
and united the orbis terrarum. The Roman Empirelike other traditional empireswas not primarily dened by territory, as the modern state is, but by its roads. Empire building was road building.

13
J.C. Heesterman, Two Types of Spatial Boundaries, in E. Cohen, M. Lissak,
and U. Almagor (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor of S.N. Eisenstadt
(Boulder and London, 1985), pp. 5972.

38

There was, of course, the famed fortied limes surrounding the Empire.
But it is signicant that the word limes primarily means path or
road, especially a lateral road crossing another, usually more important one.14 It is mostly viewed as a fortied boundary line separating the Roman from the barbarian world. Apart from its military
function it is especially the communicative and economic aspect that
stand out.
In the frontier zone marked by the limes the two contrasting boundary conceptionscentre-cum-radials as against enclosing boundary
linemeet each other. The limes, or rather the trac artery covered by it, forms the most important lateral connection of the roads
that fan out to it and nd their continuation in the trade routes
beyond the limes. The fortications on the limes were at the same
time checking points for incoming and outgoing trade as well as
markets. When we further consider the intensive movement of goods
in both directions and the sizeable capital inux for paying the garrisons and for building and supplying the fortications we cannot
but conclude that the frontier zone rather than the fringe of civilisation was an economically privileged and expansive area with an
important radiation and full of potential for the future. One might
even wonder, in how far the frontier might threaten to become an
incontrollable drain weakening the core areasas indeed appears to
have happened eventually to the Roman Empire. It would seem
as I shall argue further onthat the Mughal Empire suered a comparable fate.
Before we return to the Indies and their mainland frontiers there
is still one more feature that calls for our attention. The frontier is
determined by climate and ecology. This is well-illustrated by the
Roman Empires Arab-Syrian frontier in the Middle East. The roads
that farm its care follow the desert line between 100 and 250 mm.
rainfall per year.15

14
Th. Mommsen, Das Weltreich der Caesaren (Vienna and Leipzig, 1933), p. 132.
Mommsen speaks of an original Grenzweg. Der Limes ist also die Reichsgrenzstrasse,
bestimmt zur Regulierung des Grenzverkehr dadurch dass ihre berschreitung nur
an gewissen Punkten gestattet, sonst untersagt war. See further the recent study
by C.R. Whittaker, Frontiers of the Roman Empire (Baltimore and London, 1994).
15
For the ecological background of the Roman Frontiers, see Whittaker, Frontiers,
pp. 8697. For the eastern frontier: p. 93 and gure 26 on p. 96.

39

7
Comparable natural conditions though not as sharply determine the
inland frontiers of the Indian subcontinent, as well as their connective function. They are directly related to the basic divide that opposes
densely populated agricultural tracts to those areas that do not lend
themselves to agrarian sedentarisation, either because of aridity or
because they are mountainous or densely forested. The divide recalls
the classical contrasting pair of grma and araya, settled track as
against wildernessa contrast that is the warp and weft of Indian
history and culture.
It is the stretch of large, open, arid spaces that distinguishes the
Indian subcontinent from Southeast Asia. It links up with the arid
zones of the Middle East and Central Asia and at the other end
reaches down into the southern part of the subcontinent. The transitional zones between the well-watered agrarian areas and the arid
nomadic spaces form the inner frontiers as well as the corridors
for trade and trac, connecting the agrarian core areas with each
other and with West and Central Asia. No less important, they run
uplike the great navigable rivers such as Ganges and Industo
that other frontier, the limes-like littoral, nding their continuation
beyond it in the sea-lanes. With the maritime frontier the inner frontiers share the features of mobility and openness and by the same
taken they also are zones of often violent conict between expanding agriculture and aggressive nomadism. It was through these corridors that the mounted archers from Central Asia could penetrate
into India and eventually conquer it. In short, they are the zones
of maximum tension, where the action is.
Not surprisingly we often nd the important political centres not
in the agricultural core areas where we would expect them to be
situated, but in the border zones adjoining the arid areas. Thus Delhi
and Agra lie right in the transitional corridor between the fertile
Ganges basin and the arid zone, leading via the Deccan plateau to
southern India. In a similar way it was the maritime frontier that
provided British India during a century and a half with its eccentrically situated capital Calcutta.

40

Indias Mughal rulers, alert to the comprehensive contrast between


the two eco zones, made it the basis of their administration. They
clearly distinguished between areas that were ra"yat that is settled
agrarian areas regularly rendering land revenue, as against nonregulation areas disparagingly known as maws, wilderness, with its
rebellious denizens, summarily called maws if not worse.16 In fact
the maws areas were in the majority. At least, the already mentioned Dutch Company servant, Pelsaert, scathingly remarks that the
Mughal emperor Jahangir, whose name means Grasping the whole
world, is to be regarded as king of the plains and open roads only,
for in many places you can travel only with a strong body of men
or on payment of heavy tolls to rebels.17 But however bad it may
have been, it did not stop the increasing volume of trade and trac
passing through the maws.
What it comes down to, is that the Mughal Empire rested on two
opposite sets of conditions, those of sedentary agriculture and those
of nomadic mobility. Consequently its policy had to be doublepronged. On the one hand agrarian expansion was furthered by
stimulating the foundation of market towns and on the other hand
the control of main routesPelsaerts open roadsthrough the
arid zones. Thus Aurangzeb felt compelled to conquer the Deccan
in order to win command of the through route to the Coromandel
Coast in the southeast, even though this caused a fatal drain on the
Empires resources. Here again the Empire was built not on territory but on roads.

9
But now, what can this disquisition on frontier zones tell us about
islamization and, more generally, about the integration of the Indian

16
J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship,
and Society (Chicago, 1995), p. 169f. On the historical signicance of the interaction
of arid and monsoon India see J. Gommans, The Silent Frontier of South Asia,
Journal of World History, 9 (1998), pp. 125, and his Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers
and High Roads to Empire, 15001700 (London and New York, 2002), pp. 737.
17
See Kol and Van Santen, Geschriften, p. 307.

41

Ocean world? We already concluded that the openness of both the


maritime and the inland frontier zones favoured the deployment of
Islam. However, the mobility and impermanence of these zones militated against the establishment of stable, well-endowed institutions
of scriptural learning. Nor were the successive Muslim regimes particularly concerned with the spread of Islam. How then are we to
account for its becoming nevertheless rooted in India, even though
only as a minority religion?
In a sense Islam, barred from the agrarian zones and their permanence, had to create its own permanent space; that is, it did not
only gain access to the mobile coastal areas and the inland trac
corridors but also founded its own zones of permanent settlement.
The agents bringing this about were in the rst place Su holy
men and their followers. How this worked is strikingly illustrated
by the case of a fourteenth-century Su leader, Shah Jalal, whose
hagiography is extensively quoted by Richard Eaton in his study of
the rise of Islam in the Bengal frontier.18 According to this source,
Shah Jalal, after having received his Su formation in Central Asia,
decided to complement the conquest of the spiritual world with that
of the material world and so started out as a warrior of the faith
with a number of followers. After extensive peregrinations he nally
reached the forested area of Sylhet in eastern Bengal. Now the interesting point is, how this progress is described. We are told that he
and his followers had no permanent means of subsistence, but nevertheless managed to live in splendourpresumably from the proceeds of their worldly conquests. So we are told that each time they
conquered a valley or won cattle, they propagated Islam. When they
nally reached the forest area of Sylhet the whole country fell into
their hands. The shaikh then shared out the area to his followers,

18
R.M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 12041760 (Berkeley, Los
Angeles and London, 1993), pp. 7177. Even if this tale is taken to be no more
than a hagiographic construction and the underlying reality reduced to a peacable
transition from a pastoral nomadic to a sedentary agrarian life, as Eaton suggests,
the pattern of the Su warrior striving for both inner and external conquest is no
less signicant. In fact it is widespread and well-known. Similarly we know the
Hindu warrior ascetic, cf. Monica Horstmann Warrior Ascetics in Eighteenthcentury Rajasthan, in M.A. Gautam and G.K. Schokker (eds.), Bhakti in Current
Research 198285 (Lucknow: Kern Institute Miscellanea 10, n.y.), pp. 4355, and
her On the Dual Identity of Nagas, in D.L. Eck and F. Mallison (eds.), Devotion
Divine: Bhakti Traditions for the regions of India. Studies in Honour of Charlotte Vaudeville
(Groningen, 1991), pp. 25571.

42

allowed them to marry and to settle down. This Werdegang evokes


the career of an itinerant band of consecrated warriors-cum-cattle
rustlers under a charismatic leader, who nally has them settle down
to become pioneer farmers. Eaton, charitably explaining away the
warrior phase, observes that Islam reveals itself here as a religion of
the plough, not of the swordbut not of the pen either.

10
The change from itinerant warrior to settled farmer was anyway a
well-known pattern with an ancient pedigree that has left its traces
as far back as the Vedic ritual texts.19 In this way, then, Islam managed to create its own settled space in the open frontier where there
was land suitable to be turned into arable. Indonesia too oers examples of Islam creating its own space by means of forest clearance.20
It will be clear, though, that here again scriptural religion and learning did not have much of a chance to ourish. The conditions of
agrarian development require an other type of people, namely peasants. Here, as elsewhere, the frontier develops her own, particular
culture, alien to scriptural universalistic orthodoxy and based on the
devotion to holy men and their tradition.21
It were indeed such holy men, itinerant Su preachersnot the
rulers or the men of scriptural learning, the 'ulamwho carried
Islam forward. Instead of 'ulam the Indian world had its su shaikhs;
or rather, in the Indian world the Su shaikh came to full the function of the 'lim. The great time of the 'ulam and scriptural orthodoxy was still to come in the eighteenth century and even more in
the nineteenth century under the divisive impact of colonial rule and
reformism, stressing communal identity. As it was, however, Islam
remained very much a matter of intensely local interest; the cult of

19
J.C. Heesterman, Warrior, Peasant and Brahmin, Modern Asian Studies, 29
(1995), pp. 63754.
20
Cf. Lombard, carrefour, II, p. 111, explaining that Islam acted as the moteur
principal du dfrichement. It was the conqute de la rizire sur la fort (Vol.
III: Lhritage des royaumes concentriques (Paris, 1990), p. 9).
21
On the particular culture of the frontier marches, alien to the ocial centres
of power and orthodoxy cf. P. Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1938),
pp. 1632.

43

holy men and their tombs, as well as the mystic orientation of Susm
easily tied in with Hindu beliefs and practices and consequently exercised a strong local appeal.
On the other hand Susm did have the rudiments of a pan-Islamic
organisationin fact the only one availablein the farm of its various orders or brotherhoods and the chain of their hospices or khnqhs stretching along the trade routes. So, Susm was practically
predestined to be the vehicle of the propagation of Islam, penetrating into the agrarian interior and pushing forward the agricultural
frontier. As the case of Shah Jalal illustrates, Su preachers did so
both as warriors of the faith and as peasant pioneers conquering the
wilderness.
It also reveals the underlying pattern of the integration of the
Indian world. At the root of this pattern was the complementarity
of the mobile and the sedentary worlds. Both needed the others
resources. But complementarityto be eectiverequired that their
forces be balanced, so that the one could not dominate over the
other and ruin the exibility of their interaction. The dense web of
agrarian relations and their restrictive regulation could not be imposed
on the libertarian rgime of the mobile zones without fatally impairing trade and trac, nor could the libertarian lack of regulation,
governing the mobile zone be introduced in the sedentary zone without working havoc. The basic principle, exemplied by the Mughal
Empirein fact largely preceding Muslim rulewas the exible
maintenance of the precarious balance between the two contrasting
zones.

11
Yet, in the end, that is since the middle of the eighteenth century,
the balance was fatally disturbed, causing the nal collapse of the
Mughal Empire. The cause was the accumulation of resources in
the coastal frontier zone, which no doubt stimulated the economy
of the interior but even more exercised a magnetic attraction on the
interiors commercial and manufacturing resources. In the end India
was, as it were, turned inside out. Conversely, the accumulated
resources on the coast, seeking an outlet, overwhelmed the interior.
A sign of this development was the rapid commercialisation of local
or regional political power.

44

What this meant was already shown early on, in the 30s of the
seventeenth century, albeit still in a fairly harmless form, when the
Dutch East India Company, with its comparatively huge and concentrated nancial resources, entered the indigo producing district
of Bayana, near the imperial centre Agra, and thereby threatened
to undermine the delicate web of agrarian relations which involved
socio-political power as welland near the imperial centre at that.
At that time it was still possible to restore the balance by the simple means of declaring a local government monopoly of indigo.
Whether the monopoly did produce any great prots is not known,
nor did it last. But it did stop the Companys operations in the
Bayana area.22
This example illustrates, why the inland regimes were inclined to
restrain trade and trac so as not to disturb agrarian relations.
Moreover, though clearly in need of the commercial, nancial as
well as military resources of the mobile coastal and arid zones, they
had good reasons to be suspicious of the powerful merchants and
nanciers, especially those of the coasts who escaped their control.
Thus we see in the seventeenth century, at the time of strongly
increasing maritime trade, the Burmese rulers turn their back to the
sea, moving their capital from Pegu on the Irrawaddy delta to inland
Ava and concentrating on the rice cultivating middle Irrawaddy valley. In the same period the North Javanese coast was overrun and
subdued by the inland ruler of Mataram, in fact leaving control of
the maritime connections to the VOC.
Although the Indian Mughal rulers incidentally also turned against
the maritime powers on the coasta particular point of irritation
being the fortications of the European settlementsthere was no
consistent forceful reaction against the increasing power of the coastal
centres. The interdependence of the coastal zone and the broad
trac corridors of the interiors arid zones had grown too intense
to be dissolved. This is, however, dierent in Southeast Asia, where
there were no such arid zones that invite trac. Instead the agrarian inner frontier is marked by mountainous or densely forested areas
enclosing broad cultivable planes or valleys. Here, apart from rivers
in so far as navigable, the dominant trac corridors were the sea-

22

H.W. van Santen, De Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan,


1620 1660 (PhD thesis Leiden, 1982), pp. 151169, esp. pp. 1624, 169.

45

lanes, especially those of the Malay world between the Indian Ocean
and the Far East. Yet both the Indian subcontinent and Southeast
Asia underwent a common uninterrupted secular process of integration, its main avenue being the coastal frontier zones and the
sea-lanes. Understandably the Indian subcontinent took a leading
role in this process through its long coastline jutting out into the
Indian Ocean and its mainland trac corridors. This had made the
Indianisation of both the subcontinent and, simultaneously, the wider
Indian Ocean region possible; later Islam was to a great extent mediated by India.

12
But if it was primarily thanks to its maritime interconnections that
the Indian Ocean world could for centuries develop into an ever
more integrated oikoumene, how then did these same connections
bring about the break-up of this oikoumene?
It was not just overwhelming military superiority, the celebrated
guns and sails, nor the economic force of the western maritime
powers on the coasts that denitively broke up the perennial integration round the Indian Ocean. Such disturbanceseven if temporarily catastrophichabitually evened out. What made the decisive
dierence was the divisiveness that characterised the western world.
It arose from an entirely dierent conception of society and polity.
This view stressed the sharply bounded unit as a separate world
complete in itself, exemplied by the territorial nation state as it had
slowly developed in western Europe in an age-long process that
reached its maturity in the eighteenth century, that is at the same
time that the western maritime powers broke out of their coastal
containment. The modern concept of the state entailed the view that
frontiers were no longer zones of inclusion but lines of exclusion.
This view resulted from rigid universalistic norms that resist exible
accommodation. They go beyond the shifting particularistic ties of
alliance and conict that govern traditional society. They strip the
individual subject of these ties. Set free from organic ties as well as
deprived of the protection they may give, the individual is ready to
be a member of an impersonal, mechanistically construed grouping,
say a nation or a scriptural orthodoxy. Although universalistic norms
were certainly not lacking, they were been to be transcendent and

46

not meant to be directly applied. Thus the brahmanic dharma, as


Louis Dumont bas observed, reigns from on high without having
to govern here below, which would be fatal to it.23 The caste rules
of mutually exclusive varas give way in actual practice to inclusive
jtis. Nevertheless caste rules have been understood to refer to a
single, monolithic system of mutually exclusive castes and were so
used in the British Indian census. Equally rigidly religious adherence
came to be dened, forcing nominal Muslims to conform to scriptural norms of orthodoxy. It was this that brought the orthodox
'ulam to the fore.
Obeying the principles of the modern state the government viewed
itselfin contradistinction to the traditional dispensationas standing at a distance from society as well as transcending it. It, therefore, needed to sort out society according to an unequivocal categorical
grid that should mediate between itself and society. Much of the
popular picture of tradition-bound inexibility and stagnation derives
from such ocial grid construction. This would not have been a
matter of great consequence, if the society involved had not been
obliged to conform in its dealings with the state to the grid frame
devised by the state. Such conformity was the more easily achieved
for the obvious advantages it oered in obtaining a hearing with the
authorities and, hopefully, their favour; partly also because one could
not but acknowledge the transcendent scriptural norms on which the
classicatory grid was built.
However, what made the decisive dierence was that these norms
were brought down from their safe haven on high to govern the
world here below through the agency of the modern state, that
viewed itself as the holder of transcendent authority, naturally even
more so when it had become a national state. But this meant that
polarising rigidity cancelled the bipolar exibility of the traditional
dispensation that had supported the process of integration. Its loss
brought about a new dispensation characterised by absolute boundaries
and schismatic conict on the one hand, and enforced unity on the
other. The integrative tides of the Indian Ocean have been denitively
broken by the worldwide violent ripcurrents of divisiveness.

23

L. Dumont, Homo hierarchicus: Le systme des castes et ses implications (Paris, 1966),
p. 107.

SHAH JAHAN WORE GLASSES: SOME REMARKS ON


THE IMPACT OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY
ON NORTHERN INDIA AND SUGGESTIONS FOR
FURTHER RESEARCH
Hans van Santen

When the Dutch East India Company presented a Japanese palanquin


to the Great Mughal Shah Jahan in Lahore in 1646, the king looked
at it from all sides through his glasses. He was astounded by its ingeniousness and exclaimed wa, wa shabas, ringi (well done, Europeans!).
He asked the nobleman Haqiqat Khan where the palanquin had been
manufactured and how much it had cost. Haqiqat Khan, who knew
Shah Jahans stinginess, nervously gave the Dutch Company servant
a sign to answer his Majestys question. When the East India Company
servant replied that it was made in Japan and that it had cost 8000
rupees, Shah Jahan remarked that this seemed hardly possible, and
was way too expensive, as the palanquin was decorated with neither
gold nor jewels.1

For anyone interested to learn what the result has been of over 200
years of VOC presence in India there are several options. By far
the most enjoyable thing to do would be to take sabbatical leave for
about six months and leisurely visit the remaining Dutch factories,
forts and cemeteries scattered along the Indian coast and inland.2
There are dozens of ne places in Kerala, Tamilnadu, Orissa, Bengal
and Gujarat and although most of them are rather neglected, they
still make an impressive sight. During my four years stay in India
in the 1990s, I visited numerous buildings and cemeteries in Surat,
Ahmedabad, Chinsura, and Cochin. After an often extensive search
for the VOCs presence it is a curious experience to see engravings
in Dutch on the tombs of deceased VOC servants and their family
at the graveyard in Ahmadabad, or to nd the Dutch drainage system in Chinsura still in use.

National Archives The Hague (NA), VOC 1161, f. 1028r.


L.B. Wevers en F.F. Ambagtsheer made a very useful inventory of the Dutch
monuments in India (L.B. Wevers and F.F. Ambagtsheer, Dutch monuments in
India (5 vols., unpubl., 1997). Ambagtsheer is working on a new study.
2

48

Going to the National Archives in The Hague would be an easier, but admittedly less enjoyable way to learn about the Dutch in
India. Quite a substantial part of the 1.4 kilometres of VOC archives
is devoted to India. The archives are indeed so massive that a large
part has not or hardly been studiednotwithstanding the substantive research over the last decades by historians such as Om Prakash
on Bengal, Arasaratnam and Subrahmanyam on the Coromandel
Coast, sJacob on Malabar, and Dasgupta and myself on Gujarat.
But why would anyone primarily interested in Indian history (and
not in VOC history) focus on the VOC archives at all? Ever since
the classics of W.H. Moreland on Mughal India, the rst historian
to make good use of Dutch archives on India, almost a century ago
now, the same questions remain. Was the presence of the Dutch in
northern India only a ripple in the ocean of a predominantly agrarian societyor at best of marginal importance to its total trade and
industrial production? Is the fact that the western ring are hardly
ever mentioned in seventeenth-century Indian chronicles and annals
not proof of the total lack of impact of these western traders? Or,
conversely, did the VOC make a dierence in India by its export
of millions of calicoes, many tons of indigo, opium and saltpetre and
by being the importer of quite substantial amounts of precious metals and copper? And to what extent were the Dutch able to translate their undeniable maritime dominance into inuence on land?
This article will certainly not give denite answers. But I do suggest that it is high time we should take a fresh look at some of the
standard stereotypes in Indian historiography; such as the widelyheld view that the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was easily
domesticated in the existing order, or the view of western traders
being totally separate from and indeed irrelevant for the Mughal
polity.
The purpose of the article is twofold: rst to indicate some areas
in which the VOC may have had an impact on northern India
(Kerala, where the VOC had territory, is obviously dierent, and is
not considered here). And secondly, to enumerate a number of possible topics for further research.3 I will limit this article to the seventeenth century only.

A disclaimer would seem appropriate here, as I try to keep up with Indian historiography as an interested amateur, no longer as a full-time professional.

49

The areas of possible Dutch impact include: the repercussions of


the use of maritime violence by the VOC, the Dutch impact on the
economy of Mughal India with special emphasis on monetary inuences, the eect on the rise of indigenous Indian merchants, and
lastly, the inuence on the Mughal polity. As an example of the
interplay between economics and politics, and between foreign and
indigenous merchants, I conclude by presenting a case study on the
episode of the imprisonment of the most important entrepreneur in
Mughal India, Virji Vohra in Surat. The case caused uproar in the
merchant community of Surat in the 1630s and gives a fascinating
insight in the interaction between the Mughal bureaucracy, the leading Gujarati entrepreneur, and the VOC.

Use of violence by the VOC


Soon after having started its trading operations in northern India in
the rst decade of the seventeenth century the VOC formulated a
number of strategic goals relating to Mughal India. First and foremost was the aim to optimise its trading position vis--vis the Mughal
bureaucracy. In concrete terms this meant paying less toll than its
competitors and in general being treated in conformity with its position of master at sea, resulting from its undisputed maritime dominance in most of the Asian waters. On the high seas, Dutch and
English ships were vastly superior to Indian ships in terms of strength,
manoeuvrability and, above all, repower. Very much related to this
rst strategic aim the Dutch tried to keep away Asian traders from
those markets and products they were trying to monopolise, such as
the trade in calicoes to the Moluccas and the import of spices in
India from the Moluccas. Lastly, an important aim was to harm the
interests of competing western traders, in particularly the Portuguese
Estado da ndia. These strategic goals wereat least to some extent
reached by about 1650 through various manifestations of naval force,
and a new equilibrium was achieved which would last for about a
century.
Relations between the VOC and Mughal India started on a violent note. To demonstrate their capability to disrupt all international
trade to and from Surat the Dutch captured several Indian ships in
1620. The VOC policy of piracy against Indian ships did make clear
that the VOC was able to stop all international maritime trade to

50

and from Surata lesson that was well understood by Indian ocials
and merchants alike. The limitations of a policy of aggression to
express its maritime dominance, however, also became obvious. Growing investments in Indias hinterland acted as a guarantee and security against a policy dominated by belligerent maritime behaviour.
Aicted Indian merchants were perfectly capable of mobilising court
factionsin fact, it is quite remarkable how quickly and easily Indian
merchants were able to express their grievances at the Mughal court
in Agra and Delhi. After several Dutchmen had been imprisoned
and the Companys goods conscated, the VOC was forced to repay
the damage. Obviously, the combination of trader and pirate had
its drawbacks.
The second aimkeeping away the Indian, mostly Gujarati,
merchants from reserved markets and destinations, especially the
Moluccaswas reached through tight control over the Moluccas and
through a policy of regulating international Indian shipping. Very
conveniently, the Dutch built upon the Portuguese pass (cartaz) system. By providing maritime passes for some destinations and withholding them for others the VOC tried to regulate Gujarati shipping.
It worked for the Moluccas and some other parts of he Archipelago,
but the policy of squeezing Asian traders into a Dutch dominated
trading system was never completely successful. Full control of all
Asian straits and shipping lanes went far beyond Dutch maritime
capabilities.
Apart from piracy and the pass system, a third means to translate maritime dominance was through maritime blockade. The rst
blockade against a Mughal port occurred in 1648 when the Company
tried to gain a better hold of the thriving tin trade between the
Malay peninsula and India. Hoping to stop, or at least substantially
diminish tin trade by Indian merchants the VOC banned all Indian
shipping between Aceh and Surat. Maritime passes were sold in
Surat only for acceptable Asian portsa policy frowned upon by
Mughal ocials, as it remarkably resembled a foreign power taxing
Indian merchants in India. The ocials in Surat reacted by forbidding the loading of VOC-ships in Surat and the whole aair escalated after the Dutch factory in Surat was plundered by a remarkably
well-organised group of thugs, acting no doubt with ocial consent
if not support. The Dutch agent in Agra, while trying to recover
the losses, was treated with contempt, with a Mughal nobleman
shouting angrily that the Dutch behaviour was an outrage: leave

51

the country, thats all I have to say to you! But the Company had
decided to continue what it had started, and blocked the port of
Surat in 1648. Two returning Indian ships with a cargo of over a
million rupees were captured. This naval blockade and the seizure
of Indian ships were meant to be a short, tactical action to enforce
concessions; it was never meant to jeopardise its position as trader.
Neither side was interested in further escalation, and after negotiations, the Indian cargoes were returned to its rightful owners and
the Dutch resumed their trading activities. It is hard to say who was
the winner in this conict. The agreement reached with the ocials,
stipulating that Indian traders would stop their trade in tin, was null
and void. A few years later the trade between Surat and Aceh thrived
as never before.
The same method of naval blockade was tried against the Portuguesewith more success. For several years around 1640 a Dutch
eet cut o all international shipping from Goa. A few times the
Dutch (and English) fought and won naval battles against the Portuguese, which greatly impressed the Mughals. With the Portuguese
power largely broken, local Company servants were instructed to
advise their masters in Batavia on the desirability of conquering
Portuguese coastal strongholds along the Indian west coast, such as
Diu, or Daman. Their advice was negative: for a trading company
having extensive interests in the hinterland, a power base on the
coast would yield insucient prots, commercially or strategically.
From these rather tumultuous conicts in the rst decades of the
seventeenth century the VOC drew several lessons. An important
one was the conviction that it was not so easy to translate maritime
dominance into an optimal trading position on land. Its substantial
investments in India were a guarantee against a continuous and full
use of its maritime dominance. Aicted Indian merchants made
good use of their networks to express their grievances in court. Nevertheless, as masters at sea the Dutch were able to deploy a substantial force and showed they were able to completely disrupt Indian
foreign tradeand the Mughals knew this. They accepted that their
authority was conned to land. As a Company servant once wrote:
the Mughals know that our ships with all their guns cannot enter
their country, and they leave the high seas to us. The awareness
that the VOC diered from normal foreign merchants had its consequences for the way the Company was dealt with. In correspondence with Batavia and the Republic, VOC servants sometimes

52

frankly admitted that the VOC and Indian merchants were treated
dierently. In their behaviour towards the Dutch the Mughals acted
very reasonably, to the amazement of their own nation. The
Mughals may have regarded the western traders simply as nomads,
patrolling the seas, as the Mughal historian Kha Khan reports.4
But at the same time they were quite aware of the need to provide
a preferential treatment to these powerful maritime entrepreneurs,
who rather confusingly combined the role of traders on land, and
soldiers at sea.

Impact on the economy and on monetary developments


It is well documented that the Dutch were rather successful in redirecting at least a part of Indian trade, using force directly or indirectly. Its control over the Spice Islands ended the trade in spices
by Indian merchants almost entirely. The trade volume was quite
impressive; between 1640 and 1700 the VOC sold about 20 tons of
cloves in Surat for around 13 million guilders (about 11 million
rupees). In fact, the trade in spices was so protable that the Company
was able to export rupees from Surat to Bengal and other areas regularly. Thanks to the huge imports of spices (and copper) Surat is
an interesting exception for the bullion for goods character of
European trade vis--vis India. Undoubtedly, although rather hard
to quantify, the gain of the VOC came as a loss for Indian foreign
trade. On the other hand, we witness an almost revolutionary rise
in demand for Indian calicoes towards the end of the seventeenth
century. Strictly macro-economically, until the mid-eighteenth century, the advantages of the trading activities of the westerners would
seem to outweigh the disadvantages, as Om Prakash has demonstrated.5 That being said, our knowledge of developments in overall
Indian trading patterns is still rather sketchy. The Dutch had access
to local customs lists and the archives contain numerous lists of local
shipping, its destination, and its cargo. In fact, for Surat and Bengal

4
Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare, Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire, 15001700
(London, 2002), p. 164.
5
Om Prakash, The New Cambridge History of India, II,5: European Commercial Enterprise
in Pre-colonial India (Cambridge, 1998), passim.

53

alone there are over 200 lists on Indian shipping in the VOC archives,
covering the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. If studied systematically, it would seem possible to obtain a clearer picture of
long-term developments of Indian trade throughout the period. These
data could then be compared with the (much better documented)
data on western shipping and cargoes and may provide a better picture of overall developments.
Apart from the question of any impact of Dutch traders replacing Indian traders in some parts of Asia, there is the question of
impact on the economy within India. In a remarkable attempt to
quantify the impact of the Europeans, Om Prakash calculated that
between 1678 and 1718 in Bengal around 33,000 to 44,000 artisans
were producing directly for the VOC. For other areas in India, however, these detailed calculations seem hardly feasible, due to insucient
data. In Gujarat for instance the Company was a major buyer of
cotton goods: probably even the largest individual buyer. But total
demand by Indian merchants exporting to the Middle East was much
larger. For the famous cash crop indigo Bayana, grown near Agra,
the same applies: for many years in the seventeen century the VOC
was the major buyer, but total demand by other merchants was
much higher.
While it may be impossible to quantify Dutch impact on the economy, it would seem more fruitful to compare in a qualitative manner
the extensive data we have on Gujarat, Bengal, and Tamilnadu, and
look at both the similarities and dierences in market conditions of
artisans, especially weaving communities. My own work has indicated that there were huge dierences in market conditions between
Gujarat and Awadh in the interior. Gujarati weavers, mostly urban,
were rather well organised and Gujarat was clearly a sellers market. After the famine in 16301631 the VOC had to look for new
areas of supply, and even went as far as Awadh, east of Agra. There
they were able to compare market conditions and what struck them
most was the contrast between Gujarat, urban, well organised, oriented towards the world economy versus Awadh, rural based, and
for the most part producing for the local market. Weavers and local
powerful people in Awadh were much more willing to accept the
conditions of international traders such as the VOC than in Gujarat.
While in Gujarat the use of force against indebted weavers seemed
unthinkable in the seventeenth century, the VOC used force against
indebted weavers in Awadh quite regularly. And while in Gujarat

54

any merchants ordering calicoes had to make advance payments to


weavers, the VOC was able to abolish this system of advance payments in Awadh after some time. Paradoxically, the VOC had a
much stronger position vis--vis the weaving communities in Awadh,
the heartland of Mughal power, than in Gujarat situated at its periphery. The Dutch experiment, however, to explore these far away new
markets in Awadh did not last. The logistical problems to transport
the calicoes from Awadh to Surat were enormous. It took the caravans over two months to reach Surat. After the eects of the famine
in Gujarat had faded, the VOC phased out its activities in Awadh
with a sigh of relief.
Although important work has been done by Prakash, Arasaratnam
and Subrahmanyam, a comparison of the way in which weavers
were organised in the dierent production areas, such as Gujarat,
Bengal, and the Coromandel Coast could, I feel, be explored further. This should certainly include the role of dierent and complex
advance payments systems (and the way these systems could develop,
as in the case of Awadh), and the role of local powerful groups. I
would expect more diversity than uniformity between conditions in
Gujarat, Bengal and the Coromandel Coast.
Another area of possible western impact is the so-called price
revolution as a result of the inux of large amounts of silver in
Mughal India by the European Companies. The debate on the price
revolution in India seems to have ended for some time now. Fortunately, I would say, because it was largely a waste of time. There
are simply too many unknown factors. We do not have a clue what
the actual size of Indian economy was during Mughal times, to what
extent it was growing, and we do not know how much money was
circulated. On top of that there are far too few reliable data on prices.
Given this lack of reliable data answering macro-economic questions
such as the overall rate of ination or the impact of the inux of
silver and gold by western traders on the economy will be rather
dicult to answer, to say the least. The sort of detailed economic
analysis possible for England, France, or the Dutch Republic in the
seventeenth century (based on very extensive price series) will probably never be feasible for Mughal Indiait is better we accept that.
Having said that, however, I do not suggest that Mughal monetary matters should not be studied at all. I would suggest we would
concentrate not on silver and gold, but on copper. Whereas the
Company was only one of many silver importers, it was undoubt-

55

edly the largest importer of copper during the seventeenth century.


For example, between 1654 and 1684 the VOC in Surat imported
about 7.5 million kilograms of copper from Japan, at a value of over
seven million rupees. Imports in Bengal were even larger. Part of
this was used for household utensils, but if we would presume that
all of the imported copper was minted into copper coins, or paisas,
this would amount to a huge sum of over half a billion paisas.6
Obviously, the mineral was crucial to the Mughal economy. During
the ocial court visit in 1662 Aurangzeb even requested the Company
to import as much copper as possible. The Company servants wrote
extensively about market conditions, and its use. So what we need
is a study on the import and use of copper in India, building upon
the pioneering work of Frank Perlin.7
On nancial techniques in India a lot of work has already been
done. Although Dutch and English merchants were critical of almost
everything else in India, complaints about current nancial techniques were not among them. Minting was slow but well organised
and the purity of silver rupees and gold muhrs was exemplary. In
fact, the monetary system in Mughal India was much more uniform
than in most European countries. Transferring money from one commercial centre to another through bills of exchange, or hus, was
also well organised, right from the start of the trading activities of
the VOC. At least for the seventeenth century I have not come
across any transfer of western nancial techniques to Indian nanciers.
The Company was extremely satised with the way the Indian
nancial system worked. In fact, the nancial market was so well
developed that for many years the Company nanced its activities
in Gujarat largely through loans from Indian bankers.

Political inuence
Going through ocial Mughal chronicles one is struck by the virtually complete absence of westerners. Contacts with westerners obviously did not t into the Mughal warrior idiom as expressed in the
6
H.W. van Santen, De VOC in Gujarat en Hindustan, 16201660 (Meppel, 1982),
p. 108.
7
Frank Perlin, The Invisible City: Monetary, Administrative and Popular Infrastructures in
Asia and Europa, 15001900 (Aldershot, 1993).

56

ocial annals. But this does not mean that contacts were absent.
Geleynssen de Jongh, the VOC agent in Agra in the 1630s, remarked
that he would visit the court almost daily to visit noblemen. He mentioned casually that on average he visited Asaf Khan, the most
inuential courtier of his times and brother-in-law to Shah Jahan,
once a week to do him honour. Whenever a specic issue would
come up he would double the number of visits. The Mughal noblemen seemed to be very interested in European aairs. During a
court visit in 1642 Shah Jahan inquired after the political situation
in Europe, and asked whether the Republic and Portugal had concluded peace, and which of the two countries was largeras to the
last question, the Dutchman certainly did not give the correct answer!
In fact, I feel the political role of the VOC has been rather neglected
thus far. A sort of political anthropology of Dutch contacts with the
court, based upon the published court visits by Van Adrichem and
Ketelaar, as well as upon many unpublished ones, is called for.
Not only politically, but also nancially there were contacts. To
transfer capital to the cotton areas in Awadh, the Company paid
the sum in Agra to the daughter of Shah Jahan, who had her jgr
in Awadh. Afterwards, the local manager of the princess supplied
the sum in Awadh. It is but one of the many examples of the integrated nancial system in Mughal India, in which merchants/nanciers
as well as ocials participated. The Dutch and English Companies
had access to capital deposited by courtiers with Indian nanciers.
Sometimes the VOC even borrowed directly from the royal treasury
(azna). In 1638, the local governor in Surat provided a 400,000mamds loan from the azna to the Company in Surat. However,
the Governor-General in Batavia and the Gentlemen XVII were
adamantly against borrowing from ocials, and were concerned that
complicated credit relationships would get the VOC stuck in a morass
of uncontrollable mutual obligations. The local director defended the
decision to borrow by arguing that through this loan the Mughal
governor would feel responsible for the VOC. But to no avail, in
contrast to the EIC the VOC remained extremely reluctant to gain
a foothold in the Mughal political domain through credit relationships. By its own choice, the VOC was extremely reluctant to become
a political entrepreneur in Mughal India.

57

Virji Vohra
The story of the imprisonment of Virji Vohra may identify some
elements of the complex relationships between Mughal ocials, Indian
merchants, and the western Companies. Two main characters were
players in the game: Virji Vohra, the famous Banyan merchant,
and Hakim Masih al-Zaman, the local governor in Surat. In addition to these two participants, high noblemen at court, the VOC,
and last but not least, competing Indian merchants played the key
roles. The stage was Surat, Agra and Lahore, and the timing 1638
until 1641. Thanks to the fact that the VOC was closely involved,
the episode is rather well documented.
No doubt Virji Vohra was one of the most successful and richest
merchants of the seventeenth century. The rst reference to him
dates back as early as the second decade of the seventeenth century,
while the last references date from the 1670s. Based in Surat, his
area of operations extended towards the Middle East and the Indonesian Archipelago. He had his agents all over Asia and owned his
own eet of ships. He led a consortium of Surat-based merchants
purchasing for many years the total cargo of the VOC ships. Apart
from his trading activities Virji Vohra was the leading nancier in
Surat. His opponent in the conict was the mutaadd, the Governor,
of Surat, Masih al-Zaman, titled akm, or doctor. He was about sixty
years of age, very grey, looking stately and honest, who served the
father of the king and the king himself for many years as a doctor.8
In the rst months of 1638 this akm put Virji Vohra in jail in
Surat. Was this an example of a Mughal functionary extorting money
from a very wealthy merchant; was he ripe for extortion as W.H.
Moreland concluded already in 1923? And was this not related to the
fact that the akm had rented his oce for a substantial sum, was
not able to pay the sum, and was looking for alternative sources of
income? Undoubtedly this played a role, but there was more at stake.
The origin of the conict dates from 1637, as the VOC, as usual
in those years, sold all its cargo to a consortium of Indian merchants,
headed by Virji Vohra.9 Year after year the same consortium oered

8
NA, VOC 1116, B. Pietersen to Gentlemen XVII, Surat, 10 January 1636,
f. 88r.
9
The advantage was that in this way the VOC itself did not have to arrange

58

the highest price for the Companys goods. A sceptical GovernorGeneral in Batavia suspected a private set-up between local Company
servants and this groupwhich was hard to prove, but very likely.
In Surat the special bond between Virji Vohra and the Company
was a source of great envy, because other entrepreneurs, merchants
as well as Mughal ocials, were eager to get a piece of the pie. In
1637, two ocials, Mirza Mahmud and Amin Beg, respectively shahbandar (harbour master) and commissioner of Surat, were interested in buying all spices, and approached the VOC Director for
this. What they did not know was that they were too late; the
Company had already secretly sold them to the consortium of Virji
Vohra. In order not to oend the ocials the VOC stated a selling
price, but much higher than the actual one the consortium paid.
This turned out to be not such a smart move. The ocials got wind
of the deal and were so outraged that they fulminated against the
merchants of the consortium.10 Out of spite the transport of goods
from the VOC ships to the warehouses of the consortium was forbidden. The Dutch Director immediately threatened not to unload
the ships until the VOC had been ocially assured that it could
sell to whomever it wanted. This worked and for the time being the
dispute seemed to have been solved. What remained, however, was
the hatred against Virji Vohra, who had a virtual monopoly in
Mughal India on imported goods of the VOC, and made good prot
through this.
When, in early 1638 Virji Vohra was imprisoned in the mutaadds
house, the VOC Director in Surat gave two reasons: the envy towards
Virji Vohra and the fact that the VOC had scored points o the
Mughal ocials.11 It was claimed that the imprisonment took place
at the instigation of merchants from Surat, who seriously envied Virji
Vohra, because he had a virtual monopoly in Mughal India on
imported VOC goods. In Surat, the merchants had no other means

the dicult distribution of goods in northern India. A second advantage was that
by posing as a wholesaler and not as a retailer, the VOC created the possibility to
sell the cargo all at once, and was able to reap the prots immediately.
10
NA, VOC 1127, B. Pietersen to A. van Diemen, Surat, 18 April 1638,
f. 123.
11
NA, VOC 1127, B. Pietersen to A. van Diemen, Surat, 18 April 1638,
f. 123v.

59

to avenge them than to discredit him with the akm.12 Obviously,


envy could not constitute the ocial reason for imprisonment. It ran
as follows: the merchant had purchased all food supplies during the
famine of 16301631 and sold them for exorbitant prices (this could
be true, but while we come across many merchants and government
ocials, who speculated during the famine, Virji Vohra is not mentioned among them). Immediately after his imprisonment, the merchant mobilised his numerous contacts at court. His agent in Agra
talked with some noblemen of inuence, and their advice was to
settle the argument with gifts, as the akm, who was Asaf Khans
favourite, held high oce at court.13 In May 1638 the merchant
was released, after he had promised the akm to respectfully honour His Majesty.14 Notice that he held out the prospect of gifts to
the kingnot to the akm. This was only the rst act of the play.
In June 1638 the Mughal ocial ran him in again, this time together
with his two sons.15 Again, Virji Vohra refused self-condently to
pay him anything unless they could show him an appeal for imprisonment written by the king himself.16 From the beginning onwards
it was clear that Virji Vohra played for high stakes expecting the
indictment to come from the Great Mughal, and not from the local
ocial. In fact, with this, he questioned the legitimacy of the local
mutaadd.
All merchants in Surat agreed upon the fact that the imprisonment could have been avoided by the direct payment of some 10,000
rupees to Asaf Khan and the mutaadd. As Virji Vohra played for
high stakes, people actually expected the whole case might nally
cost him a hundred thousand rupees more, although he was charged
with ctitious actions.17 Apparently, the Governor was not at ease

12
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, C. Jansen Silvius to W. Geleynssen
de Jongh, Ahmedabad, 26 August 1638.
13
Ibid.
14
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 101, W. Geleynssen de Jongh aan
B. Pietersen, Agra, 5 June 1638.
15
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 7 June 1638.
16
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 20 June 1638.
17
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 101, W. Geleynssen de Jongh to
B. Pietersen, Agra, 12 July 1638.

60

either because in July 1638 he compiled a new list with as many as


50 oences with which he charged Virji Vohra and he sent this to
the Great Mughal. Virji Vohra kept up strong. He denied all charges
against him and he declared he was not planning to pay anything,
unless the king himself would issue an injunction.18 The indecent
and unreasonable procedures of the akm frightened the merchants
in Surat. Virji Vohra was not the only victim of his actions; other
merchants as well as farmers from the surroundings of Surat experienced serious trouble because of his unjustied summons. According
to the VOC-Director, the violence was beyond hope and worse than
any force previously used in Gujarat.19 This had everything to do
with the Governors nancial position; it was not able to raise the
amount of money needed for the oce he held. He was short on
as many as 500,000 mamds for the 2.4 million mamds (around
1.2 million guilders) rent he had to pay annually. It would not take
long for the Great Mughal to replace him, as people expected in
Surat. The Company on the contrary, did not experience any difculties from the akms side whatsoever. He was and would always
remain rather favourable and benevolent towards the VOC.20 The
main reason for this was the 400,000-mamds loan the Company
had drawn from the royal treasury with his consent; the bilateral
credit agreement between borrower and lender explained the ne
relationship.
In August 1638 the Governor imprisoned, in addition to Virji
Vohra and his sons also his grandchildren and put them away in
an underground jail. It nally began to dawn on the merchants in
Surat that this case could only be solved at court. Some people of
inuence dared to speak up for the merchant. So, the badr (provincial Governor) of Ahmadabad, Azam Khan, wrote the Governor in
Surat an ocial letter on behalf of Virji Vohra, but that was all in
vain. Meanwhile, Virji Vohra had sent solicitors to Agra to complain about the suered grievous wrongs.21 The result was that the

18
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 18 July 1638.
19
Ibid.
20
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 7 October 1638.
21
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 18 July 1638.

61

high ranked nobleman Jafar Khan from Agra wrote a letter about
the case to an ocial in Surat, but this letter was cunningly intercepted by the mutaadd.
Some weeks later, Virji Vohra was chained and not seldom threatened with beatings. The Mughal ocial continued to collect serious oences the nancier could be charged with. To achieve this,
he went as far as torturing people. Under pressure they declared
that Virji Vohra had committed adultery and that he had committed murder. In the meantime the Virji Vohra case caused serious
tension between the ocials in Surat. The Governor had, refraining from informing the mutaadd, reported earlier to the king about
the imprisonment, as well as about the loan from the treasury, with
which the Dutch had been granted without the courts consent.22
Through those mutual oences the relationship between local ocials
had become rather hostile. In October 1638 the news was released
that the mutaadd ordered again a sound trashing for Virji Vohra
and his two sons. By torturing he hoped to nd out in what business or goods Virji Vohra had invested his capital. Meanwhile he
wrote the court that the merchants capital was worth forty lkh (four
million rupees), but he had only been able to retrace 6 to 7. Virji
Vohra did not give in to all the violence, and endured it with
courageous bravery.23
When the court received so many dierent and conicting signals
about the aair, the Great Mughal had enough of it and he sent
out an aad (an ocer directly serving the Great Mughal) from
Burhanpur, and ordered to bring Virji Vohra, and the prosecutors
to the court, so that the case could be examined down to the last
detail. The news that a delegate from the Great Mughal was sent
out for both plaintis and accused to report in person at the court,
alarmed people in Surat who had accused him and had given him
real trouble, concerned about their futures.24 Again we notice that
the aair was not simply a solo-action by the akm; he was incited
to action by others. Indeed, the aad arrived with a warrant that

22
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 7 October 1638.
23
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 25 October 1638.
24
Ibid.

62

summoned the Governor, Virji Vora and the accusers at court. The
mutaadd was insolent and refused to obey the order, since he was
concerned about the outcome of the investigation. A blazing row
between the two gentlemen was the result, taking place in the presence of the VOC-Director and other merchants! Harsh words were
spoken, but the aad left empty-handed.25
A month later, in November 1638, while Virji Vohra and his family were still imprisoned, the succession of the akm by a new mutaadd
was announced in Surat. Mir Musa, the new mutaadd who had held
oce in Surat before, was an old acquaintance of the Company.
There seems to have been no relation between the fact that the
Governor was replaced just then and the Virji Vohra-aair. Mir
Musa was simply prepared to pay a much higher rent than his predecessor. The new Governor arrived in the city in early 1639, and
he was received joyfully.26 Whereas the akm just previously had
refused to travel to court with Virji Vohra and his accusers, he
changed his strategy out of sheer necessity. He ordered the release
of Virji Vohra and sent him, while he was still chained, to the court.27
It was not without reason, was the Directors comment in Surat,
that the akm got his nickname the camel, because he never let
go of what he has in his possession!28 Even though he was removed
from oce, he did indeed not intend to give up and he was determined to plead his case against Virji Vohra in court personally.29
In the meanwhile, one of Virji Vohras sons requested the VOC
in Agra to stand surety for a payment in case Virji Vohra would
want to negotiate a loan. The Director in Surat granted the request
and instructed the VOC servant in Agra accordingly, because, like
he said, it would not harm the VOC in any way. The Company
would not be held responsible for this promise; Virji Vohra had
enough resources at his disposal for his nal release and he was not
in need of sureties.
The stage moved towards Agra and the Mughal court. At the end

25
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 107, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 30 October 1638.
26
NA, VOC 1132, B. Pietersen to Gentlemen XVII, Surat, 22 January 1639,
unf. 679v.
27
Ibid.
28
NA, VOC 1119, B. Pietersen to A. van Diemen, Surat, 23 June 1636, f. 1839.
29
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 110, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 19 December 1638.

63

of January 1639 Virji Vohra and some guards arrived in Agra. He


was no longer chained. The VOC-agent Geleynssen de Jongh visited
him several times in Agra. A week later, he was escorted to Lahore,
where the court resided at that time. He immediately approached
Asaf Khan as mediator.30 After a 50,000-rupees reward Asaf Khan
agreed. This was an important breakthrough, since before Asaf Khan
had always supported the akm unqualied. It was a good omen
and thus the merchants in Agra expected him to regain his freedom
as soon as he would be able to pay a large sum of money for it.
According to Geleynssen all the diculties could have been avoided;
if only he would not have been such a man of principle! While in
Agra Virji Vohra told him the whole aair was all his own fault
because of his sins and not that of others.31
During the next few months Virji Vohra, by then released on bail,
followed the court. The akm had not yet arrived in Agra and Virji
Vohras case had still not appeared in court. Virji Vohra had little
choice but to make many friends with presents.32 The longer it
lasted, the more pessimistic the merchants became in Surat and Agra.
The pessimism increased by the news that in Surat Mir Musa had
received a Kings order to demand the money, loaned by Virji Vohra,
from the English, the Dutch and a Hindu agent. The total sum was
almost 400,000 rupees. The money should have been sent to
Daulatabad to Prince Aurangzeb, the Kings son. But the Companies
did not intend to do so. The VOC briey announced that the
Mughals simply had to wait until the Companys ships would arrive
in September or maybe in October. But even then they refrained
from paying.33
At the end of July 1639 the akm nally arrived in Agra, from
where he continued his travels towards Lahore in early September.
In Agra he awaited the end of the monsoon, and the sale of goods
he had imported took longer than expected.34 He was obviously not

30
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 103, W. Geleynssen de Jongh to B. Pietersen, Agra, 25 March 1639.
31
Ibid.
32
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 103, W. Geleynssen de Jongh to B. Pietersen, Agra, 30 July 1639.
33
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 110, B. Pietersen to W. Geleynssen de
Jongh, Surat, 24 June 1639.
34
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 97A, W. Geleynssen de Jongh to
B. Pietersen, Agra, 27 August 1639.

64

very much in a hurry. The next months, the VOC received only
sporadically information about the developments as the case was
taken to the court in Lahore. By January 1640 the case still had not
appeared in court.35 Shortly after that, Geleynssen himself left Agra,
so that we do not have detailed information about the close of the
aair. Virji Vohra must have regained his freedom one way or the
other, because in early May 1640 he left Agra for Surat, where he
arrived towards the end of June. His creditworthiness appeared not
to have suered immensely; because when he passed through Agra
on his way to Surat, he granted the East India Company a loan.36
The conict was still not over. The Mughal authorities had tried
earlier to get hold of the loan Virji Vohra had granted the English
and Dutch, but with no success. Now the western merchants were
prohibited to repay him their loans. This was against the farmn,
carried by Virji Vohra, and it cost Virji Vohra 10,000 rupees slush
money paid to Mir Musa before he was given permission to receive
his own money.37 Besides, it was revealed that Virji Vohra had stored
almost 200,000 rupees in a chest in the Dutch factory, since he considered it too dangerous to keep the money in his home. As an
excellent merchant, he had, during his imprisonment, sounded the
VOC about the possibility of negotiating a loan. The Company,
good merchants just like Virji Vohra, had been willing to do so,
but they had requested a lower interest than the current market
interests!38
Only in mid-1641 did peace rule, at least for the time being. Virji
Vohra had regained his freedom on payment of a few hundred thousand rupees. The ocial gift for the Great Mughal had come to,
according to reports, a 100,000 rupees. No doubt, he had to pay
certain noblemen an amount many times larger than the gift, to
make sure they cared about his case and to have a nger in the pie
when it came to decision making. His creditworthiness and his career
as nancier and successful merchant had not suered considerably.
During the imprisonment, his sons had continued the trade on a
modest scale. Upon his return, Virji Vohra again joined the con35
NA, Collectie Geleynssen de Jongh, 97A, W. Geleynssen de Jongh to
B. Pietersen, Agra, 30 January 1640.
36
NA, VOC 1134, Extract C. Weiland to P. Croock, Agra, 30 May 1640,
unf. 534.
37
Ibid.
38
NA, VOC 1134, P. Croocq to A.v. Diemen, Surat, 26 October 1640, f. 149v.

65

sortium that purchased the VOCs goods. Neither would the accuser
Masih al-Zamans career suer from the conict. At the end of 1639,
he took up oce as mr smn, head of the royal workshops.
During the following years the Mughal ocials and the Indian
merchants envy towards this Indian merchant, monopolising VOCs
imported goods year after year, would live on indeed. The Mughals
were extremely focused on these gains and they kept looking for
ways to cream o the prots.39 In the 1650s, the Governor in Surat,
under the authority of the Great Mughal, imposed a special 100,000rupee levy on Virji Vohra on account of the exorbitant prots he
was assumed to make given his special relationship with the VOC.
The VOC lodged a complaint with the court, fearing ocial interference in its trade. According to the VOC servant at that time in
Agra, Shah Jahan showed a displeased reaction to the VOCs complaint. Translated from Persian, he said presumably something like:
Virji Vohra is my subject and given his richness the levy is only
small. And by the way, this is none of the Dutchs nor the Britishs
business. When the VOC persevered with sending complaints, Shah
Jahan became irritated and exclaimed: why is it that the Dutch
write so extensively about this Virji Vohra, in what way does it cause
them inconveniences?40 He did not cancel the extra taxes. The result
was that Virji Vohra himself went to the court to plead his own
case. This time he went of his free will and unchained, unlike what
happened in 1639. At the court, he was received in a respectable
manner and, in fact, it is reported that the Great Mughal gave him
an elephant, which was the greatest honour, and that several noblemen donated him eleven horses.41 The merchant returned with a
farmn, which contained the ingenious solution. The levying of taxes
was not abolished, yet the other participants in the consortium that
purchased the VOCs goods had to share in the costs pro rata to
come up with the levy. Through expensive gifts to the Great Mughal
and the noblemen the merchant passed part of the expenses wisely
onto his colleagues.

39
Apparently, the trade was so lucrative that in 1646, Virji Vohra proposed to
not only purchase the entire VOC load intended for India, but also the one intended
for Persia. He would sell the spices and other goods in Persia through his network.
The VOC rejected the proposal.
40
NA, VOC 1201, J. Berkhout to G. Pelgrom, Agra, 23 August 1653, f. 7201.
41
NA, VOC 1210, Dagregister Surat, 30 January 1656, f. 767.

66

This episode in the career of one of the most successful merchants


of Mughal India shows something of the complex relationship between
the authorities and the merchants. We could simply dispose the whole
history as an example of the Mughal ocials exploitative behaviour
towards nanciers with capital. That certainly has been the case too.
But we should also observe that the jealous merchants in Surat at
least gave their tacit consensus to the extortion. Envy stemmed from
his success as an entrepreneur and especially from the privileged
position he enjoyed with the VOC. The VOC was directly involved
in the aair and it was of the foremost importance it steered a
middle course. On the one hand Virji Vohras position as purchaser
of VOCs goods and being the VOCs essential exchange broker and
nancial backer guaranteed him the certainty that the VOC would
give support when needed. On the other hand, the VOC did not
at all intend to put at risk its close relationship with the Governor,
who had granted the Company a considerable loan. The conict
was brought to a head by Virji Vohras proud and conscientious
attitude by refusing to deal with the case at a local level, but instead
making an appeal to the authority and justice of the Great Mughal
himself.
It would be taking it too far to explain the rise of merchants like
Virji Vohra exclusively by their lucrative relationships with the
Companies. But the fact is that some entrepreneurs took advantage
of the good prospects that the rise of newcomers in the business
oered in an admirable way. Virji Vohra was clearly one of them.
The prospects were mostly oered in the eld of nancing and bills
of exchange and in distribution of the VOCs goods. In these areas
the westerners were in need of Indian merchants of stature who were
capable of carrying out these specialised services for the Company.
This led not only to close cooperation, but even to a sort of symbiosis between local Indian entrepreneurs and western trade organisations. The close collaboration between the western trade organisations
and the Indian nanciers that came into existence already during
the seventeenth century would become even closer during the rise
of the British during the eighteenth century. But I note here that
the close relationship dates back to the rst decades of the seventeenth century.

67

Conclusion: VOC sources


Many studies on the VOC in India focus exclusively on trade and
economy. Yet this should not lead to the conclusion that the VOC
was engaged with trade gures only. Of importance is the integral
approach by the VOC. Military aairs, politics and economics were
closely relatedthere was no trader who was more aware of this
than the VOC. Trade gures dominate the VOC archives, that is
true, but in the regular reports the political news nicely comes o
second. There is even a third layer: on top of economic and political data we nd a broader humanistic approach with a number of
the companys servants, that led, for example, to the Chronicle and
Remonstrance of Francisco Pelsaert, and the Remonstrance of Geleynssen
de Jongh, with its unique, almost anthropological account of various religious sects in Bharuch in the seventeenth century.
To conclude I suggest that a much more thorough and systematic research in the Dutch archives would be necessary and indeed
fruitful. Thanks to the monumental work of Jos Gommans, Lennart
Bes and Gijs Kruijtzer an easily accessible guide to the Dutch archives
on South Asia is now available. It will certainly facilitate historians
eorts to plan where to dig.42 Or put dierently: there is no excuse
any more for historians on Mughal India not to make use of the vast
Dutch records! The guide makes abundantly clear that the Dutch
sources have much more to oer than only the yearly price uctuations
of calicoes or market information on cloves. There is a vast array
of topics to be studied further, both economic and political ones. In
fact, they may even provide interesting details such as the Mughal
emperor Shah Jahan wearing glasses (which was new to me) and
being rather stingy (which we knew already from other western
sources).

42
Jos Gommans, Lennart Bes, and Gijs Kruijtzer, Dutch Sources on South Asia,
c. 16001825, Vol. 1: Bibliography and Archival Guide to the National Archives at The Hague
(The Netherlands) (New Delhi, 2001).

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TO BE A SERVANT OF HIS CATHOLIC MAJESTY:


INDIAN TROOPS OF THE ESTADO DA NDIA
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY1
Ren Barendse
Introduction: The military scal state
It is a well established fact that collaboration by Indian mercenary
soldiers, sailors and even merchants was critical to the foundation
of Portuguese dominion in Asia in the sixteenth century as well as
to its survival in the seventeenth.2 As Luis Felipe Thomaz has argued,
the Estado da ndia passed through several dierent institutional shapes
during its long history.3 Change had already been discernible in the
late seventeenth century when the Estado passed from a merchant
and sailor to a landlord and peasant society. In the eighteenth century, the Estado completely changed both its territorial shape as well
as its institutions. This is a point that needs emphasis since the history of the Europeans in the Indian Ocean is almost as a matter of
course written in the evolutionary pattern. The Portuguese stand
for the feudal early stage of European expansion, the Dutch for
the intermediate mercantile capitalist stage and the English winners for the mature industrial capitalist stage. There is a big risk
in using such an evolutionary model: the habitual way of comparing Portuguese institutions in the early sixteenth century with those
of the British in the mid-eighteenth is but an apples and oranges
comparison. The Estado in the sixteenth century ought to be compared to European states of the sixteenth century.

1
Research for this contribution has been made possible by a grant from the
Royal Dutch Academy of Science.
2
See, for example, the two good overviews by G.V. Scammel, Indigenous
Assistance in the Establishment of Portuguese Power in the Sixteenth Century in
D.M. Peers (ed.) Warfare and Empires (London, Variorum, 1997), and The Pillars
of Empire: Indigenous Assistance and the Survival of the Estado da ndia Modern
Asian Studies, 22 (1988), pp. 47389.
3
L. Felipe Thomaz, Goa: uma sociedade Indo Portugusa, in, De Ceuta a Timor
(Lisbon, 1994), pp. 24590.

70

But let me immediately add that there is a risk involved in Lus


Felipe Thomazs writings too: its tendency to study the Portuguese
in isolation from both the Indian world and from the wider European
developments and to deny any similarity with what was happening
in the other European states in Asia. I would argue that what was
happening in the Estado was broadly parallel to what was happening in the East India Company states (namely the VOC-state and
in the early British Raj) in the eighteenth century. I would conceive
this in two ways.
The eighteenth century in the Estado, as much as in the state of
the English East India Company (EIC), might be seen as that passing of the Indian ancien rgime, which is so well described in Dirk
Kol s classic article.4 What happened in this period was that Indian
ancien rgime institutions were absorbed into an emerging new colonial order and then gradually hollowed out from within. I would
term this new regime arising in the Estado as well as in the EIC
state in the mid-eighteenth century the military scal state.
For not merely the British but all major European states in Asia
(British, Portuguese and Dutch) turned into military scal states in
the eighteenth century. There are several reasons for this, which I
can only outline here in very brief compass. One reason was that
in the eighteenth century transaction costs (interest-rates, rates of
marine insurance and information costs) in the East Indies trade
declined. The East India Companies had originally been founded to
lower such transaction costs through economies of scale. In the course
of the eighteenth century this comparative advantage began to get
less important, whereas the competitive disadvantage, namely the
expensive system of purchase through a bureaucracy, began to hamper the commerce of the European states in Asia more and more.
Whereas in the seventeenth century the Dutch were able to nance
themselves by the conduct of intra-Asian tradeand the Estado da
ndia in the early seventeenth century was just about able to cover
its expenses through selling concessionary voyagesin the eighteenth
century commerce was taken over by private entrepreneurs. Such
country traders were working far cheaper than the intra-Asian

4
D.H.A. Kol, The End of an Ancien Rgime: Colonial Wars in India 17981818
in J.A. de Moor and H.L. Wesseling (eds), Imperialism and War (Leiden, 1989), pp.
2250.

71

trade of the East India Companies, or the boards allowed to conduct a monopoly trade in the Portuguese case. This left a bureaucratic and military establishment stranded which had to seek for
revenue in another way: by direct taxation of the Indian population
and by the land revenue.
Second, and this is critical in the present context, the increasing
military presence and the increasing reliance of all European states
on land revenue to pay for the army also resulted from increasing
Asian military pressure on the European states. This has many
reasons but the most important one was that, because the overhead
costs in the Indian Ocean trade were higher than those in the
European trade, the only way country traders could be assured of
a prot was by obtaining a monopoly over goods and eliminating
their Asian competitors. This was rightly conceived by the Indian
states as a direct assault on both their sovereignty and their taxrevenues. Hence they began to see the Europeans as a direct threat
in the eighteenth century. The Europeans no longer had to ght the
small forces of local potentates, as in the seventeenth century, but
rather the main armies of large Indian states. In turn this led to the
increasing militarising of the European settlements.
However, we have to be careful with the concept of the military
scal state. For John Brewers denition of the military scal state
is in some ways too general to be of much use.5 If a military scal
state simply means that it is a state levying taxes through a professional cadre of civil servants to pay for the expenses of armies
and eets and that it has a huge debt, then I doubt whether sixteenth-century Castille does not already qualify as such a state. The
Tudor state did not have much of a professional bureaucracy but
the Hapsburg Empire surely did. And this is true not only for Europe.
As recent revisionist studies of Portuguese India in the sixteenth
century have been arguing, it is all too easy to fall into the infamous black legend when dealing with Portuguese India. By sixteenth
century standards at least, the Estado was ruled by a thoroughly professional and highly committed bureaucracy.6

5
J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power; War, Money and the English State 16881783 (London,
1989).
6
For an overview see C. Madeira Santos, Goa a chave de toda a ndia. Perl poltico
da capital do Estado da ndia (15051570) (Lisbon, 1999).

72

This applies even more to the Estado da ndia in the eighteenth


century, which by any standard could be conceived of as much a
military scal state as the Raj. A good way to establish this is to
consider the income and expenditure for a single year viz. 1760.7
Portuguese income in that year amounted to 1,666,073 xeraphins
(i.e. c. 800,000 sicca rupees). Of this income only 136,150 was directly
derived from trade, consisting by and large of the customs on the
Carreira da ndia ships arriving at Goa. The Carreira da ndia did far
better in the eighteenth century than it had done in the seventeenth.8
Virtually all of the rest of the income was derived from taxes and
tax-farms on the territorial possessions in Goa, Salcete and Bardes.
This was an area of about 200,000 inhabitants. By comparison,
Bengal with about 32 million inhabitants yielded in 1763 a revenue
of 25 million rupees.9 Discounting the loss of purchasing power of
the xeraphin in the interim, this revenue was about ve times higher
than the revenue Goa yielded in the seventeenth century. Not only
was the Estado da ndia able to squeeze vastly more money out of
the Bardes and Salcetes peasantry than it was able to in the seventeenth century but it also seems likely that the peasants of Goa
were in the eighteenth century the most heavily taxed of the whole
of India. The Estado was the only state in India in the eighteenth
century which levied a direct income tax on its population (the so
called dizimos prediaes).10
If the denition of military scalism is that an aristocratic and
unrepresentative regime serviced by an ostensibly incompetent and
corrupt administration somehow managed to still appropriate a
remarkable share of the national income from a people often deemed
ungovernable that may be said for the Estado as much as for
Hanoverian England.11 For it was not only the English who were

7
Arquivo Histrico Ultramarino, Lisbon (AHU), Papeis vulsos da ndiano
inventarisadasnew numbering, Caixa 108, Mappa das receitas e depezas que teve
a fazenda Real em Goa, anno de 1760.
8
See V. Magalhes Godinho, Mito e mercadoria, utopia e prtica de navegar (sculos
XIIIXVIII) (Lisbon, 1990), pp. 3458.
9
W.K. Firminger (ed.), The Fifth Report on East India Company Aairs 1812, 3 Vols
(Calcutta 1917/ New York, 1969), Vol. 3, p. 260.
10
For the early seventeenth century see V. Magalhes Godinho, Les nances de
ltat Portugais des Indes (Paris, 1971).
11
P.K. OBrien, Trade, Economy, State and Empire, in, The Oxford History of
the British Empire. The Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1998), p. 67 see also F. OGorman,
The Recent Historiography of the Hanoverian Regime Historical Journal, 19 (1986),
pp. 100520.

73

deemed an ungovernable people. In India corruption has now


reached such a lamentable state that there is no law, no justice and
no authority any more, which can inhibit the private greed and those
robbers, who have converted the goods of your Majesty to their private uses. This might well have been Diego de Couto writing in
1590, but it actually is the Minister for Colonies writing in 1770.
But despite all this ubiquitous corruption this administrative apparatus was able to extract the highest revenue from its population as
compared to any other Indian state.12
Yet if the military scal state is in some ways too general a concept, in other ways it is too specic; it is too much tailored on the
English state to be of much use for explaining anything but the situation in England. I will hence have to resort to a more specic
denition of what the military scal state entailed in India. The
military scal state which arose in both British and Portuguese India
(and in the VOC-state in Java, Ceylon and to a certain extent in
Kerala too) had in my view two distinguishing characteristics.
First, it was scal: it mainly derived its income from land revenue.
Taxation was total as the military scal state did not recognise the
highly individualised exemptions from taxation, or the institutionalised loopholes to escape taxes in respect of both persons as well
as communities, which were characteristic of the Indian ancien rgime.
And taxation was individual; tax was levied on the basis of a eld
to eld, or at least a village to village assessment, rather than an
overall revenue assessment of entire districts, deriving from long
standing local custom. This was levied by an impersonal bureaucracy, the characteristic of which is, very succinctly put, that it is
ideally immaterial what person fulls a certain specic task.
Second, it was military: it was new in attempting to pacify Indian
society, or at least to obtain a monopoly on violence. For ifas
Kol has rightly arguedthe Mughal state never had an eective
monopoly on violence, that was equally true for the Estado da ndia
in the seventeenth century. Besides the army of the state there then
existed a plethora of private militias who were mustered by individual nobles ( dalgos). This was particularly so in Bassein and its
territory (the Praas do Norte) where the dalgos private armies more

12

Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais Torre do Tombo, Lisbon (I/ANTT), Manuscritos


da Livrria, 2604, Martinho de Mello e Castro to Mrques de Pombal, 20 April
1770, f. 3v.

74

or less were the Portuguese army, but it also held true for Goa. There
too the dalgos were assisted by private militias, often consisting of
their black slaves. Moreover the countryside of the Praas do Norte
in particular, but to some extent of Goa too were still heavily armed
societies, where most peasants had spears and often matchlocks at
home. This was one factor accounting for the heavy rate of casualties in robberies and duels in Portuguese India: whereas in Portugal
you count so many assaults, in India you count so many casualties,
it was said in the seventeenth century.13
In the eighteenth century, however, the military scal state began
increasingly to curtail this private exercise of violence. The state outlawed the private feuding amongst villages, always rife in India (and
Goa was in that respect no exception), which habitually led to bloodshed. The chiefs (gavcars) of the village of Coculim in Salcete testied
that when there was great unrest (grandes alteraes) between their
village and neighbouring Veroda, a feud which had come to such
a pitch that even the parish priest of Coculim was killed by the people of Veroda, Govind Rao, captain of the sepoys (cabo das cipayes),
had intervened by sending his boys (os seus lhos) to interpose themselves betwixt the two villages and by disarming the two parties.14
Furthermore the state increasingly curtailed the private possession of
arms. One of the rst regulations emanating from the administration in Goa on the annexation of the Bicholim, Zimbaulim and
Ponda districts (the Conquistas Novas) was a prohibition to wear swords
and carry rearms and spears in public. The sepoy guards of the
Conquistas Novas were to impose nes on peasants in possession of
arms and to conscate the weapons found.15

Indo-Portuguese lascarins
The main instrument for this pacication was the modern sepoy
army. The modern European army in India (English, French and
Portuguese and Dutch) had three characteristics which made it

13
R.J. Barendse, Arabian Seas: The Indian Ocean World of the Seventeenth Century
(Armonk N.Y., 2002), p. 115.
14
AHU, ndia, Caixa 101, Carta de Certido (c. 1720).
15
AHU, ndia Caixa 309, Bando geral que deve ser publiado de som de instromentos bellicos nas trs provinias de Ponda, Zambaulim e Canocana (1768).

75

dierent from traditional Indian armies. Firstly, as is widely recognised in the literature, was its emphasis on drill. Indian armies had
long used drill, but the object of such drills was to develop the individual ghting skill of the soldiers. The object of modern drill by
contrast was to turn the soldier into an obeying automaton who was
interchangeable with the man next to him. This ideally entailed that
European-trained infantry could deliver a higher volume of re than
Indian soldiers could. In the Estado da ndia the sepoys were to be
drilled twice (and the mounted forces three times) a week. Secondly,
the troops were permanently quartered in barracks. They were not
allowed to roam around or leave the district in which the barracks
were located, when they were on leave, without explicit permission
thereto by their commanding ocers.16 The third distinguishing characteristic was command and control. In traditional Indian armies
the soldiers were dependent on patronage of their leaders. The ocers
were hence not interchangeable and the various wings of the army
had separate commanders who might not obey commands from
headquarters. The problems in co-ordinating larger armies made
Indian armies extremely vulnerable to defeat in pitched battles.
The distinguishing characteristic of this new army thus was drill,
quartering in barracks, and command and control, and not so much
its weaponry. Since in a comparison between the armament of Indian
states and European armaments in India I would obviously have
to deal with European states other than the Portuguese this would
surpass my compass here.17 Suce to say that in the eighteenth century Portuguese weapons were in some ways slightly superior to
Indian weapons. This was particularly so for infantry weapons: eld
guns and grenades which were entirely supplied from Portugal in
the eighteenth century, unlike in the seventeenth when the Portuguese
partly fabricated their arms in India and often used captured Indian
ones. This would obviously not have made sense if such Portuguese
arms were no better than Indian ones.
But let us not fall into a technological x. This slight superiority in weapons did not spare the Estado the humiliation of its worst
ever defeat. In 1739 the Estado da ndia hovered as close to the brink
16

AHU, ndia, Caixa 309, Regimento das tropas de sepoys.


See thein my view, however, far from adequatediscussion in P.J. Marshall,
Western Arms in Maritime Asia in the Early Phase of European Expansion,
Modern Asian Studies, 14 (1980), pp. 1328.
17

76

of total collapse as it ever came. The Praas do Norteon whose


fortications Portuguese engineers had been toiling for two centurieswere overrun by the Maratha armies. Bassein, certainly one
of the strongest fortresses in the whole of India and the summit of
everything European ingenuity in fortress building had to oer in
Asia, fell after an epic six months siege. And Goa itself was spared
only by paying cautha landlords levy of one-fourth on the land
revenueto Balaji Raos victorious armies, who had overrun all of
Bardes and Salcete.
This near collapse was followed by a series of eventually victorious campaigns against the neighbouring rajas of Sunda (a principality annexed by the Portuguese), against the Marathas (who had
overrun parts of Sunda) and above all against their next door neighbour, and their best enemy (ladro da casa) as the Portuguese used
to say, the Maratha chiefdom of Savantvad.18 The Portuguese, because
of the Savants close family-ties with Shahus family, generally called
them the Bhonsle. Yet those ultimately successful campaigns were
punctuated by humiliating defeats and in particular by the ignominious one of 1756, during the attempt to take Marnagath fortress
by storm, in the course of which no lesser a person than the Viceroy
himself, the Conde de Alva, was killed.
These campaigns were nally closed-o by the annexation of the
adjacent provinces of Goa, the Conquistas Novas, in 1762. The
Estado da ndia eectively tripled in size in 1762. However, the thinly
populated and little cultivated Conquistas Novas could in no way
compensate for the loss of Bassein, the rice-bowl of the northwest
coast of India. Goa had to subsidise the Conquistas Novas with
35,000 xeraphins yearly, for the Bhonsles were, as the Viceroy Conde
de Ega argued: by nature ferocious and unreliable (de hum genio grosseiro) and might always be tempted to invade. Andmore importantlyEga thought revolts by the chiefs and by the peasants can
in no way be avoided. The Portuguese had ideally to station garrisons in virtually every village in the Conquistas Novas.19 This meant
that the conquest of the Conquistas Novas was followed by prolonged pacication-campaigns. Although these increasingly began
to resemble the nineteenth centurys colonial little wars such cam-

18
19

See S.K. Mhamai, The Sawants of Vadi and the Portuguese (New Delhi, 1984).
AHU, ndia, Caixa 305, Conde de Ega to Crown, 1 February 1760.

77

paigns were initially still pretty much fought out in terms of a typical ancien-rgime kind of Indian warfare.20
Take, for example, the case of Pedro Vicente de Vidal during his
expedition against the des of Uspa in Bicholim in 1747. In Bicholim
his two hundred sepoys were to be quartered in and maintained
through the revenue of villages assigned to the Portuguese by treaty
between the Estado and their ally Satroji Raja, then still formally a
subject of Savantvadi. Vicente de Vidal was ghting on behalf of
the Marathas and his normal way of ghting was virtually identical
to that of the Marathas. He had to raise the bamboo fences and
burn the houses within the des s fortied compound with its earth
wall surrounded by bamboo fences. He was also to try to capture
his family members and those of his allied warlords, Ragunat Pant
and Zabardast Khan, so as to force them into negotiations with the
Portuguese. In the meantime he had to incessantly go on with raiding and to capture all the cattle which is, when it is seized, to be
sent to Bicholim (fortress) and placed under proper guard. The terminology is interesting here: this kind of small, highly formalised,
warif not simple robberyconstantly with an eye towards strengthening ones bargaining position was more or less alien to metropolitan Portuguese practices. So the scribes of the chancellery resorted
to Marathi to describe it: De Vidal was to fazer rassoa (razzia karnen)
in Bicholim.21
The exchange of Conquistas Novas, however impressive they might
look on the map, with Praas do Norte was then not a good one.
And it was in fact only the loss of Bassein which nally relegated
the Estado da ndia to the status of a second-rate power in terms of
both its revenue and its population on the Indian west coast. But
through the allotment of huge subsidies from Portugal and Brazil
the Estado da ndia continued to be a rst rate military power on the
west coast. Those grants from the metropolis allowed the Estado to
continue employing a regular European troop strength of 1,600 to
2,000 men.
But such European troops were still very much auxiliary to the
Asian forces of the Portuguese in the eighteenth century and very
20
For which now see J. Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Frontiers and High Roads to
Empire 15001700 (London, 2002).
21
Bibliotheca Municipal, vora, Portugal, Cdice CXX/22, Instruo passado
a Pedro Vicente Vidal, Sargente Mor, enginheiro deste Estado, 20 June 1747,
f. 332.

78

much dependent upon Indian collaboration. At the most basic


level the villages had to pay for the expenses of the Portuguese garrison and fortications in both Goa and Bassein. This was a very
ancient usage going back at least to the fteenth century, if not earlier in both Goa and Praas do Norte. For example, the village of
Calangute was assigned to the Aguado-fortress, guarding the entrance
to the Mandovi. The peasants of Calangute had to do manorial
labour on the walls of Aguado and Calangutes village militia had
to send soldiers to act as sentries in the fortress.22
Furthermore the territory of Goa had since the sixteenth century
onward regularly provided large numbers of troops to the Portuguese.
At its height in the mid-seventeenth century the strength of the irregular village militias there was estimated at 45,000 for Goa, Bardes
and Salcete together. For if the period of the war with the Dutch
was a disastrous period for the Portuguese empire in Asia as a whole,
it was later on considered rather a good one for the villages of Bardes
and Salcete, where agriculture was thriving. The Maratha invasion
of both in 1683, however, inicted disastrous damage on Bardes in
particular. It caused great mortality and great numbers of refugees,
so that the population has practically halved. Whereas in the midseventeenth century the senado da cmara of Bardes had to equip and
pay for 4000 men, with their weapons and powder and bullets,
by the late seventeenth century this had diminished to but a few
hundred only.23
Already in 1704, because of the lack of Portuguese troops and the
decline of the village-militias, the Crown had been pleading with the
Viceroy to raise seven regular companies from the brahmans and
from Goas kshatriya caste, the Chardos, the last ones being not at
all as incapable as is generally thought. These were to be drilled
as regular European troops (the idea of subjecting Indian troops to
European drill thus far precedes Dupleix). The Viceroy, Caetano de
Mello e Castro said he would complyas ever being a loyal vassal
of His Majestybut protested that the real problem was that the
Portuguese troops wanted to go back to the delights of Portugal as

22
Bibliotheca Nacional, Lisbon (BNL), Cdices Pombalina 667, Philipe Valaderes
to General of Bardes, 30 October 1752, f. 32.
23
AHU, ndia, Caixa 86, Noticias que se pode achar sobre a narao que fez
a cmara geral de Bardes, s.d. (1690).

79

soon as possible. Since they all seek shelter in ports where the
English have populations or factories, the best solution to the shortage of troops would be to demand from the English not to transport any Portuguese to Europe anymore. Caetano de Mello e Castro
also warned the king that the brahmans had as little enthusiasm to
enlist as the Viceroy was enthusiastic in enlisting them. Small wonder that according to the classic Iberian administrative practice
Caetano de Mello e Castro obeyed but did not implement the
order.24
Viceroy Conde de Sandomil had, the senado da cmara of Goa
thought, later on tried to raise a militia of 3,000 men from Goas
population but they had proven utterly useless during the Maratha
invasion of 1739, even though their ancestral homes were in direct
peril. The natives have not the slightest propensity towards the exercise of arms and the new attempt of the Conde de Ega to raise a
mercenary force of 500 soldiers from Goa would likewise, the council thought, prove to be an utter failure.25
Yet Dom Antnio de Noronha, bishop of Mylapur, (who ought
to have known since he was the main person in charge of the campaigns to pacify the Conquistas Novas and named general of Ponda
in reward)26 thought in 1764 that all this talk about the inhabitants
of Goa being useless to wear arms was but a racist subterfuge for
not trying to enlist them at all. It was a subterfuge for not paying
and feeding the soldiers properly besides; if they were no good anyway they deserved no proper pay either. The situation had become
so bad, Noronha thought, that even the Portuguese soldiers had to
resort to robbing shermen to get something to eat. Their own soldiers were turning out to be the most dangerous pirates on the
Mandovi. After all, Noronha argued, there was a diaspora of some
20,000 topazes from Goa in Kanara and on the Coromandel Coast,
many of whom pursued a career in the army. And some of them were
renowned throughout India. For example, in Goa it was rumoured
that the ruler of Mysore, Haidar Ali, had said that he could not do
without the services of Manuel de Sazoa and Christofo Rodrigus.

24
AHU, ndia, Caixa 104, Carta Regia, 10 January 1704 and answer thereto
December 1705.
25
AHU, ndia, Caixa 96, Petition, 6 March 1762.
26
I/ANTT, Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da ndia, Livro 40, Carta Patente,
17 August 1763, f. 64v.

80

The rst was a goldsmith, the latter a shoemaker from the village
of Nagoa in Bardes.27
This diaspora from Goa derived mainly from the Catholic peasants in Bardes and Salcete, who being on the lookout for periodic
work in Candal and Sunda in the seventeenth century when there
was a severe problem of rural unemployment in Bardes, had shifted
permanently to the opposite shore and later moved to other parts
of India as well.28 Besides this Goan diaspora, there was a strong
Indo-Portuguese Lumpenproletariat in India, mainly deriving from Indian
untouchables converted to the Catholic religion. Ascertainly in
very caste conscious Keralathose dalit topazes found any other
career blocked, one of the few ways open for upward mobility to
the ambitious sons of such communities was to pursue an employment as a lascarin in the army, whether that be in the VOCs or
the EICs service or in that of Travancore.29 If that applied to Cochin,
Telicherry and Bombay it also applied to the Praas do Norte where
in the eighteenth century the bulk of the army was made up of
Catholic lascarins from two groups: the Bandaris or workers in the
toddy-trees and the untouchable (Catholic) rural labourers or Curumbis
(the modern Kunbis).
Captain James Inchbird, sent by the EICs board at Bombay to
mediate in the handing over of the Portuguese Moro fortress at
Chaul to the Marathas and where the English as mediators were to
station a force at Chaul in the interim, found his Portuguese counterpart Dom Franisco de Galenfels afraid that he discovers such
a malignant spirit in the padrees, that he is apprehensive they are
combining some ill design and afraid they will put the city in ames
if not prevented. He also found the Portuguese garrison close to
mutiny. This was partlythough Inchbird obviously did not say
thisbecause the very elite and very Catholic lascarins of Chaul
loathed the amateur and Protestant English force to whom they
had to surrender the fortress. It was surely partly because they had
not been paid and not received any provisions for one and a half

27

BNL, Fundo Geral, Cdice 555, Systema Marcial siatico, f. 205.


AHU, ndia, Caixa inventarisada, 42, Document 32, Board of the Goa Inquisition
to Viceroy, 11 January 1698.
29
On the caste-status and the army of the topazes see the remarks of the raja of
Cochin in Nationaal Archief, VOC 1735, Malabar inheems Dagregister, Ravi Varma
I, king of Cochin, to Cornelis Moermans, 11 July 1705, . 1406.
28

81

years. But it was above all, Inchbird thought, because the Chaul
lascarins feared that if they were to be sent to Goa they would end
their lives in misery. By virtue of serving His Catholic Majesty the
lascarins of Chaul were men of dignity and status amongst their fellow Curumbis in Chaul whereas, as Inchbird recognised, in Goa
they would be little more than castaways 30
The Curumbis of Chaul were not the only example of such permanent military colonies, who, if they were as poor as the surrounding villagersand if anything were even poorerstill derived
much of their dignity from being a servant of His Catholic Majesty.
Two hundred ve Bandaris from Chaul defend that fortication
without any pay but they are merely rewarded with liberty from
some local taxes and to a few, who have especially distinguished
themselves, is given a premium of 6 xeraphins monthly.31
Those bachelor mercenaries, living in improvised slums next to
the Moro, the forty seven settled and Christian Bandari families of
Bassein, as well as the seventy-seven similar Bandari families of Chaul,
were even by eighteenth-century Portuguese standards (and Portugal
was hardly Europes wealthiest country) a wretchedly poor community. They were living in little shacks and in the Portuguese revenue
terminology they were pensioneiros de seus senhores. They were landless
peasants and shermen (in the rivers) who had the status of glebi
adscriptae in both Chaul and Bassein.32
The Indo-Portuguese lascarins such as the Bandari communities of
Chaul derived their dignity from the pursuit of arms and from the
camaraderie among the members of the warbands rather than from
their salary. The hundred lascarins in the garrison at Daman too
were similarly stated to be all desperately poor and had mostly to
subsist on handouts of rice from the celereiro pblico (the public granary). The soldiers here are so poor, that they go around nude.
An aront to both decency and common sense, the Captain of
Daman thought. Yet though these too were by and large agricultural bonded labourers their pride and identity was derived from
30
Oriental and India Oce Collections, British Library, London (OIOC), P/341/11,
Bombay Public Consultations, James Inchbird to Bombay Board, 4 November
1740, f. 452.
31
AHU, ndia, Caixa 206, Copia da carta que o general do Norte escreveo ao
Sr. Vice Rey, 10 July 1733.
32
AHU, India, Caixa 109, Christianidade deste freguesia da Senhora de Madre
de Des, Cassabe de Baaim (1722).

82

being soldiers. And the EIC indeed widely recruited amongst these
topaz communities of Chaul and Daman. For the topazes there were
at a meagre pay of 5 rupees monthly about the cheapest skilled soldiers procurable on the Indian West Coast, the English thought.33
While the Portuguese garrisons in the north therefore did not give
a very good account of themselves, the most determined resistance
against the Marathas (and particularly in the frontier fortications
of the Praas do Norte who were devoid of any metropolitan
Portuguese troops, like the Tranqueira da Saibana where the 150 Indian
soldiers fought to the last man) was oered by those very same
Bandaris and by the amateur Curumbi soldiers. They are judged
to be merely workers in the palm trees, yet by spirit and by their
eort they are rather true servants of Mars certainly more than the
Portuguese, Noronha thought. Driven by the surge of a zealous
Indian folk Catholicism in the eighteenth century instilled by the
by then completely Indianparish clergy, this proletarian resistance against the Marathas was led by a Curumbi whom his brothers
in arms knew as the little carpenter.34
From among the topas refugees from Salcete, eeing from the
Marathas, the EIC at Bombay had hastily raised 170 men in four
topas companies in 1739. The Company had stationed them at Sion.
For the English feared that upon the fall of Bassein Bombay was
likely to be the next. They were, the Board initially thought, the
most skilled and the most highly motivated force on the Indian West
Coast, as they had proven during the lengthy siege of Chaul. Yet
on closer examination in 1743, the Governor of Bombay thought
that the topazes appeared to consider unheard-of insolence and insubordination as normal. There were complaints from their English
ocers that the topazes thought nothing of leaving their barracks and
going to eat in their huts; of taking leave without permit to visit
their families, who were still located in Salcete, whenever they liked;
or of insulting their ocers. Since of sepoys we can hire as many
as we like, it was decided to dismiss those lascarins behaving in a
mutinous manner. And as they must soon be in a starving con-

33
AHU, ndia, Caixa 109, Resumo das almas Christes na jurisdio de Damo
(1723); OIOC, P/341/13, Bombay Public Consultations, 20 July 1742, f. 325.
34
BNL, Fundo Geral, Cdice 553, Systema Marcial siatico, f. 155.

83

dition, this will be a means of making the others set a true value
upon the service for such pay as they now have.35
The proud Indo-Portuguese lascarins of the Praas do Norte stuck
to a rough sense of camaraderie amongst the ranks, and to a tradition of freely serving in arms. This tradition increasingly conicted
with the petty military chicken-shit (as it was called in World War
II) of the ever more hierarchic European armies of the eighteenth
century. This was not only the English experience though. The LusoIndian soldiers in Manuel Nunes Pintados company stationed in the
barracks at Rachol in 1744 were accused of not only not obeying
but even insulting their ocers without showing them any sign of
respect.
And why, in fact, should they have respected their ocers? There
are in this state many able and seasoned ocers of whom there are
but few who do not have scars of ancient wounds, the Conde de
Ega complained to the Crown in 1758. Yet these Indo-Portuguese
were commanded by senior ocers, who were all newcomers from
Portugal. Such reinois were generally still in the cradle when their
NCOs were already ocers and soldiers, the Viceroy complained.
Obviously, then, veteran Indo-Portuguese lascarins did not think they
were wont to pay much respect to such rookie ranking commanders. Not only were the NCOs not particularly motivated to encourage their soldiers to brave deeds if they saw their career blocked by
those reinois, it encouraged insubordination of the soldiers too.36 The
problem was basically that, since most Portuguese sent to the East
were convicts, the few soldiers who did volunteer to serve demanded
higher pay and higher military oce than they would have received
in Portugal. Hence often there are more ocers than soldiers in
India as was complained in 1703.
The general of Bardes complained that when ocers wanted to
punish some culprits among the soldiers in Nunes Pintados company, they formed a mutinous crowd. So that eectively the entire
company became an accomplice to a crime. Whilst in Europe there
would be severe corporal punishments on such acts of insubordination, in Portuguese Indiathough these penalties certainly existed

35
36

OIOC, P/341/13, Bombay Public Consultations, 9 May 1743, f. 142.


AHU, Cdice 441, Viceroy to Crown, 13 December 1758.

84

on paperthere was really not much one could do about it. In this
concrete case of collective insubordination any attempt to punish
only a few culprits would merely lead to the rest of the company
deserting to the mainland,37 Lascarin soldiers thus bravely followed their
leaders but they stuck to a strict moral code in which they would
follow only when they thought they were being treated properly.
And though they were very much of peasant stock themselves, the
lascarins were often seen by the peasants as a swarm of locusts rather
than as brave warriors defending them. In his burning indictment
of the entire colonial regime of the Estado da ndia under the motto
Regnum Dei est justitia called Estado do Estado da ndia, written in
1720, Diego Garcia de Sta. Theresa, then archbishop of Goa, voiced
the bitter complaints about the lascarin regular forces from the peasants of Goa. The soldiers, Garcia de Sta. Theresa wrote, raped
women, looted the inhabitants, stole sh from the shermen, or at
the very least they would demand free food and very likely free sexual services too, from the inhabitants of the aldeias. And however
much one complained to their ocers they would always look the
other way. That was partly because of the nearly normal insubordination of their lascarin bands of brothers. Ocers feared that if
they inicted corporal punishment on the soldiers, they might well
turn against them-indeed they might even be assassinated by their
own lascarins. And partly that was because if the soldiers got free
sustenance from the villages, the ocers could then pocket the money
received for the rations for their soldiers themselves. And if the government wants to punish them for such crimes the soldiers establish
themselves on the other side of the river. And then they immediately prepare a request to demand a safe-conduct to come back in
the form of a royal pardon.38

The new sepoys


However, these Catholic soldiers were always supplemented by Hindu
troops, the sepoys, the word probably coming through Portuguese
37

vora, Cdice CXX/22, Bando 29, November 1744, f. 74.


I/ANTT, Manuscritos da Livrria, 892, Estado do Estado da ndia
poem-se na outra banda e fazem logo petio pedindo seguro na forma das
conesses reaes.
38

85

into the other European languages. The rst mention I found of


sepoys in any European document is in a document from 1676
from Daman.39 Of sepoys we can have as many as we like as the
Bombay Board rightly said. For there was, as Kol has shown, a
whole system of military paymasters active in the Konkan as much
as in Hindustan, who controlled the access to the vast internal market for military manpower and on which the Portuguese relied as
much as the English. This was an old established practice.40 The
great Essoji Raja Pattacar was the most important recruiter-cum-landlord in the Praas do Norte in the seventeenth century. None of the
recruiters active for the Portuguese in the eighteenth century was as
powerful as Essoji Raja had been. The late seventeenth century witnessed an all-out attack by both the Portuguese landlords and the
church in the north on such entrenched Indian rights to the land
as those still possessed by Essoji Raja.41 But we do nd a host of
smaller Essoji Rajas in the eighteenth century, to whom we shall
now turn.
Ganesha Rana and Kistaba Rana (very likely Marathas from
Bicholim), for example, complained to the Goa authorities in 1732
that they had recruited and were paymasters of a regiment of 650
lascarins (or rather sepoys as they all appear to have been Hindus).
With a view to reimburse them for their expenses they had been
awarded the product from a couple of rice elds in the villages of
Ravara and Nadora in Bardes. In return, their sepoys were to guard
the villages by day and night. That was partly in order to pacify
the villages and partly since these were close to the border with
Candal and are entirely open for the enemy. Next to payment in
kind for their sepoys the two also requested to be paid a sum in
cash to allow them to reward their boys properly.42
Yet the elite sepoy forces of the Estado in the eighteenth century
were what the Portuguese called the cipayes Patanes generally recruited
39

Bibiotheca da Academia das Cincias, Lisbon, Manuscritos Azuis, 58, 22 May


1677, f. 219v.
40
D.H.A. Kol, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour
Market in Hindustan, 14501850 (Cambridge, 1990).
41
See for example the petition of the untouchable, glebae adscripti villagers (stated
to be bois (cattle drivers), bandares e curumbins) of the village of Bandora in I/ANTT,
Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da ndia, Livro 11, Proviso, 11 January 1702,
f. 38.
42
I/ANTT, Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da ndia, Livro 16, Alvar, 24
July 1732, f. 120.

86

in Daman and Diu. Saiyid Kasim, Muhabbad Khan, Shaikh Daud


and Barid Khan Bahadur brought this matter up before the Conselho
da fazenda in 1733. They and their soldiers were all cipayes Patanes,
they said, who had served with well known valour in Bassein. But
they are in a new and strange land here, and therefore suer great
misery. To all appearances those four had come only very recently
from Afghanistan, maybe eeing from Nadir Shahs advancing armies.
Being a Pathan in eighteenth century India was also very much an
assumed identity though. The fth commander had the surely not
very Afghan name of Gopala Naik. They had been recruited in Diu
in 1730 by their broker and paymaster Rama Sinay, one of Goas
wealthiest merchants. The soldiers of this Afghan lascar in the service of His Catholic Majesty were paid, when enlisting, 8 xeraphins
a month and their chiefs got 12 xeraphins for provisioning the soldiers. Besides they would receive tobacco for free and 75 pieces of
billet wood a month. It is normal they receive pay until the day
they are discharged, directly in hand, Rama Sinay testied. But if
the soldiers were to engage in ghting the Marathas in the north
they wanted additional concessions. The pay of the soldiers was to
be raised to 9 xeraphim, that of the leaders to 30 xeraphins. And
should some of them die in combat they want main morte lands
( praos mortos) to support their wives and their children. And they
also demand (free) medical assistance for those who are hurt. After
all, they asserted, we are, as everybody knows, far better soldiers
than the Bohra Muslims from Goga, who were generally used by
the Portuguese on the eets in the north. And yet they get far better pay than we get.43
In the 1740s, partly inspired by the French example, sepoy regiments such as the two mentioned above were brought under the
new overall military regiment drawn up by the Viceroy Conde de
Ericeira in 1722. This was aimed essentially at bringing the Estados
European military more in line with that in Portugal. Ericeiras regiment followed European military statues on matters like marching,
aiming, shooting and saluting. Besides Ericeira abolished two longstanding abuses in the military, which were typical for the Estado.
One was the unclear regulations on promotions: henceforth soldiers
were only to be promoted by their sergeant majors, and they were

43

AHU, ndia, Caixa 78, inventarisada, Document 64, Certido, March 1733.

87

to be eligible for promotion only if they had served for at least four
years. The other change introduced was that the troops were to be
permanently quartered in barracks rather than having them live (as
was still normal in the beginning of the eighteenth century) in the
houses of the dalgos. Finally, Ericeira also instituted a separate regimental treasury.44
This was followed by a frantic spree of hiring sepoys under the
Conde de Alva for his campaigns to conquer Zimbaulim and for his
disastrous campaign to reduce the whole of Sunda and the Maratha
fortications there. From a force of a mere 1,800 men (still comparable to the Bombay army!), most of them doing not very demanding work in the fortications, Alva rapidly expanded the sepoy army
to a force of 4,000 men, of whom 500 were the elite Pathan troops.
By way of comparison, the entire regular armed strength of the East
India Company in 1758 is estimated by Bryant at 4,500 men.45
However, and here was obviously the dierence with the British, this
was a situation which the Portuguese could not sustain for very long
as it created a gaping hole in the entire budget of the Estado da
ndia. Conquistas Novas were simply not Bengal.46
This hiring spree attracted military adventurers from the entire
neighbourhood to submit themselves to become a vassal of His
Catholic Majesty. Partly because since the good lawyers of the Estado da
ndia were well trained in medieval law at the University of Coimbra,
the Portuguese stuck to feudal forms in legal documents until deep
into the eighteenth century. As an example of such a term of submission (as the Portuguese called it) consider the following from
1754.
As captain Chandra Parbhu, who is serving in Ponda has represented
to me that he wants to come himself with his people to serve this
state, I hereby grant licence to the General of Salcete to receive him,
he (the general of Salcete) being recommended thereto by the said
Chandra Parbhu, and he shall be given licence to enter with his people into our territory. And in the presence of all his sepoys he shall

44
vora, Cdice CXV/131, Regimento militar dado neste Estado pello Senhor
Dom Lus de Menezes, Conde de Ericeira, . 1112; ibid., Proviso, 19 July
1731, f. 123.
45
G.J. Bryant, The East India Company and its Army 16001778 (Unpublished
PhD thesis, University of London), p. 78.
46
AHU, Cdice 440, Lista das contas do V.Rey Conde de Ega mono de
1754, f. 7.

88


make a muster role of them, which shall then publicly be entered into
the general muster role of this state.47

Chandra Parbhu was an exceptional man foras his name indicateshe was a saraswath brahman, rather a-typical of the mainly
Maratha recruiters who were enfeofed by the Portuguese in the fties.
The saraswaths were generally a non-military community. But Chandra
Parbhu was certainly typical as he was but one of the many freewheeling independent military entrepreneurs-cum-petty landlords, called
jamadar or subehdar (from P. jam'adr; badr) in the Konkan, who
recruited from many dierent communities in the Konkan. And they
recruited in the Ghats too. For a very major part of the traditional
armies in the Konkan, and particularly in the settlements adjacent
to the Ghats consisted of tribal Bhils. So it was, for example, with
the 25 men in Portuguese service under headmen Naik Savant, who
come from the mountains of Leva.48
Yet another warband was the company of Fakir Muhammad Khan
raised at his own cost, which consisted of 32 men.49 Most of his
men appear to have been close relatives and in all likelihood they
were all from the same shing village in Candal where Fakir Muhammad Khan and Ibrahim Khan came from. The commanding ocers
of Fakir Muhammad Khans lascar were his brother and his uncle,
Azad Khan. Azad Khan died with most other chiefsof Ibrahim
Khans companywhen ghting with the Bhonsles in the village of
Assolna in the province of Bardes. If the lascar was very much a
family aair this did not mean that the men were any less courageous. Indeed, such close personal ties between a band of brothers might endow the soldiers with a fanatical sense of loyalty to
their commanding ocer and by extension to his liege, the king
of Portugal. Noronha for one thought that, as they so closely identied
with their commander, sepoys wereif led by a competent commanderas good, nay better, soldiers than Portuguese troops.50
Fakir Muhammad Khan asserted in his petition to the Goa administration that he had been faithfully serving His Catholic Majesty
47
BNL, Pombalina, Cdice 667, Governo do Mrques de Alorna, Portaria,
30 October 1752, f. 35.
48
AHU, ndia, Caixa 316, Memoria da depeza que importara o pagamento
das tropas na provinia de Ponda e Zimbaulim.
49
I/ANTT, Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da ndia, Livro 37, Carta Patente,
10 September 1758.
50
BNL, Fundo Geral, 555, Systema Marcial siatico, f. 205.

89

over the past forty years in combat and garrison duty. And he should
therefore be rewarded in the traditional manner: namely by being
awarded a pension. Furthermore, as had always been the case before,
he should be allotted the right to directly name the ocers of his
company, whom he would select from his retinue himself. Abd alKhan, leader of a similar band of brothers, in the same year was
also allotted the right to serve as captain for a lascar which he has
raised at his own cost.51
The total number of the new regular sepoy force in service in
the Estado da ndia in 1771 consisted of 2,103 men, organised in companies of about 50 men each, with one captain and two sergeants
(alferes). Sepoys were paid according to the regiment on pay in 1754.
For a lieutenant, it was 14 xeraphins, raised to 20 xeraphins in 1764
monthly, while soldiers were paid 10 xeraphins, raised to 12 in the
same year.52 The troops stationed in fortications mostly had a surgeon attached and in most companies there was also an interpreter.
The sepoys appear to have rarely spoken Portuguese, except perhaps by learning some basic commands by root which were given
in Portuguese. The normal language in the sepoy force appears to
have been Konkani.
The sepoys consisted of regular and auxiliary troops. The auxiliary troops were basically the old war-bands of the allied desss in
the Konkan, who in return for becoming a vassal of the Estado kept
a prerogative to levy a number of sepoys as their retinue. Thus
Chandra Parbhus company, now stationed at Usgao, was levied
annually for a period of three months and received a reduced pay
of 8 xeraphins monthly. The same was true for the company of his
brother Mala Parbhu. This periodic service during the campaign
season reected an older practice in which the troops would only
show up during that season and would go back to their village to
sow rice afterwards. The 16th of June was generally seen as the
end of the military season amongst both the Portuguese and their
adversaries in Savantvadi in the beginning of the eighteenth century.53
The new sepoy army was an all-season force though.

51
I/ANTT, Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da ndia, Livro 37, Carta Patente,
21 October 1760.
52
AHU, ndia, Caixa 108, Carta Regia, 24 April 1764.
53
I/ANTT, Conselho Geral do Santo cio, Cdice 287, Notiias da ndia
deste anno de 1725 athe 1726 (not paged).

90

Most regular troops were also by now neatly uniformed, regimented and garrisoned; the remainder of what originally had been
independent war-bands under the leadership of local military entrepreneurs. Some companies were still led by their old commanders.
Examples were the original Pathan companies of Shaikh Abd alRahman and Yusuf Khan, the Maratha warband of Sada Shivaji
Khamat, or the Koli warband of Ragoji Savant who (still) serves
as chief and jamadar of his own company.54
The new sepoy force in Portuguese service as of 1771 thus
clearly exemplied the passing from the ancien rgime to the military
scal state in Portuguese India. Whilst the auxiliary forces still had
many of the characteristics of the warbands of the ancien rgime, serving for the dry season only and living with their families in military
colonies rather than permanently being garrisoned in barracks, the
regular troops gradually passed from warbands to regimented forces.
In 1756 all troops in the Estado da ndia (the sepoy troops included)
were to be divided in numbered regiments and in regular companies. The Indian troops also switched from being clothed in white
bertangi, which were generally ordered from Daman, to the green
uniforms sent from Portugal.55
Most of the companies, while often keeping the older name of the
subehdar whom they once served were gradually allotted to (mostly
Indo-Portuguese) commanders. This was for example the case with
Ibrahim Khans former boys: a group of 20 sepoys. Command of
this company was given to the Indo-Portuguese soldier Joo Menezes
da Silva in 1758, because Ibrahim Khan had turned rebel and ed
to Vad.56
But the sepoys did not always easily give up their independent
life with their families in their military villages for the barracks; nor
did they give up gladly their freedom to choose allegiances nor did
they easily submit to European-style military regulations. In 1756,
for example, the Conde de Ega thought that the submission of the
sepoys to the regimento militar of Ericeira was the main cause behind

54
AHU, Cdice 399, Reforma e estabelicimento do Erario Regio do Estado da
ndia, . 10912.
55
AHU, ndia, Caixa 261, Real Ordem, 21 March 1756.
56
I/ANTT, Junta da Real Fazenda do Estado da ndia, Livro 37, Proviso, 22
December 1758.

91

the war with Savantvadi in 1754.57 The Savants, Ega argued, had
recently instituted reforms in their army, stressing the role of drill,
regular formations and heavy ries with bayonets. So far the Savants
army had mainly been Bhil light infantry. Those Bhils were skilled
in close combat with hand weapons and in ambushes in the impenetrable forests, which covered most of Savantvadi, and they were
armed with missile weapons like bows and at best with light buccaneer-ries. A form of warfare in which the Savants had traditionally excelled: the Savants and their Bhil retinue would engage
in lightening strikes against the Portuguese infantry after which they
disappeared again in the dense forests, where the cumbersome
Portuguese heavy infantry could not follow them.58
Yet while this Savant army was able to ambush the Portuguese
as happened with the expedition to Usgao, which was largely slaughtered by the Vadi force in the jungle with a loss of 70 sepoyssuch
a guerrilla force could not hold ground against the new sepoy Portuguese army.59 To defend themselves against the ever more aggressive Portuguese the Savants had to follow suit. This modernisation
of the Savant forces had led to a greater demand for European
trained sepoys in Savantvadi. The Savants had doubled their pay
for European mercenaries and doubled their quest for deserters
from Portuguese territory too. This had led to wide unrest among
the sepoys quartered in Ponda, who were badly underpaid relative
to what they would receive in the army of Savantvadi. This in turn
had tempted the Bhonsle to invade the territory of Ponda in 1754.
For the Savants were expecting aid from the disgruntled Portuguese
sepoys, who could still turn to pledging allegiance to the Savants if
they thought they were not properly treated by the Portuguese, without in any way considering this as mutiny.
After all, as we saw, some of their most ranking commanders had
deserted too. Not the least of whom was the fore-mentioned Ibrahim

57
AHU, Cdice 440, Lista das contas do V.Rey Conde de Ega mono de
1754, f. 4v.
58
For a close description of the jungle-warfare between Mughal troops and
their Portuguese auxiliaries with the Bhil guerilleiros of Khem Savant Bhonsle see in
particular the papeis do serviio of Joo da Silva de Vasconselhos in AHU, ndia,
Caixa 77, Document numbers 18 and 19.
59
vora, CXX/22, Jose Nunes de Agostinho to the Conde de Unho, 27
December 1746.

92

Khan, who was both a living legend and a kind of role model for
the Portuguese sepoys, and who had been serving the Estado for more
than thirty years. Yet he did switch allegiance to the Savants and
then to Mysore. Because, De Noronha argued,60 although he was the
most senior commander of the Estado he never got any further than
the position of captain, the reinois being promoted over his head.
Ibrahim Khan had also deserted in disgust because reinol senior commanders simply declined to listen to any advice by a black fellow.
To the injury of the humdrum military chicken-shit was thus added
racist insults for both the sepoys and the lascarins; the metropolitan
commanders normally referring to them as black bitches (cachorros),
Ega recorded. Ibrahim Khan was gladly received by Haidar Ali who
immediately promoted him to a senior command and gave him twice
his former salary.
Because of the subdued discontent among the sepoys the Portuguese
had reason to fear for more mutinies and entertained a network of
informers to spy upon their own troops. Dessai Dulba Naik, who
has always proven to be a faithful servant of the crown of Portugal
was for example to keep a close eye on the mounted company (the
Corpo volante) of the sepoys in Candal whobeing more mobile and
not quartered in xed barrackscould especially easily ee. He had
to immediately report to the headquarters any stirrings among them.
Their commanding ocers were to read the sepoys correspondence,
and sepoys quartered in barracks were strictly prohibited to have
any intercourse with people from the Deccan. Again, any letter sent
to the Deccan had to be read and censored by the lieutenants.61

The sepoys pursuit: pay, wives, and land


Many sepoys were from long-standing military families with at least
an assumed kshatriya-identity and often their whole family had been
involved in military pursuits for a long time. Dungara Naik, cabo das
sipayes, for example, mariner on a dhow (manchua), and a member
of the Hindu middle class of Goa at a head-tax for Hindus (the
xendi ) assessment of 6 xeraphin, had two brothers living with him in

60
61

BNL, Fundo Geral, Systema Marcial siatico, f. 216.


AHU, ndia, Caixa 309, Regimento das tropas de sepoys.

93

his compound. Both of them were serving as village watchmen (naiques).


His brothers were xendi-assessed at 4 xeraphin making them very
much a part of Goas skilled working class. The xendi tax was levied
by estimated annual income, where 4 xeraphin was the assessment
for craftsmen like shoemakers and smiths.
The xendi-lists areas far as I knowa unique source for eighteenth century India as they were levied by income: Indians are here
uniquely divided by class rather than caste. However they have
two shortcomings. First, the Portuguese were far less concerned about
caste than the English were. English muster roles, court records etc.
always mention caste as a distinguishing individual characteristic
next to the name of an individual (x . . . x . . ., from the caste of . . .).
Portuguese records rarely do so. The only way one can guess at the
caste status of the sepoys is to look at their names, but this has to
be done with caution. Eighteenth century Indians often had a tendency to adopt new names, when they changed their adopted families or when proceeding to a more elevated caste status. And, second,
Indians were often named by titles or nicknames, which Europeans
often assumed were their proper names.
With this note of caution it appears that Portuguese sepoys very
often used a single last name, Naique, and typical Maratha rst names
like Shivaji, Satroji and Shahu. With great reservations I would therefore say that a very major part of the Portuguese sepoys appear to
have come from upper-caste Maratha families and that most of them
came from the surrounding Maratha and Savant territory.
But there are two risks involved in associating the Portuguese
sepoys with one caste alone. First, as we have seen already, patronage ties could override and generally did override caste and religious
ties. Second, and this is perhaps more important for it is a general
problem in Indian studies, an exclusive focus on both function and
on caste may make the researcher blind to individual cases of
upward or downward mobility from generation to generation. As we
have already seen in the case of Manuel de Sazoa, upward mobility
was quite normal under the Indian ancien regime. People might gradually ascend to a kshatrya or Chardo by long service in the army.62

62
I better leave the precise derivation of the word Chardo in the middle which
has been the topic of a lengthy debate. See P.P.S. Pissurlencar, Contribuio ao
estudo etnlogico da casta Indo Portuguese denominade chard luz de documentos

94

A good case of such upward vertical mobility from the xendi lists
is the sepoy sergeant Babhoji, whose father was Babhu Savant, a landless bonded labourer in the rice elds (lavrador begari das varzeas) and
by origin a shermen of Koli status. Babhoji Savant was still living
in the compound of his father, which we would imagine as a squatter settlement, a group of reed huts in a patch of common forest
land on the edge of the rice elds not claimed by any village, but
was assessed for xendi at 4 rupees: upper working class status. His
father was assessed at the very lowest rate for an unskilled bonded
labourer of 2 rupees. And that was as close to Goas under-class
as one could get. Even Christian beggars in Goa looked down upon
the Hindu lavradores das varzeas.63
Babhoji Savant simply needed the money, however meagre, and
above all he needed the food. The population of eighteenth century
Goa was certainly no stranger to famine. Because of the minor
scarcity (menor carestia) of 1739 and, again, the excessive price of
foodstu in 1758 the ration of soldiers was xed by the Conselho da
fazenda of Goa at three slices of bread (orcas de po) and one medida
of rice per soldier per day, which was by Goan standards a generous ration.64
Pay and food were not the only things enticing such lavradores
begaris das varzeas or small shermen to try to pursue a career in the
army. For one thing the army was one of the few relatively open
careers left in eighteenth-century Goa, which otherwise witnessed a
gradual process of social exclusion amongst the Indians themselves.
All this to the marked anger of their Portuguese masters. More
and more oces, and above all more and more land, were exclusively reserved for the Saraswath brahmans, who however were quite
averse to a career in the army. For another thing there was scope
for sexual gratication. Both Indian armies and Indian warbands
were habitually accompanied by bailardeiras whichif the word commonly referred to temple dancersin this case means little else but

encontrados no Arquivo Histrico do Estado da ndia separata of the Actas do I o


Congresso Nacional de Antropologia Cultural (Porto, 1934).
63
vora, Cdice CXV/133, Lista de todos os gentios que so obrigados a
pagar a peno de Sendi no anno de 1744; I/ANTT, Junta da Real Fazenda do
Estado da ndia, Livro 32, Carta de comutao, 13 March 1755, f. 77.
64
AHU, ndia, Caixa 314, Portaria para o accresimento da ajuda de costa, 6
April 1758.

95

camp prostitutes.65 Both because of the risk of venereal disease and,


worse, because the bailardeiras were considered to spread the contagion of paganism, the sepoys in Ponda were strictly prohibited to
entertain bailardeiras in their encampment. Any bailardeira apprehended
when trying to visit sepoys was to be heavily ned and in case of
recidivism to be condemned to forced labour.66
Yet from military life could grow more lasting relations too. One
of the major rewardsif not the major rewardof a career in the
army for peasant boys might be a wife. In Goa in the eighteenth
century (and I have the impression in many other parts of India too)
there was an escalation of the dowry-prices, which in Bardes increased
from 2,000 to up to 4,000 xeraphins. These were obviously the
upper class rates for dowries for there was no way a common
agricultural worker at a pay of 6 xeraphin a month could even imagine paying such a sum. Yet clearly parents were not very willing to
betroth their daughters to poor soldiers who have nothing on oer
but their own body.67 Hence, the Portuguese crown licensed the
probably far older use that the cabos dos sepoys were to endow soldiers willing to marry with a substantial sum of money though
obviouslythe crown thought that in that case they should only be
married to Catholic girls.68
The most basic way in which the mercenary troops were rewarded
was allotting them a piece of land, or allowing them to buy land;
it was the normal form of social security in eighteenth century India.
As we saw with the Afghan lascar already, the most simple function
rice elds fullled for the sepoys was as a retirement pension, or
they might need the revenues to benet their family. Ismail Khan,
for example, requested to be allotted a ef of the rice eld of
Venashi in the village of Nerva in Ponda. The income was both
needed to feed his three wives and hishe stated also very large
extended family and to serve for his retirement.69
But land was also intimately tied to the political process, in western
India at large and in Goa in particular. Possession of land allowed
65

On bailardeiras in the seventeenth century see Barendse, Arabian Seas, p. 97.


AHU, ndia Caixa 309, Bando geral que deve ser publiado de som de instromentos bellicos nas trs provinias de Ponda, Zambaulim e Canocana (1768).
67
AHU, ndia, Caixa 84, Faltas que padeem este Estado e seus vantajozos
remedios (s.d. c. 1730).
68
AHU, ndia, Caixa 309, Regimento das tropas de sepoys.
69
AHU, ndia, Caixa 204, Petition, 26 March 1760.
66

96

people to make their own life by participating in the political and


economic decision making at the village level. For only the possession of land allowed aspiring lavradores das varzeas a say both in the
village assemblies and in the regional assemblies, which existed both
in Goa and in Sunda and Savantvadi and were in either case paramount for the division of land and labour. For example, Nana Ksatri
and his brothers were by origin Marathas from Bicholim, sepoys,
located in the jurisdiction of the Estado da ndia. They, when summoned come with their persons and with their weapons to defend
this land and had in 1720 bought joni land in Bardes from their
savings. This joni land gave them a vote in the rural cmara in Bardes.
For to those certainly expensive plots of land was tied the status of
gavcar, counting for an eective voice of four votes in the cmara of
Bardes. This was as clear a case of upward social mobility as any
in Goa, for the gavcar position was generally jealously preserved by
a tiny clique of a mere fteen families in Bardes.70
Yet a man like Ibrahim Khan was really aiming much higher
than merely obtaining such a joni land. What Ibrahim Khan wanted
was to obtain the position of an independent military entrepreneur
who service to his lord could obtain hereditary claim on village lands
and above all the status associated with the hereditary ownership of
the position of a warden of a village, the vatan-demukh or sardesai
(from Persian waan: homeland) rank.
There was a dialectical relationship here; land served to underwrite sardesai status, yet to obtain the position of sardesai it was also
necessary to feed a retinue and live like a sardesai. The credulity of
a des above all depended upon largesse and conspicuous spending
and that necessitated prodigious amounts of land. It has now been,
Ramaji Sinay, des of Bicholim (who was evicted by the Savants
from Bicholim in 1699 and sought refuge in Bardes) complained in
1720 to the Conselho Ultramarino in Lisbonthrough his Portuguese
attorneytwenty years that I came under the jurisdiction of your
majesty, with my entire family, with all my brahmans, with all my
scribes and with all my servants. All of whom serve this state. Yet
I never received anything from the Royal Treasury as a reward.
For no land had been set apart in Bardes to allow Ramaji Sinay to
feed his retinue, and he therefore complained he had suered untold

70

AHU, ndia, Caixa 114, Petition, 16 March 1720.

97

miseries (mil miserias). To sustain this clientele Ramaji Sinay demanded


he be allotted income from the revenue of the sheries in the
Mandovi.71
Land in the villages was thus tied to having a retinue and the
retinue in turn gave men the liberty to freely choose allegiances.
Such a freedom to choose allegiances was what gave men the status of a king however small their kingdom. When Satroji Raja
whom we have already come acrossdied his son, Ganesha Bhai
Raja, lord absolute of the villages of Ravana, Nadorna and Parna
of Pernem district, as he titled himself, requested he should obtain
not only the revenue of those villages but also the honorary title of
captain of the frontiers from the Estado da ndia. As lord absolute
of the those tiny hamlets (for they had only a few hundred inhabitants) he contended that he was entitled to the proper treatment of
a malik in a North Indian, that of a vatan-demukh in the Maratha or
that of a vatan-sardesai in the Konkani context. The honours bestowed
on the legal sardesai by his sovereign were to consist of an annual
tribute by the Portuguese to him of two Arabian horses; and he was
also to be allowed a retinue of thirty sepoys whom Ganesha Bhai
Raja could select as his house prerogative. But the authorities at
Goa were not enthusiastic about thethey felt highly exaggerated
claims of Ganesha Bhai. They did not think he should be allowed
the right to levy sepoys from his villages, or that he should be granted
a right to the incomes of the rice elds to pay for the expenses of
his warband. For most of the socalled professional sepoys in
Ganesha Bhais retinue were but complete amateurs; peasants and
Bhils who had only marched-out with the Portuguese army for one
campaign season, enticed by the prospect of plunder. None of them
had received any military training whatsoever.72
Ganesha Bhais sepoys were somewhat comparable to the auxiliary Pindari forces of the Maratha dominion. Like them they were
irregular peasant and in particular Bhil bands, who only brought a
horse for the Pindaris, or merely a matchlock, a sword and a shield
for the irregular forces in Savantvadi, to the campaigns. They were
not paid and were merely rewarded by booty. However, in India

71

AHU, ndia, Caixa 114, Petition, 6 February 1720.


AHU, ndia, Caixa 101, Diz Ganeba Rana (s.d., c. 1760) (Portuguese and
Marathi).
72

98

very often state formation started with robbery, for such booty was
then reinvested by warlords such as Ganesha Bhai in buying riceelds in his patrimonial villages. This eectively entrenched such
Maratha or Savant warlords in the villages by becoming a co-sharer
within the local village economy, and the local decision making, of
the Konkan.
Furthermore, as the retinue moved to inhabit his land with him
such warbands tended to form permanent military colonies in their
new fatherland. The Portuguese had little choice but to follow suit
and allow incomes from the villages in various forms of main morte
(Ar. in'm) to the Cabos das cipayes. Take Bapoji Pant, who used to
be in charge of the soldiers assisting during the collection of the revenue (the mujamma'dr) in Ponda, and had helped in the campaign
against the Savants with a group of chosen men. If we do not
give this (in'm) to him he will surely retreat to the enemy the
Viceroy thought.73
Another case is that of Arba Naik, chief commander of the Savants,
who had switched sides to the Portuguese. Arba Naik requested, and
was granted, the right to establish a military settlement in the village of Anjapur in Ponda. The rice-elds in the village were to serve
as in'm land to feed his retinue. The retinue consisted of his brother
Vitoba Naik, sardaucar or chief commander of the regiment of soldiers tied to Arba Naiks house, of his subordinate commanders,
their family and of their military suite. Arba Naik said it consisted
of 15 houses with a staggering number of 224 persons in total
not counting women and children. The number in staggering for
normally houses in eighteenth century Goa generally held no more
than 4 to 5 persons. We should not so much imagine a house
here, then, but more a modern ward centred on the mansion
of the cabo das cipayes with the other soldiers of the company living
in the same ward, together with their extensive retinue of personal
servants, wives and children. Patronage ties overrode caste ties; for
though sardaucar Lakshmi Naik was obviously of upper-caste descent,
the other chiefs of the retinue, namely Sura Savant and Butto Savant,
where both of low-caste Koli descent.74

73

AHU, Cdice 428, Conde de Ega to Crown, 2 February 1764, f. 97.


BNL, Pombalina, Cdice 667, Traduo da lista que mandou Arba Naique,
f. 77.
74

99

In Goa too newly attracted sepoys often lived in such military villages; in newly laid out or levelled palm-groves ( palmares). Works for
laying out such Hindu colonies in Goa were often paid by the wealthy
Hindu merchants, who then were paid the house rents. Such military colonies were somewhat comparable to those in the Conquistas
Novas and, like in the Conquistas Novas, they were partly laid out
as Grenzler settlement. They served both to populate and to protect
the borders between the Estado and Savantvadi. Such palmares were
either located on the land of former common forest ground of the
villages, or on land that was turned into swamps after the virtual
depopulation of Bardes and Salcete after 1684 and had reverted to
empty land, or emphatiotica crown land, status. Typical cases were the
palmares (formerly belonging to) Joo Bento and the palmar of the
Dominican Convent, both of which had a high number of sepoys
living there. Apart from the large number of sepoys there these were
very much settlements of low-caste Hindu shermen, shing in the
surrounding creeks. In both hamlets these comprised the mass of the
population. The sepoys there were part time soldiers, part time
shermen and especially part time boatmen. For particularly in
Bicholim shermen and boatmen often doubled as mariners on the
eet.75
However, when granting in'm land and establishing military colonies
such as Arba Naiks the Portuguese were obviously but following
older Indian usages. Most of this rent-free land was originally given
to men like Bapoji Pant by the Mughals or Marathas, so that he
will not retreat to the enemy too.
A Portuguese list of the cabos das cipayes who were allowed various forms of in'm land to feed their military retinue and who mostly
were concentrated in such separate military settlements thus constituted a veritable archaeology of the turbulent history of Ponda
over the last hundred years or so.76 Cabo Shaikh Murtuza and cabo
Shaikh Ismail with a military retinue of 79 men may, for example,
be conceived of as descendants of Mughal sergeants who had established military settlements in Ponda in the 1690s. Mahadaji Scindia,

75
vora, CXV/133, Lista de todos os gentios; Bibliotheca Pblica da Ajuda,
Lisbon, Cdice 51VII-28, Relao sumaria dos principais succesos de Goa com
a guerra de Marata, f. 14.
76
AHU, ndia, Caixa 316, Memoria da depeza que importara o pagamento
das tropas e outras na provincia de Ponda e Zambaulim.

100

Jagdish Patvardan and Mahadaji Malik dessay de Caranja were obviously Marathas who had pitched tents there somewhere in the 1730s;
they mustered 34 men between them. And nally the sovereignties of sardesai Rama Naik and of sardesai Pulamar Naik, with 24
men between them, were the remnants of far older Bhil chiefdoms,
who were intersected between the settled populations of Ponda,
where most forests were still the realm of the Bhils.
There was thus in Ponda and Zimbaulim a realm of private
taxation underlying the taxation of the realm and the military was
by and large paid through such private taxation. For example, in
1765 the total revenue of the two districts was valued by the Portuguese
at 193,476 xeraphin.77 This included the main agricultural revenue
(the jama' ) which rateas elsewhere in the Maratha dominionwas
thought to have been xed once and forever during Adilshahs reign
over Ponda in mutual agreement between the Adilshahs awldrs
and the sardesais of Ponda. In Savantvadi as much as in the kingdom of Sunda the villagers stressedwhen in 1766 queried in exhaustive detail by a Portuguese judge, Jos de Mendona Benvenido, in
a general devassa on the system of revenue in use before 1762the
revenue was only directly levied by ocials of the royal treasury
( por conte da fazenda real) in time of dire nancial necessity. In normal circumstances the ocials of Sunda and Savantvad had arrangements with the villages that they were to deliver a xed and customary
sum, part of which was to be levied by the sardesais.78
Since the customary jama was xed what gave the revenue its real
exibility were rst the dreaded cesses (called baj va bab in the Konkan)
imposed by the Marathas in the 1740s. These were supplementary
impositions on the mining or selling of iron anda major income
for the state in densely forested Zimbaulimimpositions in cash on
the peasants for permissions to cut wood in the forests. Second, and
more importantly, beyond that a long series of posts were subtracted
from the revenue. This basically meant that rice-elds were ctionally
supposed to be subjected to the state revenue but were in fact set
aside to cover the direct expenses of servants of the state. And above

77
AHU, ndia, Caixa 320, Mappa dos rendimentos das provinias de Ponda e
de Zimbaulim de hum anno de Julho de 1764 athe Junho 1765.
78
AHU, ndia, Caixa 266, O ouvidor Henriques Jose de Mendona Pereira
tirasse parecer, 4 October 1766.

101

all, that they were used to accommodate older elites (whose position
of power preceded the re-imposition of the Savants rule over Ponda
in 1702) within the Savant sovereignty. The crown of Savantvadi
was hollow. Savant sovereignty was pigeon-holed by that of a myriad small sovereignties, who were strictly speaking outside of the
Savants jurisdiction, be those sovereignties only over two or three
rice-elds.79
These consisted rst of the incomes of the Hindu priests serving
the temple at Nagua, covered through the incomes from the village
of Quelnithose incomes very likely already dating back to the
Vijayanagara period in the fourteenth century. It also consisted of
waqf-lands reserved for the q Ponda whose daily expenses were
paid from the incomes of two rice elds in two dierent villages in
Pondathose incomes probably dating back to either Adilshahi rule
or to the short Mughal interregnum.
But the main incomes subtracted from the revenue were those of
the sardesai Dulba Naik who for his support to the Portuguese had
been bestowed the revenue of the village of Vadri apart from various pieces of land in Zimbaulim, already in his possession since at
least 1700. And those of the sardesai of Ponda, Ragoji Savant, which
took a major chunk o the revenue at 18,206 xeraphins. This was
his due because the latter has a large number of desss under him,
who also serve under him in times of war.80
Yet being king of a mere three hamlets with maybe 2,000 inhabitants, where additionally Satroji Raja derived those claims on kingship not from the court of nearby Vad but from the very distant
court at Pune, is not really what we normally would associate with
a kingdom at all. This, I feel, is the problem of much recent literature emphasising the centrality of kingship in Indiain which power
always ows from the Rajafor what is the sense of speaking of a
kingdom which merely consists of three hamlets? Rather than
reecting any reality of power, owing from the Raja, much of the
language of absolute kingship and sovereignty (whether it involved
the pdshh in Delhi, or in this case the chatrapati at Satara) was in

79
N.B. Dirks, The Hollow Crown; Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Ann Arbor,
1993).
80
AHU, ndia, Caixa 86, Memoria dos dessays que servem o Estado e que he
indispensavel sua conservao (s.d., c. 1780).

102

the reality of the eighteenth century, I feel, a kind of lucky bag from
which successful military entrepreneurs could grab a few words and
claims to legitimise their claims on land they would ultimately have
seized by force. And in that respect most of the cabo das cipayes and
the sardesais perceived being a servant of His Catholic Majesty as
but little dierent from being a servant of the Peshwa or the Mughal.
Submitting to the Portuguese gave them yet another set of concepts
by which they could legitimise their claims on land.

Conclusion: modernity in disguise


All this was in itself surely hardly new; to tear the kingdoms of
potentially dangerous enemies apart by supporting claims of rivals
who had submitted themselves to His Catholic Majesty had been
a common Portuguese tactic in the Konkan since at least 1558. The
Portuguese then had supported Ibrahim Adil Shah Qazi, pretender
to the Adilshahi throne, whose sonas being king by divine right,
vassal of His Catholic Majestyunder the title Alexes de Menezes
ascended to the unlikely position of a dalgo in Goa.81 And there are
also sundry cases from the seventeenth century where the dess submitted themselves to His Catholic Majesty, bringing their full retinue along, much like the above mentioned cases.82
What was new, though, and in this respect I think themainly
westernhistorians arguing for a basic continuity between the precolonial and the colonial period are wrong is that although the institutional forms in the transition between the ancien rgime and the
military scal state were still very close to those of the ancien rgime,
the actual content was often very dierent. The problem, I think, is
that often writings on the ancien rgime basically take as typical for
the ancien rgime the situation prevailing, say, twenty years before the
colonial conquest. This may not only ignore previous European penetration before the conquest itself, but also the extent to which
European actions merely appear to be ancien rgime because they were
trying to gain legitimacy through couching them in that language.
81
Diego do Couto, Da sia. Dos Feitos que os Portugueses zeram na conquista e descobrimento das terras e mares do Oriente. 25 volumes (rst edition Lisbon, 1780), Dcada
VII, Livro 1.
82
Barendse, Arabian Seas, pp. 144.

103

There is a risk then of mistaking practices which were actually quite


new as typical of the ancien rgime.
Let us return to the case of Vicente de Vidals expedition against
Uspa: we saw that in many ways all this looks very much like traditional Mughal warfare and in many respects it certainly was. In
the seventeenth century too it was normal for the Portuguese to take
cattle along in frontier raiding, or to raid frontier territory in the
nominal position of a Maratha or Mughal ally.
Yet there were two critical dierences between the truly ancien
rgime seventeenth century and the only seemingly ancien rgime in the
eighteenth. The rst is that those raids were to be nanced through
permanently assigning the incomes of villages in Bicholim to the
invading army, something I never witnessed in the seventeenth century. The secret the English, the Portuguese and the French found
out somewhere in the 1730s was that by having their own army
paid via subsidiary alliances with Indian states they could quite
literally externalise protection costs. If the army was to be paid
by their neighbours and yet their ocers were still permitted to take
along the spoils of the campaigns, with the Company or the Portuguese
state also garnering a handsome share of this ocial prize-money,
then warfare became a very protable and very enticing proposition
indeed.
The second andI think the most critical dierenceis the taking of hostages, which was not done in the seventeenth century at
all. The Marathas also widely resorted to the taking of hostages, the
prime aim of which was to secure ransom. However they had another
aim too when taking hostages. As happened in Chaul where the
English thought that the enemy had been possessing themselves
of the wives and children of the garrison and by threatening to
cut them down they forced them to surrender.83 Ragunat Pant and
Zabardast Khan had thus little choice but to surrender as, for all
they knew, the Portuguese might well kill their wives and children
if they did not. The point is rather critical: collaborating at gunpoint for lack of any other option is not really collaborating at all.
Collaboration thus almost imperceptibly transcended into subordination in the eighteenth century.

83

OIOC, P/341/13, Bombay Public Consultations, 3 August 1743, f. 342.

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THE TRIALS OF CAPTAIN HACKERT AND


ENGINEER ANDRIES LESLORANT AT THE
MALABAR COUNCIL OF WAR
Mark de Lannoy

Introduction
At the end of September 1739 the Dutch, with the help of their
allies the kings of Cochin and Kayamkulam, started a war against
Martanda Varma, king of Travancore.1 Both the Dutch and their
allies had their own reasons for this. The Dutch wanted to force the
Travancore king to keep to the contract that they had concluded
with his predecessor, the prince of Kottayam in 1691. The kings of
Kayamkulam and Cochin had dynastic and territorial reasons to
ght their neighbour.2 The Dutch thought that they could easily
defeat the Travancore army which mainly consisted of untrained,
poorly equipped soldiers, unfamiliar with European war tactics. This
in spite of the fact that the Dutch themselves had to cope with a
highly incompetent military command and with very unreliable allies.
The incompetence, for example, led to the building of several weakly
built forts. One of these forts was Colachel, a small harbour which
could, the Dutch thought, be easily provided with food and ammunition in case of a siege, which they thought highly improbable.3
With the arrival of the monsoon, the Dutch immediately withdrew
to their forts, both in the interior and on the coast of the Arabian
Sea. The forts in the interior, however, were captured by the enemy
so that nally the Dutch were forced to withdraw to Colachel which
was soon besieged from three sides. This fortress was mainly constructed of mud so that the walls could hardly hold the heavy Dutch
1
M. de Lannoy: The Kulasekhara Perumals of Travancore. History and State Formation
in Travancore from 1671 to 1758 (Leiden, 1997), p. 76.
2
Ibid., p. 15 and J.E. Heeres and F.W. Stapel (eds.), Corpus Diplomaticum NeerlandoIndicum; Verzameling van politieke contracten en verdere verdragen door de Nederlanders in het
Oosten gesloten, van privilegebrieven aan hen verleend etc. (The Hague, 19071955), Vol.
III, pp. 5638.
3
De Lannoy: Kulasekhara Perumals, p. 91.

106

artillery.4 To make things worse, the Dutch even failed to lock the
gate since the key had been sold by a corrupt VOC servant to the
French!
Crowded by refugees, Captain Hackert, the commander of the
Dutch forces, considered the situation desperate and decided, without orders of his superior Julius Valentijn Stein van Gollenesse, the
Commandeur of the Malabar Coast, to leave Colachel for Tuticorin.
Obviously this made the situation of the Dutch who stayed behind
even more desperate, especially after the Travancoreans succeeded
in blowing up the entire stock of gunpowder. The Colachel commander Rijtel requested help, and when Stein van Gollenesse discovered that Hackert had withdrawn from the fortress he ordered
him to return.5 For the Dutch at Colachel it was already too late.
Those who survived the siege capitulated and were forced to enter
into the service of the Travancore king. Reinicus Siersma,6 the successor of Stein van Gollenesse, described the loss of Colachel thus:
After the provisions were destroyed by re, the rest of the Colachel
garrison, partly by persuasion of the Travancore king, partly by hunger,
surrendered to the enemy. Now this king is served by approximately
300 or 400 Dutch soldiers which was mainly caused by Hackert who
had gone to Tuticorin instead of Cochin. Therefore we were not able
to send immediate reinforcements to Colachel.7

Hackert again withdrew to Quilon where his superior Stein van


Gollenesse ordered an investigation of his conduct which nally
resulted in the trial of Captain Hackert before the Quilon Council
of War. Hackert, however, was not the only person whose conduct
during the Travancore war was investigated. Engineer Andries Leslorant, who was responsible for the fortication of Colachel, was also
summoned to the Council.
4

Idem, p. 92.
Nationaal Archief The Hague (NA), VOC 2543, Cochin Council to Batavia,
26 October 1741, . 40778.
6
Reinicus Siersma, born in Leeuwarden, died in Batavia, okt. 1757. In 1723 he
arrived as Sergeant in the Indies with the ship Castricum for the Chamber of
Amsterdam. On 12 Sept. 1723 Lieutenant-Captain of Malabar; 14 August 1733
Captain; 1 March 1740 Captain-Commander of Porto-Novo; 28 Dec. 1741 SergeantMajor of the Batavia castle; from 27 August 1742 until 1748 Commander of
Malabar; 3 Oct. 1752 to 29 Dec. 1754 Governor and Director on Banda; 16
Dec. 1755 Receiver-General and on 18 June 1756 Captain of the pennisten corps
(Wijnaendts van Resandt: De gezaghebbers, pp. 1901).
7
NA, VOC 2653, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 6 January 1745,
. 856.
5

107

The prosecution of Hackert


In September 1740, directly after the hostilities with Travancore
started, Stein van Gollenesse established a Council of War. Interestingly,
its president was Joannes Hackert who, only one year later, was to
be prosecuted himself by the same Council. The Council was to deal
with all cases, both military and criminal during the war against
Travancore. According to Schmitz such Councils of War existed also
in other VOC establishments.8 There was no strict division between
administrative and juridical powers. In fact, all VOC establishments,
except Batavia, lacked professional lawyers and judges. This inuenced
the administration of justice signicantly.9 Malabar was no exception, for the investigation against Hackert was started by the Fiscaal
and opperkoopman Hendrik Wendelin Koller on 12 October 1741.10
A crucial point in the investigation against Hackert was that two
members of the Council of War had refused to sign a resolution in
which it was stated that it was impossible to relieve Colachel. One
of them was the prosecutor Koller. He had voted against the resolution proposed by the former President of the Council of War, his
superior, Hackert. This was probably the reason why Hackert refused
to give his papers to Koller. Hackert also refused to be judged on
the Malabar Coast. He requested to be suspended from all his local
functions in order to be able to appear in court at Colombo or
Batavia. He claimed that being an ocer commissioned at Colombo
he could only be judged by a Council of War in Ceylon. But Stein
van Gollenesse argued that he had made Hackert his Secunde (second-in-command) of Malabar and that he therefore had to be tried
on this Coast.11 For the time being his request was refused and
Hackert had to await the investigations by the local Council.
Hackert, however, persisted in his refusal to hand over his papers
to Koller. He said that since Stein van Gollenesse himself had left
8

Schmitz mentions i.e. Javas Northeast Coast in 1741 ( J.P.G. Schmitz: Rechtshistorische bijdragen tot de kennis van het materieele en formeele strafrecht van toepassing op de
dienaren van de Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, voornamelijk betrekking hebbende op het delict
van desertie (Utrecht, 1938), p. 73).
9
J. van Kan: Uit de rechtsgeschiedenis der Campagnie, tweede bundel. Rechtsgeleerd bedrijf
in de buitencomptoiren (Bandung, 1935), p. 3.
10
Ibid., 1506. In the eighteenth century juridical administration in Cochin was
carried out with the help of a Rechtsboekje, a compendium of laws, ill composed by
an amateur for daily use in court.
11
NA, VOC 2581, Resolution of the Quilon Council of War, 21 December
1741, . 603941.

108

the theatre of war at such an early stage, he could not be blamed


for neglecting his duty ( pligtsversuijm en wandevoir).12 He also claimed
that he could not be accused because there was no formal complaint. Thus Hackert delayed the investigation against him until Stein
van Gollenesse arrived at Quilon on 25 December 1741. For Stein
van Gollenesse Hackert was the main cause of the failure of the
Travancore war. Apart from being responsible for the fall of Colachel,
Hackert, as chief of the police, always had acted in a most despotic
way.13
On 31 December 1741 Hackert made a request to be allowed to
leave the Malabar Coast but this was not granted. Thereupon Hackert
demanded copies of the complaints against him for his own defence.14
Hackert refused to answer the questions of Koller until he had those
copies. He even claimed that now he was in the power of Stein van
Gollenesse the latter could do with him just as he pleased. Thereupon
Stein van Gollenesse retorted that:
These words were just in case that they sprang from the mouth of an
innocent man who was dishonestly accused by his superiors. But they
were irrelevant from the mouth of the Hon. Hackert.

On 11 January 1742 Hackert was ocially charged. In the ocial


accusation (declaratoir clagtschrift) Hackert was accused by his former
subordinates of various serious oences such as:
1. withdrawal from Colachel without permission of Stein van Gollenesse,
2. failure to end the siege of Colachel by the Travancoreans which
resulted in the fall of this fortress,
3. lack of control of the building process of Colachel.
The same day, Hackert repeated his request to be sent to Batavia
in order to be tried there. But this request was again refused on the
ground that the complaints against him had to be investigated rst.15

12
NA, VOC 2581, Letter of captain Johannes Hackert to Batavia, 23 December
1741, . 7807.
13
NA, VOC 2561, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 21 March 1742,
f. 144r.
14
NA, VOC 2581, Resolution of the Quilon Council of War, 5 January 1742,
. 60656.
15
NA, VOC 2561, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 21 March 1742,
f. 143r.

109

Meanwhile, Hackert still refused to hand over his papers to the


Council of War. He had locked them in his room and claimed that
he needed them for his own defence. He even lodged a complaint
against Koller, who was prosecuting him as if he had committed a
criminal act. Apparently the Council of War was not amused by the
uncooperative behaviour of Hackert who did not shrink from abusing and threatening those people who under oath accused him of
various things.16 Hackert claimed that the Secretary of the Council
did not dare to write things that displeased Stein van Gollenesse.
This provoked Stein van Gollenesse in writing to Batavia:
These are hard words for I acted never as an arbitrary and despotic
commander. I have never done any wrong to this man. Yet, on the
contrary I have treated him most gently in spite of his most irritating
behaviour.17

On 14 March 1742 Hackert was dishonourably discharged from all


his functions.18 Hence, he lost his military honours and salary and
was practically considered guilty before the trial had properly started.
In the meantime, Stein van Gollenesse added a new accusation
by claiming that Hackert had withheld information from his superiors about the course of the war. But according to Hackert he was
forced to withdraw to Tuticorin because of the deteriorating weather.
The relief of Colachel had failed because there was a lack of oxen,
coolies and provisions. Besides, Hackert argued that it was dangerous to send detailed reports of the Dutch military operations because
they could easily be intercepted by the enemy.19 Several days later
Hackert wrote in despair to Batavia that:
I am exposed to the most vehement prosecution of the commander
which has gone so far that all those who can accuse me of the most
dishonest and bad things are treated by the commander (Stein van
Gollenesse) in the most gentle and friendly way.
16
NA, VOC 2561, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 21 March 1742,
f. 143v. The Dutch text is written in very prosaic terms which I will not withhold
from the reader: Dat de E. Hackert niet terugdeinsde alle degeene die in sijne presentie ter
requisitie van den scael hare verklaringen o interrogatoiren moeten beedigen lelijk uit te schelden
en te vermaledije.
17
NA, VOC 2561, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 21 March 1742,
f. 145r.
18
NA, VOC 2581, Resolution of the Quilon Council of War, 14 March 1742,
. 62057.
19
NA, VOC 2543, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 25 August 1741,
. 40412.

110

According to Hackert, the accusations against him consisted not only


of slander and insults but also of hearsay. Some witnesses even
received free meals and lodging in the house of the prosecutor Koller
who oered his guests all comfort and friendliness, so that he had
collected an enormous amount of complaints. For Hackert and his
few remaining friends, it was unbelievable how many complaints
were forwarded against him, which gave the impression that he had
committed in a few months innumerable misdeeds. As a result,
nobody dared to defend him before the Council of War.20
All these written appeals to Batavia were of no avail. The process
continued. On 27 March 1742, Hackert had nally handed over his
papers to the Council of War. He now wanted to send a complaint
against Stein van Gollenesse to the High Council in Batavia but this
was forbidden by the latter. If he wanted to complain about his
superior he could do so in the Malabar court. Not surprisingly, Stein
van Gollenesse held the view that the orders of the High Council
had to be respected strictly. Therefore there had to be made no
exception on this rule for the sake of one capricious servant whose
incapability and refractory behaviour were well-known. The Council
of War had tried to change Hackerts attitude, but in vain. Instead,
the Council of War reported in a resolution of the same day that
the accused answered our kind and polite admonitions in a highly
brutal and arrogant manner.21
Hackert argued that if he was incapable, then this was also true
for his superior Stein van Gollenesse and his prosecutor Koller, who
in his accusation, as he sarcastically said, had omitted the heavy
costs the Hon. Company made when the VOC ships left Colachel
for Tuticorin.22 This omission however, was swiftly restored by Koller
who added to the accusation an account of the costs of 37,589
guilders and 60 cents.23
Despite the fact that he was forbidden to write directly to the
High Council in Batavia, Hackert continued to bitterly complain

20
NA, VOC 2577, Letter of captain Hackert to Batavia, 19 March 1742,
. 1345.
21
NA, VOC 2581, Resolution of the Quilon Council of War, 27 March 1742,
. 62201.
22
NA, VOC 2581, Resolution of the Quilon Council of War, 1 April 1742,
. 62312.
23
NA, VOC 2577, Resolution of the Cochin Police Council, 14 May 1742,
. 23940.

111

about his prosecution to the Governor-General Thedens.24 Hackert


wrote to Thedens that his prosecutor had given a false view on the
things that happened during the Travancore war. This was the more
astounding for the prosecutor himself was part of the Council of
War during the Travancore expedition. This meant that he had also
agreed with the decisions which were taken at that time. The prosecutor had compiled a large volume of accusations (een groot volium
declaratoire clagtschrift). When it was handed over to the Council of War
Hackert asserted that it contained enormous lies and false accusations in the most scong mockery with many scornful expressions.25
Interesting in this process was that Hackert wrote to the High
Council in Batavia that the prosecutor used the statements of those
scoundrels who had run away. In other words, the prosecutor used
statements of deserters who were now serving the Travancore king.
Hackert also claimed that Stein van Gollenesse had left the battleeld
on purpose, feigning that he was ill. In fact, according to Hackert,
Stein van Gollenesse had gone back to Cochin to anticipate defeat
and to use Hackert as a scapegoat. Hence Stein van Gollenesse used
the trial to prove his clean hands. In this he was fully supported by
Koller, the prosecutor, who, in the words of Hackert, was a slave
of the Hon. Commander because he was totally dependent on him
for promotion. As everybody knew, the prosecutor could not subsist without the support of the Commandeur since the former had borrowed large sums of money from the latter. If the prosecutor acted
contrary to the wishes of the Commandeur he received no money from
him anymore. According to Hackert, all this explained the vehement
prosecution Hackert was subjected to.26
Hackert was not the only person who had an unfavourable view
of Koller. The successor of Stein van Gollenesse, Siersma, described
Koller in the following picturesque words:

24
Johannes Thedens (died 1748) Governor-General of the Netherlands Indies
from 1741 until 1743 (W. Wijnaendts van Resandt: De gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische
Compagnie op hare buiten-comptoiren in Azi (Amsterdam, 1944), p. 158).
25
This accusation or declaratoir clagtschrift has dissappeared from the archives
of the VOC. It is neither in the documents of the Chamber Amsterdam, nor in
that of Zeeland. It is however remarkable that the table of contents is still preserved (NA, VOC 2581, Letter of captain Hackert to Batavia, 30 April 1742, .
77839).
26
NA, VOC 2581, Letter of captain Hackert to Batavia, 30 April 1742, f.
7798.

112


The said Koller is a lickspite (likkebroer) who most of the time stays at
home. This happens especially in times of increasing work at the secretariat. Koller pretends then that he has pain on his breast and other
indenite complaints. Therefore the commander himself has to do the
major part of the administrative work. He is therefore not only commander but also his own secretary.

Adding about the Koller family: His wife and mother-in-law are
the most stupid and obstinate papal viragos on this coast.27
Hackert again requested that the Governor-General send him a
decent and capable person who was willing to defend him in court.
He remarked in this letter that if he was sentenced this would also
aect the complete Council of War over which he had presided during the Travancore war. In the meantime the compilation of the
accusation was continued. It already lled a quarter ream of paper.
Therefore Hackert wrote to Batavia that it seemed as if his whole
life was a sequence of enormous excesses which had to be written
down in the largest volumes.28
After Hackert was discharged from all his functions he could not
support himself anymore. A request for overdue payment was refused.
Moreover, Hackert thought that it was unfair that he had to pay
for copies of the accusations against him. Hackert described his judges
in the most unattering way, accusing them of improper conduct
and debaucheries:
After the well-known drunkard captain Jan Dirk van der Bruggen had
given under oath his false statement he came to me and shouted:
Now I hope I can take revenge! Van der Bruggen and all the others
received an extremely friendly treatment from the Commandeur (Stein
van Gollenesse). Yes, they were even promoted in rank and salary.29

Hackert persisted in his wish to be judged in Batavia which was


again refused by Stein van Gollenesse since, as he wrote to Batavia:
This will cause unnecessary delay which is only caused by the mysterious and ill-founded request of the said Hackert.30 Probably, Stein
27
NA, VOC 2678, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 28 February 1746,
. 1934.
28
NA, VOC 2581, Letter of captain Hackert to Batavia, 30 April 1742,
f. 7790.
29
NA, VOC 2577, Letter of captain Hackert to Batavia, 19 March 1742,
. 1368.
30
NA, VOC 2561, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 14 March 1742,
f. 184r.

113

van Gollenesse also knew very well that Hackert being at Batavia,
would not at all improve his own career prospects. At the same time,
though, without proper investigations Koller was not able to formulate a formal complaint against Hackert. On 28 May 1742 he
asked to be discharged from his function and soon thereafter he left
with his family for Colombo. Somewhat later, Stein van Gollenesse
was promoted Governor of Ceylon in July 1742.31 By then Hackert
was no longer a serious threat for the career of Stein van Gollenesse
and was sent to Batavia on 31 December 1742.32

The prosecution of Leslorant


Hackert was not the only one who appeared before the Council of
War. Koller also started to investigate the role of Andries Leslorant.
The latter had slandered both Stein van Gollenesse and Koller. The
accused, however, refused to appear in court and answered the summons with renewed insults and aronts.33 Finally he was forced to
appear in court where he was also charged with accusations of (1)
corruption and (2) neglect and misconduct.
The Colachel fortress was built under the supervision of Leslorant.
This had been considerably delayed because of lacking buildingmaterials. This was somewhat curious since Cochin Fort had sent
large supplies of stones and wood. But the mystery was cleared in
court when Leslorant was accused of corruption: he had sold the
building-materials to his former employers the French at Mah.34
On 31 march 1741, already, Stein van Gollenesse had recorded
the misconduct of the military-engineer Leslorant, whereupon the
latter had asked for his dismissal.35 A complaint of Leslorant against
the chief-surgeon Martin Sart was also investigated by the Council.
In a quarrel with Leslorant, Sart had shouted at the former that he

31

He started in his new function in May 1743.


NA, VOC 2609, Letter of Stein van Gollenesse and Siersma to Batavia, 31
December 1742, f. 146.
33
NA, VOC 2577, Resolution of the Cochin Police Council, 12 October 1741,
. 7078.
34
NA, VOC 2577, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 14 May 1742,
. 2379.
35
NA, VOC 2581, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 2 May 1741,
. 75656.
32

114

was a scamp. This quarrel started when Leslorant complained about


the noise Sart made in the middle of the night. According to Sart,
Leslorant then started to shout all kinds of insults at him. Hackert
had said to Sart that it was improper to call his superior Leslorant
a scamp. Consequently Hackert forbade Sart to take his brawling
and drinking friends into his lodge.36
Leslorant himself was reproached for living in great debauchery.
He had slandered the honour and reputation of the Commandeur. This
fact was proved by two witnesses: Koller and Van der Bruggen.
Leslorant denied these imputations and called Koller a perdious
person. Apart from these charges, it was revealed that Leslorant had
received a double salary during the last three years, one form Cochin
and one from Tuticorin. In fact, he had misused an ill-kept administration and now declared that his pay was in arrears.37 These accusations of incapability, corruption and defamation were enough to
discharge him from his functions.38 Soon after, in May 1742, Leslorant and his papers were sent with the ship Woutkensdorp to Ceylon
where he was imprisoned until further notice.39

Conclusion
The lack of professionalism of the Council of War was clearly shown
in the trials of Hackert and Leslorant. Hackert, the former President
of the Council, was tried by his former subordinates who saw this
process as a means to convey their frustrations caused by the lost
war against Travancore. Stein van Gollenesse had good reasons to
fear that his promotion of becoming the new Governor of Ceylon
would be endangered when Hackert was sent to Batavia. Therefore
Hackert could leave the Malabar Coast only after Stein van Gollenesse

36

NA, VOC 2581, Resolution of the Kanniyakumari Council of War, 9 September


1741, . 74656.
37
NA, VOC 2577, Resolution of the Cochin Police Council, 26 October 1741,
. 7534.
38
Actually Stein van Gollenesse had contemplated this measure much earlier but
had abstained from doing so, afraid of further delaying the building of Colachel
(NA, VOC 2577, Resolution of the Cochin Police Council, 12 October 1741, .
7056).
39
NA, VOC 2561, Letter of the Cochin Council to Batavia, 14 May 1742,
. 183v184r.

115

was promoted Governor of Ceylon. As the Leslorant case was much


less relevant for the personal ambitions of Stein van Gollenesse, the
rst was sent without any further delay to the Colombo court. Clearly,
in all this, the administration of justice could only but serve the
requirements of extensive networks of patronage, both within and
as revealed in the deserters testimonies against Hackertbeyond the
Companys ranks. Moreover, by emphasizing the misconduct and
disloyalty of VOC servants, judicial cases like the ones against Hackert
and Leslorant, vividly reveal a most fascinating, highly personalised
shadow Company hidden behind the faade of the usual ocial correspondence.

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BEDARA REVISITED: A REAPPRAISAL OF THE


DUTCH EXPEDITION OF 1759 TO BENGAL
Hugo sJacob

Nothing would withhold us to repatriate, had it not been that we have


been very unlucky in our trade, so that we are forced to stay in these
quarters.1

Thus Amalia Falck complained to her brother Jan Warnar Falck,


who served the Dutch East India Company (VOC) at Surat. Her
husband, Adriaan Bisdom, had been passed over recently as Director
of the establishment of the Company in Bengal.2 Therefore the
couple had to stay some more months at the subordinate factory at
Kasimbazar. Fortunately, in October 1755 Adriaan Bisdom was
appointed Director. He was an old-hand in Bengal. His career had
started in Kasimbazar in 1740. From 1742 to 1751 he served at
Chinsura, then returned again to Kasimbazar.3 Indeed, Bisdom had
had ample opportunity to enter legal, and perhaps illegal private,
trade in Bengal. At the end of his career his private transfers to
Europe and investments in English stocks administered by the Bank
of England had a value of 35.46 times his total earnings within the
VOC.4 So one thing is sure, when Bisdom repatriated to Holland
he was a very wealthy man.
The Bengal government served by Bisdom comprised factories as
far apart as Dhaka in present-day Bangladesh and Patna in Bihar,

1
Nationaal Archief, The Hague (NA), Collectie Aanwinsten 838: Amalia Constantia
Bisdom, n Falck, to her brother Jan Warnar Falck, Kasimbazar 1011755.
2
Ibid.
3
W. Wijnaendts van Resandt, De gezaghebbers der Oost-Indische Compagnie op hare
buiten-comptoiren in Azi (Amsterdam, 1944), p. 45.
4
Bisdoms case is exceptional, since only thirteen of the 115 members of the
Council of Bengal in the eighteenth century invested an average of only 2.3 times
their total earnings of their career within the VOC in English stocks. As such this
is a remarkable gure indeed. However, it is based on an odd 10% of the total
earnings of 115 members of the Council (F. Lequin, Het personeel van de Verenigde
Oost-Indische Compagnie in Azi in de achttiende eeuw, meer in het bijzonder in de vestiging
Bengalen (Leiden, 1982), I, p. 155; II, pp. 437, 546. Information on earnings in
appendix 10, pp. 54362).

118

a distance of approximately 575 km as the crow ies. The headoce was situated in Chinsura on the right bank of the river Hooghly,
from where it took on average 15 days to travel to Dhaka and 24
days to Patna. Ships arriving by the Bay of Bengal had to be piloted
upstream for two days through many banks and dangerous passages.
On the way they passed Fort William of the English East India
Company (EIC) at Calcutta, the Danish factory at Serampore and the
French factory at Chandernagore. It was a voyage with many opportunities for both courtesy and (private) business calls. An odd 27 km
south of Chinsura the Dutch owned the village of Barnagul, where
weavers worked in a safe-haven during troublesome times, and where
ladies of pleasure could be visited. The ships with deep draughts
would have to moor here, and, if the current was strong, all other
ships too. Finally, the church of Chinsura and the lofty ghats would
appear. Here the members of the Council supervised the unloading
of private goods brought by friends aboard. For most of the new
arrivals who would stay in Bengal, the voyage had ended. They
would add up to an average of 253 servants of the Company. Some
had to travel further on, may be to the lodge at Kasimbazar, circa
150 km upstream near the capital of Murshidabad, or still farther
to Patna, 480 km from Chinsura. These were small establishments
with respectively only 25 and 20 employees.5
For the VOC the Bengal factories were very important indeed.
As we know from the studies of Om Prakash, during the eighteenth
century the Dutch factories at Bengal, although losing some ground
in the Companys intra-Asian trade, became very prominent as suppliers of goods for the European market.6 Bengals growing exports
made the authorities in both Batavia and The Netherlands increasingly eager to keep a close watch on the region.
For another reason, too, the Batavia Council may have been
inclined to watch trade in Bengal attentively. It produced opium,
which was sold via Batavia on Java and gradually to other parts of
the Archipelago too. In 1677 the Company obtained a monopoly
on the sale of opium in Mataram, in 1678 in Palembang on Sumatra,
and nally in 1681 in Cheribon on Java. Although all opium had
to pass the market of Batavia, where it was sold by auction, it was

5
6

Lequin, Het personeel, pp. 1028.


Om Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India (Cambridge, 1998).

119

very tempting, even for the members of the Council themselves, to


bypass these auctions.7 Meanwhile, the opium trade between Bengal
and Batavia grew steadily. In the 1680s the proceeds of the sales at
Batavia were f 140,000, while in 1679 the rate of gross prot amounted
to 400%. In 1730/32 the annual export from Bengal by the VOC
had a value of f 470,900 Indian light money with on average a
turnover of 140,000 pounds. In 1751/53 these gures had risen to
f 718,900 and 200,000 pounds respectively. In the rst half of the
eighteenth century Bengal opium made up for approximately 15%
of the total VOC-income at Batavia.8
From 1745 onwards, opium imports into Batavia were marketed
through an Opium Society, a private consortium consisting of shareholders, which in return for the Companys monopoly had to buy
a minimum amount of opium against a xed price. Hence in return
for guaranteed sales, the VOC oered the Society prospects of huge
prots; prots that were to replace the income from smuggling.9
Among the biggest investors in the Society we nd Governor-General
Van Imho and his Director-General and later successor Jacob
Mossel.10 All this explains the High Governments deep concerns
with the political developments in Bengal.

Changing political conditions in Bengal


In his so-called memorandum of transfer to Bisdom in 1755, the
Companys Director in Bengal Taillefert was very negative about the
political conditions. The servants of the Company commonly attributed bad results in trade to the regional authorities involved, arguing they were unable to guarantee law and order. This was an easy
way to distract attention from their commercial performance. However,
Taillefert may have had reason to complain. From 1742 to 1751

7
Om Prakash, Opium Monopoly in India and Indonesia in the Eighteenth
Century, Itinerario, 12 (1988), p. 83.
8
E.M. Jacobs, Koopman in Azi. De handel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie
tijdens de 18 de eeuw (Zutphen, 2000), pp. 100,101,239.
9
Prakash, Opium Monopoly, p. 83; See also L.C.D. van Dijk, Bijvoegsels
tot de proeve eener geschiedenis van den handel en het verbruik van opium in
Nederlandsch Indi door den heer J.C. Baud, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
van Nederlandsch Indi, 2 (1854), pp. 2001.
10
Jacobs, Koopman in Azi, p. 102.

120

Maratha forces plundered Bengal many times. In 1751, Alivardi


Khan, de jure the Mughal governor but de facto the autonomous Nawab
of Bengal, negotiated an agreement and obtained indemnity from
Maratha raids in return for an annual tribute of 1,200,000 rupees
and the virtual retreat from Orissa. In order to ll his empty coers,
the Nawab increased taxation on all quarters of society.11 According
to Taillefert, Alivardi Khan never reduced taxes when income declined,
yet, when it rose he always extorted the surplus. So, treasure that
had before been used in trade, was now amassed in the capital
Murshidabad. Merchants, weavers, peasants and artisans, all had to
suer dearly for the greed of the Nawab; they went bankrupt, prices
rose, weaving and labour costs became higher, and the cost of transport increased.12
The future did not look any better. Alivardi Khan being in his
eighties, would be succeeded by his grandson Siraj al-Daula who
had alienated many persons on whom his power had rested. When
he came to the throne in 1756, he tried to concentrate power by
attacking the English fort in Calcutta. The English under Robert
Clive reacted eciently by bringing the British army from Madras.
This army defeated Siraj al-Daula in the famous battle of Plassey in
June 1757. For the English East India Company it was a stroke of
luck that the French had sided with Siraj al-Daula. Now they were
at the mercy of the EIC. The position of the VOC was a little better, as it had stayed neutral. What had changed, though, was the
presence of a relatively modern English army. Neither the Nawab,
nor the Dutch possessed such a force. For the time being, the aims
of the English were rather conservative: they wanted to restore their
ancient rights and prerogatives. For that purpose a stable and proEnglish government was needed in Murshidabad. Clive was soon
to grasp a golden opportunity to promote the EICs and his own
interests.13
For some time the Batavia Council had considered the fort at
Chinsura to be rather weak. In the end of 1757 it reported that the
engineer Claude Ogerdias had been sent to reconnoitre the building of a new fort defendable with 500 soldiers at Banquibazar, where
11
P.J. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead. Eastern India 17401828 (Cambridge,
1987), pp. 703.
12
NA, VOC 2849, Memorandum Taillefert to Bisdom 1755, . 148r149v.
13
Marshall, Bengal, pp. 7482.

121

the Ostend Company once had had her fort.14 Obviously, Batavia
fostered plans for Bengal; it had certainly not written it o. At the
moment, the English did not envision basic change. As mentioned
already, their goal was to re-establish trade on the old footing. London
did not have great plans for Bengal either. It wanted the gains of
the AsiaEurope trade to come in as usual, not a change in mercantile policies.15 For the time being, the events on the Coromandel
Coast attracted strong attention. At the end of 1758 the Batavia
Council reported home that the French had taken Fort St. David
from the English. This showed that the English were still vulnerable. However, within the new relations of power the Dutch tried to
stay neutral. At the end of 1758, the Batavia Council criticised the
factors at Nagapattinam on the Coromandel Coast, as well as the
master of one of the Dutch ships, for giving salutation to the French.
Still more reproachable it thought the fact that pains had been taken
to provide the French with victuals. This would raise the suspicion
of the English. On the other hand, the French were a real nuisance:
they had seized the ship Haarlem and had kept the Oostkapelle at
Machilipatnam. When it was allowed to leave it had been wrecked
because of bad weather. However, real French power was limited
as their army was dispersed on its way to Tanjavur and their eet
had to seek refuge in Pondicherry after the battle of Nagapattinam.16
At home, the Gentlemen XVII were not at all content with the
cloth trade in Bengal. They had evidence that the English were better served than the Dutch and complained about the situation to
Batavia. Governor-General Mossel referred to a report saying that
the problems in Bengal resulted neither from fraud nor incapability
of the servants there. Instead, this report focused on the manner of
contracting with local intermediaries: whether with only one, or with
multiple merchants. It was held that many contractors needed more
money to live on than one. Facing competition they had to pay
higher prices to the weavers than in the case of one contractor.
Moreover, with many merchants there could be many bankruptcies
as well as a tendency of dragging out debts for long periods.17

NA, VOC 2890, General letter, 31121757, . 695r695v.


Marshall, Bengal, pp. 789.
16
NA, VOC 2912, General letter, 30121758, . 466r467v, 469v471v,
479r480r, 482v483v.
17
NA, VOC 4881, Letter to Jacob Mossel, 591757, unfoliated.
14
15

122

In March 1758 Adriaan Bisdom imposed his own point of view


upon the Council of Chinsura and decided that a contract for the
delivery of textiles was to be made with a single merchant. The
Batavia Council strongly criticised what they considered as Bisdoms
highhanded behaviour. Moreover, he had transgressed the rules by
standing guarantee in person for the selected merchant. According
to the Council, it was too risky to put faith in one contractor only,
since he could come down in misfortune. Other strong merchants
who had been passed over, would go to the English, and the weaker
ones would be at the mercy of the Companys merchant. Besides,
who knew for sure that the contractor would enter a contract the
next year?18 Apparently, for Bisdom these disadvantages counted for
little against his own, shared interests with the contractor concerned.
After the political transition of 1757, the VOC had become very
vulnerable in Bengal. The Council in Bengal, as well as that in
Batavia, were of the opinion that the Company undeservedly suered
from a conict that was not theirs. Despite their neutrality the
Company had experienced: the obstruction of the free and privileged trade, the seizure of money and goods when transported upand down the river, forceful seclusion from the most important
branches of trade, all sorts of unjustied extortion of money, as well
as violent harassment. Besides the Dutch were horried by the
demand to oer 100,000 rupees as a gift to celebrate and acknowledge the accession of the new Nawab, Mir Jafar. Mir Jafars son,
Miran, also tried to press the Dutch for money. The chief at Kasimbazar, George Lodewijk Vernet, could only but comply to the demands
and paid the 100,000 rupees. Although this was approved by the
Batavia Council, it also fostered some hope that once a good opportunity would come for the Company to take reprisals for all this.19
All this was noted in the Batavia Councils general letter of
December 1759. By then, however, the military expedition to Bengal
had already started. In Dutch historiography this expedition has been
treated as a black page in Dutch history. The rst scholar who
studied it on the basis of the VOC records was G.C. Klerk de Reus.20

NA, VOC 2912, General letter, 30121758, . 400v411v.


NA, VOC 2943, General letter, 31121759, f. 1633v.
20
G.C. Klerk de Reus, De expeditie naar Bengale in 1759, Indische Gids, 11,2
(1889), pp. 2093118; 12,1 (1890), pp. 2790, 24778.
18
19

123

In his positivist approach, history was a quest for truth, as well as


an edifying art. The embarrassing events in Bengal were to be presented as a moral example. Klerk de Reus second motive was his
anxiety that foreign, i.e. English, scholars would write about it. They
would surely glorify Robert Clive to the detriment of those clumsy
Dutchmen.21
Later, C.R. Boxer depicted the expedition as an ill-conceived and
disastrously executed endeavour.22 Holden Furber criticised the Dutch
enterprise more moderately. He thought that after Plassey there was
only room for one country power and that Governor-General Jacob
Mossel and his advisers highly underestimated the strength of the
English Company.23 More recently, the Dutch historian of the VOC,
Femme Gaastra, can only but agree. He considers its management
a blunder, without prospect from the beginning, a typical example
of the half-hearted action of the Company in that century.24 The
most detailed account in recent literature is provided by Winius and
Vink who suggest that Adriaan Bisdom had his own interests in mind
when the Dutch eet appeared in Bengal.25 Referring to Klerk de
Reus, Om Prakash claims that the Dutch tried to keep up with the
British and to elude their growing strength:
In the process, they embarked upon a bizarre adventure, ill-conceived
and disastrously executed, which one might take note of if for no other
reason than because, other than in Malabar in the 1660s, it constituted the only organised attempt by the VOC to employ naval-cumland forces in the Indian subcontinent.26

Pondering over the assessment of Om Prakash and others, one wonders why the Batavia Council under Jacob Mossel embarked upon
such a prospectless adventure at all. Indeed, with the after-knowledge of the battle of Wandiwash in 1760, when the English defeated
the French, and that of Buxar in 1764, when the English defeated

21

Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1889), p. 2094.


C.R. Boxer, Jan Compagnie in oorlog en vrede. Beknopte geschiedenis van de VOC
(Bussum, 1977), pp. 778.
23
Holden Furber, Rival empires of trade in the Orient 16001800 (Minneapolis, 1976),
p. 168.
24
F.S. Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de VOC (Zutphen, 2002), pp. 5960.
25
G.D. Winius and M.P.M. Vink, The Merchant-Warrior Pacied. The VOC (The
Dutch East India Company) and its Changing Political Economy in India (Delhi, 1994), pp.
1279.
26
Prakash, European Commercial Entreprise, p. 271.
22

124

Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal emperor, the
Dutch expedition of 1759 looks rather bizarre. But before reassessing Batavias decision let us rst take a fresh look at the most important stages of the expedition proper: (1) its planning, (2) its preparation,
and (3) its execution.

The expedition
When writing on the establishment of a new fort at Banquibazar,
Adriaan Bisdom reported that it required a force of 2,000 European
and 6,000 Asian soldiers. However, on 15 January 1759, when discussing Governor-General Jacob Mossels proposal of a military expedition to the Indian subcontinent, the High Government decided to
send not more than 1,000 European and 1,000 Asian soldiers, with
an additional 1,000 European and Asian troops levied from Malabar.
It remained a moot question where exactly in India the eet of 6
to 8 ships (of 150 feet) would operate. The decision was left to the
heads of the establishments concerned. Curiously, it was also ordered
not to give oence either to the English or the French, or to any
Asian ruler. A general show of force was deemed sucient.27
The broad purpose of the expedition was narrowed down after
Batavia received a secret letter (21 November 1758) from Adriaan
Bisdom complaining about the English who hampered not only the
procurement of saltpetre, but of opium too. Clearly, they were trying to force the Dutch out of Bengal. However, there was also some
good news. The High Government had heard rumours that Mir
Jafars son, Miran, was fed up with the English and entertained plans
to revolt. So it quickly grasped the opportunity to remedy the ongoing humiliations in Bengal. On 6 February 1759 the Batavia Council
resolved to secretly authorise Bisdom to summon the eet to Bengal
if a revolt against Mir Jafar would break out. In that case assistance
could be oered to Miran in return for the payment of all costs and
the restoration of all former prerogatives to the Company.28
The Dutch must have been aware that assisting Miran would automatically lead to a confrontation with the English. In a secret instruc-

27
28

Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1889), pp. 21036.


Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1889), pp. 21067.

125

tion to Adriaan Bisdom the High Government said that now there
was an opportunity to revenge the insolent behaviour of the English
and to reinstall the Company as of old in its free and unhampered
trade. This would be worth the risk since the English were now
rather weak in Bengal and the population deplored their usurpation
of trade without paying tolls.29 On the one hand, knowing the fate
of the expedition and the rise to power of the English in Bengal, it
is inexplicable the High Government risked a war against them
merely on the basis of rumours of revolt. On the other hand, as
argued above, in the spring of 1759 the English had not yet consolidated their power all over the subcontinent. Stopping them was
still worth a try.
Most narratives of the expedition refer to and are based on the
detailed account given by Klerk de Reus who does not shun to
blame or praise the actors involved. Adriaan Bisdom and Justus Baak,
the master of the Visvliet, are judged to be responsible for the disaster, whereas George Lodewijk Vernet, the second-in-command
residing at Kasimbazar, is called very resolute.30 Patriotism deluded
Klerk de Reus to make these kind of judgements. From a more neutral point of view, we may observe that Vernet surely advocated the
show of force. He reported that Mir Jafar was fed up with the
English and had promised the Dutch freedom of inland trade against
a 2 % toll. According to Vernet, Mir Jafar had invited the assistance of the VOCs troops after Vernet had praised the power of
the Dutch Company. When this information reached Batavia in July
1759, the expedition was already on its way.31 Consequently, it did
not inuence the decision-making at Batavia.
Batavias secret instruction to Adriaan Bisdom arrived at Chinsura
on 17 June 1759. On the Dutch side, Bisdom and Vernet blamed
each other for not acting on it. On the English side, Robert Clive,
was fully informed of the Dutch plans by a spy. He pressed Mir
Jafar to consider the Dutch as his enemies and, on the basis of the
treaty of 1757, to request support from the EIC. With this in hand
Clive was free to act against the Dutch.32

29
30
31
32

Klerk
Klerk
Klerk
Klerk

de
de
de
de

Reus,
Reus,
Reus,
Reus,

De
De
De
De

expeditie
expeditie
expeditie
expeditie

(1889),
(1890),
(1889),
(1890),

pp. 21168.
pp. 3540.
p. 2108.
pp. 315.

126

On June 16th the Dutch eet left the roads of Batavia. All of
them were ordinary merchant ships that were about to return to the
Netherlands, two via Coromandel, and four via Bengal. One small
yacht would go along for reconnoitring. The number of soldiers was
small, compared to what had been planned: neither the 2,000
European and 6,000 Asian soldiers required by Bisdom, nor the
1,000 European and 1,000 Asian ones deemed necessary by the
Batavia Council, but only 331 European and 565 Asian troops were
on board. The commander of the armed forces was Jean Baptiste
Roussel, who stood under the political command of the mercantile
authorities in Bengal.33 On the roads of Banten the eet met the
ships arriving from Holland. From these 200 soldiers were taken
aboard but, in Roussels opinion, they were totally untrained, having
no uniforms, more peasants than soldiers. Despite the instruction to
call on Ceylon rst, on August 8th the eet reached Nagapattinam
on the Coromandel Coast. Here Roussel disembarked to give his
soldiers some necessary training. Leaving again on September 13th,
the ships anchored at Falta on the river Hooghly south of Calcutta
on October 12th.34
To understand the failure of the expedition it is not necessary to
retell the whole story. It suces to discuss the points to which the
catastrophe has been attributed. First of all, the lonely early arrival
of the Visvliet, one of the otillas ships. At the very beginning of
the expedition, its master, Justus Baak, had already steered away
from the eet and arrived at the mouth of the Hooghly as early as
August 21st, as he alleged, forced by heavy storm. Not amused,
Roussel charged him of speeding up to Bengal to be the rst to sell
his private goods there. Although Clive already had strong suspicion
of a Dutch intervention, the arrival of the Visvliet, with troops aboard,
conrmed it. Immediately he put strong guards in the Mughal fort
of Makwa Tanna as well as in the opposite stronghold of Charnoe,
ve miles south of Calcutta.35 A surprise attack was now impossible.
After the arrival of the ships at Falta on October 12th, lengthy
discussions dragged on in letters between Bisdom and Vernet at
Chinsura, who now held the supreme command, and Roussel in the

33
34
35

Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), p. 28.


Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), pp. 513.
Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1889), p. 2111; (1890), pp. 389, 513, 567.

127

eet. Bisdom was particularly uncertain about what to do. At last,


on November 10th, he ordered the capture, search, and return of
seven English ships. Unfortunately, the Dutch lowered the ag on
these ships and took the crew prisoner. Later, under the negotiations on the aair, this became a serious bone of contention for the
English. Afterwards three English kings ships navigated upstream
together with the Dutch ships. By overhauling the Dutch, the English
ships managed to take the best strategic position for battle. In the
night of November 21st and 22nd the Dutch troops were put ashore.
Now the English had a legal cause to attack, since the Dutch troops
had entered the Nawabs territory against his wishes and the English
had the authority to protect him. The English attacked the Dutch
eet with the three ships that were now situated upstream. The
Dutch were in the majority, but only four of their ships were ready
for battle. Of the seven ships that left Batavia two stayed in Coromandel as planned, with four additional ships joining the eet there.
So, although nine ships had arrived in Bengal, two of them were to
return, with merchandise, to Holland, leaving a eet of seven ships
in Bengal. In addition, the Dutch lost three other ships: the two
small yachts were in disrepair and were put out of service; one other
ship had drifted too far downstream due to poor navigation. Only
four ships remaining, the battle ended in an absolute disaster for the
Dutch. With their anchor lines rst dragging and later shot apart,
the Dutch ships became entangled with each other and helplessly
drifted downstream to nally run ashore. The English had more
boats to manoeuvre their ships by towing than the Dutch. After 2
hours the Dutch had to surrender.36
On 22 November, when the soldiers from the ships started their
march, a force of 400 men with four cannon left Chinsura to lead
the English troops astray. Bisdom ordered them not to engage in
any oensive actions. If possible, the English had to be put to ight,
but in case their forces were superior, the Dutch had to retreat cautiously. Whatever the order, the Dutch column ran straight into the
re of 500 English mercenaries and was utterly defeated. Only 60
of them returned safely to Chinsura. The fate of the troops put
ashore from the eet was not much better. From November 22nd

36

Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), pp. 417, 5362.

128

to 25th they marched day and night mostly along roads and through
elds that were ooded to their knees. Many times Chinsura was
said to be near, even though Roussel admits in his report that he
distrusted his guides and had no idea where he was. On 25 November,
totally exhausted, the Dutch met the Englishcounting 320 European
and 800 sepoy infantry, and 50 European and 100 Asian cavalry
at Bedara, near Chandernagore, eight miles from Chinsura. Again,
the Dutch were totally defeated: 120 Europeans and 200 Asians were
killed. Roussel and fourteen ocers, 320 Europeans and 200 Asians
were captured. Of all Dutch soldiers only fourteen reached Chinsura
safely.37
Now it became clear who pulled the strings in Bengal. The Dutch
could only but succumb to the demands of the English. It was agreed
that the VOC would give an indemnity for all damages caused by
the Dutch ships, and that ships, ammunition and other properties
would be returned to both sides. However, the English demanded
that the Dutch would enter a treaty with the Nawab rst. Herein,
the VOC had to make many concessions. The Company promised
to take back all troops and to limit the European military presence
within the factories in Bengal, Patna and Balasore to 125. In future,
the VOC promised it would trade peacefully. After this treaty had
been agreed on 5 December 1759, the English and Dutch ratied
their agreement, under the condition of nal approval by their superiors, on 8 December.38
That the conditions for the Dutch had changed drastically, became
clear soon, when the Nawab, on the allegation that the Dutch were
conspiring with a rebellious Mughal prince who threatened Bengal,
forced them to pull down the outer-bulwarks of the fort at Chinsura,
and to pay an indemnity of 50,000 rupees. Meanwhile, the threats
from the Nawab towards the Dutch and the insults from the English
went on. Finally, on 23 August 1760, a new treaty was drawn up
between the Dutch and the Nawab, which was guaranteed by the
English. To make sure that the Dutch would never again militarily
intervene, it was agreed that they were not allowed to have more
than one ship upstream from Mayapur along the river Hooghly to

37

Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), pp. 4750, 6271.


Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), pp. 2505; F.W. Stapel (ed.), Corpus
diplomaticum Neerlando-Indicum, Vol. 6 (The Hague, 1955), pp. 18894.
38

129

Chinsura. Moreover, the English obtained the right to inspect the


number of Dutch soldiers and arms on behalf of the Nawab. The
maximum of 125 troops was rearmed. In spite of the obvious
humiliation, Bisdom appears to have been glad with the treaty as it
recognised the old prerogatives involving the right of free and unhampered trade (except in saltpetre), and that of minting at Murshidabad.39
On receiving the news of the disaster in Bengal, the High Government wrote a furious letter to Bisdom and Council dated 21 August
1760. It charged Bisdom with indolence and erratic conduct, and
Justus Baak, the master of the Visvliet, of insubordination. Bisdom
and Vernet had to pay f 45,951 of the indemnity out of a total
f 75,428 due to the English. Justus Baak, safely back in Holland,
was sacked with loss of all pay on his account. At rst, the Batavia
Council rejected all agreements with the Nawab and the English.
However, in December 1761, when reality dawned on them, it gave
in and accepted that in future the VOC in Bengal should restrict
itself to commercial activities. The Gentlemen XVII deplored the
events in Bengal but soon returned to business as usual.40

Reappraisal
Within the Batavia Council the Governor-General had to plan and
manage the policy of the VOC. This Jacob Mossel did. As Bengal
was very important for the AsiaEurope trade and as the battle of
Plassey had given the English a privileged position there, he submitted a project for military action involving the VOCs Indian factories. The purpose was to show that not only the English and the
French, but also the Dutch were able to deploy a war-eet. In a
secret instruction to Bisdom the Batavia Council cleared the way for
an expedition to Bengal. The nal decision was left to him. The
project was not as bizarre as it looks at rst sight. The English were
not yet rmly established in Bengal and, for that matter, certainly
not in India. Robert Clive showed what troops drilled in a European
way were capable of. Fort William had survived as the centre of
English power in Bengal, so for the Dutch it was worthwhile to try

39
40

Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), pp. 25561; Stapel, Corpus, 6, pp. 2059.
Klerk de Reus, De expeditie (1890), pp. 26271.

130

and build a matching centre of power at Banquibazar. To a certain


degree Batavia intended to follow the example of the English. Here,
we touch on the weak point of the project. Hindsight teaches us
that the position of the English in Bengal changed dramatically and
that they would not admit another European power to threaten them.
But at the moment of the expedition the English were still dealing
with strong French opposition. It has to be reminded that the French
deployed a war-eet around India and had taken Fort St. David
from the English. It was also expected that prince Miran would rebel
against his father Mir Jafar. Although this soon proved sheer wishful thinking, it would be too easy to consider Batavias decision making bizarre.
The judgement of the preparation of the project has to be less
favourable. The number of troops sent out happened to be less than
half of what had been thought desirable at rst. The eet had a
mixed purpose: trade and war. However, the masters of the ships
had large interests in trade, because they kept private goods aboard.
Justus Baak, the master of the Visvliet, showed that for him trade
was more important than the fate of the eet, and riding anchor for
Falta the other masters were very reluctant to engage in battle. Here
the limits of the power of the VOC at sea become clear; the ships
were operated still as merchant-marines, not as a war-eet.
The execution of the project was disastrous indeed. Bisdom had
no faith in action and tried to postpone it as long as possible, making the conditions only worse. There was no co-operation with Vernet
who also failed to show much determination in taking charge on the
roads of Falta. The preparation for the campaign on land had been
terrible: bad scouting of the terrain, no reliable guides, not enough
food. It shows how little information the Dutch living at Chinsura
had about the countryside. They probably stayed primarily in the
fort, and when travelling, only used the river. The English must have
known the terrain much better.
Finally, the private concerns and interests of the servants of the
Company involved must not be overlooked. This is a mysterious, as
well as an engrossing aspect of the Company about which many
suggestions and speculations have been made, but that still has to
be studied closely. As has been said above, Adriaan Bisdom returned
home a very wealthy man. Certainly, his private interests in Bengal
must have inuenced his conduct, but to what extent is dicult to
assess. Governor-General Jacob Mossel died on 15 May 1761 at Bata-

131

via. Possessing 40 shares in the Opium Society, he had a personal


interest in the smooth supply of opium to Batavia.41
All in all, one may agree with the earlier observations that the
military expedition to Bengal utterly failed as it was ill-considered,
ill-prepared and disastrously executed. But one should not too easily judge decision making on its outcome. The political choice of the
Batavia Council may not have been right, under the conditions of
the time, it certainly made sense, be it from the Companys perspective or from the personal point of view of its servants.

41
In 1776 and 1777 his son Jacob Mossel, alderman at Rotterdam, and his sonsin-law Pieter Cornelis Hasselaar and Gerard Maximiliaan Taets van Amerongen
received dividends from the Society. In 1786 the Company still owed f 47,402 to
the heirs of Jacob Mossel. Then they obtained 47 bonds at f 1,000 on the Company,
guaranteed by the States-General (NA, Collectie Mossel , Film 3897, Nrs. 10,14).

This page intentionally left blank

BETWEEN FACT AND FICTIONS:


KHOJA GREGORY ALIAS GURGIN KHAN,
THE EVIL GENIUS OF MIR QASIM1
Bhaswati Bhattacharya

The history of the early modern period in India is full of colourful


accounts of adventurers. The European connection that made the
subcontinent a part of a larger process with its centre in the West
had its eect in that India became a melting pot where people of
dierent origins from numerous countries, far and wide, came to
seek their fortune. British private interest, gradually increasing its
foothold in India in the eighteenth century, was at its height after
the East India Company had been able to replace Siraj al-Daula,
the reigning Nawab of Bengal by Mir Jafar, a puppet in the hands
of the English. Armenians were, however, a community already present in all important commercial intersections of the country long
before the European presence assumed any signicance. Coming
from a country situated directly on one of the major trade routes
connecting Asia and Europe, the Armenians had spread over dierent
parts of the world. Naturally India, by the merit of its central geographical position in the Indian Ocean and by virtue of the products it oered to the international circuit of commerce, attracted,
among others, a large number of Armenians. Indeed, in many cases,
Armenians helped the western Europeans on their rst arrival to
nd their way in India.2
Their long acquaintance with countries where they traded and the
ease with which they interacted with the elites in those countries
encouraged others to employ them as emissaries. Armenians assisted
the European Companies in India in their investment and often
1
I would like to thank Gautam Bhadra for the encouragement I have received
in preparing this essay and the help he has extended in locating sources. The usual
disclaimers apply.
2
The legend has it that when the Portuguese came to South India in search of
St. Thomas, it was the Armenians who took them to the mount named after the
saint. I owe this information to Michael J. Stephen, the warden of the Armenian
Church, Chennai.

134

accompanied the embassies sent by them to the Great Mughals.


Hand in glove with indigenous merchants, bankers and the East
India Company, Armenian merchants in contemporary Bengal were
close to the darbr politics. Both praised and criticised in contemporary travelogues mainly for their access to all branches of commerce and their success in that profession, already in the eighteenth
century we come across Armenians in professions other than commerce. This article is about such an Armenian who, though he started
his career as a merchant, ended up as a military man, another profession open to many foreigners in India in the eighteenth century.
Khoja Gregory, perhaps better known in his own times as Gurgin
Khan, was one of the few personalities enjoying the privilege of being
trusted by Mir Qasim, the last independent Nawab of Bengal. His
politico-military career, shorter than the short span of Mir Qasims
reign (176064), is an archetypal example of the life of many adventurers of his times. Contemporary historians noted with surprise,
often mixed with jealousy, the achievements of Gurgin Khan. The
allegation that the sudden end to his career was caused by his ever
suspicious patron himself has pervaded through the historiography
while the prominent career of this personality inspired Chattopadhyay
Chandra Chattopadhyay, a nationalist author and the rst modern
Bengali novelist in the nineteenth century to portray him as an aspirant for the throne of Bengal. This latter sentiment has been echoed
by an Armenian historian according to whom Gurgin was the virtual ruler of Bengal, Behar and Orissa and would, in time, have
become the Nawab of Bengal.3 The following is an attempt to make
a historical evaluation of the life of Khoja Gregory, who from the
position of a merchant rose to be the right hand of Mir Qasim, and
understand the process leading to the assassination of Khoja Gregory
under dramatic and mysterious circumstances.

Early life and reorganising the army


Like many Armenians, the three brothers Khoja Petrus, Khoja
Gregory and Khoja Barsick Arathoon had come to Bengal from

M.J. Seth, Armenians in India: From the Earliest Times to the Present DayA Work
of Original Research (Calcutta, 1937), p. 385.

135

Erivan, a parish of New Julfa in Isfahan.4 While nothing is known


about their family back in Persia or their early life, at least it can
be said that Khoja Petrus was a resident of Calcutta since about
1749.5 Petrus was an eminent merchant engaged among other things
in trading in pearls and bonds and money lending.6 He was married to Dastagool, the daughter of Khoja Minas Elias, Armenian
merchant living in Hooghly under the protection of the Dutch East
India Company.7 Petrus is also remembered for his diplomatic manoeuvrings during the conspiracy of Plassey.8 Barsick Arathoon was a
salt merchant based at Saidabad.9 Khoja Gregory is said to have been
a cloth merchant at Hooghly. He was a man with a remarkable
physiognomy. His height was above the average. He had fair complexion, large and black ery eyes, arched eyebrows that were joined
in the middle and an aquiline nose with a ridge in the middle of
its length.10 How he came in contact with Mir Qasim has remained,
however, a matter for conjecture. It has been suggested that Gregory
came to know Mir Qasim through his elder brother Petrus, who,
disappointed after Plassey, had joined Mir Qasim.11 According to Seth,
the chronicler of the Armenians in India, Gregory was a condant
of Mir Qasim and when the latter became the Nawab of Bengal in
1760, he appointed Khoja Gregory the commander-in-chief of his
army.12 It was said that the great fortune that Mir Qasim attained,
was due partly to this ever vigilant, just, prudent and energetic

4
Both Yerevan and Julfa are names of places in Armenia. Following the forced
evacuation of the country and settlement of Armenians in Persia at the behest of
Shah Abbas the Great, Armenians renamed the suburb of Isfahan New Julfa.
5
In an application written to the English in 1763 Petrus mentioned that he had
been a resident of Calcutta for fourteen to fteen years ( James Long, Selections from
the Unpublished Records of Government for the years 1748 to 1767 inclusive Relating Mainly
to the Social Condition of Bengal, no. 252. (Calcutta, 1869)).
6
Calcutta High Court, Invoice of the estate of the late Khoja Petrus, Calcutta,
16 February 1789, Old Will no. 2623, Original Side.
7
Nationaal Archief The Hague (NA), VOC 3005, Resolutions of the Council
at Hooghly, 12 January 1761, . 573v.74.
8
See e.g. R.K. Ray, Polashir Shorojontro o Sekaler Somaj [The Conspiracy of Plassey
and Contemporary Society] (Calcutta, 1998), passim and S. Chaudhury, The Prelude
to Empire: Plassey Revolution of 1757 (New Delhi, 2000), pp. 94, 97, 107.
9
Seth, Armenians in India, pp. 36070 and passim.
10
Saiyid Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai, Seir ul Muthaqherin, 2 vols (Lahore,
1975). All the references in this article are from volume 2, p. 503 (footnote).
11
Tapanmohan Chattopadhyay, Palasir par Buxar (Calcutta: 1st Navana ed., 1983),
p. 132.
12
Seth, Armenians in India, p. 384.

136

Armenian general of unassailable integrity.13 As it is widely acknowledged that it was Khoja Gregory, renamed Gurgin Khan by Mir
Qasim, who for the rst time re-modelled the Nawabs army after
the European fashion, it will not be out of place at this point to
take into account the performances of the general in this context.
Military reforms stood high on the agenda of Mir Qasim who was
bent on setting up his independent authority and bringing the English
to book. He knew that it was due to two mistakes of Mir Jafar that
the English had become so oppressive: he had agreed to accept military assistance of the British and pay the tam (tax imposts) every
month and had promised to pay as bribe more than the treasury
could aord.14 As soon as he had sorted out the nancial crisis, Mir
Qasim, who was studious to procure men of military talents, paid
attention to the restructuring of his army. The appointment of Gurgin
Khan as the principal chief of his troops and war minister was a
measure noted by contemporaries with jealousy and surprise.
One of the best known contemporary sources for the reconstruction
of the history of the period concerned is Seir Muthaqherin (P. Siyar alMut"irn) by Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai.15 Ghulam Husain
belonged to a noble familya family more inuential and powerful
than that of Mir Qasim. The rise of Armenians like Gurgin Khan
to prominence must have threatened the interests of families like his
own.16 Moreover, it is likely that Husain bore a personal grudge
against Gurgin. Mir Qasim expressed his intention to take away
Ghulam Husains jgr at Monghyr, together with the fortress and
confer it on Gurgin Khan.17 Consequently, Ghulam did not waste

13
Such was at least the belief of Jean Baptiste Joseph Gentil, who served the
French East India Company in India under Dupleix and de Lally. After the capitulation of Chandernagore to the English, he entered the service of Mir Qasim. As
a condant of Gurgin Khan, he accompanied the Armenian general in the Nawabs
camp (C.E.A.W. Oldham, The Murder of Gurgin Khan, Bengal Past and Present,
29 (1925), pp. 21923).
14
A.K. Maitreya, Mir Qasim (Calcutta, 1957), p. 74.
15
The bias of Ghulam Husain against the Armenian Commander-in-Chief of
Mir Qasim is clearly evident in the way he talks about Gurgin Khan (Seir, Vol. 2,
pp. 389, 422, 447, 455, 5001).
16
Similar bias is noticed in the writing of Maharaja Kalyan Singh who described
Gurgin as the evil genius of Meer Kasim. See Khan Bahadur Sarfaraz Husain
Khan, Translation of Maharaja Kalyan Singhs Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh, The Journal
of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 6,1 1920, p. 127.
17
In exchange, Mir Qasim had oered Ghulam Husain a better estate. But
according to the Seir, the exchange never took place (Seir, Vol. 2, p. 425).

137

a single word of praise for this Armenian general of Mir Qasim,


and throughout jeered at him by describing him as cloth seller by
the yard who knew nothing of military aairs and the crow
wholly intent on learning the linnets note etc., while others found
the appointment of an Armenian to the post of the commander-inchief remarkable.18 Raymond, who translated Seir into English, considered Gurgin Khan to be a genius like Muhammad Taqi Khan,
the other general of Mir Qasim.19
Military historians also have taken the importance of the measures introduced by Gurgin Khan into consideration.20 The old standing army that Mir Qasim had inherited from his predecessors was
gradually disbanded and new troops were recruited entirely on the
basis of eciency. Gurgin himself was the grandmaster of the artillery
and trained and disciplined the cavalry, infantry and artillery. This
section and the musketeers were re-modelled after European fashion. The ordnance, mainly of brass, was for the most part cast in
the country. A gun factory was set up at Monghyr where guns and
int-muskets were being manufactured. According to Raymond, the
re-locks manufactured at Monghyr were better than the best Towerproof arms sent to India for the use of the Companys troops. The
ints, composed of agates found in the Rajmahal Hills were preferred to those from Europe.21 The powder was of very good quality.

Chattopadhyay maintains that Mir Qasim had already taken possession of the estate
of Ghulam Husain before he talked to the latter about it (Chattopadhyay, Palasir
par Buxar, pp. 1301). When governor Vansittart called upon Mir Qasim at Monghyr,
he stayed in a building raised by Gurgin on the Pirpahar hills of Sitakund (Seir,
Vol. 2, p. 443).
18
The sudden rise of Gurgin Khan did not escape the attention of the director
of the Dutch East India Company in Bengal: Armenians play a big role in Bengal
since the revolution of 1757. They have not only assisted the English in brewing
treason against Sirajuddaula as a result of which Bengal has been enslaved to the
English . . . . but also have been able to (I do not know how) acquire a fame among
the Muslims as good soldiers. Consequently, Mir Qasim has chosen Choja Gregory,
brother of the famous Choja Petrus, the chief commander of his army. (NA, Hoge
Regering Batavia, 246, Second memoir of Louis Taillefert concerning Bengal, 17
November 1763, f. 285).
19
Seir, Vol. 2, p. 422 fn. 224. Raymond was a French Creole who later adopted
Islam and was called Haji Mustafa. According to him Gurgin was even more knowledgeable than Taqi Khan.
20
See for instance A. Broome, History of the Rise and Progress of the Bengal Army, 2
vols (Calcutta and London, 18501), Vol. 1, p. 352. The account of the re-organisation of Mir Qasims army here is based largely on Broome.
21
Seir, Vol. 2, p. 421 fn. 222.

138

The shot and the shell were partly imported and partly manufactured in the country. When manufactured in the country, the shells
were either cast of soft metal or made of stone. The artillery was
mounted in the English manner and was served by 200 Europeans.
The carriages were of indigenous make, furnished with elevating
screws and quite equal to their originals. Magazines and manufactories were founded at dierent parts of the country. Ordinance, as
well as iron guns made in Europe, were, however, readily available
as they formed a part of the regular imports made by private European
traders.22 Moreover, a large part of the European munitions of
the army seems to have been collected by Gurgin Khan himself
through the agency of his brother Khoja Petrus who was thick and
thin with the English.
The cavalry was formed into regiments and rusallahs (P. rislas).
The ranks were chiey lled by Afghans, Rohillas and other races
from the north and the commanders were almost exclusively Muslim.
The total strength of this force was limited to about 16,000 but the
increased eciency was supposed to have compensated for the reduction in numbers. The infantry was also formed to a great extent
upon the model of English siph battalions. It was composed of two
classes: najbs and telingas. While the former retained the indigenous
dress and were armed with match-locks, the uniform and the equipment of the latter were exactly copied from the European models.
The muskets with which they were armed were all made in the
country.
It should be remembered that Gurgin Khan was not the only
Armenian in Mir Qasims army. He had gathered about one hundred
Armenians with a few of them appointed as generals, colonels and
captains.23 Among them Margar Johannes Khalantharnoted for
his bravery and capability during the capture of Patnaand Arathoon
Margar held important ranks in the army.24 Margar was supposed
to have learnt the techniques of war in Europe as he had served in
Holland.25 He had formed a special troop with soldiers from all the

22
Arms and ammunition imported by European ships to Asia were very much
in demand in countries around the Indian Ocean.
23
T. Khojamall, A Short History of India, source: Seth, Armenians in India, pp. 4134.
24
Broome, History of the Rise and Progress, Vol. 1, p. 352; and Seth, Armenians in
India, p. 413.
25
Seir, Vol. 2, p. 474 fn. 250.

139

three departments of the army. Among the European ocers in the


army the name of Walter Reinhardt, better known as Sommers or
Sumroo has been a synonym for brutality and cold blooded murder.26
While all of them were ecient, Gurgin had the general control of
the force and was in charge of the military arrangements acting in
double capacity as commander-in-chief and war minister.

Aspiring for the throne?


From the pages of history to contemporary politics, it is not altogether unusual to come across a commander-in-chief of an army
taking over the helm of the state. In one of his novels Bankimchandra
Chattopadhyay, the famous nationalist Bengali writer of the nineteenth century, has portrayed Gurgin Khan as an opportunist aspiring for the Nawabi of Bengal. Gurgin, in Chattopadhyays imagination,
was using Mir Qasim, patiently awaiting the time he could get rid
of the Nawab and drive the English out of Bengal. In a sketch of his
life, Mesrovb Seth, who went through many contemporary accounts,
and who was anxious to establish the loyalty of Gurgin to the Nawab,
also came to a similar conclusion about the intentions of the former:
Had he [Gurgin Khan] not fallen a victim to the sword of an unknown
assassin. . . . [Gurgin] who for three years (17601763) was the virtual
ruler of Bengal, Behar and Orissa, would, in time, have become the
Nawab of Bengal with the help of the well-disciplined and powerful
army at his command . . .27

Before entering into the question if such an assertion has any historical basis, it would be interesting to see how Chattopadhyay introduces the character of Gurgin Khan to the reader in his novel
Chandrasekhar:
Among all the statesmen in Bengal at that time, Gurgan Khan was
one of the best and most superior. He was an Armenian from Isfahan.
It is said that he was a cloth merchant in his early life. But he was

26
It is however the fascinating life of the nautch girl who became known as
Begam Samru after her marriage to Reinhardt that has inspired historians. See
Bandyopadhyay Brajendranath, Begam Samru (Calcutta, 1925); John Lall, Begam Samru:
Fading Portrait in a Gilded Frame (New Delhi, 1997).
27
Seth, Armenians in India, p. 385.

140


a man of extra ordinary quality and a genius. Soon after he was
employed by the Nawab, he became the Commander-in-Chief of the
army. On getting that position, he created a new artillery. The gunners were trained and dressed after the European method. The cannons and guns that were manufactured under his instruction were
better than those made in Europe. In every respect his artillery was
equivalent to the artillery of the English. Mir Qasim had hoped that
he would be able to defeat the English with the help of Gurgan Khan.
His authority became so extensive that Mir Qasim did not take any
step without consulting Gurgan Khan. Consequently, Gurgan Khan
became a small Nawab. This annoyed the Muslim bureaucrats.28

In the introduction to the rst edition of Chandrasekhar Chattopadhyay


noted that he had depended on the English translation of Seir for
the historical events in the novel. The racial prejudice of Ghulam
Husain had not escaped his attention. Ghulam Husain, Gentil and
others were all one in their observation that Mir Qasim depended
on the advice of Gurgin Khan for every action he took. There is,
however no indication in their work that Gurgin was planning to
replace Mir Qasim though the way he was suddenly killed was
thought to have been instigated by the rumour that together with
the English, Gurgin was involved in a plot against the Nawab. In
the existing political atmosphere in early modern India, alliances and
loyalty changed very often. Moreover, Chattopadhyay did not have
to stretch his imagination far to seek the precedence of ocials, merchants and allies joining in a conspiracy to overthrow the ruler. It
was only through conspiracy that Mir Jafar had replaced Siraj alDaula, and Mir Qasim himself ascended the throne in the same
way. Consequently, though not suggested in contemporary historical
literature, Khoja Gregory secretly contemplating the removal of Mir
Qasim from the scene becomes a fact in Chattopadhyays ction:
Gurgan Khan tied up the letters and concealed them in a suitable
place. He began to ponder: Now which path shall I take? Bharatbarsha
is now like a seawhoever is capable of diving deeper, would get

28
Bankim Rachanabali [Collected Works of Bankim] (Calcutta, Beng. Era 1372
(1965), Vol. 1, p. 414 (my translation). Chandrasekhar is a romantic novel set against
the background of the reign of Mir Qasim. It is not the intention to evaluate
Chattopadhyays novels here: our interest is in the character of Gurgin as portrayed
by Chattopadhyay. For an excellent literay and sociological appreciation of Chattopadhyays work, see S. Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness: Chattopadhyaychandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India (Delhi, 1995).

141

more treasures. What is the use of counting the waves sitting on the
shore? Well, I used to sell cloth by the yard and now the whole of
Bharatbarsha is restless out of fear for me. I am the sovereign of Bengal.
Am I really the sovereign of Bengal? Who is in fact the sovereign?
The English merchants are the sovereigns of BengalMir Qasim is
their servantI am the servant of the servant of the sovereigna
pretty high position indeed! Why can I not be the sovereign of Bengal?
Who is able to face my cannons? The English? I wish I could get
them once! But I cannot be the sovereign of the country unless the
English are driven out. I would like to be the lord of BengalI do
not care for Mir Qasim. The day I shall think so, I shall dethrone
him. He was only a ladder to climb up; now that I am on the rooftop, I can discard him. The bloody English are the only thorn in the
esh. They want to bring me under their control just as I want to
control them. They cannot be controlled, so I shall drive them away.
Let Mir Qasim remain on the throne now; with his help I shall erase
the English from the map of Bengal. That is why I am taking the initiative to begin the war. Afterwards I shall bid farewell to Mir Qasim.29

Again, contemporaries noted that it was Mir Qasim who was impatient and wanted to launch a war at every single provocation on the
part of the English. Gurgin, they noted, was intelligent and a man
of sound sense exerting all his inuence to restrain the Nawabs
indignation against the provocations of the English and like a true
loyalist calming down the Nawab and inducing him to postpone hostilities till the time was ripe.30 But in Chattopadhyays imagination,
Gurgin himself is aspiring for the throne and as such he cannot wait
for the events to take their turn and has to incite the war. That
message is given once again through the conversation between Gurgin
Khan and his sister Dalani Begum who visits him secretly at night:31

29

Bankim Rachanabali, Vol. 1, pp. 4145.


Raymond e.g. noted that every time Gurgin Khan saw Mir Qasim provoked
at the exhibition of haughtiness and pride on the part of the English, he would
calm the latter down by saying Bear and forebear, you are not yet edged. reserve
that anger till the time when you shall have feathers to your wings. (Seir, Vol. 2,
p. 422 fn. 224).
31
In Chattopadhyays novel Mir Qasim is married to the sister of Gurgin
Khan who is known as Dalani Begam. No one knows, however, that Dalani is
related to Gurgan; hence the secrecy. There is no evidence to show that Gurgin
had a sister. Mir Qasim was, of course married to the daughter of Mir Jafar. Ghulam
Husain informs us that though Mir Qasim had a vast number of women, that was
only in conformity with the custom of the Indian princes, and not for his use (Seir,
Vol. 2, p. 491).
30

142


D: I have come here to ask you something is it true that a war
against the English is on the cards?
G: Dont you hear anything about it in the fort itself?
D: Yes, I do; the rumour in the fort has it that a war against the
English is imminent, and you have instigated this war. Why?
G: Let it be; why should you and I bother if there is a war against
the English? If it so happens, let it be.
D: Do you think you can win?
G: That is very much likely.
D: Whosoever has won against the English so far?
G: How many Gurgan Khans have the English fought?
D: Siraj-ud-daula thought that too. . . . it appears to me that there is
no way we can win against the English in this war. This war will
cause our ruin. Therefore I have come to you with a requestplease do not incite this war!. . . . .
Gurgan Khan was surprised. He said why are you crying? Even
if Mir Qasim is dethroned, I shall take you back to our homeland.32

In his portrait of Gurgin, Chattopadhyay seems to have taken entirely


to the spirit of Ghulam Husain whose bitterness against Gurgin Khan
in particular is evident in his book. It is this spirit that inspires
Chattopadhyay to create situations time and again when Gurgin is
disloyal to Mir Qasim. Not only that, Gurgin, as he has the Nawab
under his control, is able to instigate the war and persuade Mir
Qasim to dance to his tune:
K: The rumour is that two boats loaded with instalments of arms and
ammunition have arrived at the ghat with an Englishman on board.
Those two vessels have been captured. Ali Ibrahim Khan is in
favour of setting the boats free as otherwise there will be a war
with the English. Gurgan has said If a war starts, let it be. We
shall not let the boats go.
D: Where are the arms bound for?
K: For the lodge at Azimabad [Patna]. If a war starts, it will begin
there. The arms are being sent so that the English at that place
are not taken by surprise. This is the rumour that runs in the fort.
D: Why does Gurgan Khan want to arrest the boats?
K: He says it will be dicult to end the war if so many weapons are
collected there. The enemy should not be allowed to grow . . .33

32

Bankim Rachanabali, Vol. 1, p. 415.


This conversation is between Dalani and her personal attendant Kulsam (Bankim
Rachanabali, Vol. 1, p. 413).
33

143

Among the military historians, Broome praised Gurgin as a man


of intelligence and sound sense, . . . attached to his employer whom
he served with delity.34 It is interesting to note that Malleson, in
his account of the army of Mir Qasim and the battle of Udhuanala,
did not mention Gurgin at all. Writing in the 1880s, Malleson had
at least the works of Ghulam Husain and Broome at his disposal.
Both these authors acknowledged that the modernising changes in
the army of Mir Qasim on the European model were implemented
by Gurgin Khan.35 Though he mentioned that Mir Qasim entrusted
the remaking of his army to adventurers, especially Frenchmen and
foreigners whose dislike to the English he could not doubt, and
named Sumroo and Margar in this context, Malleson gave all the
credit for remodelling and disciplining the army to Mir Qasim himself.36 Maitreya, the biographer of Mir Qasim rst maintained that
Gurgin was loyal and faithful to Mir Qasim;37 but then he seems to
have mistaken Arathoon and Gurgin to be the same personAn
Armenian general called Aratoon or Khoja Gregory became famous
in Mir Qasims court as Gorgin Khanand blamed Gurgin for
having betrayed the cause of Mir Qasim. According to Maitreya,
the thoroughly trustworthy (ekanto bishwasbhajon) Khoja Gregory
indeed assisted the English.
Major Adams was trying to win over Gurgin through his brother
Petrus, known since the time of Siraj al-Daula as a well wisher of
the English. It was this intimacy [atmiyota] between Gurgin and the
English, and not the military superiority of the latter that resulted
in the victory of the English at Udhuanala. And it was the knowledge of this friendship that led Mir Qasim to mercilessly murder
Gurgin Khan. Maitreya was equally dismissive of the other Armenian
commanders in Mir Qasims army.38 Writing in the early years of

34

Broome, History of the Rise and Progress, p. 352.


Broome, History of the Rise and Progress, p. 352. The way Ghulam Husain
described it, was far from attering (Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 5001).
36
G.B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India (London, 1885), pp. 1413.
37
Maitreya, Mir Qasim, pp. 1156.
38
Aratoon othoba Khoja Gregory namok Armani Senapati Mir Qasimer darbare Gorgin Khan name khyati labh koriachhilen, (Maitreya, Mir Qasim, pp. 1789).
It is possible that this confusion was due to the fact that Maitreyas account of Mir
Qasims army was based on that of Malleson. The latter did not mention Gurgin
at all though he noted that Arathoon commanded a 4000 strong brigade trained
in the European fashion (Malleson, Decisive Battles, p. 166).
35

144

the twentieth century, Seth, although he maintained that Gurgin


would have been the Nawab of Bengal in time, was at pains to
establish the innocence of Gurgin Khan and his loyalty to Mir Qasim.
What evidence do we have then, to either prove or disprove the
alleged guilt of Gurgin Khan? Was he really plotting against Mir
Qasim in league with the English? Was his murder engineered by
Mir Qasim or was it the brain child of some other vested interests?
This will be analysed in the light of the relationship between Mir
Qasim and the English and the role of Gurgin Khan till the breaking out of the war between the two sides.

Mir Qasim and the English


From all the measures that Mir Qasim took since the time he ascended
the throne of Bengal, it is clear that his intention was to re-establish
Mughal sovereignty in Bengal free from the interference of the English
and by the same token, bring the latter back to their original footing of merchants. He curtailed the extravagance of the court establishments. He also subjected the public accounts to a severe scrutiny.
All the arrears of rent were rigorously exacted and a reassessment
of the land led to the increase in the land revenue. These measures
made it possible for him to discharge his obligations to the English.
The swiftness with which he mobilised the nancial resources to pay
o the outstanding demands of the English and the arrears due to
the Murshidabad troops deserved praise. But in spite of his best
intentions to keep the English in good humour and avoid war, rupture soon became unavoidable over an issue that shook the very
basis of Mir Qasims sovereignty.
The imperial farmn granted to the English East India Company
in 1717 had given the Company the right to import into and export
from the Mughal Empire duty-free subject to an annual tribute of
Rs. 10,000 at Surat and Rs. 3,000 in Bengal. This privilege was,
however, supposed to cover only the trade of the Company and not
meant for the inland trade of its servants. Being the most prosperous province of India, Bengal in the eighteenth century was a hub
of commerce. The growing China trade of the Company in this
period gave an extra push to the concentration of private European
interest in the region. Before Plassey, private interest of the English
was for the most part directed to the sea-borne trade. But after

145

Plassey, the inland trade of Bengal had emerged for the army ocers
and the Company servants in Bengal as the most promising eld for
making a quick fortune.39 The freedom from the customs duties was
extended in an illegitimate and uncontrolled manner to the private
inland trade of the English in Bengal and Bihar. By further extension, gumshtas of the English and other indigenous traders willing to
evade the duties could buy the dastaks, or simply hoist the Companys
ag on passing a transit duty post (chauk ).
While the Nawab was deprived of his revenues and the trade of
the country was totally disorganised, any attempt on behalf of the
Nawab to resist the most glaring frauds met violent protest from the
members of the Council in Calcutta. As more and more Englishmen
penetrated the market towns and villages of Bengal dealing in rice,
paddy, salt, bamboo, straw, tobacco, betel-nut, copper, lack, sticklack, dammar, dried sh and all sorts of sundry goods they had
never traded before, they not only forced the peasants to buy their
goods at a rate much above the market price, but also exacted large
sums for presents. The Nawabs ocials from dierent districts
informed him about their helplessness against the Company ocials,
private English merchants and their gumshtas. While they systematically outed the authority of Mir Qasim, the latter was also concerned as these activities deprived the poor of their subsistence.40
Repeated intimations to the Governor in Council on behalf of
Mir Qasim and his ocials were in vain. The Nawab had already
acceded the English the right to coin sikka rupees in his mints. As
a last resort, the infuriated Mir Qasim decided to abolish transit
duties altogether on all trade for two years. Indeed, the Council of
Fort William was divided in its opinion about Mir Qasim. While
Vansittart and Warren Hastings tried their best to work out an
understanding with the Nawab, the arrogance and the hostility of
the rest gained ground. The trade of the English private merchants
was to get a preferential treatment in comparison with and at the

39
P.J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: the British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century
(Oxford, 1976), passim.
40
The activity of the private European and his gumshta in the interior of Bengal
was brought to the notice of the Nawab by his ocials. In his correspondence with
the English governor in Calcutta, Mir Qasim sent copies of those letters, quoted
extensively in Henry Vansittart, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal 17601764
(Calcutta, 1976), pp. 49, 14849, 19192, 19394, 256, 358, 431.

146

cost of that carried on by other European and Indian merchants.


This was the message carried by the embassy of Amyatt and Hay
sent on behalf of the Calcutta Council to Monghyr.41
In all this, the role of the English acting in private interest seems
to have been the decisive factor in guiding the relationship between
Mir Qasim and the English. At the same time, as Ray has recently
pointed out, the numerous changes eected in the administration
through appointments and re-appointments since Mir Qasim came
to power, resulted in the promotion of a group of strongly antiEnglish ocers to all key positions. Raj Ballabh, who replaced Ram
Narayan as the n"ib nim (deputy governor) of Patna was replaced
by Nobit Roy to be nally replaced by the commander Mir Mahdi
Khan. The English considered both Muhammad Ali Beg, the 'mil
of Dhaka and Mir Sher Ali Khan, the faujdr of Purnia as obstacles
to their trade. While Saiyid Jalal Bukhari, the faujdr of Rangamati
resisted free private trade of the English to Assam, his counterpart
Abid Ali Khan at Rangpur also insisted on the English paying duties.
These ocials, according to Ray, collectively represented the hostility of the Mughal imperial class to the English and they expressed
the patriotic Mughal reaction to the humiliations heaped upon them
by the English. . . ..42
What role did Gurgin have to play in this controversy over the
unlimited private trade of the English? Though Hay thought that
the idea of remitting the duties on the entire trade of Bengal originated with the Armenians or some others interested in prejudicing
the aairs of the English in Bengal, he did not specically name
Gurgin or any one else.43 During 1762 and the early part of 1763
when the English were constantly protesting against the attempts
made by Mir Qasim and his ocials to bring the English to book,
the name of Gurgin Khan appears twice in connection with the private trade of the English, although Gurgin himself was not directly

41
While the Narrative abounds in examples of such arrogance, quoting one of
them here will not be out of place. Councillor Johnstone, for instance, thought that
Mir Qasim was anxious to to ruin our [English] trade, superiority and inuence
through the country, by reducing us on a footing with all other European or foreign
traders, and even with the very Bengal inhabitants (Vansittart, Narrative, p. 370).
42
Rajat Kanta Ray, Colonial Penetration and the Initial Resistance: the Mughal
Ruling Class, the English East India Company and the Struggle for Bengal 17561800,
The Indian Historical Review, 12, 12 (19851986), pp. 1105.
43
Vansittart, Narrative, pp. 36970.

147

involved in either of the incidents. In January 1762 Ellis, the chief


of the English factory at Patna complained that Khoja Anton, the
'mil of Panchmahal and kinsman of Gurgin, declared the dastak sent
by Ellis for a consignment of turmeric purchased for the English
near Mow invalid and issued another in stead under the seal of
Khoja Gregory.44 A few days later the same Anton was charged for
having seized ve maunds of saltpetre from the Companys factory
and sent it to Monghyr.45
It is not clear if Gurgin carried on his commercial activity after
he became the commander-in-chief of Mir Qasims army. But an
interesting piece of evidence shows that Gurginat least on one
occasionlent out money to the Dutch. The Dutch Director and
Council at Hooghly noted in 1763 that their ocials at Patna had
borrowed a sum of 77,750 guilders from Khoja Gregory in 1761.
While they instructed their ocials to pay back the amount, Khoja
Petrus and Khoja Barsick sent a letter to the Director requesting
him to either transfer the sum together with the interest to their
credit or pay it to Khoja Minas Elias, the father in law of Petrus
residing at Hooghly.46

Gurgin and Mir Qasims battles against the English


However, the role of Gurgin was more crucial in connection with
the army and its achievements. Mir Qasims army was now disciplined and trained and had mastered the latest technology available
to the opponents. Already in the beginning of 1763 Gurgin undertook an expedition against Nepal in order to make a trial of the
troops and the artillery. It seems that the Nawabs friend Ali Ibrahim
Khan had opposed the idea and suggested that if an expedition had
to be undertaken, it would be wise to take a body of English troops
along. But this advice went unheeded and while the Nawab encamped
at Betia, Gurgin set out alone at the head of his own troops and
ascended the pass leading to Nepal. In a sharp engagement with the

44
Khoja Anton, a resident of Mulky, had been born in Delhi (Vansittart, Narrative,
pp 1412).
45
Vansittart, Narrative, pp. 1436.
46
NA, VOC 3074, Letter from the Director and Council at Hooghly to the
Governor-General and Council in Batavia, 10 December 1763, . 7278.

148

army of Nepal, Gurgin lost many of his men but was able to repulse
the enemy in the end. His army managed to reach the summit of
the ascent where they halted at the nightfall. But when the troops
were resting, the Nepalese launched a surprise attack with stones,
arrows and musket-balls creating a great havoc that forced the Mughal
troops to descend back to the bottom of the pass. According to
Ghulam Husain, Gurgin was dumbfounded at this disgrace and was
so deeply embarrassed that he went back to the camp of the Nawab
only after he was persuaded by Ali Ibrahim Khan, dispatched by
the Nawab to fetch the chief of his army. This expedition to Nepal
was perhaps an indication of what could be expected from the army
of Mir Qasim at the end of the day.
The army of the Nawab was numerically superior to that of the
English.47 Yet, when it came to the actual encounters between the
armies of Mir Qasim and the English during 176364, the Mughal
army could not stand in the face of the enemy. It is not dicult,
as we have seen above, to blame Gurgin, the commander-in-chief
of Mir Qasims army. It is remarkable that neither Mir Qasim nor
Gurgin was physically present to command the troops at the places
where the battles were being fought. After Patna was seized by Ellis,
the chief of the English factory at that place, Gurgin sent a force
under the command of Margar for the assistance of Mir Mahdi
Khan, the governor of Patna. Together with Mir Nasser, who commanded the rocket-men and commanders Jafar Khan and Alam
Khan, Margar, at the head of six regiments of disciplined Telingas
and eight cannons, pursued the English and re-captured Patna.48 All
the Englishmen of the lodge at Patna including Ellis, Hay and
Lushington were taken captive to Monghyr. Afterwards, the detachment that Mir Qasim sent to Murshibadad with orders to advance
towards Katwa, was led by commanders Jafar Khan, Alam Khan
and Mir Haibat al-Lah while general Taqi Khan, the faujdr of
Birbhum was to join them at the head of his own troops.49

47
Following the estimate given by Raymond, Mir Qasim had about 16,000 cavalry and 25,000 infantry one half of which were trained in the English manner
(Seir, Vol. 2, p. 425 fn. 227).
48
Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4735; E. Cotton, The Memoirs of Gentil, Proceedings of the
Indian Historical Records Commission (Rangoon, 1928), p. 10.
49
Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4767.

149

Jealous of Taqi Khan, Saiyid Muhammad Khan, the deputy governor of Murshidabad, who was expected to supply military provisions to the commanders, was not only slow and reluctant in complying
with his duty but made sure at the same time that the three commanders asserted their independence of the general. Consequently,
when those commanders requested Taqi Khan for some of his musketeers, he sent them ve hundred musketeers under one Feramorz,
a slave ocer under his command. According to Ghulam Husain,
Taqi Khan, liberal and generous in nature, was an extremely talented general who treated men under his command as fellow companions. But later, when Taqi Khan himself decided to oppose the
march of the English at Katwa, he did not ask the refractory commanders to follow him, and they also remained motionless in their
encampment, as mere spectators of a show. Thus the battle of
Katwa, which for a brief moment became critical for the English,
was fought by the troops of Taqi Khan alone, who lost his life in
the battleeld.50
For the next encounter, Mir Qasim, disheartened at the death of
general Taqi Khan, sent orders to Haibat al-Lah to make a stand
at the plains of Suti while he sent another detachment comprising
six to seven thousand horses under the command of Asad al-Lah
Khan, the faujdr of Narhat-Simai, and seven or eight regiments of
Telingas and sixteen cannons under the charge of Margar and
Sumroo. They were joined by Mir Nasser at the head of a body of
rocket-men and the forces of Sher Ali Khan, the governor of Purnia.
This time Mir Qasim warned the commanders against dissension
and jealousy and ordered them to ght in concert. During the time
of the engagement Margar and Sumroo were in the middle. Asad
al-Lah, at the head of a large body of cavalry and infantry, was on
their right while Sher Ali Khan took position on the left. The English
seemed to gain a superiority over the troops of Margar and Sumroo
at the very start. While both the armies were advancing, Mir Badr
al-Din, one of Asad al-Lahs men, parted company with the main
body and advanced further at the head of eighty horse. He was
assisted by the rocket-men under Mir Nasser and together they
engaged the English with such a force that a battalion of the English
Telingas was forced to retreat. But Mir Badr al-Din lost most of his

50

Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4815.

150

men in this charge, and intimidated by the loss suered by Mir Badr
al-Din and his troops, neither Asad al-Lah nor any of his men made
a single move. By this time, Margar and Sumroo were seen to be
retreating. The English had been nearly cornered at Suti but the
failure of Asad al-Lah Khan to make a timely charge gave the enemy
the chance to regroup, disengage their artillery and present a regular front with fresh courage and reinforcement that brought them
victory.51
It was only after this debacle that Mir Qasim himself went to
Champanagar to review his troops destined for the defence of
Udhuanala. By that time Kamgar Khan, the zamndr of NarhatSimai, had joined the camp of Mir Qasim through the mediation
of Ali Ibrahim Khan. When Gurgin Khan proposed that Kamgar
should join the troops at Udhuanala, Kamgar, a military talent,
replied that there were enough troops at that place already and what
was required was a commander-in-chief who would be able to lead
all the troops to ght in concert. His next remark insinuated that
Gurgin lacked military knowledge and experience. The latter interpreted this as Kamgars unwillingness to proceed to Udhuanala as
he was waiting for an opportunity to turn against the Nawab. When
Mir Qasim approached Ali Ibrahim on this issue, the latter emphasized the need of the presence of a commander-in-chief at Udhuanala
and maintained that the only suitable person to proceed to that place
at that moment was Gurgin himself. Mir Qasim replied that he had
no objections to it but when he mentioned it to Gurgin, the latter
pointed out that he did not want to leave Mir Qasim at a time of
utter confusion.
There was, however, no less confusion among the large number
of troops and artillery at Udhuanala. The artillery was commanded
by Arathoon, Margar and Sumroo while the other troops were commanded by Asad al-Lah Khan, Muhammad Naqi Khan, Alam Khan,
Jafar Khan, Haibat al-Lah, Mir Himmat Ali, the newcomer Mirza
Najaf Khan and others. All the commanders were at the head of
their respective corps and according to Ghulam Husain, they were so
condent about the natural strength of the entrenchment at Udhuanala,
that they neglected their duty. Being tipped o by an English soldier who had earlier deserted the English camp for service with Mir

51

Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4859.

151

Qasim and was now willing to go back to the former, the English
were able to nd a ford through the lake and morass leading to the
otherwise impregnable Mughal camp. When the entire entrenchment
was fast asleep, the English waded through the marsh and took the
Mughal camp by surprise.52
A cursory look at the way the battles were fought is enough to
suggest the lack of overall co-ordination among the troops in the
Mughal camp. We have noted above that neither Mir Qasim nor
Gurgin Khan were present on the scene of warfare. Why Gurgin,
in spite of being the supreme commander of the army, was not willing to supervise the troops at the most crucial moments, can only
be guessed. While the argument he put forwardthat he could not
leave Mir Qasim unattended at a time when confusion, perdy and
treason reignedcannot be totally ignored,53 it cannot be denied
that, notwithstanding the fact that Gurgin was a natural military talent, he lacked experience. That was evident during the expedition
to Nepal. If we accept, as all the authorities except for Ghulam
Husain have maintained, that Gurgin was a military genius, then he
must have realised after the disaster in Nepal that his army was not
yet ready to face the English army. Did Gurgin want to save himself from repeatedly facing similar embarrassments? If that was indeed
the case, then it would explain why Gurgin asked Mir Qasim to
have patience in the face of the insolent and aggressive attitude of
the English. Mir Qasim himself also did not lead the troops ghting
under dierent commanders.54
52

Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4959.


This confusion was aptly summarised by Ghulam Husain: . . . there subsisted
everywhere such a strange appearance of double dealing, and discordance, that I
could not help wavering in my conduct. My brother in the castle, and in high
oce with the Emperor; Murly-dur and Ram-narain, in appearance my friends,
and in fact my enemies; myself highly obliged to both, and unable to make a proper
return; Mir-cassem-qhan in his heart enemy to Ram-narain; the Emperor dissatised
and uneasy in the castle; the English at variance amongst themselves; Mcguire siding with Vansittart and the Nawab; and the Major with Mr. Hay, being closely
united with Amyatt, in opposing Vansittart, and also in supporting Ram-narain
against Mir-cassem-qhan: such a confused scene was puzzling. . . . (Seir, Vol. 2,
p. 411).
54
William Bolts noted that the army of Mir Qasim was well paid, disciplined
and accoutred. . . . and had he himself the bravery to animate his troops properly
by his own presence in the eld, it is more than probable that the English company would have been left, from that day [the battle of Suti was fought] without
a single foot of ground in those provinces. See his Considerations on India Aairs, particularly respecting the Present State of Bengal and its Dependencies (London, 1772), p. 43.
53

152

It is important to note that it was only before the battle of


Udhuanala that the question of bringing all the troops under a combined leadership was raised for the rst time. Again, the issue was
brought up neither by Mir Qasim nor Gurgin, but by Kamgar Khan,
who had joined the camp at the last moment. When Ibrahim Ali
Khan also emphasised the need for a commander-in-chief, Mir
Qasim and his general agreed that they had thought in the same
line. But then Gurgin said he would not leave the Nawab and there
was no one who could be sent in his place! Devoid of overall command, the Mughal camp resembled a conglomeration of dierent
unitseach troop ghting under its respective leader bound as if by
a patron-client relationship. Apart from the tension resulting from
the clash of interest between the Mughal aristocracy and the Armenians
and other Europeans, the rivalry and jealousy existing among the
Mughal elites made sure that there was no unity of purpose. Not
only that, the attitude of the Mughal commanders clearly reected
this lack of unity and the internal rivalries. Whether it was Taqi
Khan during the battle of Katwa or Mirza Najaf Khan during the
battle of Udhuanala, Mughal commanders put up lone performances.
Moreover, troops, trained and disciplined in the time of peace, had
no experience of putting up a resistance in the face of cannon shots.
The musketeers of Taqi Khan, reputed all over the country, were
terriedmost of them wounded or slain facing the ring of the
English.55 Awe-struck at the carnage caused by the English on the
plains of Suti, Asad al-Lah and his troops were unable to make a
move.56 Soon after the engagement started at that place, the troops
of Margar and Sumroo were outdone by the English.57 Unlike the
A. K. Maitreya, the biographer of Mir Qasim suggested that the Nawab, though
he depended on commanders of foreign origin in order to achieve his goal, he did
not really trust them. Gurgin was the right hand of the Nawab, but he stayed back
at Monghyr in order to advise the Nawab while Muslim commanders had to ght
for Mir Qasim in his battle against the English. According to Maitreya, there was
a hidden agenda behind this scheme; the English did not declare the war against
Mir Qasim depending merely on their military force. Mir Qasim did not appear
on the battleeld because he did not want to hazard his own person through the
betrayal of his ocials (Maitreya, Mir Qasim, pp. 1489).
55
Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4824.
56
Seir, Vol. 2, p. 488. In the opinion of Tapanmohan Chattopadhyay, had Gurgin
got two years more to complete his military reforms, it would have been tough for
even powerful warriors like the English to defeat them in an encounter (Chattopadhyay
Palasir par Buxar, p. 132).
57
Seir, Vol. 2, p. 487.

153

ocials of Mir Qasim, who, according to Ray collectively represented the hostility of the Mughal imperial class to the English by
ghting the attempts of the English to monopolize the trade of the
country, the Mughal warriors ghting for Mir Qasim failed to present a united front.58

Murder most foul


Yet Gurgin Khan was murdered, apparently for his involvement in
a conspiracy with the English against Mir Qasim. Quite a few contemporaries have left an eye witness account of the assassination as
it took place. According to Ghulam Husain, who was in the Nawabs
camp, the incident took place in August 1763 when the Nawab was
on his way from Monghyr to Patna after the battle of Udhuanala.
One night, as it was extremely hot, Gurgin was outside his tent
when two or three Mughal troopers approached him and asked him
something about their pay. The general answered in an angry manner, and the soldiers retorted back. At this, Gurgin got angry and
ordered that those troopers be put under arrest. He had hardly
nished those words when those men attacked and struck him thrice
with their swords and ed on horseback. Margar, the Armenian general red at them a few pieces of cannon which raised an alarm
leading Mir Qasim to take to the elds. The confusion that ensued,
struck a terror into Mir Qasims camp resulting in multitudes of
frightened people eeing on all sides. The uproar came to subside
only at midnight when a servant of Ghulam Husain came to know
that Gurgin Khan had been slain.59 Ghulam Husain seemed to imply
that the death of Gurgin in the hands of the Mughal troopers was
almost predestined for a person who was ill-tempered and was always
on ill terms with all the world. However Gentil, the companion
of Gurgin who watched his friend being killed, minced no words
about the fact that Gurgin had been a victim of jealousy and slander.

58

Ray, Colonial Penetration.


Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 5024. The message that Ghulam Husain received (. . . . it
is Gurghin-qhans corpse. We carry it to the elds for burial. It is the Nawabs
order) seems to convey that Mir Qasim had ordered the corpse to be buried.
Raymond, the translator of Seir, thought it rather implied that Gurgin had been
killed by the Nawabs order.
59

154

According to him the commander-in-chief was aware of the fact


that there was a conspiracy against him. An attempt had already
been made on Gurgins life a couple of days before he was actually
murdered. The comments made by Mir Qasim at the news of the
death of his commander-in-chief convinced Gentil that the Nawab,
suspicious of Gurgin Khans activity, brought an end to his life.60
What was this conspiracy then supposed to be brewed by Gurgin
under the instigation of the English?
When Mir Qasim decided to detain Hay at Monghyr (after the
failure of the embassy of Amyatt and Hay mentioned above) for
the security of his 'mils and the people in the hands of the English,
the latter thought the Nawab was worried about Khoja Petrus, the
brother of Gurgin, and recommended immediate securing of Petrus.61
Soon after Mir Jafar was restored to the throne, he requested the
council of Fort William to send Khoja Petrus with the army to Bihar
for taking up correspondence with Gurgin. The council resolved to
do so with the provision that Petrus would remain under the charge
of Major Adams who would keep an eye on him.62 It is evident
from a letter written by Petrus in November of the same year that
under the instructions of Adams, he wrote two letters to the Armenian
generals Margar and Arathoon intimating them of the favours and
protection received by the Armenians from the English and pointing out that Armenians should reciprocate the same friendliness
towards the English.63 Gentil, however, informed that the English

60
The account of Gurgins murder left by Gentil is essentially similar. Gentil,
however, noted that there was only one Mughal trooper who attacked Gurgin. He
threatened to massacre all the Armenians attached to Gurgins camp too. The
Armenians were able to forestall the plan of the Mughal trooper to re a piece of
cannon on the tent. The rumour had it that the English had attacked Gurgins
camp. When Gentil informed him of the death of Gurgin, Mir Qasim seems to
have looked aected, though he said kaire salla or all goes well, which gave
Gentil the impression that Mir Qasim had Gurgin murdered (Oldham, The murder of Gurgin Khan). David Lorenzen has recently found new documents relating to the death of Gurgin Khan left by the Capuchin fathers based at Betia. The
account of Gurgins death presented in these documents is similar to the one left
by Gentil. I am grateful to Gautam Bhadra for giving me this information though
it has not been possible for me to see Lorenzens paper while preparing this essay.
61
Vansittart, Narrative, p. 481.
62
Vansittart, Narrative, pp. 5034, 507. A few members of the council of Fort
William were of opinion that Petrus was Mir Qasims spy in Calcutta (Long, Selections,
no. 647, p. 314).
63
This letter to Major Adams has been quoted in Seth, Armenians in India, pp.
3412.

155

had sent proposals to Gurgin to leave the Nawabs camp and save
the life of his brother, a prisoner in the English camp. Gurgin declined
this request saying that he would not abandon Mir Qasim whom
he had pledged his faith.64 Mir Qasim was informed by his spies
that Gurgin was intriguing with the English. Moreover, it seems
Gurgin had advised Mir Qasim to come to an understanding with
Mir Jafar.65 Desperate as the Nawab was, he took the extreme measure he had taken, and would later take, against so many people
under his charge, to get rid of his trusted minister too.
This account of Mir Qasim getting rid of Gurgin Khan ts in
very well with the incidents preceding and following the death of
the commander-in-chief and the character of the Nawab as noted
by contemporaries and later historians. By nature weak and extremely
suspicious, Mir Qasim was known for his cruelty. All the members
of the nobility imprisoned in the fort of Monghyr were brutally murdered by his order.66 Soon after the death of Gurgin Khan, the Seth
brothers were drowned from a tower of the castle of Monghyr.
Following the fall of the fort of Monghyr to the English, all the
English prisoners arrested in Patna, about fty in number, were
heinously executed by Sumroo.67 Thus the murder of Gurgin was
only one in a chain of atrocious acts sanctioned by Mir Qasim.
There is, however, one source that throws new light on the assassination of Gurgin Khan. Although reduced in importance after the
unsuccesful bid to curb the English at Bedara (1759), the Dutch at
Chinsura noted with interest the political and economic aggression
of the English in the post-Plassey period. The important role played
by the Armenians in the politics of Bengal in this period did not
escape the attention of Louis Taillefert, the Director of the Dutch.
While preparing his nal report in 1763, Taillefert noted that initially Mir Qasim had been falsely charged with the murder of Khoja
Gregory. Later it was conrmed that in order to woo the English,
the Seth brothers Mahatab Rai and Swarupchand, grandsons of

64
Oldham, The murder of Gurgin Khan, p. 222. This has been corroborated
by Chattopadhyay (Palasir par Buxar, pp. 1745).
65
Chattopadhyay, Palasir par Buxar, p. 175.
66
Ram Narayan, the ex n"ib-nim of Patna, Raj Ballabh and his sons, Ray
Rayan Umedh Rai and his son, the zamndrs of Tikary, Raja Fateh Singh and
Raja Buniyad Singh were some of the persons of distinction put to death by Mir
Qasims order at this time.
67
Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 5046.

156

Jagatseth Fatehchand, had bribed a few of the troopers of Khoja


Gregory to put an end to his life with the idea to create an utter
confusion in the aairs of Mir Qasim. The Nawab had the murderers and their adherents killed immediately.68 This could be ignored
as a stray piece of information, but it should be taken into consideration that the English had approached Arathoon and Margar at
the same time they contacted Gurgin Khan. Why would Mir Qasim
have only Gurgin killed, and allow the other two to continue in his
service? On the other hand, Ghulam Husain noted on an earlier
occasion that an attempt was being made to poison Mir Qasim
against Gurgin Khanfor the purpose of creating a breach between
the Nawab and his commander-in-chief and causing a disaection
among the troopsthrough Shahab al-Daula, who had been long
in the service of Jagat Seth. Shahab al-Daula informed Mir Qasim
that Muhammad Ali, together with the latters nephews Barkat Ali
and Farhat Ali, both principal commanders in the army of Mir
Qasim, had entered into a secret agreement with Gurgin Khan.
Confronted by Mir Qasim, Gurgin conrmed that the report was
true, but the purpose of the agreement was only to preserve the
power of Mir Qasim and those who misinformed Mir Qasim, were
trying to poison his mind.69
The problem becomes more interesting in view of the fact that
Cotton refers to letters from Ellis, the English chief of Patna implying that the war between Mir Qasim and the English was instigated
by the Seth brothers who had undertaken to defray the entire cost.70
The role played by the Seth brothers in the revolution of Plassey
was well known. Apprehensive of their role, Mir Qasim had them
transported from Murshidabad to Monghyr. The two brothers were
received well and set at liberty although spies were set upon them.71

68
NA, Hoge Regering Batavia, 246, Second memoir concerning Bengal, written by Louis Taillefert, Hooghly, 17 November 1763.
69
Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4378.
70
Cotton, The Memoirs of Gentil, p. 11.
71
Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 4558. The Dutch at Kasimbazar also had the information
that Mir Qasim welcomed the Seth brothers and presented them jewels and worth
Rs. two lakhs. In return, the Seth brothers paid him a narna of 100,000 gold
muhrs (NA, Nederlandse Bezittingen in Voor-Indie, no. 42, L. Vernet and J.J.
Kingma at Kasimbazar to L. Taillefert, 14 May 1763, not foliated). But according to Cotton Mir Qasim refused to accept the hu for Rs. 25 lakhs they oered
the Nawab upon their arrival at Monghyr. Not only that, they were put in chains

157

Given the role of the Seth brothers in contemporary politics, it was


possible for them to arrange the killing of Gurgin with the support
of the English. There is another hitch that makes the accepted version of Gurgins death a little shaky. Ghulam Husain noted that
Gurgin was killed in August.72 It is remarkable that Major Adams,
who led the English campaign against Mir Qasim, came to know of
the death of Gurgin only in October when he reported the Council
of Fort William:
. . . . We had a report yesterday that Coja Gregory has been wounded
some days ago by a party of his Mogul cavalry who mutinied for want
of their pay between Sovagee Guree and Nabob Gunge; it is just now
conrmed by a hurcarra arriving from the enemy with this addition
that he died next day and that 40 principal people concerned were
put to death upon the occasion. . . .73

It is possible that getting accurate information during the war was


dicult. Still it is amazing to think that Major Adams got the news
of the death of the commander-in-chief of the enemys army more
than a month after the incident took place. Did he actually get the
news that late? Or was that time simply required in order to let the
rumour of Mir Qasim killing his trusted right hand sink down before
openly conrming the report, in order to make it appear that the
English did not have any hand in that aair? At the same time, it
is not quite clear why Malleson did not mention Gurgin Khan at
all, especially because he mentioned Arathoon, Margar and Samru.
This omission appears to be meaningful as one reads on:
. . . . the annals of no nation contain records of conduct more unworthy, more mean and more disgraceful, than that which characterised
the English government of Calcutta during the three years which followed the removal of Mir Jafar. That conduct is attributable to one
cause . . . personal gain by any means and at any cost. It was the same
longing which has animated the robber of the northern clime, the

as traitors who had broken their oath to conne their activity to banking operations (Cotton, The Memoirs of Gentil).
72
The exact date is, however, not mentioned (Seir, Vol. 2, pp. 5002). Citing
Khojamalls work, Seth maintains that Gurgin died on August 11, 1763, after the
battle of Udhuanala (Seth, Armenians in India, p. 400). According to Tapanmohan
Chattopadhyay, Gurgin died on the day Major Adams arrived at Palkipur before
the battle of Udhuanala (Chattopadhyay, Palasir par Buxar, p. 177).
73
The letter was written on 3 October and read at the Council on 10 October
1763 (Long, Selections, no. 681, p. 333).

158


pirate of the southern sea, which has stimulated individuals to robbery, even to murder. In point of morality, the members of the governing clique of Calcutta from 1761 to 1763, Mr. Vansittart and Mr.
Warren Hastings excepted, were not one whit better than the perpetrators of such deeds.74

No doubt part of this statement concerned the unlimited private


trade of the English. But his choice of the word murder attracts
attention as on the one hand it is not known if the members of the
Calcutta Council were responsible for committing any murder during
this time and there is evidence, on the other, that Gurgin Khan was
assassinated by unknown troopers under shady circumstances. Mir
Qasim had become a source of harassment for the English and their
allies like the Seth brothers. It was common knowledge that Mir
Qasim depended on the advice of Gurgin in all important aairs.
Removing Gurgin from the scene would be like taking out the poison-fang of the venomous snake. With Mir Jafar on the throne, the
Seth brothers and the English could again pursue their self interest
as before. Did Malleson come across something tangible pointing to
the involvement of the English in the death of Khoja Gregory? That
would explain his total silence about the commander-in-chief of
Mir Qasim.
The steps that Mir Qasim took since his accession to the throne,
starting from transferring his capital to Monghyr to reorganising the
army, to declaring the entire trade of Bengal duty free, were all very
well calculated to get even with the English. It is dicult to match
these measures with the indiscriminate killing of the prisonersboth
indigenous and Europeanand the murder of Khoja Gregory
which remain an enigma. Unveiling the mystery behind the death
of Gurgin Khan will throw more light on the political intrigues of
the time.

74

Malleson, Decisive Battles, pp. 1412, emphasis mine.

TWO CAPTAINS OF THE JAWNPUR SULTANATE


Simon Digby

1. JWKA, the Bachgotis and the fortress of Chaund


The history of Jawnpur has to be reconstructed from very sparse
materials. For the core of the revolt which temporarily dispossessed
the Lodis and their Afghan followers of the capital of Jawnpur shortly
after the accession of Sultan Sikandar (1489 AD) two names have
previously been available from the earliest surviving sources regarding the leadership and the course of events.
According to Mushtaqi (by a few years our earliest source, writing in old age nearly 90 years after the events) the uprising of armed
peasantry in the territory of Jawnpur had a leader called JWKA
(which can be vocalised in a number of ways of which Joga or
Chawka seem most probable).1 Our next available source of a few
years later (and the rst to attempt to work out a chronology of the
reigns of the Lodi Sultans) is Nizam al-Din Ahmad. According to
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, the revolt was of the zamndrs of the province
of Jawnpur, and the Bachgotis and other men, close to one lakh
(100,000) of cavalry and footsoldiers gathered together.2
The synoptic Indo-Afghan histories of the Lodi and Sur Sultanates
of Delhi derive from an initial mlange of Mushtaqis anecdotes and
1
Rizq al-Lah Mushtaqi, Wqi't-i Mushtq, BL Or. 1929, pp. 202, Arabic enumeration; trans. I.H. Siddiqui (Delhi, 1993), pp. 257; tr. S.A.A. Rizvi, Uttar Taimur
Kln Bhrat (Aligarh, 1958), pp. 1079. There is no edited text of the Wqi't of
Mushtaqi, and there will be diculties in preparing such a text from two known
manuscripts representing dierent recensions; but the Hindi and English translations noted above have been published, and the passage is reproduced verbatim in
Abd al-Lah, Ta"rkh-i D"d, lithograph. ed. S.A. Rashid (Aligarh, 1954), with subsequently printed introduction by I.H. Siddiqui. Unfortunately the Aligarh lithograph omits the text of a folio at this pointp. 45, line 16but collation of a
manuscript of Ta"rkh-i D"d (Mountstuart Elphinstone Ms. now Digby 158). S.H.
Hodivala had no access to Mushtaqi, and his conjecture that Abd al-Lah corrupted
bchgotn in transcription to JWKA must be rejected (see Studies in Indo-Muslim History
(Bombay, 1939), I, p. 470).
2
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, Tabaqt-i Akbar, text ed. B. De (Calcutta, 1937), I.
p. 318; trans. B. De and B. Prashad (Calcutta, 1911), I, p. 359.

160

Nizam al-Din Ahmads attempt at a chronological narrative, with


subsequent additions by later writers that are usually of negligible
value for historical interpretation.3 In considering the nature of the
revolt against the Indo-Afghans in the territories of Jawnpur there
are two pieces of evidence that we can add, which lie outside the
main historiographical traditionthe rst from a Su biographical
work, and the second from a collection of orally-derived anecdotes
regarding the Indo-Afghans and their campaigns which owe nothing to the synoptic accounts. With these disparate sources added, a
case is made that eective military manpower could be raised from
the armed peasantry of Awadh at the date of the rebellion to establish an eective administration over the heartland of the Jawnpur
Sultanate north of the Ganga, and that this military force could be
deployed by a leader who had also established a defensive military
base south of the Ganga.
Muhammad Kabir in the Afsna-i Shhn-i Hind provides an anecdote describing a great Rajput amr of Husain Shah Sharqi, who
from the course of events must be identical with the chieftain called
JWKA by Mushtaqi and Abd al-Lah of the Ta"r-i D"d.4 This
amiraccording to Muhammad Kabirwas in possession of the
fortress of Chaund, and his writ south of the Gangaas we are
toldextended from Chunar in the west to the Son river in the
east. The Rajput amir had been appointed by Husain Shah Sharqi
to command this fortress, which lay on the route of re-entry from
South Bihar into the territories of the Jawnpur Sultanate which he
had lost:5

3
Muhammad Kabir, Afsna-i Shhn-i Hind (Storey No. 675), BL, Add. 24,409,
. 25v27v; Hindi trans. by Rizvi, Uttar Taimur, I, pp. 3734; see also S. Digby,
The Indo-Persian Historiography of the Lodi Sultans, in F. Grimal (ed.), Les sources
et le temps (Pondichry, 2001), pp. 24364. Rizvi wrongly amends Mubr (clearly
pointed in the manuscript) to Miynr. The forms Mubr for Mubrak and Az
Humyn for A'zam Humyn (Sarvani) are evidence of the independent oral transmission of the anecdotes.
4
For the identication with JWKA. see below.
5
This leaves open questions of conict or competition of this great Rajput
amir appointed by the Sharqi Sultan with the Ujjainiyas and tbe Baghelas with
their strongholds at Baksar and at Bandhogarh. From Muhammad Kabirs anecdote there was a boundary between JWKA and the Baghelas before the fords or
ferries of Kantat and of Jhusi/Arail. Control of the latter played an important part
in Baghela regional politics at this time and later in the sixteenth century. As in the
case of the Baghelas the area of inuence could be extensive but dominance even
over the smaller core area guarded by their main stronghold was often tenuous.

161

It is said that Mubara Khan had crossed the Ganga and was attacking the fortress of Khairigarh. Chunar was also close and he resolved
to attack in that direction also. The news reached Sultan Husain in
Bihar. There was a Rajput Amir appointed by Sultan Husain in
Chaund. He had control of all places from Chunar to the river Son.
There was also a wja (eunuch?) of Sultan Husain in Chunar. That
wja wrote to Sultan Husain that Mubara Khan had made an attack
on them. Then Sultan Husain made ready a great army, and sent a
message to that Rajput saying Fight Mubara Khan if it is within your
power!

Muhammad Kabir then describes the unsuccessful assault upon the


fortress by Mubara KhanMubarak Khan Nohani, commander
of the Lodi forces on the south-western side of the territories of the
former Sultanate of Jawnpur:
Then the Rajput got all his soldiers ready and made a stand. Holding
a bra of pn and a face-cloth in his hand, he told his soldiers: Let
him who intends to die with me take this bra and face-cloth and
swear that he intends to die! All the soldiers took up the bra and
swore. Finally the Rajput made his army ready and sent it forth. He
despatched footsoldiers in the front and the rear to whom he had
given rockets and handguns.6 Behind the footsoldiers he placed must
elephants. Behind the elephants he drew up the lines of his own army
(cavalry?). It was then ready for battle against Mubara Khan. The battle with Mubara Khan took place on the western side of Chunar.

Mubara Khan was defeated, and during his retreat he was made
prisoner (at the ferry of Jhusi) by the Baghela ruler of Bhatta. According to Muhammad Kabir:
Such a battle took place that Mubara Khan himself was wounded and
many of the Afghans and the rest of their army were killed. Mubara
Khans army was routed. As Mubara Khan was eeing after this defeat,
there was a Raja on the road called Bhaid (i.e. Bhaidachandra of
Bhatta) and he became his captive.

We may collate Muhammad Kabirs account with the sum total of


information on the early course of the rebellion in Jawnpur territories

6
This reference to rearms may not be anachronistic. Iqtidar Alam Khan, in a
study of explosive weapons in medieval India now in the press at OUP, New Delhi,
has argued a case for the diusion of explosive weaponry of far-eastern origin from
eastern India during this period, which enhanced the ghting potential of Purbiya
soldiers. One may note that Muhammad Kabir gives a more convincing description of the order of battle than Mushtaqi does of the later engagement at Chaund.

162

from Nizam al-Din Ahmad and Mushtaqi, whose contrasting narratives we present in chronological sequence:
1. Sikandar Lodi after returning from Gwalior, spent 24 days in
Dehli (Nizam al-Din Ahmad). After conquering Bayana. he was
in Dehli, and on the third day news came that Mubarak Khan
Nohani having fought against Joga Hindu had taken to ight after
defeat. The Sultan set o instantly eastwards from the polo-eld
(Mushtaqi). The year of this expedition was 897 [November 1491
October 1492] (Nizam al-Din Ahmad).
Comment: The instant setting out of the Sultan from his game on the
polo-eld is formulaic and used in other anecdotes. The immediate
departure of the Sultan when the news of Mubarak Khans defeat
reached him is unlikely, and. as we shall demonstrate below, chronologically impossible. An interval, probably of months, must have
elapsed after their victory over Mubarak Khan south of the Ganga
at Chaund before the insurgents were in control of central Jawnpur
territories around the capital. Evidence, cited below, suggests that
insurgents were after this in control of the area around the capital
of Jawnpur for a period of several months in AH 896 (November
1490November 1491), one year previous to the date mentioned by
Nizam al-Din Ahmad.
2. Sher Khan, brother of Mubarak Khan, had attained martyrdom
(Nizam al-Din Ahmad).
Comment: As the Indo-Afghans fought in tribal contingents, it is likely
that Sher Khan was one of the casualties in this rst engagement
outside Chaund. His principal widow remained at the Nohani base
at Karra, and was later married to Sultan Sikandar.7
3. Mubarak Khan when crossing the ferry of Jhusi Prayag was
taken prisoner by the boatmen. Ray Bhaid (Bhaidachandra) of Bhatta,
when he became aware of this, took him from his captors and held
him prisoner (Nizam al-Din Ahmad). JWKA pursued Mubarak
Khan and made him a prisoner (Mushtaqi).
Comment: In contrast to Mushtaqis recollections, Nizam al-Din Ahmads
account of Mubarak Khans capture by Bhaidachandra, the chief-

Nizam al-Din Ahmad, text, I, p. 318; trans., I, p. 361.

163

tain of Bhatta, is in agreement with that of Muhammad Kabir.


Without Muhammad Kabirs information it would not be clear in
which direction Mubarak Khan was crossing the Ganga, and historians have been under the impression that he was crossing from
north to south. Yet if Mubarak Khan had been defeated in Awadh
in the vicinity of Jawnpur, after a retreat to his base across the upper
Ganga at Karra, it is dicult to see why he should then have ed
southwards to the crossing of the sangam at Prayag (Allahabad), rather
than in a north-westerly direction towards Kanauj. A south to north
crossing also follows the strict order of Nizam al-Din Ahmads own
wordsJusi [ Jhusi]Prayag. Muhammad Kabir makes clear that
Mubarak Khan was eeing along the south bank of the Ganga
to the rst easy crossing for an army which was not in possession
of its own eet of watercraft. In parallel circumstances this is also
the route of the retreat of Humayun after his defeat at Chausa in
June 1539, misunderstood by Abul Fazl and some modern historians but clearly from the evidence of Jawhar and Gulbadan Begam
on the south bank.8 The river that Humayun crossed on an inated
mussuck (water-sack) on that occasion was the Karamnasa, not the
Ganga in monsoon spate. On that occasion also the Baghela ruler
(Birbhan/Virabhanu), like his predecessor Bhaidachandra, exercised
control over the boatmen of the Arail/Jhusi crossing to Prayag.
4. Sikandars brother Barbak Shah, previously installed as ruler in
Jawnpur, becoming aware of the power of these men, ed to the
Afghan war-leader Muhammad Farmuli Kala Pahar at Dariabad
(Nizam al-Din Ahmad).
Comment: Dariabad is about 150 kilometres north-west of Jawnpur,
near an old route from Lucknow to Ayodhya. The rebels were in
control of Rudawli, about 30 km to the south.9

8
Gulbadan Begam, Humyn Nma, ed. and trans. A.S. Beveridge (London, 1902),
text, p. 41; trans., pp. 1356; Jawhar, Takirt al-Wqi't, BL, Add. 16,711, f. 24v.,
trans. S.A.A. Rizvi, Humyn Kln Bhrat (Aligarh, 1961), I, p. 608. The decisive
detail is Humayuns order for a bridge over the water to be pulled down to prevent pursuit. A reference to the Ganges by name in Stewarts old translation is not
supported by Mss.
9
Rukn al-Din Quddusi, Lat"if-i Qudds (Dehli, 1311/1894); see also S. Digby,
'Abd al-Qudds Gangoh (14561537): The Personality and Attitudes of a Medieval
Indian Su, Medieval India: a Miscellany, 3 (1975), pp. 166.

164


The evidence of a Su biographer

One further source provides evidence of the extent of the territory


north of the Ganga eected by the rebellion as well as a valuable
indication of its chronology. This is the biographical takira of the
activities of Shaikh Abd al-Quddus Gangohi (14561537 AD). The
author of the Lat"if-i Qudds, Rukn al-Din, was a younger son of
Abd al-Quddus. Abd al-Quddus was born at Rudawli in central
Awadh, and spent the rst three and a half decades of his life there.
On account of this rebellion of krs (non-Muslims) he left Rudawli
and settled some hundreds of miles away, at Shahabad in the Panjab,
where he remained until close to the time of Baburs invasion.10
Before the death of Sultan Buhlul Lodi Abd al-Quddus had gained
the allegiance of an inuential Afghan chieftain, Umar Khan Sarvani.
Umar Khan then played a major part in the succession of Sikandar
to the throne in 1489 AD.11 After this Rudawli passed into the hands
of the krs.
We have cited Nizam al-Din Ahmads description of the rebels as
zamndrs, Bachgotis and other men. The predominance of the
Bachgotis ts well with the geographical location of Rudawli, a few
kilometres south of the modern road from Lucknow and Barabanki
to Faizabad/Ayodhya. At the end of the sixteenth century Abul Fazl
gives the name of the Bachgotis as the dominant caste in Sultanpur,
where by far their largest concentration still existed at the time of
the census of 1891.12 The capital city of Jawnpur lay southeast of
this district and Rudawli to the northwest. About 30 kilometres further in this direction Barbak Shah, displaced from Jawnpur, had
taken refuge with the noted Indo-Afghan commander Muhammad
Farmuli Kala Pahar (Black Mountain) , confronting the rebels until
the time of the arrival of Sultan Sikandar.
In the passage regarding the emigratlon of Abd al-Quddus, his
son makes a reference to the succession of Sultan Sikandar, and
continues:13
10

Lat"if-i Qudds, pp. 301, 64; Digby, 'Abd al-Qudds Gangoh, pp. 9,10.
Firishta, Ta"r, (Bombay, 1831), I, pp. 3278; discussed in S. Digby, The
Indo-Pers1an Historiography, pp. 2568.
12
Abul Fazl, "n-i Akbar. trans. H.S. Jarrett, rev. J. Sarkar (Calcutta, 1949),
p. 185; W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh
(Calcutta, 1896), pp. 956.
13
Lat"if-i Qudds, p. 31.
11

165

In the direction of Hindostan (i.e. Awadh) there was a prevalence


( alaba) of the krs. In the pargana of Rudawli there was an administration ('amal ) of the krs. The customs of Islam were discarded and
in the bazaar the esh of the pig was being sold. Hazrat-i Qutbi (Abd
al-Quddus) was vexed (dilgr shud ) and came away.

Abd al-Quddus sent a servitor (dim) of his own to Umar Khan


Sarvani, who was in the camp of Sultan Sikandar at Nakhna.14 Umar
Khan then invited Abd al-Quddus to settle at Shahabad west of the
Jamuna, where his family held property. Abd al-Quddus settled and
remained there until more than three and a half decades later the
Afghan monarchy (bdshh-yi Afn) was overthrown by Babur.15
Perhaps the most noteworthy statement in this passage is that
Rudawli was under an administration ('amal ) of krs; but this
should not be a matter for surprise. From the historical traditions
among the Bachgotis collected in the nineteenth century it is evident that they were a dominant Rajput group who had been associated with the extension of the governmental framework of Muslim
power in the Gangetic plain, possibly since the thirteenth century.16
William Crooke conjectured that they had moved eastwards on the
Gangetic plain, not driven forward by Muslim armies, but settling
in the wake of Muslim conquests. One of the two dominant lineages
among the Bachgotis turned Muslim at an unspeced early date, but
was still in the late nineteenth century administering the tilak to chiefs
of subordinate groups. The presence in strength of the Bachgotis
around Sultanpura town founded by and named after the Jawnpur
Sultansand in the vicinity of Jawnpur itself would suggest that the
Bachgoti leaders, like the Ujjainiya and Baghela chieftains, were
major suppliers of military manpower to the Sultans. Hence the statement put into the mouth of Sultan Husain Sharqiby Mushtaqi
and Abd al-Lahthat JWKA was his servant.17
Rukn al-Din also provides a synchronism by which we can revise
the solitary date for the campaign given by Nizam al-Din Ahmad,
and suggest a lengthier chronology for the course of events of the
Jawnpur insurgency against the Afghans. Rukn al-Din states that he
was himself born after the move to Shahabad, after/another/year
(ba"d az madan bi-Shhbd ba"d-i yak sal ); and he gives his date of
14
15
16
17

Ibid.
Lat"if-i Qudds, p. 64.
Crooke, The Tribes and Castes, pp. 934.
Nawkar-i man ast; see below.

166

birth as 5 Jumada I, 896 (c. 4 April 1491).18 This implies that Abd
al-Quddus must have settled in Shahabad not later than the early
months of 1490. Before this we have to t in the crossing of the
Ganga northward by JWKA, the spread of insurgency in a region
extending 150 kilometres from Jawnpur through Sultanpur and beyond
Rudawli, and the establishment there of kr administration and
then time for Shaikh Abd al-Quddus to make up his mind to leave,
send an emissary to Sultan Sikandars camp and travel with his family and Su followers some hundreds of kilometres to Shahabad.
This suggests a date of before midwinter 1489 for the initial disaster of the rout of Mubarak Khan outside Chaund. Sikandar Lodi
ascended the throne on 17 Shaban 894 (c. 9 September 1489).19
This allows perhaps fteen months in which must be tted Sultan
Sikandars early struggles against his kin, and particularly the war
against Barbak Shah and his earlier visit to Jawnpur. Nizam al-Din
Ahmad also gives 897 (November 1491October 1492) as the date
of the end of the siege of the great fortress of Bayana, which the
same author repeats when he describes Sikandars eastward march
some weeks later to suppress the rebellion.20 Both writers are agreed
that one event followed the other, and there is no reason why the
date should not be correct for both events. But, contrary to the statements of both authors, Sultan Sikandar would have had news of
Mubarak Khans defeat many months before. Possibly he considered
that the situations in Gwalior and Bayana more urgently demanded
his attention than what was emerging in the former territories of the
Jawnpur sultanate. With this span of time Mushtaqis stirring account
of Sikandar receiving news of the disaster, then setting out from the
polo-eld without time to snatch a meal in Khan Jahans encampment (d"ira), and within ten days putting the rebel to ight is manifestly the tall tale we may previously have suspected it to be.21 The
swift setting out of Sultan Sikandar on his victorious expedition is a
formulaic element in such narratives. Muhammad Kabirthe only
narrative source independent of the synoptic historiestells how
Sultan Sikandar set out from the polo-eld at Bayana to vanquish
not JWKA, but the Jadon chieftains in the hills west of Bayana.22
18
19
20
21
22

Lat"if-i Qudds, p. 31.


Nizam al-Din Ahmad, trans., I, p. 355.
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, trans., I, pp. 359, 360.
Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, p. 25.
Muhammad Kabir, trans. Rizvi, p. 372.

167

The putting down of the rebellion


Nizam al-Din Ahmad, after stating that Sikandar spent 24 days at
Delhi, presumably mustering his forces, gives no indication of the
route which the Sultan took before he crossed the Ganga above
modern Kanpur. He may have crossed the Jamuna near Delhi and
marched across the Doab:
5. Sikandar crossed the Ganga and came to Dalamau, where he
was joined by Barbak Shah (Nizam al-Din Ahmad).
Comment: We have already had cause to mistrust Mushtaqis statement about the speed of Sultan Sikandars response. At this point
Mushtaqi makes his statement that the Sultan reached the battleground in ten days of forced marches from Delhi. An anecdote in
Lat"if-i Qudds regarding Shaikh Abd al-Quddus sending a messenger to Sultan Sikandars camp at Nakhna to contact Umar
Khan Sarvani suggests that Sikandars progress was an even more
leisurely or cautious advance. If Nakhna of the lithograph, based
on a single manuscript, can be amended to Pilakhna, where the
Gakbur Sarvani family later owned property,23 the army would have
taken a northern route through the Doab close to the right bank of
the Ganga. In this case the crossing of the river near Dalamau,
below modern Kanpur but above Karra, appears rather far down
the river. Sikandars brother Barbak Shah, last heard of in refuge
with the Farmuli commander Muhammad Kala Pahar in Dariabad,
would have had to come unnecessarily far south-south-west to join
Sikandar with all his Amirs. That Sikandars regrouping at Dalamau
took some time is suggested by the detail of the arrival to join the
Sultan there (not in Karra) of Mubarak Khan Lohani, now released
by the prudent Baghela Raja Bhaidachandra. An alternative route
is suggested by Muhammad Kabir.24 The Sultan went down the
south bank of the Jamuna, which he crossed at Kalpi, and onwards
to Khora (Kora) from which he turned aside to deal with Raja
Bhaidu (Bhaidachandra); but this may refer to another expedition.
Both Mushtaqi and Nizam al-Din Ahmad are in agreement that
in the engagement which took place against the rebels in Awadh
north of the Ganga, Sikandar routed a large force of local rebels.

23
24

Lat"if-i Qudds; Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, pp. 2801.


Muhammad Kabir, f. 26v; trans. Rizvi, p. 374.

168

6. The forces of the rebels numbered about a lakh [100,000] of


footsoldiers and cavalry (Nizam al-Din Ahmad). When Sikandar
Lodi attacked JWKA he had with him three lakhs [300,000] footsoldiers and 15,000 cavalry. Sikandar himself had 500 cavalry who
had kept pace with him (Mushtaqi).
Comment: If any value may be attached to such estimates, recorded
nearly a century afterwards, Nizam al-Din Ahmad, whose father
accompanied Humayun on his campaigns, is to be preferred to
Mushtaqi, an octogenarian Mulla with some fame as a raconteur.
The earlier battles of the Lodis which occurred before Mushtaqi was
born are clearly described by him in largely formulaic terms. It is
unlikely that Sultan Sikandar, accompanied by only 500 horse,
attacked a huge host. However Mushtaqis statement is valuable for
its inclination of the enormous preponderance of footsoldiers among
the armed peasantry of Awadh.25
Nizam al-Din Ahmad is clear that there was now a major defeat of
the rebels at a place whose name is mistranscribed in the manuscripts:
The Sultan marched from/Dalamau/to Kathgarh. There the zamndrs
assembled in large numbers, and oered opposition, but in the end
were defeated and many became food for the sword and the rest were
dispersed . . . The Sultan then went to Jawnpur.26

Of modern historians both Nirodbhushan Roy and Abdul Halim


suggest the reading Kathgarh, which is found in Firishta. Halim adds
that there is a small village of that name in Dalamau pargana; but
the name is ambiguous, as it means a wooden stockade.27
Here Mushtaqi amid his exaggerations contributes his diering
mite of information: Sikandars army . . . reached the river Kudi
(Gomati). The Gomati has the long and meandering course of a
river that rises in the Gangetic plain itself. Its source is not far from

25
Cf. Dirk Kol, Naukar. Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour
Market in Hindustan, 14501850 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1601.
26
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, trans., I, p. 360 and n. 4. The translators propose the
identication Kahtar = Katahr, i.e. the country now known as Rohilkhand. This
is geographically unlikely.
27
N.B. Roy, Niamatullahs History of the Afghans (Santiniketan, 1938), pp. 74, 139;
Abdul Halim, History of the Lodi Sultans of Delhi and Agra (Dhaka, 1961), p. 66.

169

Pilibhit and it is already a broad river when it passes through Lucknow.


It then ows through Jawnpur and discharges into the Ganga between
Benares and Ghazipur. However when Sultan Sikandar was at
Dalamau, he had regrouped his army. It was evidently now reinforced by the survivors of the eastern contingents of the Lohanis and
Farmulis, and the Amirs of his brother Barbak Shah. The Sultan
was intent upon the reconquest of Jawnpur. The point at which his
army would strike the river Gomati would be close to Sultanpur,
the stronghold of the Bachgotis.
The next incident, for which we are dependent on the historicity
of the account of Mushtaqi, and following him Abd al-Lah, is a
rapid raid by Sultan Sikandar to surprise and kill or capture JWKA
on the banks of the Kudi (Gomati). The Sultan advanced beyond
the main body of his army with 500 cavalry. According to Mushtaqi:
When they reached the river Kudi an informer arrived. They asked
him how many kos a way the accursed JWKA was. He replied that
he was 7 kos [about 30 kilometres] away. Then the Sultan enquired:
Has he got news of us? No, he replied. Some of the nobles asked
/the Sultan/to stay there until the arrival of the army. The Sultan
then asked how many troops had kept pace with him? He was told
500 sawrs/and/he said: The fortune of Islam is in the ascendant! So
this number is enough.28

As the raiders neared their target, another spy, at a distance of about


12 kilometres away, reported that JWKA had not yet got news of
their approach; but when they were only 4 kilometres away news
had reached JWKA and he ed in haste leaving his clothes in disorder in his tent.
At this point Mushtaqi fails to describe any other aspects of the
campaign to retake Jawnpur and re-establish Barbak Shah there.
Nizam al-Din Ahmad makes clear that a signal victory was achieved
and the rebel zamndrs dispersed:
The zamndrs assembled in large numbers, and oered opposition, but
in the end were defeated and many became food for the sword, and
much booty fell into the hands of the Sultans troops. The Sultan then
went to Jawnpur.29

28
29

Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, p. 26.


Nizam al-Din Ahmad, trans., I, p. 360.

170
According to Mushtaqi:

From that place [close to the Gomati]/Sultan Sikandar/pursued/JWKA/


to the fort of Chaund where Sultan Husain Sharqi was staying . . . Sultan
Sikandar encamped in the vicinity of Chaund.30

This is indeed an abrupt change of scene. In place of Chaund Roy


suggested Chanda, a village on the route between Sultanpur and
Jawnpur, which has the attraction that the dominant caste is described
by Abul Fazl and modern writers as Bachgoti; but it has no identiable
traces of a fort.31 By contrast the fort of Chaund remained a place
of some prominence in the early sixteenth century, when it was in
the possession of Muhammad Khan Sur, an independent collateral
of Sher Khan Sur.32 The tenor of all the references to the fort in
Sikandar Lodis reign also goes against Roys ingenious suggestion.
Not only Mushtaqi and Abd al-Lah, but also Muhammad Kabir,
associate both Sultan Husain and his general JWKA with the fort
of Chaund; and the oer which Mushtaqi puts into Sikandars mouth
telling the Sharqi that this fort and the territory that you have
gained today will remain with you would make no sense if it was
not a possible frontier on the main route to Bihar.33 In old age a
veteran of the Lodi campaigns recalls the remote fastnesses to which
their arms had penetrated: It was due to our exertions that the fort
of Chaund and the territories of Nagarkot (Kangra) were captured.34
Such a retreat over the river would pose no great diculty to
JWKA if, as Amir of Chaund he possessed a fort. As the fort was
strong, the Sultan did not besiege it, but marched towards Kantat,
one of the dependencies of Bhatta. A campaign followed against the
Baghela Raja of Bhatta, Bhaidachandra.
Whereas Nizam al-Din Ahmad has no mention at all of JWKA
or of a siege of Chaund, Mushtaqi adds the detail of the presence
of Sultan Husain Shah himself:

30

Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, p. 27.


Abul Fazl, "n, II, p. 174; Chanda in Gazetteer of Oudh (Calcutta, 18778),
p. 344.
32
Abbas Khan Sarwani, The Tr-i-Sher Shh, ed. S.M. Imam al-Din (Dhaka,
1964) II, trans., pp. 323,37,39,40.
33
Cf. the opening remarks of Muhammad Kabir, quoted above; Mushtaqi, trans.
Siddiqui, p. 27: the fort and ground of which you have taken possession today
are granted to you.
34
Ahmad Yadgar, Ta"r-i Shh, ed. M.H. Hosain (Calcutta, 1939), pp. 801.
31

171

/Sikandar/pursued/JWKA/up to the fort of Chaund, where Sultan


Husain Sharqi was./JWKA/took refuge with him in the fort.

Nizam al-Din Ahmad acknowledged the Wqi"t-i Mushtq as a


source that he had consulted.35 Yet the omission by Nizam al-Din
Ahmad at this point of the tale of the victory at Chaund may not
reect any lack of belief in its historicity or distaste for the tenor of
Mushtaqis narrative. Among the compilers of panoramic Persian or
Arabic histories it was common practice to copy one source, and
then, when this source dried up, to copy another for the following
section. Nizam al-Din Ahmad, working industriously in an imperial
Mughal historiographical project, was the earliest surviving author
of a general history of the Muslim presence in Indiaif one excepts
the Shhnma-pattern epic account of Isami. Where the account provided by one regional Indo-Persian historiographical tradition diered
from that of another regional tradition he would reproduce both
without even alluding to their dierences. For the Lodi dynastyas
I have argued elsewhereNizam al-Din Ahmad lacked any coherent narrative source, and he endeavoured to construct a chronological sequence from the memories of veteran campaigners.36 Towards
the conclusion of his notice of Sikandar Lodis reign he may have
turned to Mushtaqi for anecdotes in the Mirror for Princes tradition, but it is dicult to see any direct copying, although Nizam
al-Din Ahmads summaries must have come from a text which has
much of the same matter as Mushtaqi. Like Mushtaqi, Nizam alDin Ahmad includes a long story of the two brothers who were soldiers, the wife and the ruby. In this tale the divergences of Nizam
al-Din Ahmads narrative from that of Mushtaqi may reect the elegant variation that was considered permissible in this genre, or may
reect a common literary or oral model.37
Here once more Muhammad Kabirs independence from the synoptic tradition of the Indo-Afghan histories gives value to his supporting evidence. His stories make only a vague attempt at a
chronological sequence; but his background from a south Bihari Su
family associated with the Indo-Afghans adds to the weight of his

35

Nizam al-Din Ahmad, trans., I, xiv.


Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, pp. 3741; Nizam al-Din Ahmad, trans., I, 38991.
37
The variations are noted in a collection that I am publishing, entitled Tall
Tales of the Afghans of India.
36

172

testimony. Muhammad Kabir mentions a long stay of Sikandar Lodi


in south Bihar, regarding which he tells a number of circumstantial anecdotes.38 This suggests that Nizam al-Din Ahmad did not
manage to gather all the evidence of Sikandar Lodis movements.
Muhammad Kabirs testimony tends to conrm the historicity of
Mushtaqis JWKA, of JWKAs presence in the fortress of Chaund,
and of his role as a great Rajput Amir of Husain Shah Sharqi.
If the factuality of his information is accepted, there is less reason
to reject the sequel related by Mushtaqi.
If we accept that Mushtaqis anecdotes regarding JWKA are historical rather than fantastic, we can make the following deductions:
1. Although Abd al-Quddus characterised the administration of the
rebels in the Cis-Gangetic territories of Jawnpur as kr, Sultan
Husain Sharqi had advanced from south Bihar in anticipation of
his own restoration by the rebels as ruler of Jawnpur.
2. JWKA had been appointed commander of the fortress of Chaund
by Sultan Husain Sharqi. When JWKA advanced into the Jawnpur
territories north of the Ganga, Husain Shah himself advanced
from south Bihar to Chaund with other commanders of his military contingents. These Amirs who included his emissary, Saiyid
Khan, were probably all Muslims. Otherwise Sikandar Lodi, given
the stand that is attributed to him by Mushtaqi regarding JWKA,
would not have provided handsome encampments for them when
they were taken prisoner.39
3. JWKA, when he reached Chaund during his retreat, was taken
into to the fortress by Sultan Husain, who later refused to surrender him to Sikandar Lodi, though oered a territorial concession in return. No reference to JWKAs fate after Sultan Husains
subsequent defeat is found.
Mushtaqis account of the events that ensued at Chaund is one of
the more formalized andit must be saidmore suspect narratives
that are characteristic of the early portion of his history. In this it
resembles the account, a few pages earlier, of the victory over Tatar
Khan Lodi of Miyan Nizam (Sultan Sikandar before his succession
to the throne) and his Sarvani allies.40
38
39
40

Muhammad Kabir, trans. Rizvi, pp. 3746.


Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, p. 29; trans. Rizvi, p. 109; Abd al-Lah, p. 48.
Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui, pp. 205.

173

The narrative opens with an oratio recta exchange conveyed by an


intermediary between the two rulers, which recalls the speeches put
into the mouths of earlier Sultans of Delhi by Ziya al-Din Barani,
an author with whose history Mushtaqi was probably familiar.41
Sikandar wrote that he regarded Husain as his uncle, and that in
spite of what had passed between him and Sultan Buhlul:
I have no hostility towards him and respect you. This fort and ground
of which you have taken possession today may be granted to you. The
purpose of my coming here is to chastise and correct the harmwr
[eater of unlawful food] JWKA. It would be better if you punish him.
Otherwise drive him out from you so that I may punish him as he
deserves. For he is a kr and you should not take the side of krs.42

Sultan Husain sent one of his great Amirs, Mir Saiyid Khan, with
an unsuitable answer ( jawb-i nraw), saying that JWKA was his
servant (naukar-i man ast). He added that Sikandars father was a soldier and he had struck him with his sword. Sikandar was an ignorant boy, and he would strike him with a shoe! According to Mushtaqi,
Sikandars reply to this was that he had not acted with folly:
My intention is to punish a kr. If/Sultan Husain/wishes to support
a kr, in that case/I/will be obliged/to act/. I have not acted gratuitously. This is a Muslim community ( jam"at-i musalmnn). You hear
that from/Husains/mouth the word shoe has come out. If Allah
wills, it will reach that mouth!

The remainder of Mushtaqis narrative has further moralizing of


Sultan Sikandar, addressed to the envoy as a descendant of the
Prophet. This is followed by a set-piece description of the battle,
which lacks the realistic details of Muhammad Kabirs account, of
the earlier engagement at Chaund. Mushtaqi as a famous raconteur
resembles a professional bard, recalling the place of each proud tribal
contingent in the battle order. He concludes his notice with an
account of Sikandars generosity in providing ample encampments
(d"ira, dera) for each of Sultan Husains Amirs who had been taken
prisoner.

41
Abd al-Haqq Dihlavi notices Barani as a historian in his Takira-i Musannifni Dihl; trans. Shams al-Lah Qadiri (Haydarabad, n.d.), p. 8. Abdal-Haqq was greatnephew of Mushtaqi. Among the Indo-Afghan historians Ahmad Yadgar mentions
Barani as a model to imitate (Ta"r-i Shh, p. 2).
42
Cf. Mushtaqi, trans Siddiqui, p. 27.

174

The sentiments with which Mushtaqi credits Sultan Sikandar Lodi


recall a medieval Indian Muslim debate, indeed a war of propaganda, of which we have both earlier and later traces. In this the
Sultans of Jawnpur and their legatees were at an ideological disadvantage, because their principal resource of manpower was, as Dirk
Kollf has surmised, from indigenous Rajput armed groups organized tribally, not even allegedly from Muslims of immigrant stock.
The same accusations against a Jawnpur Sultan, of employing kr
troops against Muslims had been made almost half a century earlier, when Sultan Ibrahim invaded Kalpi in 1444 AD. The unfortunate Nasir Khan of Kalpi wrote to the Sultan of Malwa:
/Sultan Ibrahim/had made Musalmans captive and had looted and
carried away their property as if it had been an indel land [dr alarb]. A group of Hindus were attached to him like the muqaddams
[chieftains] of Gahora and Bakhesar. Out of necessity His Highness
[hazrat-i sm, Nasir Khan of Kalpi] has left and taken up residence
at Chanderi, which is under the control of Your Majesty [Sultan
Mahmud of Malwa].43

Those familiar with the later history of sub-Gangetic India will have
no diculty in recognizing the muqaddams of Gahora and Bakhesar
as the Baghela chieftain of Bhatta-Gahora and the Ujjainiya chieftain
of Baksar. Like JWKA of the Bachgotis half a century later, by 1444
AD they were commanders in the army of Jawnpur, with strongholds south of the Ganga. The same hostile line of argument is later
adopted against such non-Muslim warlords as Medini Rai, Silhadi
and Puran Mall.

2. The Mahdi from Jawnpur and the warband


According to the fairly extensive hagiographical tradition current
among his followers. the life of Saiyid Muhammad Mahdi Jawnpuri
(14431505 AD) followed a pattern possibly unique among members of the Indo-Muslim religious elite of the pre-Mughal period.
The only account of this to which I have access is a late Urdu compilation which cites sixteenth-century Mahdavi sources.
In 1482 AD Saiyid Muhammad Mahdi left Jawnpur forever and

43

Kirmn, Ma"ir-i Mahmdshh, ed. Nur al-Din Ansri (Delhi, 1968), p. 59.

175

set out on his hijrat (ightfollowing the example of the Prophet


when he left Mecca), a course of travels which lasted 23 years until
his death near Farah, between Qandahar and Herat in the southwest of modern Afghanistan.44 Though he did not proclaim his mahdaviyyat till at the age of 46 in 901 AH/14956 AD he reached the
Ka"ba in pilgrimage,45 his life in these wandering years was never
that of a sedentary Su Shaikh who reached a measure of accommodation with the government of an Indian sultanate.
1482 was the year when Sultan Buhlul Lodi displaced Sultan
Husain Sharqi from his capital of Jawnpur and enthroned his own
son Barbak Shah.46 Though it is not mentioned in the hagiography,
it is dicult to believe that Saiyid Muhammads hijrat was unconnected with this event.
After leaving Jawnpur in 1482, with the intention of performing
the Hajj, Saiyid Muhammad next stopped in Danapur (Dinapore),
which lies a few miles west of the city of Patna. He was accompanied by a disciple called Shah Dilawur, who he was instructing, and
by seventeen members of his own family. After some days, we are
told, he received from Allah the order to proceed onward on his
hijrat. He left behind at Danapur Shah Dilawur, whose religious
frenzy he could not control, and he set out for Kalpi.47 Danapur is
in the wrong direction for an intended journey from Jawnpur to
Kalpi, and onward to western India. These details also suggest a
precipitate ight at the time of the sacking of Jawnpur and a decision taken after a period of rest and regrouping. Like leaders of
armed bands, Saiyid Muhammad went south beyond the Ganges to
seek what destiny had in store for him. A timely display of healing
powers to a local Raja next increased the number of his followers.
Though Saiyid Muhammad had the education of a sharf Muslim
brought up in a city of Islamic learning, to which was added the
44
Saiyid Wali Sikandarabadi, Sawni-i Mahd-i Maw'd [Events of the Promised
Mahdi] (Agra, 1301/1903), pp. 212.
45
Sawni, p. 34.
46
For the date, see M.M. Saeed, The Sharqi Sultanate of Jawnpur (University of
Karachi, 1972), p. 97; 1482 is the date which Buhlul commemorated by minting
coins at Jawnpur. It is several years later than the date found in the manuals of
Lane-Poole, Zambaur and Bosworth. The evidence of Sultan Husains fairly plentiful billon coinage suggests that this Sultan retained control of an eastern portion
of the Sharqi territories until his death at Kohlgaon (Colgong) in 911/1505 ( Journal
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Numismatic Supplement, XXXVI, Pl. 17).
47
Sawni, p. 20.

176

charisma of a holy man, his own subsequent career also shows some
of the characteristics of a leader of a warband.48 As he moved through
Kalpi and Chanderi and Mandu he soon had followers who were
able to resist forcibly the coercion of local powerholders. Yet after
an interval the group were always impelled by the threat of conict
with superior numbers to move onwards after they had outstayed
their welcome. Their form of social organization was the da"ira, the
circle, which in the Indo-Persian records of warfare of the early
sixteenth century is used for the nightly stockaded encampment of
a warband on the march, commanded by its amir or captain in
the central tent (dera, now meaning a tent is corrupted from da"ira
and both forms are used interchangeably in manuscripts of the IndoAfghan histories and other narratives of campaigns of the period,
e.g. Bayazid Biyat).49
In the central and west Indian lands through which Saiyid
Muhammad and his followers marched, their presence served as a
magnet for discontented and dissident members of courtly groups,
and some of these joined the faithful. The rulers and those in power,
unless they thought they could derive some advantage from the presence of the Saiyid and his followers or the adoption of his ideology,
were anxious to move the party onwards. In Gujarat, when, Saiyid
Muhammad proclaimed himself the Mahdi after his pilgrimage to
Mecca, tensions exacerbated. The next rest was in Sind, where the
ruler had to provide boats to take the band across the Indus. After
Balochistan, the end of the trail was in the marginal area of Farah,
where for several years no other contenders rivalled his charisma or
were powerful enough to dislodge Saiyid Muhammad. When the
Mahdi died at the age of 63, he bequeathed what he stated were
48
A non-Mahdavi source sheds incidental light on Saiyid Muhammads links with
the Muslim traditions of the Awadh countryside. One Shaikh Khizr, known as
Shaikh Khan, described as a maternal rst cousin (birdar-i lte) of Saiyid
Muhammad, was a senior alfa of Shaikh Abd al-Quddus, whom he joined at
Shahabad (this suggests that he had previously been with Abd al-Quddus in Rudawli,
before the Bachgoti revolt of 1491). Later a longing for travel seized him. He left
Shahabad and later went on pilgrimage. After his return from Mecca, in Gujarat
he met Saiyid Muhammad who instructed him in ps-i anfs (Yogic control of
breath) before he returned to Rudawli (Lat"if-i Qudds, pp. 36, 389). For this
regional Su environment and Yogic inuences upon it, see also Digby, 'Abd alQudds Gangoh, pp. 166.
49
Cf. the account in Mushtaqi repeated by Abd al-Lah of the deras that Sikandar
Lodi provided for the captured Amirs of Husain Shah (Mushtaqi, trans. Siddiqui,
p. 29; Abd al-Lah, Ta"r, p. 4a).

177

his only possessions to the muhjirs (participants in the ight) who


accompanied him. His property consisted of sixty swords. Whoever
had one in his possession was to keep it.50
After he set out on his hijrat, Saiyid Muhammads movements were
recorded, generally with mention of dates or length of stay. For the
rst 40 (Muslim) years of his life in the vicinity of Jawnpur we have
a single date of 875 AH /14701 AD, when he appears in the role
of a commander of a band of 313 men in the service of Husain
Shah Sharqi. The occasion was a conict, of which the outcome
appeared doubtful, with a Hindu ruler called Raja Dalpat Singh.51
Sultan Husain Sharqi is alleged to have been a devotee of Saiyid
Muhammad. In this campaign Saiyid Muhammad is said to have
slain the indel Dalpat Singh, cleaving him with his sword. Saiyid
Muhammad would have still possessed the vigour of youth, being
then a man of 27 years. The date given for this feat is therefore
plausible.
The Sultans army is said to have consisted of brave (bahdur)
Bairagis (birgs), a detail that may be authentic in view of what is
known of the dependence of the Jawnpur Sultans on North Indian
footsoldiers (piks) under Hindu chieftains and recruiters.52 This anecdote is however the earliest reference, of which I am aware, to the
rise of the military and mercenary Hindu ascetics who became so
prominent in the struggles of the eighteenth century. Here the birgs
are shown (with no hagiographical intent) ghting for a Muslim
Sultan against a Hindu chief.
Dalpat Singh is said in the hagiography to have been ruler of
Gaur (Lakhnavati, West Bengal). The date given precludes this, for
in the person of Barbak Shah the Ilyas Shah dynasty was still ruling in Bengal at this time. The Hindu Raja Ganesh or Raja Kans
only rose to power in Bengal a decade later. The name Dalpat
(Dalapati, Lord of an Army) was borne by the Raj-Gond ruler of
Garha-Katanga, Dalpat Sah, husband of the celebrated Durgavati,
but he ourished more than half a century later than the date at
which this anecdote is set.53

50

Sawni, pp. 56, 59.


Sawni, pp. 125.
52
Kol, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, pp. 1603.
53
Abul Fazl, Akbar Nma, (Calcutta, 18751886), text, II, p. 209; trans. H. Beveridge (Calcutta, 190239), II, p. 304.
51

178

However there is a more intriguing possibility. In the legendary


story of the settlement of the Bachgotis at Sultanpur there is a Dalpat
Sah, the slain brother-in-law of the Bachgoti chieftain.54 Could this
tale of Saiyid Muhammads valour reect an incident that occurred
a dozen years before Buhlul Lodi dispossessed Husain Shah of
Jawnpur, when the Bachgotis were less loyal to the Sharqi Sultan?

54

Crooke, The Tribes and Castes, I, p. 95.

SLAVERY AND NAUKAR AMONG THE BANGASH


NAWABS OF FARRUKHABAD1
Jos Gommans
The rst Bangash Nawab of Farrukhabad, Muhammad Khan, was
a son of Malik Ain Khan, descendant of an Afghan farmer in the
Kabuli district of Bangash. Early during the reign of Aurangzeb
(16581707) he had quitted his native country and settled in MauRashidabad, 34 km west of present-day Farrukhabad. Here he enrolled
as an ocer (sarkr-i anfr) in the cavalry of a fellow Afghan named
Ain Khan Sarvani.2 Both were in the service of the local jgrdr,
Nawab Mirza Khan, who was a grandson of Khwaja Bayazid Ansari,
famous founder of the Roshaniyya sect.3 Although in the beginning
this heterodox movement had been thoroughly anti-Mughal, Bayazid
Ansaris descendants had, on the contrary, risen to prominence thanks
to their military services to the Mughals. As a reward for their help
during the Mughal campaigns in the Deccan, Mirza Khan and his
brethren had received some jgrs in the area of Mau and Shamshabad.
Still on the basis of their charismatic leadership and spiritual guidance, they had drawn many recruits from their tribal Roshaniyya
following in Roh.
Malik Ain Khan married in Mau and when he died left two sons.
The oldest, Himmat Khan died while on a military expedition in
the Deccan. His second son was Muhammad Khan who at the age

1
This essay was originally written 10 years ago and was intended to be a chapter in my PhD thesis on the Rohillas. For the present purpose I have considerably
revised it, skipping the parts that were published in the thesis, with the exception
of the description of the Bangash nasab (see J.J.L. Gommans, The Rise of the IndoAfghan Empire, c. 17101780 (Leiden, 1995), pp. 1715). The revision was facilitated
by the comments of Dirk Kol who, some years ago, had a look at this droppedout chapter and advised me to rework and publish it.
2
Muhammad Wali al-Lah, Tr-i Farrubd, British Library, Oriental and
India Oce Collections (OIOC), Or. 1718, f. 10b; M. Elphinstone, An Account of
the Kingdom of Caubul, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1972), p. 51.
3
For details, see: W. Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad, Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Part 1, 47, 1 (1878), pp. 35764.

180

of twenty took service with Yasin Khan Ustarzai Bangash, one of


the leading Afghans of Mau. As a small mercenary jobber ( jam'adr)
he and his gang were primarily engaged in local conicts in the
Deccan and Bundelkhand. After Yasin Khan was killed at a siege,
Muhammad Khan started a jam'adr business of his own. He started
with seventeen followers but soon after his rst successes, more and
more Afghans were willing to join his standard. Although in numerous small campaigns Muhammad Khan was able to increase his
wealth and power considerably, his status among his fellow Afghans
of Mau remained highly controversial. For them, he was just one
among equals and every sign of elitist pretensions, like riding an elephant or sitting on an elevated cushion amongst his brother Afghans,
could only be met with their ridicule or open opposition. This strongly
egalitarian atmosphere, reminiscent of similar conditions among his
Afghan brethren in Rohilkhand, made claims to legitimate leadership always extremely complicated. In the case of the Bangash chiefs
this problem was further aggravated by their small numbers in and
around Mau.
In this essay I will discuss two aspects that played a crucial role
in determining the power and authority of the Bangash Nawabs
among the political elite in and beyond Farrukhabad, be it fellow
Afghans or other co-sharers of the declining Mughal realm. The rst
aspect relates to their use of so-called chelas, elite slaves, mainly serving the Bangash military and the administration. These chelas were
incorporated into the Nawabs household to prop up their masters
position among the other, mostly Afghan, chiefs of the little kingdom in and around Farrukhabad. In order to understand the internal context in which the chelas operated, I will start by describing
the Nawabs Bangash descent (nasab) and their Farrukhabad household. The second aspect relates to the turbulent vicissitudes of the
Farrukhabad state as engendered by the Bangash Nawabs ongoing
involvement in Indias bustling mercenary trade. In the end, it was
neither their nasab nor their chelas but their extensive military services (naukar ) which brought them all-India fame and fortune. Although
Farrukhabad slavery continued to serve its limited purpose in Farrukabad itself, it was soon drowned, so to speak, in the turbulence
and uidity of the huge military labour market that was India. At the
end of the century, with the Nawabs naukar business on the decline,
we once again nd chelas active, this time not obeying but manipulating an increasingly isolated and decadent Farrukhabad court.

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1. Slavery
Bangash Nasab
The Bangash tribe derived its name from the hilly area, north of the
Sulaiman mountains, from Bannu to the Safed Koh, in between
the Indus and the Kurram river. Its main centre, situated along the
lower river valleys was the town of Kohat, also synonymous with
the area called Lower Bangash or Pain Bangash. Under Mughal
rule this area had been a nominal district (tmn) of the Kabul
province.4 The area was of some importance as it provided an alternative northern route to the Khyber pass from Kabul to Peshawar
and India. The Mughal emperor Babur, however, describes it as
rather peripheral and being infested with nothing but Afghan highwaymen and thiefs, such as Khugianis, Khirilchis, Turis and Landars;
all of whom, obviously, declined to pay taxes. Nevertheless, in 1505
Babur decided to raid and plunder the district following some intelligence about its great riches.5 Indeed, in Kohat the Mughals found
cattle and corn in great abundance but they were not able to settle the area on a permanent basis since most of the tribes could
temporarily retreat into the more impregnable upper hills called Bala
Bangash or Kurram. For any central government, either from Delhi,
Qandahar or Kabul, these hilly tracts of the Bangash tmn always
remained an obstreperous area. As a result, Shiite Islam and heterodox movements, such as that of the Roshaniyya, mostly combined with and fuelled by anti-Mughal resentment, remained very
strong indeed in this area.6
Before the sixteenth century, there did not exist a separate tribe
or sub-tribe which was actually called Bangash. The seventeenthcentury Mazan-i Afn does not mention them at all. Most of the
inhabitants of Bangash envisaged themselves to be the descendents
of one Karlani, and were known under various sub-headings such
as Orakzais, Turis, Malik-Miris, Baizis and Kaghzais. The latter

I. Habib, An Atlas of Mughal India (Delhi, 1982), p. 3.


Babur-Nama, trans. A.S. Beveridge (New Delhi, 1970), pp. 2303.
6
O. Caroe, The Pathans, 500 B.C.A.D. 1957 (Karachi, 1975), pp. 2023;
J. Arlinghaus, The Transformation of Afghan Tribal Society: Tribal Expansion,
Mughal Imperialism and the Roshaniyya Insurrection, 14501600 (Unpublished
PhD thesis, Durham, N.C., Duke University).
5

182

three had entered the lower valleys of Kohat somewhere between


the late-fteenth and early-seventeenth century from the surrounding hills of Upper Bangash and, probably, were subsequently called
Bangash to distinguish them from the other Karlanis residing in the
Kohat area, mainly Orakzais and Khataks.7 According to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Indo-Afghan sources, all the tribal
groups in Bangash could be commonly referred to as Bangash (qaumi Bangash) in accordance with their place of origin or residence.8 This
was not unlike the development of the Indian eponym Rohilla, i.e.
the people from Roh, although the name Bangash referred to a more
restricted territory and as such applied to a smaller audience of
potential immigrants.9 Although the category Bangash was more
restrictively used in the Afghan context of Bangash proper, in India
it could include all sorts of Afghan tribes who one way or another
claimed their origin from this homonymous area, and this in its most
imprecise and wide-ranging dimensions. Thus, we may conclude that
the tribal eponym of Bangash came only into existence in sixteenthand seventeenth-century Kohat and Bangash, but found its widest
denition in eighteenth-century Hindustan. Unlike the Indo-Afghan
label Rohilla, Bangash referred to an existing ethnic category in
Afghanistan although its denition became wider and more diused
in India.
Muhammad Khan Bangash himself belonged to the Kaghzai line
of the Karlani tribe of Bangash. He could trace his descent for more
than four generations to one Daulat Khan, alias Haji Bahadur, of the
Shamilzai of the Harya Khail.10 Our most trustworthy source in this
respect, the mid-nineteenth-century Tr-i Farrubd by Muhammad
Wali al-Lah, presents us with a fairly careful description of the nasab
of these Kaghzai Karlanis. According to most of the earlier Afghan
traditions the Karlanis could not claim an Afghan descent since they

7
H.G. Raverty, Notes on Afghanistan and Part of Baluchistan (London, 1888), pp.
38990.
8
Haz Rahmat Khan, Khulat al-Ansb, OIOC, Egerton 1104, f. 84b; Muhammad
Wali al-Lah, Tr, . 6ab.
9
For the Rohilla case, see Gommans, The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, pp.
16371.
10
Muhammad Wali al-Lah, Tr, f. 10b; Haz stresses the requirements for a
proper nasab to be at least four generations (Haz Rahmat Khan, Khulat,
f. 15a).

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183

were regarded, and regarded themselves as direct descendents from


the prophet Muhammad or his clan, as Saiyids or Quraishis, who
only through adoption and gradual accommodation had turned into
Afghans.11 Muhammad Wali al-Lah, however, mentioning the Saiyid
claim of some Karlanis in passing, stresses their undisputed Afghan
identity. He points out that although Karlani was originally a Saiyid,
he had been adopted by one Amir al-Din, the youngest son of Sarban
and eldest son of the well-known great Afghan ancestor Qais. Therefore,
he claims, the Karlanis should be recognised as full Sarbani Afghans.12
Muhammad Wali al-Lah is equally keen on delineating the origin
of the name Kaghzai. The name must have given cause for confusion because there were also other Kaghzais who had no relationship whatsoever to the Karlanis but claimed to be the descendants
of Sarvani. It was made clear that both should not be mixed up
because the Karlanis acquired the name only because they had settled near the Sarvani Kaghzai in Upper Bangash. So, in fact, there
were two unrelated variants of Kaghzais: Karlani Kaghzais and
Sarvani Kaghzais.13
Muhammad Wali al-Lahs rationalizations may again underline
the importance of open and achieved identities. The Nawabs were
Afghans by adoption; they were Bangash because they had moved
to India from the Bangash area; and they were Kaghzai because
they had lived near the Sarvani Kaghzai. Only their Karlani identity was taken for granted and not explained properly. All of this
made perfect sense to the contemporaries since it alluded to existing customs and traditions and to a recognizable frame of reference.
Within the wider category of Bangash Pathans, the Nawabs could
claim a clear and recognisable nasab for themselves. The Bangash
label served as an external marking against other Hindustani or
Afghan groups like Rajputs, Rohillas or Afridis, and, at the same
time, could appeal to all sorts of ethnical sub-groups from within
the Bangash area. Within this fairly open category, the Nawabs could
lay claim to a more exclusive and distinguished Karlani Kaghzai
descent that underpinned their authority and status amongst the
other local groups of Bangash Pathans, such as the Sarvani and
Ustarzai Bangash.
11
12
13

Raverty, Notes, pp. 3808.


Muhammad Wali al-Lah, Tr, . 9ab.
Muhammad Wali al-Lah, Tr, . 10ab.

184

The Nawabs attitude towards the other Bangash was always somewhat ambivalent. In order to raise their solidarity and group feeling
he had to associate them with his government and with the inner
circle of his sons and slaves (nazdas). This, however, made them
powerful and always potentially dangerous. Consequently, he also
needed to dissociate himself from them and keep them on a safe
distance. The ethnical nomenclature reected this continuous need
for association and dissociation: the Bangash label could serve the
tendency of inclusion while, at the same time, the Kaghzai identity
could stress the exclusiveness of the Nawabs nasab.
The Farrukhabad household
The core of the Bangash powerbase in Farrukhabad was the domestic household: the Nawabs wives, sons and nazdas. This latter
group consisted primarily of his sons and his personal slaves or chelas.14
Those Bangash who were not part of the core household were
attached to it by being married to the Nawabs daughters. In general we may say that the Nawab made his sons, slaves and sons-inlaw his most trustworthy instruments of power by bestowing land on
them in jgr or in'm and by entrusting them with the most crucial
positions in the administration and the army.
The marriage rules of the Bangash household were relatively strict
in order to maintain their exclusive status. Hence, beyond the household, the Bangash sub-tribe delineated the more or less endogamous
marriage group. The Bangash Pathans declined, for example, to
intermarry with Rohillas and even marriages with the esteemed
Awadhi ruling family were considered problematic.15 Although the
Nawabs daughters were exclusively married to his Bangash brethren,
rules for the male members of the family were less rigid. They sometimes married women from another distinguished Pathan tribe or
accepted women from all kinds of people but as ladies and concu-

14
Khnazda literally means son of the house or household born one and
indicates clearly the slaves inclusion in the household. For nazdag ethos under
Mughals, see J.F. Richards, Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal
Ocers, in B.D. Metcalf (ed.), Moral Conduct and Authority, The Place of Adab in South
Asian Islam (Berkeley, 1984), pp. 2627; and D.E. Streusand, The Formation of the
Mughal Empire (Delhi, 1989), pp. 1468.
15
OIOC, Orme Mss. o.v. 173, . 1712; Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1,
p. 350.

NAUKAR

185

bines of the harem these had to content themselves with inferior


positions. For example, females could be presented as dolas, i.e. daughters given in marriage to a superior by way of a tribute.16 Gifts of
daughters could also conrm important political relations of the
Nawab. This was the case with Raja Jaswant Singh, zamndr at
Bhadoi, who had presented one of his daughters to Muhammad
Khan. This indicated the Nawabs direct interests as the Raja was
appointed to the charge of the rhdr from Benares to Allahabad
and as such was responsible for keeping open this important supply
line for Farrukhabad.17 In this respect, the, size of the Nawabs harem
was a direct reection of the Nawabs attempts to build up a reliable following and alliances of his own.
Muhammad Khan had been married to a daughter of Kasim
Khan, another Bangash sardr, who became his only legal wife and
became styled as Bibi Sahiba. Besides, it was said, he held some
2600 concubines in his private apartments, of which 900 lived in
nine separate establishments according to their ethnic origin of 100
each.18 According to Irvine, his son Nawab Qaim Khan (17438)
had four wives, of whom only the rst was a Bangash.19 Also Nawab
Ahmad Khan (175071) married four wives whose descent is not
altogether clear. His fourth wife, however, was an adopted daughter of Yaqut Khan, one of his slaves. Some of the Nawabs courtiers
claimed that she was a natural daughter of the famous Khan Jahan
Khan Lodi, the principal Afghan noble during the rule of Shah
Jahan. As Irvine relates: The Nawab hearing this story fell in love
with her without seeing her.20 Eventually, she became the mother
of Ahmad Khans successor, Dilir Himmat Khan Muzaar Jang
(177196) but, as he was known as the son of a slave girl, the legitimacy of his succession was strongly contested.
The female part of the Nawabs household could become very
inuential in state aairs. The Nawabs begams, his wives and daughters, were able to accumulate lots of treasure and land deposited

16

Shivdas Lakhnawi, Shhnma Munnawar Kalm, trans. S.H. Askari (Patna, 1980),

p. 5.
17

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p.


Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p.
19
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p.
20
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, Part
48, 1 (1879), pp. 1234, 159.
18

330.
339.
373.
2, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,

186

with them as pensions by their male relatives. Besides, from the


harem they could manipulate court politics by setting up for themselves a private network of chelas, some of whom could walk freely
in and out of the zanna. Especially, at critical moments such as the
Nawabi succession the principal widow-begams inuence could be
decisive.21 This was certainly true in the case of the Bibi Sahiba.
After her last son Qaim Khan was killed in battle, she acted as the
main representative of Bangash nasab and Bangash legitimacy. She
could not only support the preferred successor by presenting him
with sucient funds to build his own following; above all, her approval
was absolutely needed to sanction the Nawabi succession. At the
death of Qaim Khan in 1748, the Bibi Sahiba sent for all her husbands sons and she directed the second eldest son, Ahmad Khan,
to succeed his half-brother to the masnad. He refused the honour,
however, because he knew that she actually favoured Imam Khan,
and therefore would not support him in the longer term. Consequently,
Imam Khan became the new Nawab but it was actually the Bibi
Sahiba herself, with the help of her late husbands chelas, who ruled
in his place.
Two years later she was, however, confronted with grave diculties
because of her continuing conicts with the Awadh court and, as a
consequence, her general lack of funds. In these circumstances Ahmad
Khan had been able to bring the Mau Afghans on his side. With
their moral and material support he could now claim the Nawabship
for himself. Still, he could not dispense with the approval of his stepmother. With Imam Khan imprisoned in Allahabad, the Bibi Sahiba
decided to ask Ahmad Khan to come to Mau. After he showed his
obeisance by presenting her with a tribute (nar), she, in her turn,
invested him as reigning Nawab with a robe of honour (il 'at), after
which all the other Afghans could present their oerings, again by
way of nar. Only now, Ahmad Khan seemed to be fully installed
as the legitimate Nawab.22 However, it should be kept in mind that
de jure and de facto Nawabi rule not only hinged on the internal back-

21
Cf. Begams at Awadh court: R. Barnett, North India Between Empires. Awadh, the
Mughals and the British 17201801 (Berkeley, 1980), pp. 1002. For a similar case
at Bhopal: S.N. Gordon, Legitimacy and Loyalty in some Successor States of the
Eighteenth Century, in J.F. Richards, Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madison,
1978), pp. 287300.
22
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, pp. 5960.

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187

ing of the begams, the Bangash and other Pathan sardrs or the
chelas, but also, on the external mechanism of imperial power and
authority.
Chelas
The Bangash Nawabs systematically recruited personal slaves who
were entrusted with the most vital posts in the administration, the
revenue collection and the army. These slaves played a signicant
role as a kind of articial family in-group which was entirely attached
to the person of their patron. The Farrukhabad slaves were basically identical to the elite military slaves of the Turko-Persian world,
called mamlk in Arabic, ulm in Persian and kul in Turkish. Though
technically meaning slave, these words carried a connotation not
of enslavement or the servility of the Uncle Toms kind, but, on the
contrary, of power and dominance. The model for this kind of elite
slavery was highly developed in the Middle East and Iran ever since
the decline of the caliphate. Until the nineteenth century the mamlk system worked exceedingly well and succeeded in perpetuating
and stabilizing the existing structures of the Islamic state.
In the Indian setting, the elite slaves of the Bangash Pathans and
other Afghans were commonly referred to as chelas, i.e. disciples. This
was consistent with the existing Indo-Mughal paradigm. Nonetheless,
Muhammad Khan Bangash, who introduced the chela system from
the start of his rule in Farrukhabad, preferred to call his chelas: atfli sarkr or children of the state. Other appellations include alib
bacha or aanfar bacha which both refer to Muhammad Khans personal progeny.23 These names seem to indicate an Afghan approach
to the slave as being regarded as the (adopted) son (walad ) of his
master-patriarch (wlid ). As such the master and his slave developed
relations very similar to those of a family. Hence, the natural sons
of the Nawab, were to be regarded as the brothers of the chela, like
the chelas felt brothers of each other and the death of a chela had
also to be revenged by his Bangash brothers. Chelas were as close to
the person and body of the Nawab as were his sons. Like his own
children, at a young age chelas were displayed in public on the lap
of the Nawab. Similarly, the Nawabs principal wife, the Bibi Sahiba,

23

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, pp. 3401.

188

observed no purda to the closest chelas of the Nawab. The chelas were
also allowed to sit in darbr immediately next to the Nawab and his
sons. Riding on his elephant, two chelas were always closely seated
behind him. Not surprisingly, their preferential treatment could give
rise to feelings of envy and annoyance among the Nawabs sons as
the following story given by Irvine shows:
One day Bhure Khan [chela and n"ib of Allahabad] coming into darbar late, could nd no place to sit; kicking away the pillow separating Muhammad Khan and Qaim Khan, he sat down between the
Nawab and his son. Qaim Khan turned angrily to his father and said:
You never respect me. Muhammad Khan replied that he loved them
as he did his sons. Qaim Khan got up in rage, and went o to his
home in Amethi. Muhammad Khan then scolded Bhure Khan saying
that he had lost condence in him, for if while he was alive they did
not respect his sons, who knew what they would do when he was
dead. Bhure Khan putting up his hands, said: May God Almighty
grant that I never see the day when you no longer live.24

Although chelas could never lay claim to the leadership of the Bangash
clan, in the wake of their master, some of them were able to acquire
great wealth and two of them were allowed to bear the title of
Nawab themselves. Nawab Ahmad Khan Bangash himself was styled
Bar (senior) Nawab, his chela Zulqar Khan, nim of Shamshabad,
was called Majhl (middle) Nawab and his chela Daim Khan, in charge
of Shahpur-Akbarpur, was called Chhot ( junior) Nawab.25 Besides,
like the Nawabs sons, many of the chelas were allowed to ride in
plks or on elephants.26 All this may illustrate how the chelas were
incorporated into the household of the Bangash Afghans. As adopted
sons they became part of the patrimonial family of the Bangash ruler
and as such were co-sharers of his realm. This was, however, only
one side of the coin. What about the indigenous feedback to this
Afghan model?
In a way, the life of a military chela tted in well with the martial outlook of the Hindustani peasantry. Dirk Kol has already
stressed the importance and extensiveness of the armed peasantry in
Hindustan, where, as late as the nineteenth century, military sports

24
25
26

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 345.


Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, pp. 1601.
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, p. 69.

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189

were very much a part of the daily life of the village.27 Moreover,
Rajput values stimulated the complete devotion in service to a rightful patron. As analysed by Norman Ziegler, the Rajput chkar bond
to their Mughal patrons was a product of identication and obligation generated through the establishment of personal bonds and
aliations sanctioned by local custom, and the fullment of cultural
aspirations and ideals, dened in local myth and symbol. In this
symbolism the kingdom or thkurat was a marriage between the ruler
or thkur and the conquered land, which came to his care and protection. All his subjects were regarded as his children and in particular his servants and clients were his sons. In this sense, the Rajput
ideal is the complete devotion to the thkur.28
As this Rajput outlook underscored the bond between Mughal
patron and his Rajput client, it applied no less to the even more
intimate relationship between the Afghan master and his Rajput chela.
Of course, unlike the chela, the chkar could preserve his freedom,
caste and religion. Nevertheless, the chela, as the adopted son of his
master, came even closer to the ideal of utter and exclusive devotion. Indeed, chelas could turn into venerated personalities, local
heroes, or otherwise become the centre of Rajput ritual. This was
the case with one of Muhammad Khans principal chelas, Dilir Khan.
He was originally a Bundela Rajput but as 'mil in Bundelkhand he
became an important chela of Muhammad Khan. After his death in
a battle against his own kinsmen the following local custom grew up
in Bundelkhand:
every son of a Bundela, on reaching the age of twelve years, is taken
by his father and mother to Maudan, where they place his sword and
shield on Daler Khans tomb. They make an oering, and the boy
then girds on the sword and takes up the shield, while the parents
pray that he may be brave as Daler Khan.29

In general, we may say that, on the one hand, the chela institution
of Farrukhabad was originally a predominantly Turko-Persian phenomenon which, through Turkish and Afghan channels, was imported

27

D.H.A. Kol, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy. The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour
Market in Hindustan, 14501850 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1731.
28
N.P. Ziegler, Some Notes on Rajput Loyalties during the Mughal Period,
in J.F. Richards (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madison, 1978), pp. 21551.
29
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 286.

190

into Hindustan. On the other hand, its kinship idiom positively


appealed to indigenous Rajput values which stressed their manliness
and their utter devotion to a father-thkur. Let us now take a closer
look at the main functions and characteristics of this particular IndoAfghan variant of the mamlk system.
From the very beginning of their rst settlement in Mau, the
Bangash Afghans felt themselves in a very precarious position vis--vis
other groups in the area, not the least with regard to their fellow
Afghans. As mentioned already, in Mau the Bangash Pathans were
in a distinct minority of only 100 to 600 men.30 Muhammad Khan
Bangash was only one among equals, and because other sub-tribes
were far more numerous than his, he was even less equal than most
of the other tribal leaders. After his foundation of Farrukhabad,
Muhammad Khan was able to relieve the situation somewhat but it
was very clear that without sucient support in numbers there was
no room for ambitious chiefs like him. In order to create a reliable
and large following which shared his nasab, he could try to invite
other Bangash Pathans from Afghanistan to come and join him in
Hindustan. This could, however, not solve the problem entirely. First
of all, the sources for recruitment were limited since even in Afghanistan
proper, Bangash Afghans were not very numerous. Besides, these
Bangash allies and sons-in-law were not always as reliable as one
might hope for. They frequently became unruly elements or even,
since they shared his nasab and his power, they could become rivals
to the ruling Nawab himself. Thus like their western neighbours, the
Afghan chiefs of Rohilkhand, the Bangash Nawabs tended to stress
the importance of nasab, but unlike them, this was not sucient to
incorporate a large and reliable Afghan following. In these circumstances, the systematic and large-scale recruitment of personal slaves
could oer a viable alternative for which they could have recourse
to that old-established Turko-Persian formula of the mamlk.
Under Muhammad Khan Bangash the recruitment of personal
chelas was dramatically intensied. During his rule some 4000 of
them were raised. The chelas were recruited at a very young age, of
about 7 to 13 years old, from primarily Rajputs and also sometimes

30

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1 p. 363; Nur al-Din Husain Khan Fakhri,
[Tawrkh-i Najb al-Daula], trans. J. Sarkar, Islamic Culture, 7,4 (1933), p. 617.

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191

brahmans.31 Although according to their religious prescriptions,


Muslims were not allowed to enslave fellow Muslims, this did not
raise much problems in an overwhelmingly Hindu society. Hence,
expensive and long-distance importation of slaves could be dispensed
with and most of the chelas were locally taken in military campaigns
against revenue defaulters or other enemies of the Nawab. Whenever
one or another of his 'mils had a ght with a troublesome village,
he was instructed to seize all the Hindu boys he could get and to
forward them to the Nawab.
People were sometimes quite willing to let their children be adopted
by a person in higher places. As a consequence of famine or other
distress they could also be forced to do so because they lost all means
to subsist their children any longer.32 Hence, natural disasters and
failing crops could strongly stimulate the slave trade as a result of a
dramatic increase of the supply of slaves at public markets.33 During
the eighteenth century, especially the slave markets along the fringes
of the Himalayas were famous for their large supply of slaves which
were carried in large numbers down the hills for sale. Although the
chelas were recruited from local sources, there were no serious problems of slaves remaining loyal to their own original family or kin.
Once a chela always a chela: it was probably neither possible, nor
attractive, to return to ones former home. Under Muhammad Khan
the chelas preserved their caste-identity, and were married to slave
girls from the same caste. Later, however, in Ahmad Khans time,
there was left just one corporate chela category. Chelas were never
reported to have deserted the Nawabs ranks in order to join their
former kinsmen. They were too much involved in their own careers
which were entirely linked to the fate of their patron.
After the chelas were adopted, they converted to Islam, received a
new name and were submitted to a regime of religious, literary and
military training which was focused on the transformation of the
recruits identity, the development of his military and administrative
31

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 340.


In 1770 Shuja al-Daula send one of his eunuchs to Patna in order to purchase a number of those boys and girls who are starving at Patna and who he
intends to bring up for the service of his household (National Archives of India
New Delhi (NAI), Foreign and Political Dept., SC70, No. 17, Harper to Alexander,
15 April 1770.
33
I. Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (Bombay, 1963), pp. 102, 110,
32224.
32

192

skills and also on the drumming of his loyalty to the Nawab. When
a boy could read and write he was taken before the Nawab who
bestowed upon him, by way of il'at, one hundred rupees, a shield
and a sword. From among the chelas of 18 to 20 years of age the
Nawab selected 500 for his private bodyguard and trained them as
a picked regiment.34 Most of the others were entrusted with leading
positions in the army such as recruitment ocers (bash), cavalry
ocers (sawr-wl), heads (droa) of the stables and the elephant
establishment or commanders of forts (qila'dr). Some of them were
in the possession of large jgrs. They played a crucial role in the
revenue collection as ministers (diwns), collectors ('mils) and farmers (ijradrs), particularly at places where the collection was dicult
as a result of widespread Afghan landholding interests in areas such
as in Mau and Shamshabad. Some of them also gure as the Nawabs
deputy (n"ib) in the provincial government of newly acquired territories. Others feature as architects of public buildings. Niknam Khan
chela, for example, laid out the fort of Farrukhabad and built many
of its edices. Some 17 ganjs were founded by chelas. We also come
across them as founders of bazaars, caravanserais, bridges, step-wells
(b"ls) and as planters of gardens. In all these capacities chelas played
a pivotal role in stimulating cultivation and trade.
Apart from these critical military and administrative posts a score
of other chelas were employed in the household and the harem. These
were functions that derived their importance from their closeness to
the body-person of the Nawab. Some chelas were allowed to approach
the Bibi Sahiba unveiled such as attendants of the bath-rooms, keepers of the rosaries, attendants to help in the ablutions for prayers,
for driving away ies, and numerous other personal servants who
encircled the Nawab.35 This chela encirclement of the Nawabs person in his private departments was even literally reproduced in
the design of Farrukhabad-city. Not only around the central fort the
houses of his chelas were built, but also around the outer part of the
city, residences were allotted to the Nawabs sons and chelas.
Despite of his intimate and close relations with his chelas, there
was also a feeling of ambivalence and wariness towards them on the
part of the Nawab. Being entrusted with the most crucial positions

34
35

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 341.


Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, p. 165.

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of the state, the chelas were extremely liable to abuse their power
against the Nawab. Although they were deracinated and freed from
their former ties to society, this did not deprive them from looking
at their own personal interests or from being seduced to courtly
intrigue; even when this was against the interests of the Nawab himself. With this in mind, the rst Nawab frequently reallocated his
chelas from one province to another as every chela 'mil was not
allowed to stay more than two or three months in one province.36
In this way the Nawab hoped to screen his chelas from new vested
and local interests. Nevertheless, things could easily run out of control whenever a chela became too successful in collecting the revenue.
One example of this is the case of Islam Khan, chela of Ahmad
Khan, who was appointed faujdr of Kasganj. At his arrival there,
he started to procure money from the local bankers and landholders in return for a bond on the incoming revenue. Then he suddenly collected a following of some 5000 men and started to plunder
some of the neighbouring villages. On hearing of this threatening
development, the Nawab ordered Islam Khan to stop these dreadful activities immediately. Meanwhile the chelas troops had risen to
10,000. Amongst them were even numerous Pathans from Mau,
Qaimganj and Shamshabad. No wonder, Islam Khan declined the
order by answering that he only wanted to seat his patron on the
throne of Delhi. The Nawab, however, concluded that the chela had
rebelled and he asked the rajas of Hathras and Bharatpur to crush
the rebellion. After they had defeated Islam Khans army, the chela
returned to Farrukhabad and presented himself submissively to his
master. He was not punished heavily and after some time he was
even restored to his former post of bash.37
Similar apprehensions made the Nawab forbid chelas to construct
masonry structures. Nothing was to be built but with sun-dried bricks
and mud-mortar. Each chela was only allowed to build one single
brick room as a reception hall. In general, the Nawab appears to
have had a monopoly on building imposing brick buildings. 38

36

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 346.


Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, pp. 1623.
38
Perhaps, this explains why European travelers were not impressed at all with
the outward appearance of Farrukhabad, otherwise so famous for its riches. But as
Tieenthaler observed around 1750, this was only a faade because from the inside
the houses were more luxurious and brick was used freely ( J. Tieenthaler, La
37

194

Exceptionally trustworthy, however, were the eunuch chelas, many of


whom were entrusted with various responsibilities in the zanna. Since
they had no issue of their own and had lost much of their manliness, they were more reliable than other chelas, as is indicated in the
case of eunuch Yaqut Khan chela, who was allowed to found seven
ganjs and to erect numerous brick buildings for himself.39
The controlling measures of the Nawab were not sucient to keep
all ambitions of his chelas at bay. Especially after Ahmad Khans government, they increasingly began to claim independent positions of
their own. The most important example of this was Fakhr al-Daula.
He started his career as a chela and bash of Muhammad Khan
but rose to real prominence under Ahmad Khan. He played a decisive role in Muzaar Jangs successful succession in 1771 and was
for three years the practical ruler of Farrukhabad. After Farrukhabad
had become tributary to Awadh in 1775, the chelas remained active
in court politics and in 1796 again played an important role in the
Nawabi succession. Meanwhile they became more and more inclined
to lead a luxurious and easy life. The British residents in Farrukhabad
complained frequently about them as decadent and worthless people. With the decline of Nawabi power, some of them were able to
keep land under their own control but others changed into nominal and absentee managers and left the real business to their local
agents (krindas) who frequently embezzled the proceeds.40
What might in retrospect be said about the eciency and success
of the chela system? During the rule of the rst three Nawabs it
worked extremely well as a foundation of Nawabi power and even
as an instrument of economic growth. The army and administration
were successfully professionalised as they were staed, so to speak,
by enslaved young urban professionals who were entirely dedicated
to their careers in the service of the Nawab. Without a powerbase
of their own they were less inclined to get themselves enmeshed in

gographie de lHindoustan, in J. Bernouilli, Description historique en gographique de


lnde, Vol. 1 (Berlin, 17861791), p. 196.
39
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 342. For eunuchs in India, see G. Hambly,
A Note on the Trade in Eunuchs in Mughal Bengal, Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 94 (1974), pp. 12530. In 1764 Ahmad Khan adviced Shuja al-Daula to
put more trust on his eunuchs (wja-sars). During the eighteenth century they
remained extremely popular at the Awadh court (A.H. Sharar, Lucknow: The Last
Phase of an Oriental Culture (Delhi, 1989), pp. 302).
40
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 161.

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the usual Indian procedures of constantly shifting loyalties and alliances.


In the long run, however, as their power and wealth increased, chelas
also proved human after all. Under Ahmad Khan already the chelas
had started to carve out positions of their own and some of them
began to assume aristocratic lifestyles in which they indulged in
singing and dancing performances and hunting. They had lands of
their own, money of their own, houses and entire ganjs of their own,
children and even chelas of their own. Most of them had been the
personal slaves of Muhammad Khan. After his death they became
automatically the slaves of his successor but felt naturally less allegiance to him. From the time of Muzaar Jang, the Nawab had
become entirely dependent on the chelas since they could secure his
accession to the throne. Even during the successful years of Muhammad
Khan and Ahmad Khan the chelas were only one instrument of
power. At times, they had to be balanced by other groups, other
chelas, other Bangash Pathans, Afridis or some other naukar retainers and mercenaries for sale at the military labour market. Probably
aware of the growing dangers of a system which was so closely
attached to the Nawabs person and hence could get easily out of
hand, Ahmad Khan decided to reduce the chela establishment, recruiting only 400 new slaves during his entire rule (175071). As indicated
by Seema Alavi, Ahmad Khans rising star in the mid-eighteenthcentury politics of the Mughal Empire, was accompanied by a considerable change in the ideology which had welded together the
Farrukhabad state. Bestowed with high Mughal honours, Ahmad
Khan started to emulate Mughal processions, celebrated his birthday with the pomp and circumstance of the Mughal emperor and
used these political rituals and celebrations to construct a new form
of kingship to replace the Afghan and mamlk traditions of the
earlier period.41 While Ahmad Khans naukar businesses escalated,
his Afghan brethren and chelas faded into the background. But
let us have a closer, chronological look at the Bangash Nawabs rising fortunes at the military labour market and start again with
Muhammad Khan.

41
S. Alavi, The Sepoy and the Company. Tradition and Transition in Northern India (Delhi,
1995), pp. 2012.

196


2. Naukar

Rise
As one of the principal personages among the Mau Afghans, Muhammad Khan had led many plundering and freebooting expeditions
especially into the Deccan and Bundelkhand. Most of the time he
put himself at the head of 500 to 1000 horsemen and became engaged
by one or other local raja who had to deal with rebellious landlords
or peasants in his territory. Frequently, a kind of contract was agreed
to in which part, usually one fourth, of the plunder, was reserved
for the chief, the jam'adr, and his troops, half of which was to be
forwarded in advance.42 The usual routine of such an expedition was
to realise the contract and to maximize its gains by discrete mutual
arrangement with the so-called rebels.43 A show of force and, sometimes even actually ghting could be useful as this could raise the
reputation of the gallant jam'adr and, so, could strengthen his bargaining position vis--vis potential employers or rivals. Whenever violence did occur it was to be presented, rather theatrically, as a
demonstration of the jam'adrs military ability to handle his horses,
guns and swords. Usually, however, violence was as much as possible avoided since it could harm the major assets of the expedition
itself: horses, men and, to a lesser extent, elephants. Hence, naukar
was a business of rational cost-benet analysis in which violence contributed to the naukars warlike prole but in practice had to be as
much as possible avoided.
In 1712, Muhammad Khan could muster around 12,000 troops
and had become a force to be reckoned with in Hindustan. During
the struggle for the Mughal throne between Jahandar Shah and his
nephew Farrukhsiyar, both claimants invited all major nobles and
chiefs to join them. After he had sent one of his agents to nd out
which side was most likely to succeed, Muhammad Khan joined
Saiyid Abd al-Lah Khan, main supporter of Farrukhsiyar. At the
ensuing battle, the Bangash appears to have served bravely as a com-

42
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 270. Note the similarity with the Maratha
protection rent of cauth (A. Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India (Cambridge, 1986),
pp. 447).
43
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 271.

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197

mander of the elephant corps ( jam'adr-i l-sawr).44 At the end of


the day his political intuition had proven itself quite reliable. After
Farrukhsiyar had gained the throne, Muhammad Khan was incorporated in the new Mughal body politic by being invested with a
il 'at and by being presented with an elephant, a horse, a sword,
besides eight jgrs in Bundelkhand. At the same time he was raised
to the rank of a manabdr of 4000 and from that time he became
styled as nawb.45 Suddenly, Muhammad Khan had changed from
a petty jam'adr into an important manabdr and pillar of the imperial throne. Obviously, his expertise and contacts in Bundelkhand
and Malwa were most welcome to the new emperor who did not
have any eective control over this area because of increased Maratha
incursions. In order to regain imperial rule in the area imperial policy tried to direct Muhammad Khans attention especially to these
turbulent areas. For this reason, he was given the jgrs in Bundelkhand
and similarly, in 1730, he was appointed badr or governor of
Malwa.
These were not positions meant to be enjoyed without opposition
but only paper appointments, intended and hoped to be realised in
future. It was equally clear, however, that if he was to succeed in
the Deccan, he needed a sure and more permanent base on which
he could build his power on. For this reason, in 1714, Farrukhsiyar
bestowed 52 Bamtela villages, not far from his home in Mau, in ltam (on a permanent basis) on his wife, the Bibi Sahiba, as a kind
of blood price for her father who had been killed by one of its
Bamtela Thakurs. This was an excellent opportunity for Muhammad
Khan to leave the parochial atmosphere of Mau once and for all.
In order to underline his newly achieved imperial status he needed
to emancipate himself from his fellow Afghans. In 1713 he had
already founded Qaimganj and Muhamdabad, two new qabas in the
direct vicinity of Mau. One year later, however, he commissioned
one of his chelas to build an extensive new city called Farrukhabad,
along the Ganges 34 km east of Mau, in the new Bamtela territories he had gained through his wife. From this new basis the Bangash
Nawab started to carve out a territory of his own (waan), free from

44
45

Muhammad Wali al-Lah, Tr, f. 19a.


Ibid.; Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 274.

198

either Afghan or Mughal interference. The adjacent territories were


relatively easily annexed, mostly sanctioned by bribing the local qnngo
(local accountant of revenue records) or by new grants or revenuefarm (ijra) leases from absentee jgrdrs in Delhi to the Nawab or
one of his chelas. This was done especially in those areas where revenue defaulters made the collection extremely dicult. After some
time most of these lands fell completely under Nawabi control and
were annexed to the Nawabi waan.46 From the start, the local power
of the Bangash Nawab was traded o against the legitimacy of the
imperial nobles in Delhi. During this process the Nawabs position
grew more and more powerful and, at the same time, more and
more legitimate. At the end, he had come in a position to ward o
any involvement of the old jgrdrs from the imperial centre who
could only acquiesce in this fate or invite other greedy outside powers to restore their lost incomes.
Meanwhile, Farrukhabad had not only become the central repository of the Nawabs wealth but soon developed as the regional hub
of an extensive commercial network that linked the ourishing northwestern trading network to the south and east. For example, horses,
coarse cotton cloths, grain and indigo from Rohilkhand found their
way to Awadh and Benares via Farrukhabad, where they were
exchanged for more luxurious textiles from the eastern provinces.
Via its extensive credit network, and facilitated by its mint, Farrukhabad
was also able to attract new emigrants from Afghanistan. The Nawab
made over large sums of cash by bills of exchange (hus) via Lahore
to Kabul in order to invite his countrymen to settle in Farrukhabad.47
Also many Sus and other intellectuals were enticed to come and
settle in Farrukhabad. Some of these men attracted a large following of both Muslims and Hindus who visited their hospices or became
their disciples. Many naqs were built to accommodate them and
lands and large sums of cash were distributed amongst them.48
According to Wendel, Farrukhabad had such a reputation as a home

46
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2,
Willes to GG&C, 29 January 1787, . 14892.
47
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, pp. 3234. Cf. Farrukhabad coins found
in Afghanistan ( J. Rodgers, The Coins od Ahmad Shah Abdali, Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, 54 (1885), p. 72.
48
For some examples, see S.A.A. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and his Times (Canberra,
1980), pp. 18283; and, Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, pp. 137, 157.

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for holy men that it became commonly known as Faquirabad.49 At


that time, increased migration to Farrukhabad was part of the general drain of people and resources away from the old Mughal centres of Lahore, Delhi and Agra to the new capitals of the Mughal
successor states. Obviously, all these new immigrants strengthened
the local power base of their new patron as they gave him additional status or as they even fought actually with him in his numerous campaigns.50
Many of the conquered and newly acquired territories were given
in jgr to the Afghan nobility and chelas. Some of them laid out
large fruit and pleasure gardens but the overall revenue collection
was mainly farmed out to those who had sucient power and credit
to ensure regular payment. As a result, most of the Afghans were
absentee landlords who were not actively engaged in the land management themselves, as they were fully engaged as administrators
and mercenaries.51 The existing local establishment of zamndrs and
peasants could frequently be preserved although on top of it a new
layer of landholders and their agents ('mils) or farmers (ijradrs) was
placed. This was possible since agriculture was suciently sure to
sustain a new ruling elite without having to throw out the existing
cultivators. In due course, the old zamndrs and chaudhurs could even
become great ijradrs as they took over responsibility and paid the
arrears of unwilling neighbouring villages.52 Other zamndrs, however, had to renounce all rights to their estates and had to contend
themselves with only a small part of the produce as an allowance
for their assistance in the revenue collection (nnkr). Sometimes,
especially when resistance was strong or when room was needed for

49
F.X. Wendel, Les Mmoires de Wendel sur les Jats, les Pathan et les Sikhs, ed.
J. Deloche (Paris, 1979), p. 140.
50
For the economic position of Farrukhabad, see Gommans, The Rise of the IndoAfghan Empire, pp. 42, 96, 12833.
51
OIOC, V/23/136, Selections from the Revenue Records North Western
Provinces, Vol. 3 (Allahabad, 1873), p. 311; E.T Atkinson (ed.), Statistical, Descriptive
and Historical Account of the North Western Provinces of India, Vol. 7 (Allahabad, 18741884),
pp. 75,105,349.
52
OIOC, V/23/136, Selections from the Revenue Records North Western
Provinces, Vol. 3 (Allahabad, 1873), pp. 4123; Cf. E. Stokes, The Peasant and the
Raj, Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge, 1980),
p. 75; and I. Husain, Agrarian Change in Farrukhabad District, Late eighteenth
and First Half of nineteenth Century. A Study of Local Collection of Documents
(Mimeo. paper Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, 1979).

200

large Afghan or chela colonies, such as in Kampil and Shamshabad,


the existing landholders were completely ejected.53 This was the exception, however, and normally there was no actual displacement of the
old, mostly Rajput, landholders. Usually, they were merely degraded
to local agents and overseers (mr-dah) in direct service of the new
jgrdr, in'mdr or ijradr and were paid a xed allowance or a
percentage of the realized revenue (il ) in cash or in land.54 In
general we might conclude that, except from laying out watered fruit
and pleasure gardens, the conquering elite of Afghans kept themselves aloof from direct engagements in the soil and from their subject peasant population. The actual management of their jgrs was
left to wealthy and powerful 'mils or ijradrs who were only willing to be involved because they felt it to be protable. At the same
time, however, the Afghans could concentrate their attention on the
business of military naukar. So let us return to Muhammad Khans
military adventures.
Apogee
In 1720 the new emperor Muhammad Shah conrmed the Nawab
in his control of the existing and acquired territories around Farrukhabad and increased his manabdr rank to 7000. He was also
appointed badr of the extremely rich and relatively easily-held
province of Allahabad.55 Both this province and his waan of Farrukhabad, as also Rohilkhand, were the main naukar recruitment
centres for the intensive Bangash Nawabs campaigns in Bundelkhand
and Malwa. Several times the Bangash Nawab collected a large following of freebooters in the north and tried to secure a rm footing in the area by everywhere establishing his military posts (thnas)
under the command of his chelas. He also sought a Muslim alliance
with Nizam al-Mulk who also tried to gain a hold on his provinces
in the Deccan against continued indel Maratha incursions.56 In

53
H.F. Evans, Final Report of the Settlement of the Farrukhabad District (Allahabad,
1875), pp. 145; Atkinson, Statistical, Descriptive and Historical Account, p. 282.
54
OIOC, Bengal Revenue Consultations Ceded and Conquered Provinces,
P/90/39, 2091803, Agent Farrukhabad to Secret. Brd. of Revenue, 20 September
1803; P/90/40, Agent Farrukhabad to Secret. Brd. of Revenue, 30 December 1803.
55
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 305.
56
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1 p. 309; Z. Malik, Muhammad Khan

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201

1736, however, due to continued Maratha opposition, in league with


local zamndrs and several imperial jgrdrs who all had their own
local interests, the Bangash involvement in Bundelkhand and Malwa
came to a complete halt. As a consequence, the Allahabad province
was never again entrusted to the Bangash Nawabs, who now began
to redirect their interests more to the north-west.
Muhammad Khan died in 1743 and was succeeded by his eldest
son Qaim Khan without any opposition as he was the only living
son of Muhammad Khan and the Bibi Sahiba. Qaim Khan started
by modifying the alliances made by his father. Internally he distanced himself from his fathers intimates. The chelas became less
important as he invited in the Afridi Afghans and made them the
main base of his power. He also replaced the court from Farrukhabad
to his personal fort at Amethi. At the Delhi court, Qaim Khan
switched sides from the so-called Turani party, to the Irani, newly
appointed wazr, the governor of Awadh, Safdar Jang. The latter
produced for him an imperial farmn which made over to him the
entire territory of the Rohillas. In order to enforce this imperial order
the Bangash chief marched into Rohilkhand. In a very short time
he collected a force of 50,000 horse and foot, besides the contingents of his Bangash relations, all provided with elephants, and
another 20,000 volunteers under neighbouring zamndrs and Maratha
freebooters. In spite of this massive force, the Bangash troops were
defeated by the superior mobility of the Rohilla cavalry and the
immense ring power of their infantry. Qaim Khan himself and
many of the other Bangash and Afridi leaders were killed, sitting as
open targets in their haudas on their elephants.57
As a result of this defeat, the Bangash Nawabs lost all the provinces
north of the Ganges to the Rohillas. Moreover, without a strong
leadership, Farrukhabad now risked being annexed to Awadh since
Safdar Jang had only awaited an opportune moment. As Farrukhabad
became more and more hemmed in between the troops and intrigues
of its enemies, the Bangash Pathans rallied around their new leader
Ahmad Khan, who started to collect funds by putting pressure on
all the nearby merchants and bankers. Also the still powerful and

Bangashs Letters to Nizam-ul-Mulk, Proceedings of the Indian History Conference (1967),


pp. 17685.
57
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, pp. 3801.

202

wealthy Afridis supported him with cash on the condition that he


would grant their leader, Rustam Khan, half of the territories that
would be recovered. The result of this general subscription was gathered and publicly displayed in one of the Nawabs tents. Everybody
willing to be enrolled in the Bangash service was allowed to take
from it: one and a quarter anna for a footman, three annas for a
horseman. As usual, the free military labour market again proved
its smooth functioning: in no time an army was recruited of 12,000
horse and 12,000 foot. At the ensuing confrontation at Khudaganj
(1750) Ahmad Khan had learned from his brothers experience as
he took a seat in his plk, protected by the shield of his fellow
Pathans. On the other side, Safdar Jangs n"ib and commander of
his forces, Nawal Rai, was soon killed in his hauda, and perceiving
what had happened, the whole army dispersed immediately. Because
of their sudden retreat the plunder from the enemys camp was enormous. Here, several wealthy merchants, still playing cards in their
tents, were overwhelmed and subsequently blackmailed. As everybody wanted to be part of the victory, the morning after the battle
the Bangash army had swollen to even 60,000.
At the next showdown, Safdar Jangs army was again defeated,
this time mainly because a large parts of its vanguard, under the
command of Kamgar Khan Baluch, had been secretly in league with
the Bangash and suddenly defected from the Awadh ranks. Since
his main rival Rustam Khan Afridi was killed in one of the few
encounters, Ahmad Khan had gained a double triumph as he was
now the sole Afghan leader without openly having to share his territory. By winning these two battles, Ahmad Khan had clearly regained
the initiative. In order to cash in these successes he now sent his
agents to Awadh, Allahabad and Benares. After the bankers of the
latter had paid a sucient nar of 2 crores Benares was left untouched
and its raja, Balwant Singh, was bestowed with the Nawabs il'at.
Nevertheless, Awadh and Allahabad he had to take by force.58
In 1751, Ahmad Khan was clearly at the height of his power. He
now could boast a following of nearly 100,000 men and access to
a territory, equal to nearly 4 or 5 bas. Obviously, Safdar Jang, but
also the emperor and the other imperial nobles began to feel a bit

58

For a detailed account of these events, see Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2,
pp. 6077.

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203

worried as they felt that Ahmad Khan could not possibly be refrained
from proclaiming himself independent king. Consequently, a mammoth alliance of the emperor, Safdar Jang, the Jats and the Marathas,
secretly endorsed by the Rohilla leader Haz Rahmat Khan, was
created against him. Learning about what had happened, Ahmad
Khan immediately retreated his army into his own territories and
entrenched himself at his fort of Fatehgarh. On his way back, he
had lost most of his following as many of his mercenaries saw no
further prot in taking up a strong resistance with him. Meanwhile,
he had asked for help from the Rohillas and Sa"ad al-Lah Khan,
obviously without the backing of Haz Rahmat Khan, marched in
the direction of Fatehgarh to support the Afghan cause. What followed was a protracted siege during which endless negotiations were
held. After a while, Sa"ad al-Lah Khan suddenly retreated from the
scene and returned with his troops to Rohilkhand. Ahmad Khan left
alone facing fearful odds, immediately decided to follow the example of his former ally. The following year after the monsoon, the
Maratha and Awadh forces entered Rohilkhand but the Afghans had
withdrawn already into the Tarai jungle at the foot of the Himalayas.
During this campaign, news arrived from the west that Ahmad Shah
Durrani had entered the Panjab in order to assist his endangered
tribesmen. Feeling a growing uneasiness about the whole situation,
especially the Marathas became very keen on arriving at a rapid
peace settlement. Both parties agreed that Ahmad Khan would be
restored in his former position although he had to pass half of his
territory to the Marathas. The latter were allowed to extract 30 lakh
rupees. from these lands but subsequently had to hand this sum over
again to the Bangash.59
From 1752 to 1770, as most leaders lived in a continuous awe of
potential Durrani invasions, large parts of Hindustan experienced a
period of relative calm. Durrani and Maratha incursions were redirected to the Delhi-Agra region south of the Ganges which left the
major northern successor states of Rohilkhand, Farrukhabad, and
Awadh undisturbed. This was even so for large tracks in the Doab,
mainly under variable Afghan, Jat and Maratha rule. As we have
observed before, the Durrani campaigns engendered new prospects

59

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, pp. 77123.

204

for military service but also of long distance trade as new markets
were opened up for Hindustani goods in Afghanistan, Persia and
Central Asia. Besides, the successor states in northern India could
strengthen their position thanks to a renewed and sure supply of
war-horses and manpower from the Durrani territories.
What might in retrospect be concluded about the Bangash Nawabs
relations with the imperial court and the status he derived from this?
From the time of his rise to the manabdr status in 1712, Muhammad
Khan had been constantly engaged in the court politics of Delhi.
Although the Bangash Nawab, like fellow Afghan Ali Muhammad
Khan Rohilla, has been frequently related to the Turani faction at
court, this point should not be overstated. Muhammad Khan started
his career by being attached to the parvenu Saiyid brothers under
Farrukhsiyar. At the right time, following the declining star of the
Saiyids, the Bangash Nawab switched his loyalty from them to the
Turani noble Muhammad Amin Khan, Itimad al-Daula. During his
campaigns in the Deccan he, obviously, tried with fair words to placate Nizam al-Mulk to his side by stressing his traditional bond with
the Turanis and the Muslim mission of jihd. In practice, however,
this seems to be only a matter of articulation and form. In 1747,
Muhammad Khans successor Qaim Khan thought it opportune to
change sides again because, this time, the Irani noble Safdar Jang
had become the imperial wazr and an alliance with him held out
many new promises. And indeed, as related before, Safdar Jang now
procured for his new Bangash ally an imperial farmn in which
Rohilkhand was entirely made over to him. In general we may say
that loyalties at the royal court remained always extremely conditional and uncertain. This was as true for the so-called Irani and
Turani factions as for the Afghan solidarity feelings: defection was
the rule, patriotism the exception.60
How did the involvement in Mughal politics aect the Nawabs
prestige at home and amongst his fellow Afghans? Muhammad Khan
Bangash had risen to a rst-grade manbdr and badr over important provinces like Allahabad and Malwa. However, to his contem-

60
Cf. for example: J. Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, Vol. 1: 17391754 (London,
1988), p. 250; Z. Malik, A Mughal Statesman of the Eighteenth Century, Khan-i Dauran,
Mir Bakhshi of Muhammad Shah 17191739 (Aligarh, 1973), p. 56; R. Joshi, The Afghan
Nobility and the Mughals, 15261707 (New Delhi, 1985), p. 195.

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poraries he continued to make a rather plain and soldier-like impression. He always wore clothes of the coarsest stu and in his audience hall and his house the only carpets were rows of common mats.
On these mats the Nawab sat together with his fellow Pathans and
chelas and all other persons and guests high or low, all enjoying the
same simple meal of pilo. At these occasions the Nawab always
excused himself as being merely a soldier. The contemporaries were
amazed to observe so much discrepancy between his great wealth
and power and the simplicity of his personal habits. This roughness
and general lack of adab sometimes could become rather embarrassing, in particular during imperial audiences at court, most notably
in 1739 when he had to present himself before Nadir Shah, and
had to live up to the expectations of one of the principal nobles at
the imperial court. Muhammad Khans clumsiness in matters of
courtly etiquette was articulated by the fact that he pretended not
to understand a single word of Persian, for which he had to be
accompanied by one of his sons.61 Clearly, rst and foremost, Muhammad Khan considered himself a soldier among soldiers, a Pathan
among Pathans.
The second generation of the Bangash family was much more cultivated and fully acclimatized to the Nawabi lifestyle and the etiquette and ceremony of the Indo-Persian court. Muhammad Khans
successor Qaim Khan on occasions used to adorn his personal fort
of Amethi sumptuously with canopies of precious broadcloth and
gold curtains. No ones horse, plk or elephant was allowed to enter
into the fort and all visitors had to dismount at the gate.62 Ahmad
Khan Bangash, even lived for much of his time in Delhi where he
enjoyed a luxurious life and started to collect precious books and
pictures from the imperial stores.63 His increased engagement at the
Delhi court was also reected in his appointments as mr-bash and
rst noble of the reign: amr al-umar.
Ahmad Khan began to consider himself as the leader of the IndoAfghan nobility. The Rohilla leaders more or less acknowledged,
albeit grudgingly, his rst-rate status as being a principal Mughal

61

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, pp. 332, 338.


Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 373.
63
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2,
Willes to GG&C, 29 January 1787, . 14892.
62

206

manabdr.64 The Rohillas were not allowed to marry his daughters,


were oered his il 'ats and had to accept his precedence in protocol. The Rohillas were generally looked down upon as parvenu slaves
and horse merchants, whereas the Bangash, mostly seated on their
elephants, regarded themselves to be real Pathans entrusted with
high manabs earned through their gallant service to the imperial
throne. This became particularly and visibly clear at general meetings and visits. In 1752, for example, Ahmad Khan sent his son
Mahmud Khan together with Haz Rahmat Khan for peace negotiations to the wazr Shuja al-Daula. Everything had to be neatly
arranged in order to meet the requirements and sensitivities of everybodys rank and status. On this occasion in front of the wazrs tent
an enclosure was erected which consisted of three courts. On his
way to meet the wazr, the Nawabs son was allowed to pass the
rst two courts on his elephant but at the third court he had to
change for a plk. Nevertheless, the other chiefs had to dismount
their elephants already at the rst, and to leave their plk at the
second court. After they had entered the third court on foot the
young Nawab followed and was helped by them out of his plk.65
Under Ahmad Khan even the Awadhi Nawab was considered to be
of inferior rank.66 Obviously, this was strongly contested. After Shuja
al-Daulas defeats against the EIC in 1764 and 1765, he had to
escape to Farrukhabad. Being a humble visitor of Ahmad Khan
made him, however, extremely circumspect. In one of their meetings the Bangash chief took a pearl necklace, once worn by his
brother Qaim Khan, and put it round Shujas neck. If he had
accepted the gift it would have been interpreted as a clear sign of
subservience, as a il'at, and, naturally, Shuja was strongly irritated
about it as he quickly took it o and left the place.67
The Durrani emperor conrmed the foremost position of the
Bangash Nawabs. Although Ahmad Khan had attended slowly and
with only a very small force to support the Durrani forces at Panipat,

64
Nur al-Din Husain Khan Fakhri, [Tawrkh], Islamic Culture, 7,3 (1933), p. 433;
Ghulam Hasan Samin Bilgrami, Indian Antiquary, 36 (1907), p. 15. For Rohilla aversion, see Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 1, p. 376; 2, p. 128.
65
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, p. 115.
66
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2,
Letter mother Muzaar Jang, 14 March 1787, f. 518.
67
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, pp. 1445.

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207

Ahmad Shah bestowed large plots of land in the Doab on him and
at court he gave him the right of rst entry, preceding all of the
other amrs.68 Later, however, the overall status of the Bangash chiefs
declined again, since, on the one hand, the Durranis started to raise
the power and pretensions of the Rohilla generalissimo Najib alDaula and, on the other hand, the Mughals became more and more
reliant on their eastern vassals: Shuja al-Daula and the East India
Company.
All in all, in spite of their proper nasab and strong regional powerbase, the legitimate authority of the Bangash Nawabs, both inside
and outside their own territories, still required Mughal or, to a lesser
extent, Durrani sanction. The Bangash had gained their supremacy
and their territory thanks to their naukar services to the Mughals
and, with that, had acquired rank and status within the Mughal hierarchy. This had amply increased their standing amongst their fellow
Afghans, not only because of imperial recognition but also because
through their patrons they could perhaps get access to court politics and to imperial farmns and sanads. Obviously, the Bangash
Nawabs being completely embedded into the existing Mughal hierarchy had much to loose and only hesitantly answered to the Durrani
claims of imperial sovereignty.
Decline
Towards the end of his lifetime, Ahmad Khan became blind and
more than before relied entirely on his principal chela and bash,
Fakhr al-Daula. When he died in 1771 the Nawabi succession became
hotly contested. Ahmad Khans oldest son, Mahmud Khan, born
from the Nawabs principal begam, was considered the only legitimate son. He had died, however, some years before and his son,
Himmat Khan, was still a minor. Ahmad Khans second son was
Dilir Himmat Khan alias Muzaar Jang. He was only fteen years
old and his mother, although she claimed Lodi descent, was regarded
as a mere slave girl from the zanna. However, Muzaar Jangs
claims to the masnad were propagated and endorsed by Fakhr alDaula against the wishes of the late Nawabs brothers. The ensuing
conict was decided by Muzaar Jangs mother who handed over

68

Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, p. 128.

208

70,000 gold muhrs from her treasury to the chela.69 He also melted
down all the silver of the haudas and other furniture.70 With this
money he was able to hire a sucient following to checkmate the
other Pathans and to pay a proper nar to the Mughal emperor,
who subsequently acknowledged the legitimacy of Muzaar Jangs
succession.
Initially, the new Nawab was under the complete control of Fakhr
al-Daula. The chela tried to improve the nancial position of the
state by reducing the army and by raising the revenue on the rich.
This policy brought him in conict with the other great chelas of the
court and inuential Pathans, who, in a coalition with the young
Nawab, succeeded in killing him. This temporary coalition again
brought the old Pathan nobility to the fore, as Ahmad Khans brother
Khudabanda Khan now managed to dominate state aairs.71
Meanwhile, Farrukhabad had become increasingly involved in the
politics and intrigues of the Awadhi court. During the years 17714,
Muzaar Jang had taken part in Shuja al-Daulas campaigns against
the Marathas and the Rohillas, which recovered much of the lost
territories in the Doab. Shuja, however, played upon the Nawabs
authority problems at home and managed to annex not only all the
lands in the Doab but large parts of Farrukhabad state as well. In
return, he had been willing to support the claims of Muzaar Jang
against his Pathan rivals. In 1774, with the help of Awadhi troops,
Muzaar Jang ousted his uncle Khudabanda Khan and numerous
other Pathans from Farrukhabad and Mau and posted his own
ocials in their place. Although Nawabi rule appeared to have been
fully restored, Muzaar Jang had become totally indebted to the
Awadhi court. This new relationship also found its reection during
one of the Nawabs visits to Awadh, where he joined in the Muharram
festivities and openly converted to Shiite Islam.72
In 1775, the new Awadh ruler, Asaf al-Daula, decided to make
no further bones about it and wanted to seize the entire Farrukhabad
territory. Due to the mediation of the British agent in Lucknow this

69
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2,
Willes to GG&C, 29 January 1787, . 14892.
70
Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, p. 154.
71
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2,
Willes to GG&C, 29 January 1787, . 14892.
72
Atkinson, Statistical, Descriptive and Historical Account, p. 174.

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209

was avoided but instead it was agreed that Farrukhabad had to pay
an annual tribute (narna) of 4.5 lakhs, the payment of which was
to be supervised by a Lucknow agent (sazwal ) present at Farrukhabad.
In addition, a deputy to the Nawab (n"ib) was to be appointed to
control the Nawabs aairs. In fact, the sazwal started to control
the revenue aairs of the Nawab and in due course became the de
facto ruler in Farrukhabad. The niybat was a major fund raiser as
it became an oce which could be directly purchased in Lucknow
and, as a result, personal changes occurred frequently.73 All in all,
in 1775 Farrukhabad had lost almost three quarters of its former
territory, and its revenue had fallen from about 60 to 40 lakh in
1761 to about 10 lakh in 1775.74 Farrukhabad had changed from a
major Sunni Indo-Afghan power into a minor Shiite puppet state of
Awadh.
In the wake of the Awadh intervention, the East India Company
also entered Farrukhabad politics and as a tributary state of Awadh
it was incorporated into the British subsidiary political system. In
1777 British troops were stationed in Fatehgarh and three years later
a British agent was send to Farrukhabad to take charge of the annual
tribute, which was now earmarked for the Companys treasury. As
such, the British resident replaced the sazwal as manager of the
Nawabs nances. In the 1780s the state of the latter had been worsened again. The court and its household had become isolated from
the rest of the state and the incoming revenue had further decreased.
According to the British resident, John Willes, this was due to the
fact that: the Pathans seized and enclosed whatever land they chose,
the aumils absconded, the zamndrs resisted and the revenue of course
fell down. Only with the help of British troops, the Nawab was
able to collect the revenue which was, however, increasingly siphoned
o by the local zamndrs and revenue farmers who entrenched themselves in their mud forts. Because of the annexation of large territories by Awadh, many zamndrs controlled lands which overlapped

73
For a detailed account of these aairs, see OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret
and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2, Willes to GG&C, 29 January 1787, .
14892.
74
For revenue gures, see Irvine, The Bangash Nawabs, 2, p. 157; OIOC,
Add. 60337, Shee Papers, Shee to Hastings, 15 July 1780, no fol.; OIOC, Home
Miscellaneous, 219, Minute GG, 22 May 1780, f. 541; OIOC, Bengal Proceedings,
Secret and Political Consultations, P/B/13, Willes to GGC, 30 July 1786, f. 550.

210

the newly created borders. At the time of collection, most of them


retreated with their assets across the border to Awadh.
The borderlands, both in- and outside Farrukhabad state, were
almost exclusively under the revenue farm of one of the principal
eunuchs of the Lucknow court, Almas Ali Khan, who, obviously,
protected his zamndrs and instigated them to escape the revenue
authorities from Farrukhabad. Almas Ali Khan had even for some
years been appointed as sazwal himself during which time he had
been able to strengthen his hold on the area and its zamndrs.75
From the perspective of Willes:
I have every where found the ryotts and lesser zemeedars poor and
oppressed whilst the wealthy possessed of strong holds have opposed
government by open force and only paid the most moderate rents
[and] the whole country will be divided between the neighbouring
powerful aumils, the refracting zamindars and banditti of robbers; and
the Patans who might be made useful subjects will y from the scene
of anarchy.76

However, to the British resident, this state of so-called utter anarchy and confusion was entirely the fault of the Nawab and his personal ambiance of fraudulent and dissimulative chelas. The Nawab,
he opined:
is inclined to keep the generality of his relations in the most abject
poverty and to squander whatever he can get on a set of worthless
and abandoned cheelahs. To preserve to the Nabob from their rapacious hands any considerable sum has been a dicult task. They have
claimed with tumult assignments on the country and the Nabob, whose
disposition is a compound of imbecility, cunning and malevolence, has
been happy in distressing his diwan by the grant of their demands. It
is and has been long the misfortune of this country, that whoever in
oce endeavours to render the Nabob respectable, or restore his country to order is sure of experiencing every opposition.77

75
OIOC, L/Parl/2/20, House of Commons, Articles of Charge of High Crimes
and Misdemeanors against Warren Hastings, 4 April 1786, p. 5; Bengal Proceedings,
Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2, Willes to GG&C, 10 February
1787, f. 117.
76
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/B/13, Willes
to GG&C, 30 July 1786, f. 551; OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Military
Consultations, P/A/8, Willes to GG&C, 24 April 1785, . 34056.
77
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/B/13, Willes
to GGC, 30 July 1786, f. 551.

NAUKAR

211

Willes was particularly exasperated about the decadence of the


Nawabs lifestyle. After three generations there appeared to be not
much left of the former soldatesque image of the rst Bangash Nawab.
Again, Willes was of the opinion that all the intrigue at court and
the abstention of the landholders originated from the imbecility and
folly of the Nawab, who:
ridiculous as it may appear, from the time that he rises, which is not
till three in the evening, he is solely occupied in blowing thro a tube
for the purpose of increasing the heat of a blowing furnace which he
has been persuaded convert copper into gold.78

Obviously, the Nawab had a dierent view about what had gone
wrong. According to his own analysis, the main trouble was Awadhi
and British interference. The sazwals and British residents had
deprived him from all his means to support his relatives and following. Besides, the brutality of Willes had been an aront and an
open challenge to his status and authority. He had not only sold the
Nawabs guns and elephants but he had also insulted him by installing
his brother as n"ib. As the Nawab pointed out:
It is an established principle among the chiefs in Hindostan, not to
entrust the management, or control as naib of their aairs, to their
own brother or son, on account of several apprehensions.79

General unrest was also caused by the unemployment of his fellow


Pathan chiefs. Due to the expansion of the Pax Britannica the Nawab
could not any longer direct their attention to raids outside his own
territories. For the Pathan mercenaries there was a general loss of
employment. Hence, dissatisfaction among the Pathans increased and
could only turn inwardly against the ruling Nawab. In order to
appease them he begged the Company authorities to be allowed to
raise a larger regiment on a permanent footing.80 In short, however,
his solution was fairly simple: in order to end the general distress

78
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/B/14, Willes
to GG&C, 3 October 1786, f. 253.
79
OIOC, Bengal Proceedings, Secret and Political Consultations, P/Ben/Sec/2,
Muzaar Jang to GG, 12 February 1787, f. 106.
80
OIOC, Home Miscellaneous, 219, Minute GG, 22 May 1780, f. 565. Similar
pleas were raised by the Nawab of Rampur. For general unemployment among the
Afghans a few decades later, see R. Heber, Narrative of a Journey through the Upper
Provinces of India, From Calcutta to Bombay (London, 1828), p. 138.

212

and to increase his income he had to be relieved from all further


British and Awadh involvement.
Although the Nawabs point of view made much more sense than
the unbalanced indignations of the British residents, the picture which
they presented shows that it was already far too late for a real amelioration. The revenue of the state had shrunk to an utter minimum
of 9 lakh. Almost all what had remained of the Farrukhabad territory was beyond Nawabi control. In general, there was no sharp
decline in agricultural produce but the benets remained in the pockets of the local zamndrs and ijradrs. The foremost revenue farmer,
Almas Ali Khan, who acquired large territories in Farrukhabad, linking them to those in the Doab and Rohilkhand, started to carve out
a principality of his own which held great attraction to the surrounding zamndrs and peasants. In addition, the general trade pattern of northern India had also changed radically with the expansion
of British power and the demise of the Rohilla state. Long-distance
overland trade relations with the west were interrupted and the
important Indo-Afghan horse trade was redirected to the south.
Besides, trade was lured away from Farrukhabad towards the new
local ganjs of Almas Ali Khan and various British army commanders.81
Also the slump in the naukar trade of Rohilkhand and Farrukhabad
aected the cash transports to the north-west and brought about
unemployment and dissatisfaction among the Afghans. During the
1770s and 80s there was a overall lack of cash in the area and
coin was strongly devaluated.82 Besides, the collapse of the Rohilla
courts and trading network caused a general slump in the demand
for luxury products and other consumer goods from the eastern and
southern provinces. One of the main losers was the city of Farrukhabad
which had been the central entrept linking the Indo-Afghan trading network to the east and the south. Governor-General Warren
Hastings in 1780 expressed it as follows:
the capital which but a very short time ago was distinguished as one
of the most populous and opulent commercial cities in Hindostan at
present exhibit nothing but scenes of the most wretched poverty, desolation and misery.83

81
NAI, Foreign and Political Dept., S, No. 3, Nabob Vizier to Rajah Gobind
Ram, 15 February 1781.
82
OIOC, Add. 60337, Shee Papers, n.d, Shee to Wheler, no fol.; NAI, Foreign
and Political Department, S, No. 1, Bristow to GG&C, 29 July 1776.
83
OIOC, Home Miscellaneous, 219, Minute GG, 22 May 1780, . 5434.

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213

Only later during the century many of the losses were compensated
by increased trade in indigo, grain and cotton from the Doab and
Rohilkhand, but now the general trade pattern had been completely
turned upside down.84 Farrukhabad had become more and more
incorporated into the eastern economies of Awadh, Bihar and Bengal
as it became an important channel of communication with the now
more peripheral areas of the Doab and Rohilkhand. Again, economic redirection had coincided with political and even religious
realignments. As trade became reoriented to the east, the IndoAfghan courts turned from their Sunni Afghan allegiances with the
Durranis and Rohillas in the west, towards full Shiite Irani aliations
to Awadh in the east.
The tributary relation with Awadh was ended in 1801 when the
annual narna was directly transferred to the Company. One year
later the Nawab ceded the entire sovereignty of Farrukhabad to the
British government who settled upon him and his heirs an annual
stipend of 108,000 rupees.

Conclusion
Slaves in India
The history of the Bangash Nawabs is an interesting case study of
Indian military slavery. In fact, it represents a last ickering of a sixcentury old phenomenon. The rst Muslim raids into India in the
twelfth century and the eventual conquest and occupation of Hindustan
at the end of the thirteenth century was for a great deal accomplished by Turkish mamlks or bandagn in the service of the Ghaznavid
and Ghurid dynasties in Afghanistan and Khorasan. As a result, the
Turko-Persian blend of the mamlk system was introduced in India
through Ghaznavid and Ghurid channels and became the mainstay
of the Delhi Sultanates until it underwent a perceptible decline
from the fourteenth century onwards.85 Indigenous elements became

84
For a general survey of Farrukhabad trade in the late eighteenth- and early
nineteenth century, see A Siddiqi, Agrarian Change in a Northern Indian State (Oxford,
1973); and C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townmen and Bazaars, North Indian Society in the Age of
British Expansion 17701870 (Cambridge, 1983).
85
A. Wink, Al-Hind. The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, Vol. 1: Early Medieval
India and the Expansion of Islam 7th11th Centuries (Leiden, 1990), p. 23.

214

increasingly important, rst as elite slaves themselves but later as free


Muslim or Hindu allies. Therefore in India, the mamlk system was
only for a relatively short time able to succeed and as such it always
remained a predominantly Middle Eastern phenomenon, only incidentally imported, but never completely at home in the Indian setting.
Under the Mughals, slaves played a minor part in the central
administration and the army. Akbar employed, however, a small
amount of household slaves which he started to call chelas because
he disliked the term bandagn (banda meaning slave) under which
heading mamlks were called during the Delhi Sultanate. According
to Abul Fazl, he believed that mastership belonged to no one but
God and therefore he borrowed the name chela from the Hindu bhakti
and the indianised Su tradition, signifying the complete attachment
of a faithful disciple or pupil (chela or murd ) to a holy man ( guru or
pr). Here the relationship is not one of ownership but one of unqualied and unconditional love. In due course, though, chela became
the current Indian name for a mamlk-like or ulm-like slave. This
departure from a thoroughly Turko-Persian, Islamic expression reected
not only the decreased importance of slaves under the Mughals but
also Akbars reorientation to a thoroughly indianised, Indo-Islamic
culture.86
It is beyond the scope of this essay to explain Indias short-lived
and incidental experience of the mamlk system into full detail, but
it seems that at the root of it lies the prevalence of a very extensive, free military labour market on the subcontinent as driven by
naukar. In principle, this notion of naukar, being the free, negotiable
service to ones patron-employer, appears to stand in juxtaposition
to the idea of slavery, being the enforced, unconditional service to
ones master-owner. At the same time, though, both notions of service stood at right angles with the emotional loyalty based on kinship ties and religious conviction. In other words, the loyalties and
alliances based on naukar and military slavery had a simple cold logical outlook based on calculated selsh best interests and devoid of
tribal and religious biases. This was also the prevailing attitude at
Indias military labour market in which the loyalty of allies was not
so much directed at their patrons tribe or person, but more at his

86

Abul Fazl, The Ain-i Akbari, Vol. 1, trans. H. Blochmann, H.S. Jarrett (New
Delhi, 19778), pp. 2634.

NAUKAR

215

purse. Of course, the idiom of tribe, religion or caste played its role
in the formation and rationalisation of alliances but what strikes most
is the repeated tendency to cut across rigid party lines. This extreme
pragmatic, no-nonsense attitude of Indian politics was underpinned
by the sheer endless availability of both cheap military labour and
ready cash to pay for it. In these circumstances, naukar made slavery almost superuous and rather expensive in comparison with selftrained free retainers. Moreover, the imprinted loyalty of the chela
itself continuously tended to dissolve into the conditional naukar
alliance of the free mercenary.
Nonetheless, during the eighteenth century we still nd chelas, some
of them eunuchs, entrusted with important positions at the local
Indian courts, most notably in Awadh and the Afghan principalities
of Rohilkhand and Bhopal.87 Among the Afghans, the number of
chelas which one was able to sustain, to a large extent contributed
to their overall status.88 They were, however, not employed on a
large scale and, as a rule, were recruited locally. Outside India, however, the mamlk institution was still ourishing and at some places
even found renewed vigour as under the Durranis in Afghanistan,
the Mamluk Pashaliq of Baghdad,89 the Bu Said Sultanate of Muscat,90
and the Uzbek Ming Khanate of Khoqand.91 In eighteenth-century
India, there are only two examples of the large scale recruitment of
chelas. The case of the Nawabs of Mysore, who not only recruited
from local sources but also bought military slaves from Karim Khan
Zands Persia, is interesting but still awaits further examination.92
The other exception is the chela system of Farrukhabad.

87
For the chelas at the court of Awadh, see M.N. Fisher, A Clash of Cultures:
Awadh, the British and the Mughals (New Delhi, 1987), pp. 536; at Bhopal, see
J. Malcolm, A Memoir of Central India (London, 1823), p. 121.
88
Wendel, Les Mmoires, p. 118.
89
T. Nieuwenhuis, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq (Den Haag, 1982),
p.13,25 (mainly Georgians and Circassians).
90
Abdul Sheri, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar (London, 1987), p. 37 (mainly
Africans and Baluchis).
91
T. Saguchi, The Eastern Trade of the Khoqand Khanate, Memoirs of Research
Department of the Toyo Bunko, 24 (1965), p. 64 (more than 20.000, mainly Kirghiz).
92
M. Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India (Madras, 1869), Vol. 1, pp. 4067,
527, Vol. 2, p. 392.

216

Slaves in Farrukhabad
The case of Farrukhabad epitomises Indias experience with military
slavery. Being introduced from a Turko-Persian context, military
slaves were highly instrumental in conquering and establishing a new
homeland for their Afghan masters. Initially, slaves served well to
counterbalance the power of the Pathan chiefs. At the same time,
as implied by the label chela, slavery was reformulated in indigenous
Indian terms focussing on Rajput heroism and spiritual devotion.
Meanwhile, on the imperial level, the Bangash Nawabs were most
successfully beginning to exploit the endless opportunities oered by
naukar. This gained them enormous riches and honours which further strengthened their position both in Farrukhabad and among the
Mughal nobility. In this situation, slavery lost a great deal of its
appeal as even the chelas themselves could hardly be expected to
withstand the immense gravitational force of the military labour
market.
The end of the eighteenth century, though, witnesses a sudden
slump in the Nawabs naukar trade. At the same time, we are faced
with a remarkable revival of the Farrukhabad chelas. Being deprived
of its extensive external military service networks, the court now
increasingly turned in on itself, giving free reign to the indoor
chelas and begams in control of the domestic treasury besides to all
kinds of new businessmen in charge of collecting the local land revenue. The intervention by Awadh and the British further undermined the external reach and the internal legitimacy of the Nawab.
So within half a century, the rustic image of the courageous warrior Muhammad Khan, loyally served by his hero-chela Dilir Khan,
changed into the decadent picture of the eeminate dandy Muzaar
Jang, treacherously manipulated by his courtier-chela Fakhr al-Daula.
Far from being a colonial construction only,93 this orientalised pictureindeed created by the British residents at Farrukhabadwas
also a factual indication that the days of the free military labour
market of northern India were numbered.

93
For a discussion of this aspect, see R. OHanlon, Issues of Masculinity in
North Indian History: The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad, Indian Journal of Gender
Studies, 4,1 (1997), pp. 119.

THE LEGITIMATION OF KINGSHIP IN INDIA:


BUNDELKHAND
Godard Schokker

1
Between North India and the Deccan lies the extensive range of hills
called Bundelkhand. From the tenth century till the early part of the
thirteenth century this region was dominated by the Candela dynasty.1
After that local tribal chiefs styling themselves Bundelas gradually
extended their control over Bundelkhand. In the sixteenth century
the Bundelas exercised power over Bundelkhand. From that time
more becomes known about their history. During this period the
main Bundelas are in chronological order: Rudrapratpa (1501
1531), Bhraticada (15311554), Madhukara ha (15541592),
Rma ha (15921605) and Bramsiha (16051627).2 Since the
fourteenth century Gahakura, 30 miles north-east to Jhs,
had been the capital of the Bundelas. But in 1531, the last year of
his reign, Rudrapratpa moved his capital to Och situated on the
river Betav which ows into the Yamun. This geographical position of Och seems to have been more convenient for the purpose
of trade and to have oered a better prospect of participating in the
economic development of that time.
During the sixteenth century the history of the Bundelas who came
more and more to the front, became closer interwoven with that of
the contemporary sultans of Delhi: Ibrhm Lod (15171526), the
Mughals Bbar (15261530), Humyun (15301540; 15551556),
Akbar (15561605) and Jahgr (16051627), as also the Afghan
era aha who in 1540 dethroned Humyun and ruled until 1545,
the year of his death. The Bundelas constantly had to confront the

1
For the history of the Candelas see H.C. Ray, The Dynastic History of Northern
India (Early Mediaeval Period) (Calcutta, 19311936), Part 2, pp. 666737.
2
The dates mentioned here have been taken from C.E. Luard, Orchha State
Gazetteer (Lucknow 1907), pp. 1722. Their historicity, however, is not quite certain.

218

sultans of Delhi, which usually resulted in an agreement with which


the Bundelas were recognized by the sultans as their vassals.
In its early phase the historiography of the Bundelas consists of
genealogies written in Braj, a variant of Hindi. These Braj genealogies can be supplemented and partly veried by data from Persian
sources. Two genealogists are known: (1) the poet Keavadsa (1555
1617) who was attached to the Bundela court at Och, and (2)
Gore Lla or Lla Kavi (16461714), the poet laureate of king
Chatrasla (16491731), who belonged to a collateral branch of the
Bundela dynasty and resided at Pann, south-east of Khajuraho
famous for its temples. Since Gore Lla lived at a later time than
Keavadsa, the genealogy of the former covers a longer period than
that of the latter. In addition, it is more extensive. In several other
respects, too, the two genealogies are dierent. They have in common that they serve the purpose of legitimising Bundela kingship,
and that they do so from a religious point of view. But Keavadsa
has a more deliberate and coherent conception of Bundela kingship
than Gore Lla has. For this reason I shall take Keavadsas genealogy as my starting point.

2
Keavadsas conception of Bundela kingship is marked by the Bhaktimovement of that age. Bhakti literally means participation and is
used to express a relationship between man and god which bears a
personal character and is based on mutual love. Bhakti can, therefore, best be understood in the sense of love of god. It was especially directed at Rma and Ka as incarnations of the god Viu.
In this connection it may be observed that these two incarnations
show a structural dierence, on the one hand, and are complementary, on the other. While Rma is a king/god, Ka is a pastoral deity. As king Rma belongs to the established society and has
the responsibility of maintaining the dharma, the moral order of society. That means that he is bound to the dharma. On the other hand,
Ka as cowherd belongs to the wilderness and is outside of the
established society so that he by nature transcends the dharma.
Bhakti in itself is already known from ancient times. But in the
sixteenth century it experienced a strong revival and rapidly spread
all over North India. In Bundelkhand Vindhyavsin Dev, The

219

goddess dwelling in the Vindhya, had from of old been the general object of worship, and in particular the clan deity (Kula-dev) of
the Bundelas.3 She was a local form of Dev, The [great] goddess,
the spouse of the god iva and regarded as his akti, Energy. Her
cult was centred in Vindhycala, 5 miles to the west of Mirzapur
situated to the south of Benares, the ancient bulwark of ivasm. But
with a view to gaining a place in the general religious constellation
of the sixteenth century, about the middle of that century the Bundelas
in the person of the then king Madhukara ha changed over to
Bhakti. As a result, in Och a process of Viuisation started which
at the end of the sixteenth century and in the beginning of the seventeenth century led Keavadsa as the court poet of the Bundelas
to set their kingship in the perspective of Bhakti. For this purpose he
utilized a carefully considered synthesis of the Rma-bhakti and the
Ka-bhakti in accordance with which the structural dierence between
the king/god Rma and the pastoral deity Ka as well as their
simultaneous complementariness enabled him to gain an all-embracing
conception of Bundela kingship.

3
Keavadsa does not put his conception of Bundela kingship in the
form of a ready-made theory. This conception rather is to be inferred
from his works in general and his genealogy of the Bundelas in particular. Keavadsa wrote 9 works in all which according to their
genre may be classied as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Formalized Ka-lyrics in the form of two poetics.


Rma-epics.
Metrics, especially as an appendix to the Rma-epics.
Panegyric with an allegorical tendency.
Allegorical drama.

It is outside of my present purpose to go into each of Keavadsas


works separately. Characteristic of his works is that they show a
3
The earliest known work which mentions Vindhyavsin Dev is the Harivaa
(10246), a supplement to the Mahbhrata. See Nimichandra Siromani et al., The
Mahbhrata, an Epic Poem written by the Celebrated Veda Vysa Rishi (Calcutta, 1839),
Part 4.

220

combination of the two current genres of Bhakti-poetry with the panegyrical genre of bardic literature. The panegyric genre in its nature
is destined for the purpose of singing the praises of either the Bundelas themselves or Jahgr as their Mughal patron. But its allegorical tendency adds a dimension relating to Keavadsas conception
of Bundela kingship to it. The two current genres of Bhakti-poetry,
though indirectly, are also connected with this conception. For in
his Rma-epics and Ka-lyrics Keavadsa gives a literary form to
the two components of Bhakti whose synthesis underlies his conception of Bundela kingship. It is noteworthy that he puts his Kalyrics in the form of two poetics. In this connection it is well to
remember that Ka as a pastoral deity at the same time is a divine
lover, with the result that Ka-lyrics by nature bears the character of a numinous emotionality. Keavadsa, therefore, aims at making Ka-lyrics controllable and eective for his conception of Bundela
kingship by systematizing it according to the Sanskrit theory of literary esthetics.4
Keavadsas genealogy of the Bundelas is found in the following
three works:5
1. Kavipriy I, 661.
2. Vracaritra III, 2054.
3. Vijnnagt I, 1527.
The Vijnnagt, Song of praise to true knowledge (1610), is an
allegorical drama and for several reasons of interest. But since its
Bundela genealogy is strictly speaking not a genealogy, this work can
be left out of consideration. The Kavipriy, Beloved of the poets
(1601), is one of the two poetics in which Keavadsa systematizes
Ka-lyrics and treats of the theory of the gures of speech (alakrastra). The Bundela genealogy serves as an introduction to this work.
This in itself already points to the connection that exists between

4
For Keavadsas canonization of Braj Ka-lyrics, see G.H. Schokker, De
gemeenschap van de kenners tegenover de goddelijke luisteraar. De literaire esthetica van het Sanskrit en de expressie van liefde voor de god Ka in het werk van
de Hindi dichter Keavadsa, in W.L. Idema (ed.), De vorsten van het woord. Teksten
over dichterschap en pozie uit Oosterse tradities. Studies en vertalingen (Amsterdam, 1983),
pp. 7797.
5
These works have not yet been translated. For an edition of their original text,
see Vivanthaprasda Mira, Keava-Grathval (Allahabad 19541959), 3 pts.

221

Keavadsas formalized Ka-lyrics and his conception of Bundela


kingship. The Vracaritra, Deeds of Vra (1606), is an eulogy on
the above-mentioned king Brasiha and, like Keavadsas other
panegyrical works, has an allegorical tendency. The work starts with
a long dispute between Lobha and Dna, the respective personications
of desire and charity, who blame each other for ruining the world.
In the end this dispute is settled when Lobha appeals to the Vednta
tenet of the identity of giver and receiver. With this he introduces
the Bundela genealogy told by him to Dna.6
From a comparison of the genealogies of the Kavipriy and the
Vracaritra it appears that Keavadsa adapted the former for the latter. In what follows I shall start with the genealogy of the Kavipriy
and supplement it with data from the genealogy of the Vracaritra.
In doing so I shall x my attention on the opening passages from
the two genealogies which are of particular importance to understanding Keavadsas conception of Bundela kingship.

4
In the Kavipriy Keavadsa starts the Bundela genealogy with the
following three stanzas (I, 68):
At the request of Brahm and the other gods Rmacadra manifested
his incarnation in the solar race of kings in order to remove the whole
burden of the earth.
In his family, says Keavadsa, king Bra, an enemy of the Kali-yuga,
brave in battle and provided with the fame of the Gaharavras, was
born.
To him king Karana was born, who was the light of the dharma on
this earth and after conquering the entire world made Benares his
royal residence.

The rst stanza contains the traditional formulation of Rmas incarnation according to which god Rma became incarnate in order to
remove the whole burden of the earth, i.e. to restore the dharma

6
See Vracaritra II, 20 which in translation runs as follows: O Dna, receiver
and giver are one and the same. Charity and desire have one and the same cause.
In every body dwells one and the same soul. In the entire world shines one and
the same form.

222

which had fallen into decline on the earth.7 This formulation of


Rmas incarnation is connected with the Indian doctrine of the four
yugas, ages of the world, which after the four throws in dicing are
successively called Kta, Tret, Dvpara and Kali. The Kta-yuga is the
golden age of primeval perfection in which the dharma reigns. Hence,
in this age there is no need for a king. But in the subsequent three
yugas in each of which the dharma declines with a quarter, a king is
required for protecting mankind from moral chaos. In keeping with
this theory, in the Tret-yuga, the second age, god Rma became
incarnate as a king in order to restore the dharma on the earth.
According to the second stanza the rst Bundela, king Bra, was
born in Rmas family. Thus Keavadsa represents the Bundelas as
lineal descendants of the king/god Rma. This idea is one of the
two pillars of Keavadsas conception of Bundela kingship. King
Bra is said to have been an enemy of the Kali-yuga, brave in battle and provided with the fame of the Gaharavras. The Kali-yuga is
the present and last age which is aicted with moral chaos. King
Bras epithet enemy of the Kali-yuga, therefore, means that he
like his divine ancestor Rma and in keeping with his function as
kingmaintained the dharma. Maintenance of the dharma and bravery in battle, king Bras second feature, belong to the main virtues
Keavadsa constantly credits the Bundelas with. In the stanza concerned he adds that king Bra was provided with the fame of the
Gaharavras. This statement is closely connected with the third
stanza, which informs us that the son of king Bra, named Karana,
after conquering the entire world made Benares his royal residence.
Thus in the Kavipriy Keavadsa represents the Gaharavras as
supplying the link between the Bundelas who lived in the present
Kali-yuga and the king/god Rma who had become incarnate in the
long-gone Tret-yuga. From history the Gaharavras are known as
contemporaries of the above-mentioned Candelas. While in the tenth
century till the early part of the thirteenth century the Candelas

7
For the traditional motif of the Indian incarnation-doctrine, see P. Hacker, Zur
Entwicklung der Avatra-Lehre, Wiener Zeitschrift fr die Kunde Sd- und Ostasiens, 4
(1960), pp. 4770. For the treatment of this motif within the context of Bhakti see
G.H. Schokker, Die Menschwerdung Gottes in der Bhakti-Poesie, in G. Oberhammer
(ed.), Beitrge zur Hermeneutik indischer und abenlndischer Religionstraditionen. Arbeidsdokumentation
eines Symposiums, Sitzungsberichte der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Wien,
1991), Band 537, pp. 21329.

223

ruled Bundelkhand to the south of the Ganges, in the same period


the Gaharavras ruled over a region to the north of the Ganges
stretching from Kanauj up to and including Benares.8 Hence, side
by side with Kanauj, Benares was a capital of the Gaharavras.9
The statement of the Kavipriy that king Karana made Benares his
royal residence, may, therefore, be considered an allusion to that
city as the capital of the Gaharavras. Keavadsas claim that the
Bundelas were descended from the Gaharavras, will be discussed
further on. In this connection it may suce to point out that the
sphere of inuence of the Gaharavras included the region of Avadha
with its capital Ayodhy which in the Tret-yuga had been the territory of the king/god Rma. By representing the Gaharavras as
the link between the Bundelas and Rma, Keavadsa can, therefore, put his claim that the Bundelas in the Kali-yuga continued the
kingship of their divine ancestor Rma of the Tret-yuga in a concrete, territorial form.
Like in the Kavipriy, in the Vracaritra Keavadsa traces the
Bundelas back to Rma. But here he does so via Kua, the elder
of Rmas twin-sons. The passage concerned (II, 2124c) runs as
follows:
At the same time that Rma, after removing the whole burden of the
earth and reforming the actions of all people, ascended to his Vaikuhaheaven, he transferred his kingship to Kua.
Then the whole town Ayodhy became abandoned since everybody
accompanied Rma in his physical shape. Kua, therefore, went to
Kuasthal and settled there as king of the world including the ocean.
A son of Kuas family came into the area of Benares on the opposite side [of the Ganges] and took possession of it. At the sight of his
handsomeness, virtues and good conduct the inhabitants of that city
conferred kingship on him.
This was the worthy king Brabhadra. To him king Bra was born
who had king Karana as son.

This information about Rmas son Kua rests on an ancient tradition which already occurs in the Vlmki-Rmyaa.10 To the present
subject it is of particular importance that Kuasthal, Kuas place,

For the history of the Gaharavras see Ray, The Dynastic History, 1, pp. 50449.
See Ray, The Dynastic History, 1, pp. 5078.
10
See H. Jacobi, Das Rmyaa. Geschichte und Inhalt nebst Concordanz der gedruckten
Recensionen (Bonn, 1893), p. 205.
9

224

which in the Vlmki-Rmyaa is mentioned by the name of Kuavat,


is supposed to have been situated on the summit of the Vindhya.
This suggests that Keavadsa used the tradition of the VlmkiRmyaa that Kua transferred the seat of his reign from Ayodhy
to Kuavat, to demonstrate that Rmas own son Kua laid the
foundation for Bundela kingship in Bundelkhand. According to the
Vracaritra the rst Bundela as a son of Kuas family came into
the area of Benares on the opposite side of the Ganges, took possession of it and on account of his excellent features was made king
by the inhabitants of that city. Although, in contrast to the Kavipriy,
the passage of the Vracaritra under discussion does not mention the
Gaharavras by name, it may be seen in the light of the fact that
in the Kavipriy the Bundelas and the Gaharavras are expressly
brought into connection. The development outlined in the Vracaritra
then comes to this that Rmas son Kua laid the foundation for
Bundela kingship in Bundelkhand, and that the rst Bundela as a
son of Kuas family again crossed the Ganges and became a
Gaharavra king of Benares.
As regards this rst Bundela, it is remarkable that in the Vracaritra,
unlike in the Kavipriy, he is not called Bra but Brabhadra, and
that in the former work Bra himself is said to be the son of Brabhadra.
Both works have it that Karana is Bras son. But while according
to the Kavipriy it was Karana who made Benares his royal residence, according to the Vracaritra Brabhadra, Karanas grandfather,
had already become king of Benares. That Keavadsa in the Vracaritra
pushes up the Bundela genealogy with one generation, may be
accounted for by the fact that according to the legend of the origin
of the Bundelas which from of old had been current in Bundelkhand,
Brabhadra holds a key position in their descent from the Gaharavras.
This legend centres in the above-mentioned cult of Vindhyavsin
Dev as the clan deity and protectress of the Bundelas. Hence, the
legend is diametrically opposed to Keavadsas own view that the
Bundelas are lineal descendants of the king/god Rma. As a result,
he never breathes a word of it. But at the time of the conception
of the Vracaritra, the legend evidently still had such a great inuence
that in this work he felt obliged to show beyond question that
Brabhadra who according to the legend took a key position in the
relationship between the Bundelas and the Gaharavras, was really
a lineal descendant of Rma.

225

5
There exist dierent versions of the legend in question. But the earliest known version occurs in Gore Llas Bundela genealogy called
Chatrapraka, Splendour of Chatra (1714).11 Like the Vracaritra, the
Chatrapraka traces the Bundelas via Kua back to Rma.12 But the
two works also show distinct dierences. Thus the Chatrapraka lacks
the tradition Keavadsa in the Vracaritra took from the VlmkiRmyaa that Kua transferred the seat of his reign from Ayodhy
to Kuavat.13 Further the Vracaritra mentions Brabhadra as the rst
son of Kuas family who became king of Benares. On the other
hand, the Chatrapraka represents Brabhadra as the last but one
descendant of Kua who as Gaharavra king in fact still reigned in
Benares.14 Finally the Vracaritra has it that Brabhadra had Bra as
son. But according to the Chatrapraka Brabhadra had two wives.
To the rst wife four unnamed sons were born, and to the second
wife one son called Pacama, The fth, was born.15 After that the
Chatrapraka relates a legend which describes Pacama as the actual
founder of the Bundela dynasty by linking him up with Vindhyavsin
Dev.16
According to this legend Pacama was the favourite son of
Brabhadra and, though being the youngest son, made by his father
his heir. But on Brabhadras death Pacamas four brothers rebelled
against him, dispossessed him of his properties and divided the kingdom into four parts. Thereupon Pacama had recourse to Vindhyavsin Dev in her temple at Vindhycala and for a long time practised
all sorts of severe asceticism in order to win her favour. Ultimately

11
This work has not yet been edited in its original Braj text but is only known
from a translation by W.R. Pogson, A History of the Boondelas (Calcutta, 1828).
12
See Pogson, A History, pp. 45.
13
According to the Chatrapraka (Pogson, A History, p. 5) Kua and seven of his
successive descendants stayed on at Ayodhy and it was only Kuas eighth descendant who settled in Benares. However, the names of the descendants of Kuas as
mentioned in the Chatrapraka do not correspond with those as mentioned in an
early Sanskrit standard work like the Viu Pura. Cf. H.H. Wilson, The Vishn
Pura, a System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition translated from the original Sanskrit and
illustrated by Notes chiey derived from other Puras (London, 1840), p. 386.
14
See Pogson, A History, p. 5.
15
Ibid.
16
See Pogson, A History, pp. 58.

226

he decided to oer himself in sacrice to her. When he was about


to kill himself and with his sword had already inicted an injury on
himself, Vindhyavsin Dev revealed herself in her full glory to him.
Pacamas complete devotion to her had induced her to prevent
him from oering himself in sacrice to her. To the drop of blood
that from his wound had fallen to the ground she added a portion
of amta, nectar, by which the blood was animated and assumed
the shape of a child which was the very image of Pacama. At the
sight of the child she was lled with maternal love for it and suckled it. Then she blessed Pacama and the child, and in remembrance of the drop (buda) of blood she said, Your descendants will
be called Bundelas. And after assuring Pacama of her favour and
support, as also of success in all his enterprises, she gave him permission to leave. Accordingly Pacama defeated his brothers, retook
his properties and ruled righteously over them.
The name Pacama, The fth, seems to provide a clue to the
explanation of this legend. As may be known, the number 5 can
stand for the totality implied in the number 4 as a symbol of the
four points of the compass.17 From this viewpoint Pacamas four
brothers seem to represent the four points of the compass of the
Gaharavra kingdom, and Pacama himself, the favourite son of
his father and made by him his heir, seems to embody the totality
of Gaharavra kingship. Thus Pacama takes a unique position
which makes him vulnerable, on the one hand, and enables him to
transcend the status quo of Gaharavra kingship, on the other. Pacama
is vulnerable because of the unusual fact that he, though being the
youngest son, is made by his father his heir. It is true that this occurs
more often but it is to be considered a deviation of the general
rule.18 Pacamas heirship has the eect that on his fathers death
his four brothers do not recognize him and dispossess him of his
properties. The other side of the picture is his ability to transcend
the status quo of Gaharavra kingship. As a result, with the aid of

17
For the function of the number 5 as a symbol of totality in the Veda and the
Mahbhrata, see respectively F.B.J. Kuiper, The Three Strides of Viu, in
E. Bender (ed.), Indological Studies in Honor of W. Norman Brown (American Oriental Studies,
47 (1962)) p. 148; and G.J. Held, The Mahbhrata. An Ethnological Study (Amsterdam,
1935), p. 120.
18
See P.V. Kane, History of Dharmastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil
Law) (Poona 1946), Part 3, pp. 414.

227

Vindhyavsin Dev, he reconquers his kingdom andas is the core


of the legend!inaugurates the new era of the Bundela dynasty.
The legend links up the Bundelas represented as descendants of
the Gaharavras with their new territory and expresses this in terms
of the intervention of Vindhyavsin Dev, the feminine divine principle residing in the Vindhya. According to the version of the legend found in the Chatrapraka the intervention of the goddess was
only achieved by Pacamas willingness to oer his life in sacrice
to her. But other versions have it that he had to win her favour by
human sacrices. The version of the Chatrapraka, therefore, seems
to be based on a mitigated representation of the originally violent
character of the cult of Vindhyavsin Dev. Signicant of this is the
fact that about the beginning of the twentieth century the Bundela
court at Och itself still rejected the version of the Chatrapraka as
a brahmanic or bardic fabrication.19
In the Chatrapraka Gore Lla makes no scruple in combining the
origin of the Bundelas as explained in the legend of Pacama with
their simultaneous descent from the king/god Rma. But, as noted,
Keavadsa disposes of the legend because of his view that the
Bundelas are lineal descendants of Rma. This marked dierence
between Gore Lla and Keavadsa may be accounted for by the
fact that, in contrast to Gore Lla, Keavadsa expressly includes
the territory of the Bundelas in his view of their lineal descent from
Rma. In this connection it is well to remember that Gore Lla
does not adopt the tradition of the Vlmki-Rmyaa that Kua transferred the seat of his reign from Ayodhy to Kuavati, but that
Keavadsa uses this tradition to demonstrate that Rmas own son
laid the foundation for Bundela kingship in Bundelkhand. According
to Keavadsa the Bundelas derive their right to their territory to
their descent from Rmas son Kua. Consequently, Keavadsas
conception of their kingship oers no scope for Vindhyavsin Dev
as their territorial divine protectress.
On the other hand, Keavadsa cannot entirely disregard Vindhyavsin Dev on account of her old-established and deep-rooted cult.
This appears from the sequel to his Bundela genealogy in the Vracaritra.
Here he puts the description of king Brasihas heroic acts into the

19

See Luard, Orchha State Gazetteer, p. 12.

228

mouth of Vindhyavsin Dev designated as the clan deity of the


Bundelas.20 According to a current procedure he thus reduces the
from old predominant position of the clan deity of the Bundelas to
the subordinate role of narrating their history.

6
The foregoing raises the question as to the historicity of the descent
of the Bundelas from the Gaharavras as claimed by both Keavadsa and Gore Lla. Here it should be established at the outset that
neither Brabhadra nor his son Bra described by Keavadsa in
the Vracaritra are known from the history of the Gaharavras. Since
Pacama referred to by Gore Lla in the Chatrapraka is the subject
of a legend, he, too, cannot be identied with a historical Gaharavra.
But it is a striking fact that Gore Lla represents Brabhadra as the
last but one descendant of Rmas son Kua who as Gaharavra
king still reigned at Benares.
From history it is known that the last Gaharavra king of Benares
was Jayacandra who is much praised in bardic literature. In 1194
he was defeated and killed by sultan Muhammad Ghr at Candrvara
near the Yamun, in the Etawah District.21 This meant the fall of
the Gaharavra dynasty. However, from the time after Jayacandras
death two inscriptions of the Gaharavras are known.22 Both inscriptions date from 1197. The rst inscription mentions Haricandra,
the son of Jayacandra, as donor and has been found in Machalahara,
in the Jawnpur District. The second inscription has been discovered
in Belkhara, 12 miles to the southeast of Cunra, in the Mirzapur
District. Although in the second inscription the donor is not mentioned by name, he is supposed to be identical with the donor of
the rst inscription. From the geographic position of the places where
the inscriptions have been found, it may be inferred that Haricandra, the son of Jayacandra, even after the fall of the Gaharavra

20

See Vracaritra III, 5.


See P. Spear, The Oxford History of India by the Late Vincent A. Smith (Oxford
1958), p. 210. But according to Ray the battle at Candrvara already took place
in 1193 (Ray, The Dynastic History, 1, p. 542).
22
See Ray, The Dynastic History, 1, pp. 5447.
21

229

dynasty still exercised some power in the more inaccessible parts of


the former Gaharavra kingdom.
In connection with the subject in question it is noteworthy that
the Mirzapur District where Belkhara, the nding place of the second inscription, is situated belongs to the region of Bundelkhand.
The question, therefore, arises as to how far the tradition of the
Bundela genealogies that the Bundelas are descended from the
Gaharavras, may be connected with the historical development outlined above. In the present state of knowledge it seems to be impossible to answer this question. About Jayacandras son Haricandra
no more details seem to be known. But according to tradition he
stands for the re-establishment of a destroyed illustrious dynasty.
There exist dierent traditions about him. Characteristic of these traditions is that they do not designate him by his actual name but by
a ctitious name. To the subject concerned it is interesting to consider the tradition of the Rhora Rajputs at Jodhpur, in Rajasthan.
The Rhora Rajputs claim to be descended from the Gaharavra
king Jayacandra, and their bards designate Jayacandras son by his
ctitious names of Sit-Rma, veta-Rma or Seta-Rma.23 That
means that this tradition links up Jayacandras son with the Rmacult. The tradition of the Bundela genealogies that the Bundelas are
descended from the Gaharavras seems to be comparable to that of
the Rhora Rajputs. But in contrast to the tradition of the Rhora
Rajputs, the Bundela genealogies do not mention the historical king
Jayacandra but a king Brabhadra who is unknown from the history
of the Gaharavras. This weak spot in the Bundela genealogies is
for the time being unaccountable. An important point of resemblance
between the Bundela genealogies and the tradition of the Rhora
Rajputs is that they do not only legitimate their respective dynasties
by tracing them back to the same illustrious dynasty but also by setting them in the perspective of Rma-bhakti. This shows that the way
in which the Bundela genealogies legitimate kingship is not an isolated case but more a general phenomenon.

23

See A. Cunningham, Report of Tours in the Gangetic Provinces from Badaon to Bihar
in 187576 and 187778, Archaeological Survey of India, 11 (1880), p. 129.

230

In his legitimation of Bundela kingship Keavadsa does not conne


himself to tracing the Bundelas via the Gaharavras back to the
king/god Rma. Signicant of this is that in the Kavipriy he follows
up the Bundela genealogy by a genealogy of his own family, the
Sanhya brahmans. The rst four stanzas of the latter genealogy
(II, 14) run as follows:
From the mind of the venerable Brahm Sanaka and his other [three]
sons were born. From their mind in the beginning all Sanhyas were
born.
Then Paraurma, the son of Bhgu, washed their feet [as a token of
worship] and, considering them excellent brahmans, bestowed 72 villages on them.
The Puricator of the world and Lord of the Vaikuha-heaven,
called Rmacandra, presented them with 700 villages in the Mathur
District.
In the Kali-yuga [Ka], the supreme ornament to the Yadu clan of
the lunar race of kings and Lord of the three worlds and men, gave
them exactly the same beautiful villages back.

With an allusion to the name Sanhya of his family Keavadsa


traces his ancestors via Sanaka and Brahms other three mind-born
sons back to Brahm himself. In the second stanza he states that
Paraurma, Rma with the axe, Vius sixth incarnation in the
Tret-yuga and known as a champion of the brahmans, considered
the Sanhyas to be excellent brahmans and, therefore, bestowed
72 villages on them. According to the third stanza in the same yuga
Rma presented them with 700 villages in the Mathur District. The
last statement is of particular importance since thereby Keavadsa
localizes the Sanhyas at the time of the Tret-yuga, the second age
of the world, in the very region that in the following Dvpara-yuga
will become Kas Holy Land. It is a little dicult to interprete
the fourth stanza. But the purport of the stanza seems to be that
Ka himself legitimated the landed property in his Holy Land
which the Sanhyas had received from Rma, with the result that
in the Kali-yuga, too, they would have a right to it.
In the above passage Keavadsa with a grip embracing all yugas
outlines the place of the Sanhyas according to divine guidance.
He does so by bringing Rma and Ka into connection, in the
sense that in the Dvpara-yuga Ka in the Mathur District re-

231

established the kingdom of heaven which in the previous Tret-yuga


had been founded by Rma in Avadha. In this connection it is well
to remember the above-mentioned structural dierence existing
between the king/god Rma and the pastoral deity Ka. This
dierence implies one between the character of their rules. Since
Rma as king belongs to the established society and has the responsibility of restoring and maintaining the dharma, the moral order of
society, in spite of his divinity his rule remains bound to the world.
On the other hand, Ka as cowherd is outside of the established
society and by nature exceeds the dharma, with the result that his
rule bears a transcendent character.
In Keavadsas view the Bundelas are descended from the king/god
Rma and, following the steps of Rmas son Kua, continue Rmas
kingship in Bundelkhand. But since Rmas kingship itself is bound
to the world, this cannot fully legitimate Bundela kingship. On the
other hand, in the above passage Keavadsa expresses the idea that
in the Tret-yuga the king/god Rma had meant the Sanhya brahmans to clear the way for the transcendent rule to be established
by the pastoral deity Ka in the Mathur District in the next
Dvpara-yuga, and that Ka sanctioned their participation in it. That
means that the Sanhyas as brahmans derive their spiritual authority from Ka. Thus they, and with them Keavadsa himself, are
ultimately able to legitimate Bundela kingship which itself is bound
to the world.
This conception can only be eective for Bundela kingship since
Ka on account of the very fact that he as a pastoral deity bears
a transcendent character, at the same time is the divine mediator
par excellence who in the part of lover is nearest to man.24 As noted,
Ka lends spiritual authority to the Sanhya brahmans as participants in his transcendent rule. In his capacity of divine mediator
he is equally in a position to connect the spiritual authority of the
Sanhya brahmans with the temporal power of the Bundelas.
This raises the question as to how the divine mediator may be
induced to do so. In his formalized Ka-lyrics Keavadsa seeks
to solve this problem for the benet of Bundela kingship. This may
be illustrated by his second treatise on poetry, the Rasikapriy, Beloved

24

For Ka as the divine mediator see Held, The Mahbhrata, p. 175.

232

of the connoisseurs of literary moods (1591), wherein he systematizes Braj Ka-lyrics according to the Sanskrit theory of literary
moods (rasa-stra). In the introduction to this work (I, 14) he states
that he aims at composing such a feeling poetry that it can bring
the mind of the clever Ka under control.25
Keavadsas conception of Bundela kingship furnishes an instructive example of how at the end of the sixteenth century and in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, in an Indian state a balance
between temporal and spiritual authority was sought on the basis of
a synthesis of two structurally dierent but simultaneously complementary forms of religious worship. This threw a new light on the
old precarious relationship between king and brahman. In Keavadsas
view the king stands for the king/god Rma, while the brahman
participates in the transcendent rule of pastoral deity and divine
mediator Ka, thus granting ultimate authority to the king.

25
For a more detailed discussion of this subject, see G.H. Schokker, The Control
of the Uncontrollable, in M.K. Gautam and G.H. Schokker (eds.), Bhakti in Current
Research 19821985 (Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Delhi, 2001), pp. 13543.

THE SHORT CAREER OF WALTER DICKENS IN INDIA1


Dick Kooiman

The East is a career. That saying could often be heard in nineteenth-century England. The East meant the Asian colonies, and
foremost among them British India. In utter disregard of its huge
population, long history and rich culture, the saying reduced India
to a eld of opportunity for enterprising British who wanted to make
a career in colonial administration, military service or business life.
Hidden behind that saying, however, still lay another possibility: all
those who proved unable to make a decent living at home or had
even become socially undesirable could as a last resort always escape
to India or another colony to try their luck. The career-maker as
well as the fortune-hunter are types we frequently come across when
studying Charles Dickens, both in his ction and in his family life.
Already in an early work such as the Pickwick Papers, the colonies
turn out to oer a welcome alternative to those seeking the success
that had eluded them at home. The medical students Bob Sawyer
and Ben Allen happen to pass their examinations, thanks to a temporary blindness of their teachers, but to the great relief of their
patients their practice in Bristol goes bankrupt. Thereupon the two
friends leave for Bengal, both gentlemen having received surgical
appointments from the East India Company. In the nal chapters
of David Coppereld, fallen women like Emily and Martha get the
opportunity to start a new life in the colonies, at the same time purifying England of their shame. The best-known example of adventurers leaving for Australia undoubtedly is Mr. Micawber from the
same book. After England has failed to provide him with an employment opportunity that oers sucient scope to all his manifold talents, he and his family embark for Australia in the rm conviction
that something will turn up over there.
Dickens was not only looking to the colonies as a solution for
dicult cases in his ction, he also used them for private problems
1

An earlier version of this article appeared in The Dickensian, 98 (2002), pp. 1429.

234

in his own family life. The sons of Dickens were, with one exception, not very successful in their social careers. At their baptisms
they received impressive names, but in later life they generally proved
unable to live up to the expectations thus raised. They tried all kinds
of jobs and occupations, but most of them without success, and to
the great dismay of their father they were constantly plagued by
debt. Another remarkable fact is that Asia, and especially India,
played a large part in the Dickens family.
Dickenss sixth son, Harry (Henry Fielding), was the sole exception to the family rule. He was clever and energetic, and made the
best of both assets. His father intended him to join the Indian Civil
Service, the prestigious colonial steelframe, but Henry preferred a
career as a lawyer and proved rather successful in that profession.
One of the sons that did go to India was Frank (Francis Jerey).
After several attempts in business, publishing and even the Ministry
of Foreign Aairs had failed, he nally joined the Bengal Mounted
Police. After his fathers death, he returned to England, but to the
great relief of his embarrassed family soon left again, this time to
join the Canadian Mounties. Alfred (dOrsay Tennyson) and the
youngest son Plorn (Edward Bulwer Lytton) also were not very fortunate in their pursuits in England and successively set sail for
Australia, where they led a rather inconspicuous existence. Dickenss
second son, Walter Landor, left for India as a military cadet in 1857.
There his eldest brother Charles (Culliford Boz) came to visit him
a few years later. Charles was travelling through Asia to buy a large
amount of tea, but he failed miserably as an importer. Sydney (Smith
Haldimand), maybe the most reckless spender of all the Dickens children, chose the navy as the scene of his failure and died young.2
In this contribution to the volume our main attention will be
focused on Walter Dickens. Contrary to Sol Gills nephew (Dombey
and Son), this Walter was never to return home. After a brief military career he died in Calcutta in 1863. What I want to discuss here
is the connection between Charles Dickens and India as manifested
in the short life of Walter. Unfortunately, there is not much information available on the Indian experiences of this son of Dickens.
2
Information about Dickens sons in Edgar Johnson (ed.), Letters from Charles Dickens
to Angela Burdett-Coutts: 18411865 (London, 1953), pp. 16, 378; Idem, Charles Dickens:
His Tragedy and Triumph (London, 1977), pp. 522, 559, and Martin Fido, Charles
Dickens: An authentic account of his life and times (London, no date), pp. 959.

235

His letters from India have not been preserved. In his own correspondence, however, Dickens often referred to Walters preparations
for India and his military adventures in the East. Also, the Oriental
and India Oce Collections of the British Library in London, the place
where I rst met Dirk Kol many years ago, hold some precious
papers that document part of Walters life as servant of the East
India Company. Aided by this scanty source material I will try to
give an outline of Walters Indian career.
It is absolutely impossible to discuss the link between India and
the Dickens family without mentioning the name of Miss Angela
Burdett-Coutts. In her personal descent Miss Burdett-Coutts combined the dignity of an old family with the wealth of rich bankers.
As heir to an immense fortune and with connections in the highest
circles she was an eagerly sought-after marriage-partner. In spite of
that, she was not to marry before old age. The major part of her
active life was devoted to social and philanthropic work, like the
improvement of sanitary arrangements in slum areas and the rehabilitation of prostitutes. In these endeavours Charles Dickens became
her most determined supporter and assistant. She had made his
acquaintance shortly after his rise to fame and they were to become
trusted friends and regular correspondents. According to Fido, she
was the only woman whom Dickens treated with respect as an intellectual equal, without romantic idealisation.3 More than 500 letters
from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts have been preserved and a
large part of them have been published in a volume by Edgar
Johnson. As she was also actively interested in the education of the
children of the Dickens family, he regularly reported to her their
progress and achievements at school. For any research on Walter
and his Indian adventures these letters represent a valuable source
of information.
The link between Miss Burdett-Coutts and India was established
by the East India Company (EIC). In the rst part of the nineteenth
century, this commercial organization was extending its power over
the Indian subcontinent by pursuing a vigorous policy of territorial
annexation. The EIC was a multinational enterprise with large administrative powers, only remotely controlled by the British Parliament.
Together with the Bank of England the EIC formed the nancial
3
Quoted in Fido, Charles Dickens, p. 76. A brief summary of Miss Angela BurdettCoutts life can be found in the introduction to Johnson, Letters.

236

foundation under the City of London. From the registers of this EIC
one may conclude that Miss Burdett-Coutts was a large shareholder.
In the 1850sand most probably much earliershe held more than
3000 in Company shares, which entitled her to a double vote in
the meeting of shareholders. Apart from that, it qualied her for the
position of a Director, although that was not a very obvious choice
at that time. She was however, well-acquainted with several ociating
Company Directors and could use these inuential connections to
confer appointments on people she personally preferred. On her
request, John Loch, one of the Directors of the EIC, used his right
of patronage to grant Walter, the son of Mr. Charles Dickens the
author, a direct appointment as cadet for Bengal (1856).4 That did
not mean that Walter was exempted from the necessary entrance
examination.
Walter had been born on 8 February 1841, when the Dickens
family was still living at Devonshire Terrace. He was named after
Dickenss friend Walter Savage Landor at Bath, where Dickens had
stayed some time the year before.5 His father described him as not
so quick or sensitive and with no uncommon abilities, but a hardworking, patient capable child, who will always do his duty with
great punctuality and a high sense of responsibility. When Walter
was only eight years old, Dickens was already pondering the question of the future for which he had to prepare this son. It was Miss
Burdett-Coutts who suggested for him a military career in India and
Dickens responded eagerly. He gave her as his opinion that Walter
was better tted for life in India than his brother Charles and in
any case much more safely to be left to himself. In conclusion he
assured her: I feel certain he would strive on and do well in India.6
Like Charles, Walter attended Kings Private School in St. Johns
Wood, where Kings own daughter taught classical languages as a

4
Oriental and India Oce Collections (OIOC), L/MIL/9/241, Letter from
John Loch to John Hollyer, Clerk for Passing Cadets and Assistant-Surgeons, East
India House, 6 March 1856, f. 495.
5
Letter from Charles Dickens to his wife Catherine, Bath, 1 March 1840, in
Walter Dexter (ed.), Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens: His letters to her (London, 1935), pp.
89. See also J.W.T. Ley, Dickens and Walter Savage Landor: A Much Esteemd
Friend, The Dickensian 12 (1916), pp. 14554.
6
Letters from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts, Devonshire Terrace, 7 December
1849; and Folkestone, 18 June 1854, in Johnson, Letters, pp. 156, 266. For a sketch
of Walters character, ibidem, p. 16.

237

more pleasant version of Miss Cornelia Blimber (Dombey and Son).7


At rst, Addiscombe Military College was considered as the most
suitable place for Walter to prepare for India. As it seemed unlikely
that Walter would attain high distinction at this college, he was
nally sent to Wimbledon School (1855), founded and managed by
Rev. John M. Brackenbury (Cambridge) and Rev. Charles J. Wynne
(Oxford).8 This establishment trained boys for the British Army
artillery and engineers, but also for Indian cadetships. It is dicult
to give any comment on the educational level of this school. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that when Walter visited his father
in France in January 1856, he was deaf to such an extent that
Dickens immediately sent him to an aurist. That specialist expressed
his surprise that Walters reduced hearing had not brought itself to
the attention of his schoolmasters in artillery and fortications. The
treatment gave considerable improvement, but his hearing remained
delicate.9
Walter did very well at school. In the summer of 1856 Dickens
informed his friend Walter Savage Landor that his namesake had
brought home a prize in triumph and would be eligible to go up
for his India examination soon after next Easter. Dickens continued:
Having a direct appointment, he will probably be sent out after he
has passed, and so will fall into that strange life up the country,
before he well knows he is alive, which indeed seems to be rather an
advanced stage of knowledge.10

Dickens kindly declined the nancial support, oered by Miss BurdettCoutts for Walters preparations for India, but was tenderly touched
by her generous gesture. He answered in reply that Walter would
be ready for his examination in March 1857, and that it would be

Fido, Charles Dickens, p. 95.


Letters from Dickens to Miss Burdett Coutts, Devonshire Terrace, 10 January
1850; Broadstairs Kent, 22 August 1851; and Folkestone, 18 June 1854, in Johnson,
Letters, pp. 159, 186, 266. See also Johnson, Charles Dickens, p. 445.
9
Letter from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts, Paris, 10 January 1856, in
Madeline House, Graham Storey and Kathleen Tillotson (eds.), The Letters of Charles
Dickens, Vol. 8: 18561858 (Oxford, 1995), p. 17. Dickens had earlier mentioned
Walters defective sense of hearing in a letter to his wife Catherine (Tavistock House,
16 December 1855), in Dexter, Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens, p. 239.
10
Letter from Dickens to Walter Savage Landor, Boulogne, 5 July 1856, in
House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 152.
8

238

far better for his health, certainly for his spirits, and no less for his
duties to leave immediately after.
The staying with his brothers and sisters with that unsettled purpose
on him and cloud of departure hanging over him, would do him no
good . . .11

At the close of the year 1856 Dickens addressed a letter to W.J.


Eastwick whoprobably at the request of Miss Burdett-Couttshad
done something, or had at least oered to do something, in Walters
favour. Mr. Eastwick had left for India as a cadet in 1827 but now,
almost thirty years later, he had become one of the EIC Directors.
Dickens expressed his appreciation for the kindest of letters received
from Mr. Eastwick and called it his good fortune to receive many
of the greatest spontaneous rewards that can attend an authors life.
At the same time, he made use of this opportunity to recommend
to the EICs attention another son as a prospective cadet for India,
viz. Alfred, whom he said to have always purposed to send abroad,
and whom he believed to be particularly qualied for an Indian
career.12
In the meantime, the examination of Walter was drawing near
and the necessary preparations had to be made. Forms had to be
completed that could be collected at the East India House, the EIC
headquarters. It was situated at Leadenhall Street, just round the
corner of the oces of Dombey and Son. In 1862 this East India
House was demolished and replaced by a new building in Petticoat
Lane, close to the original site. Dickens greatly resented visiting a
large and bustling oce like the East India House, teeming with
suggestions of precious stus and stones, . . . palmtrees, palanquins,
and georgeous princes of a brown complexion . . . (Dombey and Son),
and asked his right-hand in journalistic aairs, William H. Wills,
to fetch the forms for him. I get so mobbed if I go to a place of
that sort myself , Dickens wrote in explanation on 9 February 1857,13
11
Letters from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts, summer 1856, quotation from
Letter Tavistock House, 3 October 1856, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters,
Vol. 8, p. 198.
12
Letter from Dickens to William J. Eastwick, Tavistock House, 21 December
1856, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 241. In 1858 Eastwick was to
become Member of the newly-founded Council of India. He was the author of Lord
Lytton and the Afghan War (1879).
13
Letter from Dickens to W.H. Wills, Tavistock House, 9 February 1857, in
House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 279.

239

most probably imagining the threatening spectre of another Circumlocution Oce.


On February 14th Dickens completed and signed the parents
certicate on the printed form. Thereupon he forwarded the papers
to Miss Burdett-Coutts as she was the one who had recommended
Walter for nomination to the EIC. These application forms with
enclosures are part of the Cadet Papers series that are preserved
at the Oriental and India Oce Collections in London.14 Although these
papers are in a very bad condition by now, I got permissionafter
some gentle pressureto peruse them, and like gold leaves they were
scrupulously spread out before me in the Special Reading Room of
the India Oce. As a long-time admirer of Charles Dickens I felt
a thrill of sensation to see before me the papers that so long ago
Dickens and his son had completed with their own hand.
On the rst page Walter signed the humble petition, showing
that he was desirous of entering the military service of the Company
and promising that, should he be so fortunate as to appear eligible
for such appointment, he would conduct himself with delity and
honour. Next came the Directors nomination which said:
I, John Loch, Esq., being one of the Directors of the East India Company,
beg leave to present the Petitioner Walter Landor Dickens as a Cadet for
the Bengal Infy on one of my nominations of the Season provided he
shall appear to you eligible for that station; and I do declare, that
from the character given of him by Miss Burdett Coutts who certies
that he is well acquainted with his family, character and connexions,
he is, in my opinion, a t person to petition the East India Company
for the appointment he now herein solicits.15

The remaining part of the rst and the second page contained printed
questions that Walter had to answer himself. They referred to his
education and travelling insurance, and asked him to guarantee that
his appointment was obtained by proper means. After the question
What is the profession, situation, and residence of your Parents or
nearest of Kin, Walter simply lled in: My father Charles Dickens

14
OIOC, L/MIL/9/241, Applications for East India Company Cadetships, .
4938.
15
The underlined names have been entered on the printed form in handwriting. The space behind the Season remained empty. The form does not seem to
have made allowance for women as recommending persons, as it gave only he.

240

Esq., Tavistock House. On the third and last page Miss BurdettCoutts certied that she had received Walters nomination as a cadet
for Bengal gratuitously and expressly, being well acquainted with
his family. At the backside of the last page Dickens testied that
Walter was his son and that the appointment of Walter was received
through the gratuitous solicitation of Miss Burdett-Coutts without
any payment being made. Witness my hand, 1421857.
The application papers contain some enclosures. An extract from
the Register Book of Baptisms of the Parish of Saint Marylebone
states that Walter was born on 8 February 1841 as son of Charles
J.H. Dickens and Catherine Thomson. This rendering of his mothers
name would cling tenaciously to all later EIC documents relating to
Walter. Also, on 23 March 1857 a medical certicate was added to
the le and a testimonial by John Brackenbury of the Wimbledon
School, stating that Walter had been instructed in the knowledge of
his religious duties.
In this way all requirements for an application had been met, yet
Walter still had to go up for his India examination. That took
place on 7 April 1857 and he passed successfully. To Walters Cadet
Papers a certicate of the EIC Military College was added saying
that he was examined and found qualied for admission into the
East India Companys service. The certicate was signed by three
Professors who were specialists in Mathematics and Classics, Fortication and French.16
A few days later Dickens wrote a letter to Miss Burdett-Coutts
telling her that Walter had returned home radiant and gleaming.
He had passed his examination in a most creditable manner and
was one of a small number of boys out of a large number who had
emerged from the Ordeal triumphant. Dickens added that Walter
was anxious that I should tell Miss Coutts that he hadnt been
spunwhich means rejected.17
Thereupon, a period of hectic activity began for Walter. During
the few months that rested before his departure his father arranged
for his learning to swim, to ride, to fence, and to become acquainted
with the use of gun and pistol, a skill that seems to have been
16
OIOC, L/MIL/9/241, Walter Dickens Examination Certicate of the Companys Military College, 7 April 1856, f. 497.
17
Letter from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts, Gravesend, 9 April 1857, in
House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 311.

241

neglected at the Wimbledon Artillery School. Dickens also wanted


him to go in for a trie of Hindustanee and for that purpose he
sent his son to Charles P.H. Rieu, a specialist in oriental languages
from Geneva, who worked in the British Museum Department of
Manuscripts and was appointed at the University College London
the same year. Invitations to Walter from Mr. Beadnell (the father
of Maria, the love of Dickens youth) for a stay in Surrey, and from
Miss Burdett-Coutts for a photograph visit were kindly declined.
Walter was too much occupied with his preparations and his father
thought it better that he had a few quiet hours with his brothers
who had just come home from Boulogne after a years absence.18
On 20 July Walter set sail for India aboard the Indus, a ship of
the well-known Peninsular & Oriental Line. Dickens, along with
his eldest son Charles but without his wife Catherine, went to
Southampton to bid him farewell. The taking leave was far from
easy, both at Gads Hill where the family now resided and aboard
ship, but Walter recovered directly and his father restrained his pride.
He wrote to a friend:
I left the poor fellow on board the Indus yesterday, in good spirits
as little cast down as, at 16, one could reasonably hope to be with
the world of India before one.19

On board Walter immediately found an old schoolfellow and Dickens


had a talk with the captain who assured him that Walter should
have every possible protection and assistance. A few years later
Dickens was to describe a visit to a departing ship of emigrants,
published in The Uncommercial Traveller (XX), which bears a strong
resemblance to Walters departure, the conversation with the captain included.
When Dickens and his son took leave, they seem to have been
unaware of the violent uprising that was changing India into a battle eld. The annexation of large parts of the subcontinent and the
heavy taxation imposed on the peasant population had produced

18
Correspondence summer 1857, especially Letter to Mr George Beadnell, Gads
Hill, 5 June 1857 and Letter to Miss Burdett-Coutts, Tavistock House, 10 July
1857, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, pp. 341., 372. Also Johnson,
Letters, p. 343.
19
Letter from Dickens to John Deane, Gads Hill, 21 July 1857, in House
et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 382.

242

wide-spread feelings of unrest. The EIC further contributed to that


unrest by taking measures that the Indian population could only perceive as dangerous to its religion and culture. In the Companys
Army, the creation of which has been described in Dirk Kol s
Ph.D. thesis,20 tensions were also building up. Service conditions
were bad and language problems frustrated the solidarity between
British ocers and the largely Indian rank and le. In these strained
circumstances a new rie was introduced the use of which required
the biting of greased cartridges. The awkward question was: where
did the fat come from? There were many brahmans and other high
caste men serving the Bengal Army who shuddered at the thought
that it might be beef fat, whereas pig fat, on the other hand, would
mean insult to the Muslim soldiers. In that atmosphere of uncertainty, at the end of May 1857 a mutiny broke out which would
spread over large parts of northern India and was to push Company
rule to the verge of extinction
It is uncertain whether Walter at his departure could have known
what in India was waiting for him. The exchange of information
between Europe and South Asia went by ship and it took about six
weeks before any news from India had reached London. On 27
Julythus one week after Walters departurethe House of Commons
was for the rst time apprised of the Indian Mutiny by Disreali.
Undoubtedly, there must have been earlier reports on developments
in India in the British press. However, Dickens never showed any
undue interest in India. Also, the information on Walter he passed
on to others does not suggest that he realized how critical the situation was. Walter wrote letters from Gibraltar and Malta, but the
only thing Dickens mentioned in his correspondence was that Walter
seems to have become habituated to his new life, with wonderful
ease.21
In the meantime the mutineers in India had laid siege to the town
of Lucknow ( June 1857). At the end of the same month they captured another important town, Kanpur, and brutally murdered all
European inhabitants, women and children included. These alarm-

20
D.H.A. Kol, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market
in Hindustan, 14501850 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 178.
21
Letter from Dickens to W.J. Eastwick, Tavistock House, 1981857, in House
et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, pp. 416417. Walter travelled via Malta and the
overland Suez-route.

243

ing events found their echo in Dickenss reference to these distracted Indian times in a letter dated 4 September.22 Walter had
sent a third letter from Suez, but on 4 October his family had not
yet received word from him from Calcutta. For that letter, they had
to wait untill the next Mail. No wonder that from the autumn of
1857 Dickens was following the news on India in The Times with
keen interest and shared in the general indignation about the slowness of reinforcements being sent to India. Dickens particularly criticized the system of purchasing commissions, which made it virtually
impossible for sons of the middle class to move up in a colonial
administration that was dominated by a small elite. He portrayed
that elite in Little Dorrit as the great family of the Barnacles:
wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation
under sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post
was a Barnacle. No intrepid navigator could plant a ag-sta upon
any spot of earth, . . ., but to that spot of earth, as soon as the discovery was known, the Circumlocution Oce sent out a Barnacle and
a despatch-box.

In an outburst of anger Dickens made known what he would do in


case he were the commander-in-chief in India:
The rst thing I would do to strike that Oriental race with amazement . . . should be to proclaim to them, in their language, that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean
that I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the
stain of the late cruelties rested; and that I begged them to do me the
favor to observe that I was there for that purpose and no other, and
was now proceeding, with all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it o the face
of the earth.23

It is not often, as Peter Ackroyd has commented, that a great novelist recommends genocide.24 But Dickens was swept along in the
general indignation raised by the news of English women and
children being massacred by the mutineers. In that heated state of
22

Letter from Dickens to Dr J. Sheridan Muspratt, Oce Household Words, 4


September 1857, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 431.
23
Letter from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts, Gads Hill, 4 October 1857, in
Johnson, Letters, p. 350 and House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 459. A similar
letter, with slight variations in wording, was sent to Emile de la Rue (Oce Household
Words, 23 October 1857), in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 473.
24
Peter Ackroyd, Dickens (London, 1990), p. 799.

244

mind he wrote a Christmas story for Household Words, in collaboration with Wilkie Collins, entitled The Perils of Certain English
Prisoners, which brought out the horrors of the Mutiny and its
main characters situated on a ctitious Caribbean island.25
Originally Walter had been gazetted in the 26th Regiment of
Bengal Native Infantry. When he arrived in Calcutta, on 30 August
1857, he found that the Regiment was disbanded due to the Mutiny.
Thereupon he was assigned to H.M.s 42nd Highlanders, a unit of
the British Army in India. He was by now, as Dickens recorded,
in the thick of the Indian tussle. The Mutiny aected primarily
the Bengal Presidency and the North of India, and it was in these
parts that the most embittered battles were fought. With the utmost
eort and the vital support of loyal Indian troops from other parts
of the subcontinent the British were able to prevent the uprising
from spreading to other areas. In September Delhi was recaptured
and even before reinforcements had arrived the back of the Mutiny
was broken. Walters corps, the 42nd Royal Highlanders, played an
important part in this decisive turn. It fought in the battle of Kanpur
(December 1857) and took part in the relief of Lucknow (March
1858). On both sides dreadful acts of violence were perpetrated, but
as a matter of course the English press dwelled extensively on the
cruelty and unreliability of the Indians. In another ash of temper
Dickens blamed the colonial administration for knowing nothing of
the Hindu character, and the Asses in power for believing that
England, while doing nothing, was doing everything. He scorned
English ladies for rushing after visiting Indian Princes, whereas they
should know better. He warned them:
You know faces, when they are not brown; you know common expressions when they are not under turbans; Look at the dogslow treacherous, murderous, tigerous villains who despise you while you pay court
to them, and who would rend you to pieces at half an hours notice.

Therefore, he entirely rejected the suggestion made in a proclamation by Lord Canning, Governor-General of India, that mercy should
form the corner stone in the building of a new India: [g]reater mistake was never committed in the world.26

25
William Oddie, Dickens and the Indian Mutiny, in The Dickensian (68) 1972,
pp. 317.
26
Letter from Dickens to Emile de la Rue, Oce Household Words, 23 October
1857, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 473.

245

It is not known whether, and if so what, Walter reported on these


developments back home. Anyhow, at complete variance with Dickenss
just quoted emotional outbursts, which might conceal a deep concern for the well-being of his son, is the information on Walter he
passed on to others. In December 1857 he wrote that he did not
know where precisely Walter was at the moment, but concluded with
a sense of satisfaction: He likes the country and the life, of all
things, and is quite happy.27 The following year, when the situation for the British had considerably improved, he encouraged the
mother of another Indian cadet with the following words:
My boy was invalided long ago, and carried in a litter God knows
how far and how long. But he began to get well, the moment he
arrived at a Hill-Station, and his only care now, in the letters he writes
home, is to get away from that easy life and be on service again. He
had sun-stroke, a passing-attack of small pox, and smart Fever. But
he rallied, gailyand so will your boy . . .28

Maybe, the cheerful tone of what we know of Walters letters should


be explained by a light-heartedness of youth and the fact that the
confusion during the Mutiny had enabled him to gain rapid promotion in the army. He had gone out as an Ensign, but already
before the age of 18 he was made a Lieutenant in the thinned ranks
of the Queens 42nd Highlanders; and he got a lot of prize-money
besides.29 What certainly also must have contributed to his feeling
of contentment was the military honours, a Mutiny medal with
clasp, which he received for his part in the operations of H.M.s
42nd Royal Highlanders against Lucknow and in the eld in the
North-Western Provinces.30
In the years following the Mutiny Walters name was seldom mentioned in Dickenss correspondence. Dickens tried his utmost to get
his fourth son Alfred, in the footsteps of Walter, a place somewhere

27
Letter from Dickens to Mrs Watson, Tavistock House, 7 December 1857,
in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 448.
28
Letter from Dickens to Mrs Gore, Tavistock House, 7 September 1858, in
House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 8, p. 654.
29
OIOC, L/MIL/10/65, No. 696, Bengal Army Service List (1857). Quotation
from Letter Dickens to W.W.F. de Cerjat, Tavistock House, 1 February 1859 and
3 May 1860, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 9, pp. 21, 247.
30
OIOC, L/MIL/5/75, Vol. I: Mutiny Medal British Army Infantry, p. 417.
Walters name was included in the original roll for Indian medals of October 1858,
but for some unknown reason the medal reached him only several years later.

246

in India. For that purpose he reminded Mr Eastwick of the latters


oer (December 1856) to recommend Alfred for an appointment as
EIC cadet. In the meantime, however, service conditions in India
had drastically changed. After the Mutiny, the EIC was dissolved
and the Directors monopoly on appointments was nally broken.
The administration of India was transferred to a Secretary of State
for India who, as a Government Minister, was responsible to the
British Parliament. Eastwick, though a Member of the advisory
Council of India, had lost his right of patronage in the eld of
appointments and Dickens, who had fought so long against the clanspirit of the Barnacles, had to appreciate that. Alfred, however, lacked
the ability to succeed in the keen competition for entrance that superseded the purchase of commissions through inuence and had to try
his luck elsewhere.31
In the end, Walters career in India turned out to be tempestuous but short-lived. On 7 February 1864, on his own birthday,
Dickens received the sad news that Walter had died in India. A few
days later Dickens, shocked by the unexpected loss, reported the circumstances of Walters death to Miss Burdett-Coutts.
He wrote her that Walter had always been in debt, the poor
boy, and that he supposed the regiment to have been ill looked
after by the Colonel. However, he had refused to render nancial
support as Walter, in justice to his other brothers, should live upon
his own means. Thereupon Walter had written to his sister Mary,
saying that he had made up his mind to write home no more, until
he was out of debt. So nothing was heard of him for many months,
till Mary got a short note from him in the autumn of 1863 to the
eect that he was not well. About the turn of Christmas, Walter
informed her that he had been very ill indeed and was now packing up to go to Calcutta, to be certied by a medical board there,
and sent home on sick leave. He said he was so weak that he could
hardly crawl, but otherwise was much better; and he was in joyful
expectation of seeing Gads Hill again.
He arrived at Calcutta from the station where his regiment was, on
the 27th of December. He was consigned by the Regimental Doctor

31
Letters from Dickens to Mr. W.J. Eastwick, Tavistock House, 26 April 1859;
and Regents Park, 14 February 1861, in House et al. (eds.), The Letters, Vol. 9, pp.
53, 386. Fido, Charles Dickens, p. 97.

247

to the ocers Hospital there, which is a very ne place. On the last


day of the old year at a quarter past 5 in the afternoon he was talking to the other patients about his arrangements for coming home,
when he became excited, coughed violently, had a great gush of blood
from the mouth, and fell dead;all this in a few seconds.32

Dickens conded to Miss Burdett-Coutts that he did not want to


make the immediate cause of death widely known. The reason was
that one of Walters aunts, Georgina, suered from the same trouble33 and one of his brothers showed similar danger signs. He did
not elaborate on the symptoms, but described the disease as an extensive and perfectly incurable aneurism of the Aorta, which had burst.
He added that heapparently concerned about Walters health
had sent his son Frank to India on December 20th. Frank looked
forward to see his brother back after six years, but learned on arrival
that Walter had died one month before.34
In the Ecclesiastical Returns of Bengal, preserved in the Oriental
and India Oce Collections, I found Walters name in the Register of
the Military Burial Ground of Fort William. Among the many, generally young men entered into the register for these years, the name
of Walter Landor Dickens is mentioned with the comment, added
in another hand-writing, second son of Charles Dickens, the writer.
Walter had died on 31 December 1863 and the cause of death was
given as Hamatoemisis. He was buried on the rst day of the New
Year, the funeral service being conducted by chaplain J. Cave Browne.
He was then 22 years of age.35
The loss came as a grievous blow to Dickens and the rest of the
family. Walter was the rst son to die. The loss was the more painful
for Dickens as Walter, in the great style of his family, had left a
considerable amount of debts. When Charles came to see his brother

32

Letter from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts, Gloucester Place, 12 February


1864, in Johnson, Letters, pp. 3756. A virtually similar report in his letter to Mr.
Charles Knight (Gloucester Place, 1 March 1864), in The Letters of Charles Dickens,
Vol. 2: 18571870, edited by his Sister-in-Law and his Eldest Daughter (London,
1880), pp. 2123.
33
Ackroyd, Dickens, p. 943.
34
Letters from Dickens to Miss Burdett-Coutts and Mr. Charles Knight, see note
32. According to the editors of The Letters of Charles Dickens, p. 208, Frank had left
for India only at the end of January 1864. Frank would stay on in India for seven
years as a member of the Bengal Mounted Police.
35
OIOC, N/1/107, Ecclesiastical Returns, Bengal, f. 128. The age in the burial register is incorrectly given as 24 years.

248

in India, Walter was already absolutely penniless and Charles had


to pay everything during the fortnight of their being together. A few
months later Walter wrote home that his nancial diculties had
led to his being placed low on the list for a Company. After Walters
death Dickens received an urgent request from his regiment to settle a claim for debts in excess of a hundred and forty pounds. One
bill might have amused the author in less depressing circumstances:
Humble petition of Gunga Rum Cloth . . .
Your poor petitioner is want 14 Re 8 ans.
from April 1862
And he havnt paid to me yet and Sir
I have heard now Dickens is gone to England some days ago
And Sir now I will get these Re with your kind
Should I be so fortunate as to succeed my request for which Act of
generosity I shall ever pray for your long life and prosperity.36

Walter was buried at the cemetery of Fort William, Calcutta.37 Dickens


himself sent out the inscription for the boys tomb to Brigade SurgeonMajor R.W. Carter, M.D., a Crimean and Mutiny ocer, who
arranged and placed in position the tombstone. In course of time,
the original stone, embedded in a masonry platform, was practically
concealed from view by rank grass and other vegetation. In 1907
Walters grave was rediscovered and its stone inscription deciphered
by the kind eorts of Wilmot Coreld. The inscription ran as follows:
In memory of
Lieut. WALTER LANDOR DICKENS,
The second son of
CHARLES DICKENS,
who died
At the Ocers Hospital, Calcutta,
On his way home on sick leave,
December 31st, 1863,
Aged 23 years.38

Remarkable, apart from the fact that Walter seems to have had no
mother, is the wrong statement about his age.

36

Quoted in Fido, Charles Dickens, p. 95.


Alipore or Bhowanipore Cemetery are other names given for Walters last resting place. See on this question The Dickensian, 49 (1953), p. 100.
38
Wilmot Coreld, Walter Savage Landor Dickens: Discovery of his Grave in
India, The Dickensian, 7 (1911), pp. 412; 227.
37

249

We may conclude that Charles Dickens had a close personal connection with British India through the adventurous lives of some of
his sons. That did not mean that Dickens was really interested in
the Indian people and their culture. For him, India remained a land
of tigers, heat and Rajahs smoking curled golden pipes of incredible
length, as pictured with Jack Maldons departure as a cadet for India
(David Coppereld). The existence of a British empire in Asia was in
no way questioned by this otherwise outstanding social reformer who
so sharply analysed and exposed to ridicule the evils of his own society. In Dombey and Son Major Bagstock is introduced as one who had
served in Pune (British-India) and after retirement had brought home
an Indian servant, known as the Native, whom he treated all day
with barbarous contempt. But the idea never occurred to Dickens
that old Joe Bagstock with his rough manners might personify British
policies in the colonies at large. Indian students of Dickens never
tire of reminding us that Dickens, so consistent in his championship
of the underdog at home, envisaged with total equanimity the exploitation of millions of Asians abroad.39 The only imaginable, though
rather weak excuse, put forward by Peter Ackroyd, is Dickenss disgust at the way certain philanthropists attended to distant causes
while ignoring those closer to home, like Mrs Jellyby (Bleak House).
Nevertheless, from Dickenss point of view, India was interesting primarily as an opportunity for his unfortunate progeny to make a better living than they could aord at home. For him also, the East
was rst of all a career.

39
Sajni Mukherji, Telescopic Philanthropy: Attitudes to Charity and the Empire
in Charles Dickens, Economic and Political Weekly, 16 (1981), p. PE17.

This page intentionally left blank

WRITING AND READING TODS RAJASTHAN:


INTERPRETING THE TEXT AND ITS HISTORIOGRAPHY
Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
We rst encountered Col. James Tods Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan
in Jaipur. The year was 1956. We had driven to India overland
from London and were living in Bissau House as guests of the Thakur
of Bissau, the late Raghubir Singh. The Ford Foundation had given
us Foreign Area Training Grants to study, in the language of the
time, political development. We wondered how India had become
a liberal democracy and whether it could remain one. In his 1831
visit to America, the youthful Alexsis de Tocqueville had a similar
question on his mind. His answer in Democracy in America featured
associational life. Did India have an associational life? If it did, what
was it like? In so poor, diverse and hierarchal a country, could Indias
associational life sustain liberal democracy? Our answer in The Modernity
of Tradition was that it could.
We had come to Jaipur, the capital of the newly formed state of
Rajasthan, because Ford Foundation ocers and interviewers wanted
to know how we were going to study so vast and complex a place
as India. We invented an answer. We would study a state in the
north and a state in the south, one from formerly British India and
one from formerly Princely India. The result was that we spent six
months in Rajasthan and six months in Madras (now Tamilnadu).
Which brings us back to Tod. How could we start to know Rajasthan?
Our academic, administrative and Rajput friends told us to start by
reading Col. James Tods Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. The well
marked hefty, khaki-bound two-volumes-in-one 1920 print of the
1914 Douglas Sladen edition shares pride of place in our bookshelves
with the elegant wonderfully illustrated two volume rst edition, the
rst volume published in 1829, the second in 1832. The Annals proved
to be a daunting challenge, full of what at the time seemed to be
arcane facts and esoteric knowledge. We have spent a good many
years working on its meaning and import. What follows is in part
what we learned from the text, in part, indeed a larger part, what
we learned about the text and its career.

252

Before turning to why the text was written the way it was and to
its career, we want to introduce James Tod, the author, by characterizing his life, career and accomplishments. Next we turn to analyzing and explaining why and how he wrote The Annals and Antiquities
the way he did. Our concluding section will examine how and with
what consequences the Annals were read by the principal protagonists of the text, the Rajputs of Rajasthan, the warriors who ruled
its ancient kingdoms; by ocials, defenders and critics of the East
India Company and its successor in 1858, the Government of India;
and by Indian nationalists. The result should show how Tods Rajasthan
shaped Rajput, imperial and nationalist identity and historiography.
Like the story for Americans of the Puritans eeing persecution and
establishing a city on the hill in the new world, Tods story for
Indians of valorous ancient Rajput kingdoms has become an origin
myth.

Introducing Tod
Tod has not found a place in Philip Woodru s The Founders,
the title of Volume 1 of Woodru s [actually Philip Masons] inuential
two volume The Men Who Ruled India, a pantheon for East India
ocials who ruled India from Clives victory at Plassey in 1757 until
the mutiny and rebellion one hundred years later in 1857. During
his 23 years (17991822) of arduous service to the Company he surveyed and mapped western India, the India that stretched from
Saurashtra in the far west to the Doab in central India; played a
critical role in establishing British hegemony on the subcontinent by
providing the intelligence needed for victory over the Marathas in
1817; contributed to the remarkable outburst of Orientalist learning
associated with the Asiatic Society of Bengal by, inter alia, establishing the study of numismatics in India and, most remarkable of all,
over a four year period in Mewar (Udaipur), gathering the materials and doing much of the research for The Annals.
The seventeen year old James Tod arrived in Calcutta in 1799
to begin service in the Companys Bengal Army. He had been
appointed a cadet on the recommendation of his well-connected
uncle, Patrick Heatley. Prior to his departure for Calcutta he had
attended a short training course at the Royal Military Academy at

RAJASTHAN

253

Woolwich.1 Apart from his limited professional and technical training at Woolwich, little is known about his education prior to his
departure for India. His education, including the likelihood that he
was something of an autodidact, is a matter of some mystery. We
are left to wonder about his education because of his subsequent
command, in The Annals and Travels, of the literature of the Scottish
enlightenment, ancient Greece and Rome and of his own time, the
late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. His family on both
his fathers and his mothers side were part of Scotlands remarkable eighteenth century diaspora.2 His father, James Tod, married
Mary Heatley in New York in 1779 but his son, also James, was
born in Islington, near London, on 20 March 1782. Soon after his
marriage, James senior, along with his brother John, left America
for India where they became indigo planters at Mirzapur. By 1782
when young James was born, the brothers had left India. Although
it seems young James grew up in England, little is known about his
life as a child or where or how he was educated.
Young James had a deep and distinguished Scottish lineage. The
family of his maternal grandfather, Andrew Heatley, held a landed
estate in Lanarkshire for four centuries. Andrew Heatley had immigrated to Newport, Rhode Island where he married Mary Grant,
daughter of Suetonious Grant, a resident of Newport since 1725
when he had immigrated from Inverness, Scotland. Suetonious had
sold the baronetcy he had inherited from his grandfather to his
cousin, Alexander Grant, a successful London merchant who seems
to have been the person who formally nominated young James to
the EIC cadetship that his uncle, Patrick Heatley, is said to have
arranged for him.3

1
For the early history of East India Company training institutions and their
eect on knowledge about and perceptions of India, see B.S. Cohn, Recruitment
and Training of British Civil Servants in India, 16001860, in Ralph Braibanti
(ed.), Asian Bureaucratic Systems emergent from the Imperial Tradition (Durham NC, 1966).
2
The Scottish diaspora is extensively dealt with in Arthur Herman, How the Scots
invented the Modern World (New York, 2001). See in particularly the six chapters of
Part II: Diaspora.
3
Biographical information about James Tod has been gleaned from a variety of
sources. Most useful for biographical informationand for framing and interpretative questionshas been Jason Freitags 2001 PhD dissertation in History at Columbia
University (The Power which raised them from Ruin and Oppression: James Tod,

254

After his arrival in India, James Tod served the Company in central and western India in military, surveying, intelligence and political capacities as it contested with the Marathas to be the successor
to Mughal hegemony on the subcontinent. When in 1818 the rulers
of kingdoms in Rajputana signed treaties recognizing the suzerainty
of the EIC, he became the Companys rst political agent at Mewar.
For years and at great cost to his health he camped in tents in harsh
climes to tirelessly map central and western India, also collecting and
preserving Rajasthan bardic literature. In his last four years (18181822)
he amassed the material and many of the ideas for his monumental work. Tod beneted greatly from access to what today is called
the Saraswati Bhandar, the Maharanas personal library. He was the
rst historian to examine and use the library. Much of the material
he deposited with the Royal Asiatic Society after his return to England,
including copies of fteen Sanskrit, Hindi and Rajasthani manuscripts
frequently referred to in Rajasthan, and other valuable historical materials such as ancient coins, copper-plate grants, genealogical charts,
old documents and paintings, were given to him by Maharana Bhim
Singh. Before the age of photography, his cousin, Captain Waugh
who accompanied him on his tours, made the priceless sketches that,
as copper plate prints, adorn the rst edition of the Annals.
Before being driven out of India at 41 by the Company resident
to the Mughal court in Delhi, David Ochterlony, Tod had played
an important part in mapping, conquering and, most important, culturally inscribing Indian space by daring and arduous feats of surveying, war, and intelligence. Forced to retire by Ochterlonys intrigues
and machinations and in any case suering from ill-health, Tod
returned to England in 1823.4 Most of the writing of Rajasthan was

Historiography and the Rajput Ideal) I trust that a revised version of this dissertation will soon be available. It will put Tod scholarship on a new plane. Other
sources for biographical information about Tod include his principal works: Annals
and Antiquities of Rajasthan (particularly William Crookes introduction to his London
1920 edition) and Travels in Western India (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, 1971) whose
anonymously authored Memoir of the Author provides something of a biography. See also G. Smith (ed.), the Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1960; 1912
edition by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee); and Henry Cousens, The Late LieutenantColonel James Tod, Archeaological Survey of India (19071908).
4
Tod left India in broken health and defeated. Twelve years as a surveyor often
spent in camp . . . subject to the inclemencies of all weather under canvas contributed to . . . the very bad state of my health (R.H. Phillimore, Historical Records
of the Survey of India, Vol. II: 1800 to 1815 (Dehra Dun, 1950), p. 446). In 1822, at

RAJASTHAN

255

done in London (c. 18231831) where he served as the rst Librarian


of the recently founded Royal Asiatic Society. The rst volume of
the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan was published in 1829, the second in 1832. Tods text took on new meaning and new life after
Queen Victorias proclamation of direct rule in 1858 and even more
so in 1877 when Disraeli had Victoria declared Queen Empress of
India. With direct and imperial rule Indias rulers became pillars of
support and legitimation. Tods celebration of their ancient pedigrees
and feudal status and honor became grist for the mill of imperial
ideology and symbolic representation. In the imperial era his Rajasthan
was naturalized, treated as a foundational text, and given canonical
standing.
Tod served the East India Company in India for 23 years, from
his arrival in Calcutta in 1799 until 1822, the year before his departure from Bombay. In retrospect his greatest accomplishment may
have been the four years he devoted while carrying out his duties as
the Companys Political Agent in Mewar to mastering Mewars language,5 culture and history. Tods prodigious eld work in Mewar

the age of 41, Tod had been forced to retire from East India Company service
and to leave India for England as a result of conicts with his administrative superior, Major-General David Ochterlony (1803, Resident at the Mughal emperors
court; victorious commander in wars in Mysore and Nepal and against the Marathas,
Gurkhas and Pindaris; 1818, Resident in Rajputana when he negotiated treaties
with several Rajput states; Resident again in Delhi when Tod was agent in Mewar).
Ochterloneys views, policies and actions epitomized the kind of activist interventionism that led in time to the mutiny and rebellion of 1857. Tod, by contrast,
anticipated the post-Mutiny policy of respecting the princes and relying on them
as loyal feudatories of the Crown. Ochterlony was a colorful and forceful gure
who played a major military and administrative role in extending Company power
in northern India and Nepal and whose career and despatches helped to shape
pre-1857 British perceptions of and attitudes toward India. Ochterlony, who lived
like a Nawab with a retinue of wives and attendants, thought he knew Indian character, languages and manners better than Tod. Having negotiated the 1818 treaties,
he found Tods objections to Company imposed nancial burden on Rajput states
unwarranted and insubordinate. Ochterlonys detractors charged that he constantly
interfered in the internal aairs of princely states, adding to the confusion. In 1825
Ochterlony chose to resign rather than suer a repudiation of his policy. His
papers give us a detailed account of the conict between Ochterlony and Tod
(N.K. Sinha and A.K. Das (eds.), Selections from the Ochterlony Papers 181825 in the
National Archives of India (Calcutta, 1964)). In the post-Mutiny India of direct rule,
Tods Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, rather than Ochterlonys despatches, shaped
perceptions, ideology and historiography.
5
In a private communication Dr. Rima Hooja, a prodigious scholar of Indian
and Rajasthani subjects, including a forthcoming study of James Tod, informs me

256

was done in the face of formidable challenges to his role as Political


Agent from his rival and superior in New Delhi, David Ochterlony;
from Mewars court nobles who resented and resisted his eort to
restore the Maharanas authority and resources; and from Mewars
tribal others, the Meos of the northern march and the Bhils of the
southern, who resisted Mewars authority. It would have taken considerable discipline, energy and imagination to meet and master these
arduous challenges in the ordinary course but even more while coping, as Tod did through out most of his career in India, with the
debilitating eects of ill-health.
Readying himself to be the author of the Annals did not exhaust
his accomplishments. Like Lewis and Clark at about the same time
who provided President Jeerson with geographical knowledge of the
Louisiana Territory (reaching to the Pacic Ocean from west and
north of the Mississippi River), Tod, as Richard Strachey wrote in
1810,
was engaged in collecting geographical materials, relating chiey to the
countries between the Indus [in the northwest] and Bundelkhund, the
Junna and the Nerbudda [in the east and south] . . . He was ever
ready to communicate the information he acquired . . . which, at that
important period, proved most useful: it was well appreciated by
Government.6

Tod also willy-nilly created more or less in his person the rst (British)
intelligence service in India, a service that proved decisive in making the Company and, via the Company, Britain the victors in the
contest with the Marathas to succeed the Mughals as the hegemonic
power on the Indian subcontinent. In this sense, Tod played a pivotal role in the military and political history of India.
Tod came to know the Marathas early on his career. In 1805, as
a 24 year old junior ocer, he was assigned to the escort of Graeme
Mercer, a friend of his uncle, Patrick Heatley and the Companys

on the basis of a letter in the Hardwicke Papers (Add 9868 of British Library
Western Mss Collection) signed by Tod to Col. Colin McKenzie dated February
19, 1821, that Tod extracted the Essence . . . of many works in prose and verse, in
all dialectsFrom the Deo Banee [the Sanskrit], so called by pre-eminencethe
language of the Gods, to the uncouth Basha, the Doric of Medpat or the honied
words of Brij. My tutor is an adept in every one. The Suruswuttiof which is the
Punjabi,the Magadi [Behar], Guzeratti &c &c, and I understand the Rangra and
blunder thro all.
6
Tod, Travels, p. xxiii.

RAJASTHAN

257

Envoy and Resident at the court of Daulat Rao Scindia, the Maratha
chief.7 For the next eight years he remained with the escort. In 1813,
the year before the onset of the Third Maratha War, Tod was promoted to Captain and put in charge of the escort. Throughout these
years personally and with the aid of paid assistants he studied and
surveyed the terrain, in time coining such geographic terms as
Rajasthan, Malwa, and Central India and becoming increasingly familiar with the outlook and habits of leading Maratha personalities. In 1815, the map he sent the Governor-General, Lord
Hastings, and his knowledge of the Marathas order-of-battle created crucial strategic advantages for the Companys forces. Tod provided plans for military operations and supervised an intelligence
department. The Maratha defeat in 1817 opened the way in 1818
to treaties of subordinate cooperation with several of the Rajput
kingdoms. Tod, now 36, was appointed Political Agent to the Western
Rajput States by the Governor-General.8 His momentous four years
in Mewar had begun.
Tods nal accomplishment was as a scholar-administrator. He
lived and worked at what he felt to be the periphery of the East
India Companys world in India. Although a member of the Asiatic
Society located in distant Calcutta, the seat of the East India Companys
Governor-General and his administration, he was suciently awed
by the scholar-administrator members resident there and suciently
unsure of how to present and interpret the massive amount of material

7
The Marquis of Wellesleys (Arthur Wellesley) victories in 1803 at Assaye over
the Maratha Peshwa, Baji Rao II and over Daulat Rao Sindhia, in the so-called
First Maratha War, led to the signing of the Treaty of Bassein. It gave the Company
eective control over the Maratha homeland by means, inter alia, of a military escort
being stationed at the Marathas moveable court. For summary treatment of the
First Maratha War and, more generally, the Maratha era see Surjit Mansingh,
Historical Dictionary of India (New Delhi, 1998), pp. 57; 2502. For summary treatments of the First, Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars and short accounts
of the Maratha chiefs involved in them (Balaji Baji Rao and Baji Rao II), see
Parshotam Mehra, Dictionary of Modern Indian History, 17071947 (New Delhi, 1985),
pp. 4314; 626, For an excellent analytic account of the Maratha era, see Stewart
Gordon, The Marathas: 16001815 (Cambridge, 1993).
8
Tod was put in charge of Mewar, Kotah, Bundi, Jaiselmer and Sirohi. Tods
dierences with David Ochterlony in Delhi and with other Company ocials led
in time to all these states, except Mewar, being withdrawn from his charge. When
Jaiselmer was withdrawn in 1822 and he was dishonored by having his escort
reduced, Tod resigned his post in Mewar in June and began his travels in western India prior to his departure for England from Bombay in February 1823.

258

he had gathered that he refrained from submitting his work for publication in Asiatic Researches much less beginning a general work on
Rajasthan.9 It was only after his return to England in 1823 and
becoming the rst Librarian of the newly formed Royal Asiatic Society
in 1824 that he began to publish articles based on the extensive
material he had gathered and on his views about Indias civilization.
Among the rst was an article in the rst volume of the Transactions
of the Royal Asiatic Society on ancient coins. O.P. Kejariwal credits Tod as being the rst person to have taken a scholarly interest
in ancient coins . . . His article . . . evoked wide interest. The dis-

9
Asiastic Researches, the journal of the Asiatic Society, was founded in January
1784, by Sir William Jones four months after his arrival in Calcutta. The journal
had the encouragement and support of Indias rst Governor-General, Warren
Hastings (Robert Clive had preceded Hastings but as Governor-General of Bengal
only). The rst volume of Asiatic Researches was published in 1789. Four more volumes appeared over the ten years that William Jones served as President of Asiatic
Society, each volume causing a successively great sensation in Europe ( John Keay,
India Discovered; The Recovery of a Lost Civilizaton (London, 2001), p. 27). In his 1821
letters to Col. Colin MacKenzie Tod mentioned that he was not sending anything
to the Asiatic Society of which I am an unworthy member; but dreading a critique it has lain quiet since the day written two years ago, and my enquiries are
unabated, but I have not a single essay on any one subject. . . . How or in what
manner shall I attempt to reply to your letter? How enter the interminable eld of
Hindoo antiquity? Whither will it lead me? Where can I leave o ? It is plunging
me into a labyrinth of my own: but I have provided no clue for my exit and I
may be left in the darkness of my own ideas without enlightening you. (British
Library, Add Mss 9868, F. 133, Letter of Tod to MacKenzie, Oudipoor 17 February
1821, and Add Mss 9868, F. 114, as quoted in Freitag, The Power which raised
them from Ruin, p. 43. Hastings was committed to Indian learning in part because
he thought he should govern with the approbation (not the same as consent) of
those he governed. He undertook measures to promote knowledge of the languages,
texts and customs of the people of India starting with the languages of the text the
scholar-administrators of the Asiatic Society were discovering, Persian and Sanskrit
and extending to vernacular languages such as Bengali and Urdu. Hastings himself could speak Urdu, Bengali and commanded some Persian. Keay glosses the
Hastings views this way: If British rule in India was to prosper and last, British
administrators must themselves become partly Indianized. They must learn the languages, study the customs. The government must work within existing institutions,
not try to impose a whole new set of Western ones. There must be intellectual
exchange, not a walkover; and if there were agrant abuses in Indian society they
must be reformed from within, not proscribed from without (Keay, India Discovered,
p. 23). Tod follows the Hastings view of British rule in India, a view diametrically
opposed to that advanced by James Mill and others. Mills 1830 rule in India, a
view diametrically opposed to that advanced by James Mill and other utilitarians.
Mills 1832 parliamentary testimony in anticipation of the Charter renewal in 1834
(to be characterized further below) articulates the alternative view while Tods testimony builds on Warren Hastings perspective.

RAJASTHAN

259

covery of a large number of Roman and Bactrian coins in India


made it obvious that a study of coins in India would contribute to
the study of ancient Europe.10 John Keay also describes Tod as
the person who launched Indian numismatics.11 Apart from this
pioneering numismatic work, Tod helped to launch the study of
ancient Indian history. In 1822, during his travels in western India,
he discovered and took copies of two short sections from what
came to be called the Girnar Rock Edict, the memorial, as Tod
put it at the time of his discovery, of some great conqueror. That
great conqueror proved to be Ashoka. Tod could not read the script
but after James Prinsep deciphered it Tods copies proved to be critical in establishing that Ashokas edicts spanned a subcontinental
empire.
In concluding our thoughts on James Tod, the person, we ask
ourselves a question that has, after Edward Saids inuential book
Orientalism,12 Michel Foucaults various observations about the relationship of knowledge and power, and, for India particularly, Ronald
Indens Imagining India,13 become de rigueur: why did Tod pursue knowledge, why did he map central and western India, why did he write
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan? How should we interpret and theorize his motives and text?
However much Tods mapping and intelligence work contributed
to the Companys victory over the Marathas in 1817 and however
much his work from 1818 to 1822 as Political Agent in Mewar contributed to the consolidation of British power on the Indian subcontinent, did he write Rajasthan, as the Edward Said of Orientalism
would have us believe, because in colonial contexts knowledge necessarily serves power? As Foucault would have it, Tod was in the
grip of power; willy-nilly he did what power required of him. One
way or another, what he knows and why and how he knows is determined by his colonial location.
We nd such strong claims for structural determination excessive
because they too radically discount agency and the related mentalities,

10
O.P. Kejariwal, The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of Indias Past (New
Delhi, 1988). p. xx.
11
Keay, India Discovered, p. 87.
12
Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1979). Said modies his view and softens the structural determinism found in Orientalism in Culture and Empire.
13
Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Cambridge Mass., 1990).

260

tropes and epistemes, to be examined below, that shaped Tods thinking, choices and actions. One of the reasons Tod wrote Rajasthan in
the rst place and wrote it the way he did was his engagement with
what might be called the original and authentic Orientalists, the
persons associated with Sir William Jones and his protector, GovernorGeneral Warren Hastings. Did the stellar cast of scholar-administrators who populated the Asiatic Society14 and who created an
amazing body of Indological knowledge pursue knowledge because
they were pursuing power or because of their love of learning and
intellectual curiosity? Must we choose one or the other? Our reading of James Tod and of the other Asiatic Society Orientalists gives
considerable weight to love of learning and intellectual curiosity.
As a teen-age undergraduate at Oxford William Jones mastered
not only several European languages but also took up Arabic and
Persian, languages in his view of two great civilizations. Years later,
as he approached India by sea, he thought of those civilizations, one
to the north and one to the south of the route his ship was taking.
His trope was civilization. After he mastered Sanskrit in India he
declared it and its literature at least the equal of Greek and its literature. Like Tod, Jones and his Asiatic Society colleagues sought
for parallels between Indian, Greek and Roman civilizations. It was
an era that saw the world in terms of civilizations and that anticipated civilizational progress.15

Writing Rajasthan
We turn from Tod the man to Tod the author. What paradigms
and concepts, tropes and metaphors, assumptions and tacit knowledge, did he bring to the writing of the Annals? Why and how did
he write the Annals the way he did? We read Rajasthan not only as
a work of positive scholarship about history and ethnography and
legend and myth but also as a text which can be explicated as intel-

14
Such names as James Prinsep, Charles Wilkins, H.H. Wilson, H.T. Colebrooke.
See Kejariwal, The Asiatic Society and Keay, India Discovered.
15
For a more nuanced, detailed and footnoted account of our critique of orientalism, see Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Occidentalism and
Orientalism: Perspectives on Legal Pluralism, in Sally C. Humphries (ed.), Cultures
of Scholarship (Ann Arbor, 1997), pp. 21951.

RAJASTHAN

261

lectual history. In this article we identify and analyze authors and


ideas, the mental constructs, that Tod brought to bear on the selection and interpretation of the massive evidence he so assiduously and
meticulously compiled.16
We nd that his interpretation was animated by three related
metaphors or models, medieval feudalism, romantic nationalism and
civilizational progress. The most conspicuous inuence on the writing of Rajasthan is Henry Hallams Middle Ages.17 First published in
1818, various editions of Hallams work shaped perceptions and historiography in Britain, France and the United States for most of the
nineteenth century. References to it dominate the ve chapters of

16
Critical readings from the earliest reviews until today have dealt with factual
mistakes with respect to lineages, dates, events, and with conceptual or theoretical mistakes such as, as in the case of Alfred Lyall, with too strongly discounting the clan or tribal aspect of Rajput society and rule in order to privilege the
feudal aspect. With the recent exception of Norbert Peabodys 1996 critique of
Ronald Indens reading in Imagining India (Oxford, 1990), they have not dealt with
tropes and analogies that shaped his conceptual imagination and narratives
(N. Peabody, Tods Rajasthan and the Boundaries of Imperial Rule in Nineteenthcentury India, Modern Asian Studies, 30,1 (1996)).
17
Tod draws upon Henry Hallams View of the State of Europe during the Middle
Ages, 2 vols (London, 1818). The only comprehensive intellectual-cum-biographical
study of Hallam known to us is Peter Clarks Henry Hallam (Boston, 1982). Clark
provides detailed bibliographical references to works by and about Hallam. He
reports inter alia that during Hallams lifetime there were eleven editions of the
Middle Ages. After Hallamss death in 1859 two more editions of the Middle Ages
were published in 1868 and 1872. In the United States the Middle Ages was even
more successful: four editions were published there in the 1889s and 1890s. In
France, Hallams work went through four editions and in Italy one. Clark tells us
that In his day (Hallam) was regarded as the doyen of English historians. . . . the
framework he used and the conclusions he reached were substantially those of his
successors. . . . Stubbs, Froude and Gardiner . . . because the Victorian historians
were working with the same terms of reference. Hallam saw himself as a philosophical historianin the tradition of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Thus Hallam
is an essential link between Hume and Stubbs . . . his work had an appeal to the
generation of 18301870, and helped in the making of the historical consciousness
of that generation . . . The Queen, Gladstone, and Disraeli all read (his works).
Apart from Clarks work, for Hallams life, including the Hallam familys relationship to Alfred Tennyson, see A.J. Byatts ctionalized account in Angles and Insects
(London, 1992). In Memorium (1850), the work that established Tennysons reputation, was written to remember Arthur Hallam, Henrys son, the anc of Tennysons
sister, whose youthful death struck an important chord in Romantic consciousness.
As we point out below, Tod celebrated youthful, heroic death. A searching critique
of Tods conception of feudalism can be found in Chapter One, Something Very
Like Feudalism, in Robert Sterns The Cat and the Lion; Jaipur State in the British Raj
(Leiden, 1988).

262

the framing section of Volume I, Sketch of A Feudal System in


Rajasthan.
In the opening pages of these generative chapters, written we imagine circa 1828 when he is nishing the rst volume of Rajasthan, we
read that,
many years have passed since I rst entertained these opinions [that
the Rajpoot states martial system is analogous to the ancient feudal
system of Europe], long before [1818 when] . . . any connection existed
between these states and the British government; when their geography [which Tod did so much to establish] was little known to us, and
their history still less so [again, Tod makes it known]. At that period
I frequently travelled amongst them for amusement, making these
objects [e.g. geography and history] subservient thereto, and laying the
result freely before my government.

Tod then treats directly with the authors that shaped his world view:
I had abundant sources of intelligence to guide me in forming my
analogies: Montesquieu, Hume, Millar, Gibbon; but I sought only general resemblances and lineaments similar to those before me.18

He then reveals the decisive source for reading Rajasthan texts and
archives; oral and written bardic literature; and rituals and politics
of Mewar court societyin the light of medieval feudalism.
A more perfect source, because more familiar picture, has since appeared
[in 1818] by an author [here he footnotes Hallams Middle Ages],
who has drawn aside the veil of mystery which covered the subject,
owing to its being till then but imperfectly understood. I compared
the features of Rajpoot society with the nished picture of this eloquent writer, and shall be satised with having substantiated the claim
of these tribes to participation in a system, hitherto deemed to belong
exclusively to Europe. I am aware, of the danger of hypothesis, and
shall advance nothing that I do not accompany by incontestable proofs.19

18
For insightful and telling interpretations inter alia of Montesquieu, Millar and
Hume, see Albert O. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests; Political Arguments for
Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton, 1997). For Gibbon see the introduction by
David Womersley in his recently edited republication of Edward Gibbon, The History
of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1994), Vol. I, pp. xicviii. Tod cites
Gibbons Miscellaneous Works, Vol. III.
19
These passages are from Lieut.-Col. James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan
or, The Central and Western Rajpoot States of India, two volumes in one with a preface
by Douglas Sladen (London, 1914; reprinted in 1923 and 1950), Vol. I, pp. 1078.

RAJASTHAN

263

Tods Scottish ancestry played an crucial role in his romantic turn


to feudalism and classicism. Byron, for example, was from Scotland,
a country with powerful links to late eighteenth-century and early
nineteenth-century Romanticism. Indeed, Byron was very much on
Tods mind both as a poet and, as we shall see below, a fellow
activist in support of Greek nationalism. In Chapter XXX of Volume
1 on Ajmer, Tod reports his rst sight of the [Chauhan] castle of
Manika Rae [at Ajmer] where the rst Rajpoot blood which the
arms of conversion shed summoned up an image for him from
Byrons Childe Harold:
There was a day when they were young and proud,
Banners on high, and battles passed below;
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,
And those which wave are shredless dust ere now,
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.20

Scottish too was Sir Walter Scott, the herald of the medieval
revival . . . and the inventor of a ctitious sentimental national tradition . . .21 Scottish Enlightenment luminaries such as of David
Hume, Adam Smith, John Millar and Edward Gibbon, who was
for all intents and purposes . . . intellectually a Scot,22 shaped Tods
historical understanding, including his view of stages in the course
of realizing civilization.23 Starting with Waverly set in the Highlands
in 1814 and more or less ending with The Surgeons Daughter set in

20
The quote from Childe Harold is From Canto iii and is cited in Rajasthan, Vol.
1, p. 612. Tod cites Byron again in Vol. 2 (p. 510) when deploring the Companys
policy toward cultivation of opium, this execrable and demoralising plant. We
have saved Rajpootana, he writes, from political ruin; but the boon of mere existence will be valueless if we fail to restore the moral energies of her population;
for of this ne region and noble race we might say, as Byron does of Greece
Tis Greecebut living Greece no more! .
21
Martin Bernal, Black Athena (New Brunswick NY, 1990), Vol. 1, p. 291.
22
Herman, How the Scots, p. 226. Herman says of Gibbon although English (he)
modeled his work closely on the Scottish and Edinburgh historical school . . . One
of his closest friends was Adam Ferguson, but his other heroes were Hume and
Smith, whose new book, The Wealth of Nations, Gibbon called the most profound
and systematic treatise on the great objects of trade and revenue which had ever
been published in any age or century. When Hume wrote to Gibbon praising his
new history, Gibbon said the letter repaid the labour of ten years (pp. 2256).
23
These are the persons associated with the Scottish enlightenment that Tod
cites in Sketch of the feudal system in Rajasthan (Vol. I, pp. 10758). As has
been noted above, he relies in this section most heavily on Henry Hallam but
Montesquieu is also of considerable importance for Tods formulation.

264

India in 1827, Scott spread Romanticism by inventing the historical novel and with it the mass market for novels, a market which
English novelists such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William
Thackeray, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope and continental novelists such as Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert and Tolstoy were the beneciaries.
The historical novel was a new art form that paved the way for
Tods Rajasthan by imagining dierence and embracing the other.
An intriguing blend of imaginative fantasy and meticulous delity
to historical truth, it celebrated emotional loyalties rather than economic calculation [and] . . . heroic self-sacrice rather than rational
self-interest.24 In this way Scott introduced a key ingredient in modern consciousness, a sense of historical detachment, something that
Macaulay25 and other utilitarian and evangelical early Victorians
lacked but something that enabled Tod to imagine and, to an extent,
be the Rajput other.
The Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan was written and published for
a reading public whose tastes and sensibilities had been shaped by
several generations of romantic authors.26 Repudiating eighteenthcentury Enlightenment rationalism and market commercialism the
Romantics celebrated nature, sentiment, the picturesque and the
exotic and sometimes erotic other. Romantics like Byron, but also
Shelley, are particularly important because, in an era when East
India Company trade, conquest and politics was center stage in the
drama of English public life, the extravagant orientalism of their literary productions about India catered to a burgeoning public demand.27
In May 1813 Byron urged the Irish poet Tom Moore,

24
Herman, How the Scots, pp. 30810. For much of the detail and some of the
interpretation of Scottish Romanticism I am indebted to Hermans chapter on Scott
The last minstrel: Sir Walter Scott and the Highland revival (pp. 291319).
Herman argues that Scotts novels introduced several key components of modern
consciousness including cultural conict. History is presented as a series of culture wars: Frank versus Saracen (in The Talisman), Jew versus Christian (in Ivanhoe),
Norman versus Saxon, Scotsman versus Englishman, Lowlander versus Highlander,
Presbyterian versus Episcopalian . . . Which side is superior, and which deserves to
lose, is never fully resolved. (p. 310)
25
Herman, How the Scots, p. 310.
26
For example Edmund Burke, Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Sir Walter
Scott, Lord Byron; Edward Gibbon.
27
See Nigel Leask, British Romantic Writers and the East: Anxieties of Empire (Cambridge,
1993).

RAJASTHAN

265

to join him on the bandwagon of oriental poetry: Stick to the


Eastthe oracle Stael [Madame De Stael] told me it was the only
poetical policy . . . The little I have done in that way is merely a voice
in the wilderness for you; and, if it has had any success, that also
will prove that the public are orientalizing, and pave the path for
you.28

Tods own romanticism is epitomized in our view by his attitude


toward heroic death, particularly heroic youthful death. To die in
battle ghting gallantly for a noble cause may have been the highest form of glory for a feudal knight. To die young in battle was
even more glorious. Youth was the apogee of life; after the bloom
of youth came decay then death. These perceptions and attitudes
are captured in Tods account of the death of the sixteen year old
Putta of Kelwa in 1568 when a Mughal army under Akbars command sacked Chitor, symbol of the Rajputs code of honor:
But the names which shine brightest in the gloomy page of the annals
of Mewar, which are still held sacred by the bard and the true Rajpoot,
and immortalised by Akbars own pen, are Jeimul of Bednore and
Putta of Kailwa . . . When Saloombra29 fell at the gate of the sun, the
command devolved on Putta of Kelwa. He was only sixteen: his father
had fallen in the rst shock, and his mother had survived but to rear
his the sole heir of the house. Like the Spartan mother of old, she
commanded him to put on the safron robe, and to die for Cheetore:
but surpassing the Greecian dame, she illustrated her percept by example; and lest any soft compunctious visitings . . . might dim the lustre of Kailwa, she armed the young bride [of her son] with a lance,
with her descended the rock, and the defenders of Cheetore saw her
fall, ghting by the side of her Amazonian mother . . . Jeimul took the
lead on the fall of the kin of Mewar . . . He saw there was no ultimate hope of salvation, the northern defences being entirely destroyed,
and he resolved to signalize the end of his career. The fatal Johur was
commanded, while eight thousand Rajpoots ate the last beera [pan;
according to Tod without opium] together and put on their saron
robes; the gates were thrown open, the work of destruction commenced,
and few survived to stain the yellow mantle by inglorious surrender.30

Tods romanticism in Rajasthan emerged in the shadow of a struggle over British policy in India. The struggle took the form of a

28

Leask, British Romantic Writers, p. 13.


Saloombra, estate of the Chandawat leader. He led Mewar forces in the battle. It is common to call particular persons by the name of their estate.
30
Tod, Rajasthan (ed. Douglas Sladen, 1920, 2 vols in 1), Vol. 1, p. 201.
29

266

clash of civilizational understandings. Were the Rajput kingdoms to


be alien and conquered peoples who paid tribute to swell the coers
of the Company or were they to be respected and trusted allies who
shared a common interest in the security and welfare of the Indian
subcontinent? More broadly, were Indians, as Kipling three generations later would have it, lesser breeds without the law for whom
Britishs rulers were called upon to assume the white mans burden to civilize? Or were they the bearers of an ancient civilization
who should be cultivated as worthy allies?
Tods dierences with David Ochterlony over how to treat Mewar
and other Rajput kingdoms31 foreshadowed even more profound
philosophical dierences with James Mill. In preparation for what
became the Companys new charter in 1834, both gave parliamentary testimony that addressed the theory and practice of British rule
in India. Mills testimony reected the views propounded in his six
volume The History of British India. It had rst appeared in 1817 but
remained, until the Companys demise in 1857, the Companys de
facto ocial text. Tods testimony was consistent with the views propounded in his Rajasthan, the second volume of which was published
in the same year that he provided parliamentary testimony, 1832.
Mill spoke as a liberal utilitarian, Tod as a romantic conservative.32
Mills liberal utilitariansim tended to deny dierence in the name
of a commitment to universal truth. It was an axiom about human
nature, for example, that persons maximized pleasure and minimized
pain and an axiom of public policy to seek the greatest happiness
of the greatest number. Such truths are independent of time, place
and circumstance. They determine human consciousness, preferences
and actions everywhere and always. In pursuit of sameness and uni-

31
Sinha and Das Gupta (eds.), Ochterlony Papers (18181825). About one third of
230 Rajputana Residency Records printed in this volume present the voice and
views of Tod or Ochterlony. Like the parliamentary clash between James Mill and
James Tod, these documents reveal profound ideological and policy dierences
between the two men involved.
32
James Mill, Testimony to Parliament dated 16 February, 1832, Reports from
Committees, Session 6. December 183116 August 1832, in Minutes of Evidence taken
before the Select Committee on the Aairs of the East India Company, VI: Political or Foreign,
Vols VII, XIV (London: House of Commons, Parliament of England, 1832), pp.
310; and James Tod. Testimony to Parliament, Reports from Committees, Session
6 December 183116 August 1832, Appendix 13. Minutes of Evidence taken before the
Select Committee on the Aairs of the East India Company, VI: Political or Foreign, Vols VII,
XIV (London: House of Commons, Parliament of England, 1832), pp. 12235.

RAJASTHAN

267

formity, Mills utilitarian universalism could also lead to policies and


actions designed to destroy rather than to deny dierence, to conversions of idolaters rather than to legislation designed to civilize the
other so that they become like us.
Tods romantic conservatism tends to respect the other, to sympathize, even to empathize with dierence as it appears in diverse
forms of life. Tod respects, admires and even identies with the
Rajput other. Ultimately, in a distant future, he imagines that a
hypothesized common Scythian origin of Britons and Rajputs and
civilizational progress will enable Britons and Rajputs to realize a
common brotherhood. Mills and Tods parliamentary testimonies in
1832, like their respective major works, reect respectively what Uday
Singh Mehta, in Liberalism and Empire, represents as a Lockean view
of human sameness and a Burkean view of human diversity.33 Mills
and Tods opposed perspectives on the meaning and consequences
of dierences in culture and religion, world view and way of life,
not only animated the ideological debate in the formative years of
colonialism in India but also foreshadow todays debate about whether
civilizations can live in concord or must clash.

Tod and nationalism


Tod wrote not only under the spell of Henry Hallams medievalism
and Scottish romanticism, but also at the opening phase of modern
nationalism. As indicated already by his invocation of Greek parallels in the Putta story cited above and, more generally, frequent allusions to events and symbols of ancient Greece, Tods writing was
deeply inuenced by its classical civilization. In 1821, what was

33
Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire; A Study in Nineteenth Liberal Thought
(Chicago, 1999). Mehta contrasts Burkes commitment to the naturalness of dierence
with Lockes commitment to the naturalness of uniformity. Burke, he tells us,
reected with great seriousness on the situation in which the exercise of power
and authority was implicated with considerations of cultural and racial diversity,
contrasting civilizational unities, the absence of . . . consensual government, and alternative forms of political identity and legitimacy. (pp. 13455) If dierence was all
for Burke, if persons were always and inevitably marked, for the liberal Locke,
sameness was all. Human nature was the same everywhere and always. Locke articulates liberal universalism from which . . . claims can be made because they
derive from certain characteristics that are common to all human being. (pp. 512).

268

believed to be ancient Greeces contemporary expression, a Hellenic


Greek nation, began a struggle for national liberty against the
despotic rule of the Ottoman Turks. This riveted attention in
Europe and America on a people imagined by Adamantios Koraes
from his Paris exile as Hellenes, a nation descended from the classical Greets of Sparta and Athens, and thus the fountainhead and
inspiration of European civilization.34 It was their freedom struggle
with which Tod identied and that shaped the writing of Rajasthan.
As Nigel Leask makes clear in British Romantic Writers and the East;
Anxieties of Empire, romantic poets such as Byron and Shelley were
not only passionately philhellenic but also passionately orientalist.35
With the outbreak of the Greek war for independence in 1821 Shelly
wrote: We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion,
our arts all have their roots in Greece.36 Tods narrative of Mewars
struggle against the Mughal Empire resembles his perception of the
Greek struggle against the Ottoman Turks; Rana Prataps near victory
over the Mughals at the battle of Haldighati [1576] is likened to
Spartas resistance against overwhelming Persian force at Thermopylae.
Norbert Peabody has shown how Tods Rajasthan introduced the
discourse of the nation by analyzing and explaining dierences
between Rajputs and Marathas and alluding to territorialized cultural boundaries separating them. Tod was not being anachronistic
in his use of terms such as nation and nationalism. These terms were
already being used during the Napoleonic wars by the British with
respect to the rest of Europe. The future East India Company
Governor-General, Lord Bentinck [18281833], captured this paradoxical relationship epigrammatically when, upon his arrival in
Palermo in 1811, he is said to have remarked, Bonaparte makes
kings; England makes nations.37

34
Michael Herzfeld opens his Anthropology through the Looking Glass: Critical Ethnography
in the Margins of Europe (Cambridge, 1987; 1989) with the following sentence: Ancient
Greece is the idealized spiritual and intellectual ancestor of Europe (p. 1). For
views of this large and contested interpretation see his Ours Once and More: Folklore,
Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece (Texas, 1982), in particular Chapter 1, Past
glories, present politics (pp. 323), as well as Chapter 1, Romanticism and
Hellenism: burdens of otherness in his Anthropology through the Looking Glass (pp. 127).
More than any other person, Adamantios Koraes (17481833) invented the imagined community of Hellenic Greeks. Inter alia he aroused Jeersons interest in the
cause of Greek liberty.
35
Leask, British Romantic Writers.
36
Preface to Percy B. Shelly, Hellas (1821).
37
Peabody refers to The Rajput Nation and discusses The nation in early

RAJASTHAN

269

Years ago when we rst began writing about Tods mentality we


could only surmise that his thinking was deeply aected by the opening phases of nationalism in Europe. We wondered whether the
Greek freedom struggle against the Ottoman Turks that riveted
European (and American) attention when it began in 1821 had
come to Tods attention in what, from a European perspective, was
a remote corner of India, Mewar. The struggle was depicted an
eort by a nation imagined as Hellenes, descendants of the
ancient Greeks and perceived as inventors of European civilization,
to liberate themselves from the Ottoman Turks despotism. We
had inferred that Tod might have modelled his account of Mewars
freedom struggle against the might of Akbars Mughal Empire on
the Hellenic Greeks struggle against the Ottoman Turks but couldnt
substantiate it. Was it at best an elective anity?
The discovery in the Saraswati Bandar Library, Udaipur, some
years ago by our colleague and research associate, Indu Shekar, of
a Register of Bills Drawn by the Political Agent with the Western
Rajpoot States . . . for 1821 and 1822 with the periodic entries
signed by James Tod, Political Agent Western Rajputana, together
with ve manuscript essays, provides strong grounds for believing
that Tod was not only aware of but strongly identied with the
Greeces struggle for national liberty.38
Apparently dictated to several amanuenses, one of the ve manuscripts is labelled simply Greece. A version of this essay with the
title Greece in 1823 and 1824 that closely accords with the MS
found in the Saraswati Bandar Library, Udaipur, along with the four
other essays, was published anonymously in volume 3, no. 11,
November 1824 of The Oriental Herald. The Oriental Herald began
publication in January 1824 under the editorship of James Silk Buckingham. Both Buckingham and Tod were expelled from India in
1823, Buckingham from Calcutta, Tod from Udaipur, for opposing

nineteenth-century thought and Imperialism, nationalism, and the social construction of dierence. According to Peabody . . . Tods notion of the nation was
based on dierentiation of insider from outsider, or native from foreigner, categories whose context dependency makes them classic examples of group shifters
(Peabody, Tods Rajasthan, pp. 20411; the reference to Bentinck is at p. 209).
38
In addition to the essay entitled Greece the essays are entitled The Periodical
Literature of the Nineteenth Century, Historical Essay on the Origin, Progress,
and Probable Results of the Sovereignty of the English in India, On the Education
of Youth for Civil Oces in India, and Proposal for Introducing into England
the Practice of Burning the Dead.

270

Company policies and persons.39 The editorial stance of Buckinghams


Calcutta Journal was to advocate the abolition of the Companys
monopoly and the suppression of its political power. Tod had opposed
David Ochterlonys eorts to extract maximum tribute from Mewar
and other Rajput kingdoms and to treat their rulers as oriental
despots. Tod sympathized and emphasized with Rajasthans Rajput
rulers and thought Britain should respect their civilization and treat
them as friends and allies. In the words of his dedication to George
IV in the rst volume of Rajasthan (1829),
The Rajpoot princes, happily rescued, by the triumph of the British
arms, from the yoke of lawless oppression, are now the most remote
tributaries to Your Majestys extensive empire; and their admirer and
annalist may, perhaps, be permitted to hope, that the sighs of this
ancient and interesting race for the restoration of their former independence, which it would suit our wisest policy to grant, may be
deemed not undeserving of Your Majestys regard.

We assume that at least one of the ve manuscript essays, the one


on Greece in 1823 and 1824 which reviews Col. Leicester Stanhopes
book, Greece in 1823 and 1824 could not have been written in 1821
or 1822, the years of Tods nancial accounts of his agency and his
last two years in India.40 It is possible that Tod wrote one or more
of the essays, including the one on Greece, after he arrived in
England from India in April 1823, published one or more of them
in the Oriental Herald and sent amanuenses copies to Mewar to be
kept with his papers there.
Even if Tod did not write Greece or the other essays, we believe
the essays reect his values and perspective. We have not as yet
found evidence that Tod and Buckingham knew each other but even
if they did not know each other it seems clear that they shared oppo-

39
An extensive and detailed account of Buckinghams conict with the East India
Company, particularly with the acting Governor-General John Adam, was published in January 1824, in the rst volume and number of The Oriental Herald under
the title Appeal of a Governor-General to Public Opinion in India which is, in
fact, Buckinghams 71 page answer to John Adams Statement of Facts connected
with the Removal from India of Mr. Buckingham, Late Editor of the Calcutta Journal.
(pp. 677). The ideological and policy battle between Tod and Ochterlony can be
followed in detail in Sinha and Das Gupta, Selections from Ochterlony Papers.
40
Being a Series of Letters and Other Documents on the Greek Revolution, written during a
Visit to that Country (London, 1824).

RAJASTHAN

271

sitionist views about Company rule in India and the importance and
value of public opinion and of national liberty. They also shared
ties to Col. Leicester Stanhope, whose book about his experiences
in Greece was reviewed in the Greece essay. We know, for example, from army-lists for the Third Anglo-Maratha War, a war, as
we have seen, in which Tods intelligence operation played a vital
role, that the Cavalry Brigade of the Gujarat Division of the army
of the Deccan was commanded by Lt. Col. The Honble L. Stanhope.
It seems highly probable that Tod and Stanhope knew each other
in India, a relationship which supports the inference that Tod wrote
the Greece essay reviewing Stanhopes book.
It is also possible that James Silk Buckingham, a prolic writer
and a intrepid editor, wrote some or all of the essays. Whether Tod
or Buckingham wrote some or all of them, we feel condent that
the essay on Greece provides strong evidence of Tods deep knowledge of and identication with the 1821 Hellenic Greek rebellion
against Ottoman rule. Here is some of the language from the opening paragraphs of that essay:
The glorious revolutions of Greece has strongly attracted the attention
of all liberal men, to whom it had long appeared surprising that that
classic land, the very birth-place and cradle of liberty, should have
remained during so many centuries under the yoke of foreign tyrants . . .
in every corner of Europe, this glorious result of the struggle excited
the warmest admiration, and in almost every country the spirit of the
people was roused to participation in so noble a cause . . . In Switzerland,
in Germany, and even in Russia, committees have been organized to
assist in the regeneration of Grecian liberty, and a portion at least of
the English people followed speedily the example which had been set
before them by others. Assisted by the contributions of this part of the
British public, the Greek Committee of London, at the head of which
were many noble and respected names, exerted itself with success in
forwarding the progress of Grecian liberty and independence. . . . [The
Honorable Colonel Leicester Stanhope] oered his services to proceed
to Greece as agent of the Committee . . . and he soon departed from
London with full powers . . . to act, on his arrival in Greece, in conjunction with Lord Byron for the advancement of the cause in which
they had both so zealously embarked.

We nd echoes of this memoir in Tods Rajasthan where he tells us


that Mewars battle with the Mughals at Haldighati in 1576 is like
the Spartans battle at Thermopylae with the Persians. Thus by using
the Hellenic Greeks struggle for freedom and independence against

272

the Ottoman Turks to construct Mewars against the Mughals, he


assimilates both to a classical paradigm, Spartas defense of Greek
freedom against a Persian other.

Reading Rajasthan
In the naturalized categories of ocial Raj ethnography, an ethnography that Princely India came to share, Rajasthans kingdoms were
ruled by Rajputs. The term Rajput encompassed both kshatriya and
aristocratic status, both the warrior-rule vara of Indias ancient texts41
and the landed nobility and gentry familiar to English discourse.
British discourse about caste conated not only jti and vara but
also culture and biology; genetic codes determined character and
status.42 Jats were by nature cultivators; Rajputs by nature rulers and
warriors. In nineteenth-century readings, to be a Rajput was a condition outside history, essential and timeless.
From at least Mughal times Rajput identity has been shaped by
the oral and written panegyrics of court bards. Ironically, in the late
nineteenth century, Rajasthans paramount bardic authority had
become Colonel James Tods Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. Published
in 1829 and 1832, his two volumes had become not only the authoritative version of bardic literature but also the dominant historiog-

41
The social ideology of varna appears in the g Veda, The Laws of Manu and
other brahmanical texts and was accepted until recently as authoritative by Indologists
from Max Mller to Max Weber to Louis Dumont. Vara social ideology depicted
caste in terms of brahmans (priests), kshatriyas (warrior rulers), vaishyas (merchants), shudras (manual workers, including peasants and artisans) and untouchables
(mlecchas or foreigners; conquered people or Dasas; those outside the caste system
including latter day unclean or impure untouchables whom the British, and
after independence, the Government of India, designated scheduled castes). The
origin myth from the g Veda speaks of the Sacrice of the Cosmic Man; brahmans issued from his mouth, kshatriyas from his arms; vaishyas from his thighs and
shudras from his feet. Brahmans, kshatriyas and vaishyas were twice born, i.e.
taught sacred knowledge, they donned a sacred thread at puberty signifying their
spiritual rebirth. Recent scholarship has denaturalized vara and caste, depicting
them as historically constructed and subject to continuous change. See, for example, Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History; Some Interpretations (New Delhi, 1978);
our Modernity of Tradition (Chicago, 1967); and Nicholas Dirks, The Hollow Crown,
Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge, 1987).
42
For an elaboration of British views of caste in the context of its transformations see our Modernity of Tradition, pp. 15154.

RAJASTHAN

273

raphy for Raj and Princely India. As Tods reputation and standing
grew in the second half of the nineteenth century, it became dicult
to distinguish the local bardic traditions from the import.
After 1857, in the post-mutiny and rebellion world of direct rule
in British India and paramountcy in Princely India, Tods Rajasthan
dominated in quite dierent ways both Raj and Indian nationalist
historiography. First of all, Tods historiography not only reected
but also contributed to a burgeoning feudal medievalism and to a
revival of classical Hellenism that gripped Raj consciousness and
practice in the second half of the nineteenth century.43 For the postMutiny Raj in need of an ideology to legitimate direct rule, Tods
account of Rajputanas ancient dynasties, feudal kingdoms and chivalric honor fuelled the construction of the princes as loyal vassals of
the crown. In 1876, for example, Disraeli agreed with Queen Victorias
controversial request to be styled Empress of India.44 Lord Lytton,
the viceroy, used the momentous occasion to orchestrate a Mughal
style durbar at Delhi in January 1877. Victoria was declared Empress
of India, Indias princes, not least among them Rajput rulers, acknowledged her rule and declared their loyalty. The princes in turn were
accorded pride of place in a new imperial cosmology that recognized them as Indias natural leaders, as Lord Curzon called them.
The princes loyalty and deference to the British crown in the person of Queen Victoria were counted on to legitimize, support and
secure British rule in India. Tod would no doubt have disapproved
of this culmination because it made clear that Rajput rulers had
become what his hopes and policy were directed to avoid, dependents and subordinates of the British. At the same time he would

43
See Florence S. Boos (ed.), History and Communalism: Essay in Victorian Medievalism
(New York, 1992). Boos herself writes that the attraction of medievalism arose from
a sense of the medieval as alternative culture . . . alternative both to contemporary
capitalist and imperialist realpolitics, and to the unrealities of their conventional classical education . . . (p. 13). For Tod, writing well before the turn of the century,
the classical had yet to lose its charm.
44
For an account of Victorias keenness about being made Empress of India see
Stanley Weintraub, Victoria; An Intimate Biography (New York, 1987), pp. 41320. The
Queen, Weintraub writes, was anxious about her dignity. The unication of
Germany under Prussia had made her daughter, Vicky, a future Empress. When
crowned, Vicky might, in the absence of Parliamentary action, have precedence
over her. Disraeli responded to the Queens request by shepherding an ocial titles
bill through Parliament (pp. 4134).

274

have approved, we believe, the medievalism and orientalism of the


occasion.
After 1857, Tods account of the chivalric Rajput also opened the
way for an imperial theory of martial races.45 In 1857, the year of
the mutiny and rebellion, the largely brahman Bengal Army had
proved disloyal and treacherous. Tod both naturalized and historicized a warrior-ruler ideal by celebrating one thousand years of
Rajput bravery and valor. In the years after the mutiny and rebellion it proved expedient to construct an ideology of martial (masculine) and non-martial (eeminate) races. Rajputs served as the
prototype of the martial races. From Lord Roberts reconstruction
of a post-Mutiny Indian Army on racial lines46 to Lt. General Sir
George MacMunns The Martial Races of India (1932),47 Tods Rajputs
served to valorize a racial theory of ghting men. While accepting
Sir William Jones theory of Indo-European languages and peoples,
Tod diered from Jones brahman-centric view by holding that
Rajputs and Britons shared a common ancestry as descendants of
an ancient Scythian people whose empire was thought to have been

45
For the historical circumstances and moral and psychological grounding of
British racial ideology about martial and non-martial races, see our The Modernity
of Tradition, pp. 1657: Within twenty years of the deliberate exclusion of United
Province brahmans from the Bengal Army because of their leading role in the rebellion of 1857, the idea that brahmans lacked ghting qualities had become prevailing opinion . . . in English minds at the end of the century, the distinction (between
martial and non-martial) was stressed as much for its instrumental utility in the
imperialist theory as for its academic interest as a description of caste or regional
character. The martial races for the most part adhered to the British raj, not
because they were martial . . . but for political considerations, the Rajputs because
they were the princes of states whose autonomy was threatened by a self governing India, the Muslims because they feared a Hindu majority in independent India . . .
Those described as the non-martial races produced nationalism.
46
See Chapter XIV. The martial classes of Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour:
An Account of the Indian Army, its Ocers and Men (London, 1986), pp. 34161, particularly 2: Lord Roberts and his views, pp. 34550.
47
MacMunn averred: The mass of the people of India have neither martial
aptitude nor physical courage. Of Indias 350 million people only 35 million
qualied as martial races and of these only 3 million were males between 20 and
35 years of age. Mason adds that the idea that some people will make soldiers
and some will not is of course much older than the British. It is implicit in the
Hindu caste system; no raja would have the money-lender or the trader castes to
bear arms. But it was the British, after the Mutiny, step by step, who formulated
and codied the principle, turning what had been a matter of practical choice into
a dogma proclaimed with theological rigour. (Mason, Honour, pp. 3489)

RAJASTHAN

275

located in and around the Caucasus region of Central Asia.48 The


legitimacy of British rule in India and subcontinental security in the
era of the Great Game in Asia came to rely on co-opting, rewarding and celebrating these martial races.49
Dierent from this colonial reading, Indian nationalists, starting
with those in Bengal, brought a dierent interest to their reading of
Tod. Tods accounts of Rajput kings and heroes, particularly of the
legendary Mewar ruler, Rana Pratap (15721597), featured his resistance to the blandishments and power of the Mughal Empire. At
Haldighati (1576) Rana Pratap almost defeated the emperor Akbars
mighty army. For twenty arduous years Prataps guerrilla warfare
held Mughal power at bay. Tods bardic-inspired accounts of Prataps
ght to preserve Mewars independence and honor inspired nationalist plays, poems and histories about Indias rst freedom ghter
against imperial rule.50
Tods image of the martial Rajput reached well beyond Bengali
nationalisms search for martial heroes and anti-imperialist freedom
ghters. Tods Thermopylae trope arrived at the heart of Indian
nationalism in the person of Mohandas Gandhi who made it part
of his vocabulary. Tod had invoked Thermopylae in the large and

48
For Jones view see Thomas R. Trautman, Aryans and British India (New Delhi,
1997), Chapter Two, The Mosaic Ethnology of Asiatick Jones, pp. 2861.
49
Although Todand othersin the 1820s already spoke of a potential Russian
threat to India, it was Rudyard Kiplings Kim that introduced the English speaking
world to the metaphor of the Great Game in Asia. Tod argued for a BritishRajput alliance in part to have the strength on the subcontinent to face Russian
ambitions. For the state of play after the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,
see Lloyd I. Rudolph, The Great Game in Asia: Revisited and Revised, Crossroads:
An International Socio-Political Journal, 16 (1985). For an overview see Peter Hopkirk,
The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia (London, 1990).
50
Rajput history and images inuenced the thinking and writing of eminent
Bengalis including Henry Louis DeRozio, Bankim Chandra Chatterji and Rabindranath
Tagore (see his Kathu-o-Kahini for several Rajput poems, including one expressing
his disillusionment after actually visiting Rajasthan in the late 1930s. My thanks to
the late Sujit Mukherjee for calling this poem to my attention and doing a rough
translation for me. General works on the inuence of Rajput history and legend
on nationalist consciousness, starting with consciousness in Bengal, include Papia
Chakrabarty, Hindu Response to Nationalist Ferment: Bengal 19091935 (Calcutta, 1992);
Amrita Lal De, The Students History of Rajpootana, being an Account of the Princes of
Rajpootana from the Earliest Ages to the Modern Times (Calcutta, 1889); Dalia Ray, The
Bengal Revolutionaries and Freedom Movement (New Delhi, 1990); Ashis Sanyal, Contributions
of Bengali Writers to National Freedom Movement (Calcutta, 1989). I am indebted to Jason
Freitags The Power which raised them from Ruin for some of these references.

276

in the small, in the large by analogizing Rana Prataps battle with


Akbars army at Haldighati, a delade like that at Thermopylae, and
in the small by remarking that there is not a petty State in Rajasthan
that has not had its Thermopylae.51 In 1920, just six years after
his return to India from 21 years in South Africa, Gandhi told members of a Hindu audience at the Law College in Madras fearful of
Muslim martial traditions that they too could call on a legacy of
bravery and courage. Col. Tod, Gandhi told them, had said that
India was dotted with a thousand Thermopaelies.52 Gandhis use
of Tod was capped by his invocation of him to convince participants at the momentous Second Round Table Conference in London
in 1931 that India was capable of defending itself:
There is all the material there . . . Mohammedans . . . Sikhs . . . the
Gurkha. . . . Then there are the Rajputs, who are supposed to be responsible for a thousand Thermopylaes, and not one little Thermopylae . . .
That is what the Englishman, Colonel Tod, told us. Colonel Tod has
taught us to believe that every pass in Rajputana is a Thermopylae.
Do these people stand in need of learning the art of defense?53

Tods framing of Mewars struggle to preserve its freedom had an


enduring impact. Fifty years later, in 1879, the romance of the
ancient, freedom loving Rajputs was still alive and well in Sir Alfred
Lyalls authoritative historical note to the rst Gazetteer of Rajputana.
Lyall wrote:
We may describe Rajputana as the region within which the pureblooded Rajput States have maintained their independence under their
own chieftains, and have kept together their primitive54 societies ever
since their principal dynasties in Northern India were cast down and
swept away by the Mussalman irruption. Of the States of Rajputana,
eighteen belong to the rst rank in the Empire, being under treaty
with the Imperial Government.55

51

Tod, Rajasthan, I, p. lxiii.


Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works (New Delhi, 1958), 18, p. 189.
53
Gandhi, Collected Works, 48, p. 307.
54
Discourse about primitive is insightfully explored in Marianna Torgovnicks
Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago, 1990). Torgovnick tells us that
. . . primitive societies or the general idea of the primitive becomes a place to project our feelings about the present and to draw blueprints of the future. Sometimes
narratives about primitive societies become allegories of modernization that resist
seeing themselves or presenting themselves as allegories (p. 244).
55
The quotation is from the historical introduction to Rajputana and Ajmer; List of
52

RAJASTHAN

277

By 1928, when Sir Walter Lawrence, the Viceroy, Lord Curzons


private secretary, published his memoirs, The India we served, the myth
of the noble Rajputs had reached its apogee. Lawrence uses a facsimile of Rudyard Kiplings handwritten letter as the preface to his
book; it refers to Lawrences book as a fairytale, a book that captures the timeless India of Kiplings imperial imagination. For Lawrence,
The highest type [of Indian] with which I am acquainted . . . is the
Rajput of Rajputana . . . I like to think that the . . . Indians of ancient
times . . . resembled closely the ne thoroughbred men now living in
Rajputanawhether they be called Kshattriyas . . . or Aryans . . . still
always great and chivalrous gentlemen, with whom it is a privilege
and an education to associate.56

These cultural enthusiasms and panegyrics, which t well into late


nineteenth-century imperial mise-en-scne, have been overtaken by
recent critiques of Rajput historiography and identity.57 Dirk Kol s
historical unpacking of the term Rajput in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries reveals a variety of possibilities for Rajput identity and status. Kol, for example, argues that before Mughal rule
in the seventeenth century, Rajput was not a closed status category.

Ruling Princes, Chiefs and Leading Personages (Calcutta, 1931. This is the sixth edition
of a work projected in 1890 by Colonel G.H. Trevor, C.S.I., Agent to the GovernorGeneral for Rajputana . . . and put together by C.S. Bayley, C.S., then Political
Agent, Bikaner. Some of the account in the historical introduction was written as
early as 1879.
56
Sir Walter Lawrence, The India we served (London, 1928), p. 56. Here we see
how Rajput took on gentlemanly overtones. For narratives, histories and tropes
of gentleman, see Rupert Wilkinson, Gentlemanly Power (New York, 1964).
57
Norman Zieglers study of the Khyt of Nainsi, a seventeenth-century Jodhpur
administrator, shows how Mughal administrative categories and practices were assimilated into Rajput political ideas and practices. It also suggests the creation of a
more complex and hierarchical status order on analogies with Mughal court society. Zieglers study of fteenth-century Rajput folksongs and tales is striking for the
absence in them of the orid literary and cultural embellishments of the later bardic
accounts, and suggests that Kols characterizations of Rajputs, of which more
below, as plain ghting men of diverse origins may apply to Rajputs in Rajputana
as well as in other parts of North India (The Seventeenth Century Chronicles of
Marvara: A Study in the Evolution and use of Oral Traditions in Western India,
History in Africa, 3 (1976); Marvari Historical Chronicles: Sources for the Social
and Cultural History of Rajasthan, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 13
(1976)). Nicholas Dirks, in his The Hollow Crown, argues that the political processes
associated with kingship rather than canonical texts or brahmanic understandings
determined social preference and standing, including caste identity and privileges.
South Indian kings, he argues, used symbolic and material resources under their
control to reshape or constitute status orders and castes.

278

The pre-Mughal term Rajput referred to persons with multiple


identitiese.g. place and sectonly one of which was that of a
ghting man. Pre-Mughal Rajputs, Kol tells us, were recruited from
village-based military labor markets structured by the agricultural
production cycle. The aristocratic Rajput of ancient lineage, Kol
argues, is a creature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
when, under the inuence of the Mughal court culture, something
like a new Rajput Great Tradition takes shape.58 Raj ocials after
1858 willingly endorsed the Rajput Great Tradition story, a story
that justied placing Rajput princes at the center of the imperial
ensemble as loyal but independent feudatories. It was an arrangement that suited the often socially ambitious British middle class
members of the Indian Civil Service eager for deference from the
exotic princes and aristocrats with whom they hobnobbed and from
whom they expected compliance.59

58
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the top layer of Rajputs (in
Rajputana), encouraged by the openings presented by the Mughal state and helped
by the expertise of their bards, tended to . . . articulate new norms of Rajput behavior. Bards had always encouraged their Rajput employers to assume aristocratic
self-images closely linked with myths of origin that established their status as kshatriyas and traced back their genealogies to, for instance, the great dynasties of
ancient Indian history. . . . The tendency to interpret Rajput history in genealogical terms was later inherited by Tod and other British administrators . . . . something like a new Rajput Great Tradition emerged (in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries) which could recognize little else than unilineal kin bodies as the elements
of which genuine Rajput history ought to be made up. Dirk H.A. Kol, Naukar,
Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 14501850
(Cambridge, 1990), pp. 7273). Kol sees the original Rajputs as an open status
group in which, as late as the nineteenth century, included errant soldier, migrant
labourer, or pack-animal trader. This interpretation is not accepted by many contemporary Rajputs who hold that Rajputs are descended from an historical Ram
or from his sons. For a debate about Rajput status a generation ago, see Rushton
Coulborn (ed.), Feudalism in History (Princeton NJ, 1956) and the debate that followed about feudalism as a universal category. For example did it exist as a
stage of development in India and Japan? The debate at that time about whether
Rajputs in India were a feudal status category or class was innocent of the understanding suggested here that Tod, who established the term for India, used Henry
Hallams reading of medieval feudalism as the core of his historiographical construction of feudalism in India.
59
Aspects of these perceptions and attitudes can be gleaned from E.M. Forsters
Passage to India and Paul Scotts four volume The Jewel in the Crown. Philip Woodrus
The Men who ruled India, 2 vols (London, 19534) traces the evolution of East India
Company and Indian Civil Service (ICS) mentalities. Clive Deweys recent study
shows the complexity of cultural provenance, motive and intention among several
prominent late nineteenth-century ICS ocers (C. Dewey, Anglo-Indian Attitudes: The
Mind of the Indian Civil Servant (London and Rio Grande, 1993)).

RAJASTHAN

279

Indeed, during the great revolt in 1857 against British rule most
of Rajputanas princes sided with the British.60 Their help in a time
of peril ushered in an era of mutual appreciation and support that
lasted to independence in 1947. After 1857, the Raj relied increasingly on Princely India as a source of legitimacy and political support. The princes in turn came to rely on British recognition and
power to legitimize and secure their rule.

Amar Singhs diary


We conclude by invoking the Rajput we know best, the diarist Amar
Singh.61 Particularly in the early years of his diary, he often explored
the meaning and consequences of his Rajput identity. His lineage
roots are found in the Champawat Rathores from Jodhpur, his status rests on a title and estate of an inuential service family in Jaipur,
his education and early career were shaped by an inuential patron,
the celebrated Sir Pratap Singh, for 22 years the Prince Regent of
Jodhpur. Sir Prataps prominence in the n-de-sicle imperial great
chain of being makes opportunities available to Amar Singh in
Princely and British India. Amar Singh initially knows himself from
stories about Rajputs that he has heard or read. In September 1898,
under the urging of his respected teacher, Barath Ram Nathji, he
begins writing his diary, an activity that he continues for 44 years

60
In the opening decades of the nineteenth century, the Company ended lingering Maratha pretensions to imperial status, defeated and pacied the Pindaris,
and gradually closed the peasant based military labor market by conning military
recruitment to high caste Hindus. As a result, according to Dirk Kol, The
Company largely achieved the demilitarisation . . . of politics at the regional level.
By 1850, British North India was almost totally demilitarised . . . (Kol, Naukar,
Rajput and Sepoy, p. 188). After the bloody and almost successful revolt in 1857 by
alienated sepoys, talukdars and princes, a Government of India Act had replaced
East India Company with Crown rule. A viceroy representing the British Queen
now stood in the place of the Mughal Emperor as the hegemonic power on the
Indian subcontinent. In time, the treaties became an important source for the doctrine of paramountcy. See S.N. Sen, Eighteen Fifty-Seven (New Delhi, 1957) and
Ainslee T. Embree (ed.), India in 1857: The Revolt Against Foreign Rule (Delhi, 1987).
61
See Introduction, Part 1. Provenance: Making a Self at the Jodhpur Court,
in Susanne Hoeber Rudolph and Lloyd I. Rudolph with Mohan Singh Kanota,
Reversing the Gaze; Amar Singhs Diary, A Colonial Subjects Narrative of Imperial India (New
Delhi, 2000), pp. 115.

280

until his death on November 1, 1942. He learns about Rajput valor


and honor, about Rajputs contributions to the making and maintaining of the Mughal Empire, about Rana Prataps resistance to
Mughal rule and struggle to maintain Mewars independence, about
Rajput pride of place in the British Raj. The stories he hears about
who and what a Rajput is are fed by Col. James Tods romantic
Eurocentric historiography and neo-bardic, feudal construction of the
martial Rajput.
But there is another side to his Rajput identity. Like Mohandas
Gandhis self-critical and radically reformist commitment to his Hindu
identity, Amar Singhs commitment to his Rajput identity is reexive
and self-critical. He knows Rajput ideals, what Rajputs at their best
can and should be, but his diary entries are replete with spirited
accounts of Rajputs behaving wrongly and badly. Indeed, again like
Gandhi, he is familiar with, indeed he often empathizes with the
standards and outlook of the imperial British other. He lives liminally, on the border between Princely and British India. He is among
the rst to serve as a Kings Commissioned Ocer in the British
Indian Army. After his retirement from the Indian Army in 1922,
the 44-year-old Amar Singh returns to Jaipur where he is asked to
raise the Jaipur Lancers and becomes something of a guide and
mentor to the new Maharaja, the 12-year-old Man Singh. In time
he becomes Commander of the Jaipur State Forces. His Rajputness
is continuously on trial not only in a public sphere shared with the
British but also in the private sphere of extended family life in a
100 person havel. His reexivity takes the form inner and outer critiques of who and what the Rajputs have become and should be.
Amar Singh dies in November 1942. Five years later, soon after
the close of World War II, India gains independence but the country is partitioned into successor states. Less noticed but of great
signicance for Rajput identity and history, the princely states, including 22 in the Rajputana agency, were integrated into the Indian
Union. The princes lost what sovereignty they had under paramountcy,62 a relationship of subordinate cooperation with the

62
See our essay, Rajputana Under British Paramountcy; The Failure of Indirect
Rule, in Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Essays on Rajputana (New
Delhi, 1984), pp. 337. See also Part VI Princely Courts in Imperial Space, of
our Reversing the Gaze, pp. 467556. For the integration of the princely states see

RAJASTHAN

281

British crown, when they acceded to the newly formed Government


of India. Indias old regime had begun to crumble. The princely
states of Rajasthan were merged into a newly formed state of Indias
federal system without a shot being red. The rst state election in
1952 under a universal franchise almost returned a Rajput led government but its potential leader, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, Hanut
Singh, an inveterate and intrepid ier, died in a plane crash as the
polls closed thereby depriving the princely and feudal order of a
potential one seat majority and, more importantly, its leader. In the
event leaders of the States Peoples Freedom Movement, Jai Narayan
Vyas of Jodhpur, Manickulal Verma of Udaipur, Hiralal Shastri of
Jaipur, who had led their organizations into a newly formed state
unit of the Nehru led Congress Party, formed Rajasthans rst democratically elected government.
The new governments rst order of business was land reform,
a euphemism in Rajasthan for jgr resumption. It removed, with
compensation, Rajput aristocrats from the their revenue bearing
landed estates. It also ousted their chhote bh"s, younger brothers,
from their small holdings. Dismissed from service with maharajas
or jgrdrs courts and bureaucracies, they now found themselves
without jobs and income. There was violence as their tenants, often
Jats, forcibly occupied resumed lands that their younger brothers
claimed as khud-ksht (self-cultivation) and refused to relinquish. In a
civil war of sorts between lesser Rajputs and their erstwhile tenants
hundreds of policeman lost their lives while trying to maintain law
and order.63 By 1956, when a large contingent of satised big Rajput
jgrdrs crossed the aisle to join the Mohan Lal Sukhadia led Congress
government, the old regime as such disappeared in the merger.
Rajputs now tended to join other castes and classes in the competition for power, status and benets that had begun to characterize
Indias democratic politics.
Looking back 47 years from the vantage point of a new century
since the days when we rst encountered Tods Rajasthan while living in Jaipur at Bissau House, we ask, what is left of Rajasthans

inter alia V.P. Menon, Story of the Integration of the Princely States (New Delhi, 1955)
and The Transfer of Power (New Delhi, 1957).
63
See our essay, The Political Modernization of an Indian Feudal Order: An
Analysis of Rajput Adaptation in Rajathan in Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne
Hoeber Rudolph, Essays on Rajputana, pp. 3878.

282

feudal society and ideology, of the image of heroism and honor summoned up by mounted warriors defending great castles from invading foes? Tods Rajasthan is being replicated for tourists. More tourists
visit Rajasthan than any other state. Its arts and crafts; its folk culture and performance arts; its fairs and fetes; its colorful clothing,
turbans and jewelry; its camels and elephants; all contribute to
Rajasthans appeal. Topping all Rajasthans attraction is its Rajput
heritage, a heritage of princes and noblemen, their palaces and forts,
castles and mansions.
Mohan Singh Kanota, our friend and co-author, was instrumental in organizing a Heritage Hotel association among Rajput princes
and noblemen. The associations helps Rajputs with palaces, forts and
castles to preserve their patrimony while earning an income. They
do so by reproducing for tourists from at home and abroad versions
of Tods Rajasthan. A thin and easily breached line separates preservation and its eort to be authentic and replication epitomized by
theme parks, a form of representation that has spread from America
to Europe and Japan.64 The preservation of the great forts at Chitor,
Kumbalghar, Jodhpur, Jaiselmer and Amber and of hundreds of
lesser forts, castles, palaces and havels gives us hope that something
of Tods Rajasthan, itself a partially imagined place, can help
Rajasthanis and those who visit Rajasthan to participate in the production and reproduction of Rajasthan.

64
For a discussion on authenticity in the context of identity and replication, see
our 2002 Ryerson Lecure at the University of Chicago, Engaging Subjective
Knowledge: Narratives of and by the Self in the Amar Singh Diary, The University
of Chicago Record, 36,4 (2002).

THE IDEA OF MODERNITY:


EUROPEAN PROGRESS FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD?
Victor van Bijlert

With the inevitability of the weather or the law of gravitation, modernity has been invading human lives for the last three centuries.
Modernity poses a great challenge: its history can be traced, its origins can be dug out of the rubble of time, its turns and twists can
be charted, its material manifestations can be seen everywhere. But
the informing idea behind this outward manifestation of modernity
often eludes the perceiver. Modernity is more than a social phenomenon or an historical process. It is the grand utopia of an everreceding future. Taking stock of history reveals the dierent routes
modernity has taken. This exercise reveals that modernity may be
of European origin, that it is far from widely accepted and that it
incarnates or reincarnates in dierent world civilisations, including
the Indian. The ultimate purpose of modernity depends on human
will, internalised values and conscious eort. Modernity, in the last
analysis, is a human revolt against fate, chance, unpredictability and
lack of control over ones destiny. What makes modernity attractive
is the chances it promises of genuine human progress and happiness.

Modernity and its opposites


Modernity is often dened as the opposite of tradition. This is the
standard view of most social scientists including historians. Tradition
is associated with pre-industrialised societies. These old worlds, in
Gellners view, were . . . each of them, a cosmos: purposive, hierarchical, meaningful; and on the other hand, not quite unied,
consisting of subworlds each with its own idiom and logic, . . . [the]
new world was . . . morally inert, . . . unitary.1 The received solidity of social hierarchies (often religiously legitimised), or even the

Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 1983), p. 23.

284

semblance of such solidity constitutes tradition. Tradition is most


dramatically observable in the forms of governance based on the unquestioned, God-given rights to rule, be it by a gentry, an aristocracy, a monarchy or an empire. Such traditional forms of governance
have been thoroughly and irreparably demolished by modernity.
Where modernity moves away from the present into an unknown
and unpredictable future, tradition only needs to look at the not too
distant past to know how society ought to be maintained and preserved.
Opposition to modernity varies from mild conservatism to reactionary militancy. Conservatism denoted the desire to keep the present more or less as it is in the light of received wisdom. Reaction
denotes the (often vain) attempt to turn the clock back and reinstall
an older order onto society. Reactionaries often regard modern society as immoral and decadent. They strive (often with intensely violent and coercive means such as used by religious fundamentalists
or fascists) to bring back modern society to old ways of long ago or
to abolish history altogether and return to the alleged purity of a
remote past. The conservatives, on the whole, do not wish this,
because, as established elites, they do not wish to lose too much
ground in violent adventures. Tradition on a local level would be
the tight and pernickety control of the parish and local community.2 But this is a mild form of tradition. The opposition traditionmodernity is evidently not the only one. Modernity-conservatism and
modernity-reaction are the other oppositions.
Taking a dialectic view of the modernity issue we can distinguish
two opposite forces: modernitys emancipatory force and conservative and reactionary forces running counter to modernity. Whereas,
for instance, modernity emphasises egalitarianism, the reactionary
mentality tries to revert to the opposite, namely inequality and stress
on (natural or divine) hierarchies. Modernity seen in this light
is not an omnipotent trend, but rather a edgling trend towards
greater personal freedom, and an increasingly more just redistribution of wealth than ever before in human history. Reactionary and
elitist mentalities need not necessarily espouse a return or real restoration of absolute monarchy or aristocratic rule. They can hide behind
a faade of modernity and yet discredit any of the real characteris-

Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics (Oxford, 1993), p. 22.

285

tics of modernity.3 In the sequel we will look at modernity as a state


of mind, an ethos, much in the sense of Max Webers spirit of capitalism. Internalised as conscience, work-ethic, motivation for selfimprovement, modernity compels its followers into continuous mental
and physical exertion.4
In the idea of modernity we can identify the following layers. The
spiritual or ideal layer consists in the idea that it is possible to achieve
full control over ones own consciousness, ones own personality in
the widest sense and therefore also over ones destiny. This idea
manifests itself in values such as self-realisation, sovereignty of the
person, freedom of conscience, a sense of equality of all human
beings, the independence of human reason and judgement to discover truth, a feeling of freedom from outer religious or ideological
constraints. These comprise ideological modernity. Next comes the
social one. Here the idea is of increasing control over the vagaries of
fate and chance. This idea manifests itself in social arrangements
and organisations, ranging from village schools upto the modern
democratic nation-state and democratic supranational bodies. The
last layer is the actual realisation of physical control, manifesting itself
among others in the production of material wealth within the context of institutions like the nation-state. This includes capitalistic
modes of production and distribution; the factory-wise rationalised
production of goods; the building of an infrastructure of rapid transport, such as canals, roads, railroads etc.; the creation of means of
rapid communication like the printing-press, telegraph and telephone,
radio and television and of late the Internet. As the material realisation of modernity gains momentum, it seems modernitys spiritual
aspects are lost sight of.

3
Twentieth-century dictators often invoked ideas associated with modernity such
as freedom, literacy, general education, democratic centralism etc. to conceal their real motives of striving after absolute power. Recent left-wing issues like
deep ecology and alternative cultures are sometimes being infected by extreme rightist and downright Neo-Nazi inuences. See: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitlers Priestess:
Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (New Delhi, 2000), pp. 22532.
4
Max Weber had already remarked in his famous study on Protestantism and
the Capitalist Ethic: The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to
do so. Moreover, the economic order is bound to . . . machine production which
today determine the lives of all individuals who are born into this mechanism . . .
with irresistible force (Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Translated by Talcott Parsons. With an introduction by Anthony Giddens (London and New
York, 2001), p. 123.

286

Nothing could be more devious. A state of mind and a programme


of actionreally meant for greater human happiness and comfort
turn into a Moloch of technology, the negation of human agency.
How is this possible? And more importantly, can modernity save us
from itself? In order to nd answers we will address modernity from
the following thematic: what is the world-view both for the individual as such and as a member of a social world; how is the idea of
modernity realised in history; and how can we proceed towards the
future?

Contours of modernity and postmodernity


What is modernity according to contemporary social theorists? In
his well-known study Modernity and Self-Identity Anthony Giddens oers
some interesting generalisations in the chapter called The Contours
of High Modernity. Modernity according to Giddens was rst established in post-feudal Europe, but . . . in the twentieth century increasingly became world-historical in its impact.5 Modernity refers to
institutions and modes of behaviour. It is roughly equivalent to industrialism, capitalism, competitive markets, institutions of surveillance,
massive increase of organisational power, the nation-state, symbolic
tokens, and systems of expertise.6 Experts comprise among others the
doctor, counsellor, therapist, technician, scientist and engineer. Trust
is an important psychological state in modernity, because we have
to have an almost implicit trust in the professional capabilities of
these experts.7
The outward manifestations of modernity in institutions, expertise
and strictly calculable time management have a deep impact on the

5
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age
(Cambridge, 1994), pp. 145.
6
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, pp. 146.
7
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, p. 19. Trust is more than a minimal ethical
demand in modernity. Fukuyama argues the importance of trust in dierent life situations at great length in his book Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity
(New York, 1995). He holds that moral virtues such as trust are the dynamics
behind economic success and prosperity in any given society. Societies that lack
trust and the related virtues are also economically and socially not well o. Fukuyama
resurrects the famous Weber thesis about Protestantism but widens and secularises
its application far beyond Protestantism itself.

287

personal self. Confronted with modernity, a person has to explore


and reconstruct the sense of self outside any traditionally given patterns. Traditional cultures organised transitions in the lives of individuals through rites de passage. These are no more valid under the
sway of modernity. We are now, as it were, living in an unpredictable world in which every person has to nd his or her own
way in an impersonalised society.8 Thus from a psychological point
of view, modernity for the individual person is accompanied by a
high degree of what Giddens calls anxiety which is not to be confounded with fear. Anxiety comes with human liberty, while freedom is not a given . . . but derives from the acquisition of an
ontological understanding of external reality and personal identity.
Moreover, anxiety derives from the necessity to anticipate future
possibilities counterfactually in relation to present action.9 Modernity,
asserts Giddens, confronts the individual with a complex diversity
of choices and, because it is non-foundational, . . . oers little help
as to which options should be selected.10
One of the major concerns of Giddens analysis of modernity is
the role of the individual person in it. Under modernity the individual has to grope for self-identity, make his or her own choices
and is compelled to take risks in this process while not clinging to
the security oered by money, property, . . . personal relationship,
marriage contracts.11 To sum up, in Giddens contours of modernity we have on the societal scale: institutionalisation; expertise systems; the recombination of social relationships across indenite time
and space distances. On the scale of the individual we have: anxiety, insecurity, risk and innite choice. Modernity in Giddens perception seems to be an interplay between individuals and institutions
under the conditions outlined above. Only in passing does he refer
to the moral meaning of existence which modern institutions so
thoroughly tend to dissolve and which new forms of religion and
spirituality are addressing.12
In his last chapter Giddens discusses emancipatory aspects of
modernity. He distinguishes two types of politics: emancipatory

8
9
10
11
12

Giddens,
Giddens,
Giddens,
Giddens,
Giddens,

Modernity
Modernity
Modernity
Modernity
Modernity

and
and
and
and
and

Self-Identity,
Self-Identity,
Self-Identity,
Self-Identity,
Self-Identity,

pp. 323, 48.


pp. 457.
p. 80.
p. 73.
p. 207.

288

politics and life politics. Emancipatory politics aim to free human


beings from pre-existing constraints, through justice, equality and
participation. Emancipation means liberating people from oppression. Such politics entail the adoption of moral values.13 It can be
divided in three categories: radical (including Marxism), liberal and
conservative. Life politics, on the other hand, are primarily concerned with the choices an individual or a group can make, once
some degree of emancipation is achieved. Giddens analysis of modernity leaves us with an overall impression of totality, inescapability
and irreversibility. Modernity equals the whole of our human condition since at least the last two hundred years. Giddens pays little
attention to the moral issues of modernity in whatever form the latter appears to the individual. It is remarkable that Giddens advises
us not to cling too much to security, not even in the most intimate
personal facts of life such as marriage. Giddens analyses and represents the totally secular outlook of modernity at its height.
In his Modernity and Ambivalence (1991) Zygmunt Bauman warns us
that modernity like all other quasi-totalities is elusive, opaque and
frayed at the edges. Yet around some prominent features of what
he aptly calls modern consciousness he weaves his whole analysis
of modernity. The spirit of modernity is obsessed with order against
chaos, and with design against nature. Nature is unordered existence, this is something to be mastered, subordinated, remade. Existence
is modern in so far as it is eected and sustained by design, manipulation, management, engineering (italics in the original). It is administered by resourceful (that is, possessing knowledge, skill and technology),
sovereign agencies. This engineered and managed order has its
other in the form of chaos, the things that have to be kept under
control or kept out altogether. Bauman enumerates some of these
things: undenability, incoherence, incongruity . . . irrationality, ambiguity, confusion, undecidability, ambivalence. Moreover, modern
consciousness is inclined to be utterly intolerant of this other.
Modern consciousness sets the limits to incorporation and admission. It calls for the denial of rights . . . of everything that cannot
be assimilated. Modernity sets itself an impossible task, a horizon that can never be reached. But this gives movement and illu-

13

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, pp. 2112.

289

sory purpose to modernitys obsessive march forward. Modernity


thus equals restlessness appearing as historical progress. In order
to manage the world, modernity prides itself on being able to
fragment the world into precisely measurable units and territories.
The fragments acquire the autonomy to not look beyond the fence
and not to be looked at from outside the fence, and the right to
separate, to discriminate, to peel o and to trim. This ability to
dichotomise is an exercise in power and at the same time its disguise. The other of modernity, i.e. ambivalence, is the waste of
modernity and the modern eras most genuine worry and concern, since . . . it grows in strength with every success of modern
powers.14
Modernitys obsession with creating order and removing all ambivalence accounts in Baumans view as much for the Jacobinism of the
French Revolution15 as for the Holocaust in Nazi Germany,16 and
for communism and its demise.17 Bauman mentions in this context
the twin concepts of social engineering (Bauman 1991:29) and the
gardening state to explain this. In his opinion the modern state is
like a garden in which desirable plants are to be fostered and undesirable ones must be weeded out.18 Thus the Holocaust was not the
absence of modernity but initially its legitimate outcome. Bauman
argues that social engineering and eugenics which lay at the foundation of the plan of the Holocaust, were widely accepted notions
in pre-war Europe and the United States.19 Nazi Germany was simply implementing the principles of modernity with ruthless thoroughness. Ruthlessness follows almost inevitably from the obsession
with manageable order: the rationalizing drive of political agencies
must seek liberation from ethical constraints.20
A similar liberation but in a somewhat dierent mode, characterises postmodernity. If modernity is about order, postmodernity is
about everything goes.21 This mode of tolerance degenerates into

14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21

Zygmunt
Bauman,
Bauman,
Bauman,
Bauman,
Bauman,
Bauman,
Bauman,

Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 415.


Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 27, 37.
Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 2930, 4150.
Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 2668.
Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 2734.
Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 3036.
Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 39.
Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 251.

290

selshness of the rich and the resourceful.22 In Baumans view, postmodernism as the newest fashion thrives on self-centredness and
indierence to the condition of the non-privileged. This is possible
because under postmodernity human concerns have become privatised; the most seminal of privatizations was that of human problems and the responsibility for their resolution. So instead of concerned
citizens, in the postmodern world we are left with seduced and privileged consumers and those that have no means to consume. Obviously
the latter owe their sorry state to themselves. Postmodernity eectively
desocialized the ills of society and translated social injustice as individual ineptitude or neglect.23 Privatisation and consumerism create
consumer-freedom for the rich. The driving force behind all this is
the free market.24
Consumer freedom means orientation of life towards market-approved
commodities and thereby precludes one crucial freedom: freedom from
the market . . . Above all consumer freedom succesfully deects aspirations of human liberty from communal aairs and the management
of collective life.25

Irresponsibility, free market, and a minimised state are driven by


what Bauman calls postmodern values: novelty, . . . rapid (preferably inconsequential and episodic) change, . . . individual enjoyment
and consumer choice.26 These sum up the postmodern condition as
the opposite and the collapse of the order and regularisation of
modernity. Postmodernity, Bauman exclaims elsewhere, is modernity
without illusions. Illusions are the belief that the messiness of the
human world is but a temporary and repairable state, sooner or later
to be replaced by the orderly and systematic rule of reason. Postmodernity mistrusts unemotional, calculating reason and returns
dignity to human spontaneity, drives, impulses and inclinations

22

Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 259.


Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 261.
24
If this is social postmodernity, we seem to have gone back to the nineteenth
century laissez faire liberalism. The latter also blamed the poor for their poverty.
Postmodernity may in fact be nothing more than a revival of harsh elitist liberalism under a new cloak. If this view is accepted, under postmodernity we are moving away from emancipatory modernity not in a forward but an obviously backward
direction.
25
Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 262.
26
Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, p. 278.
23

291

resistant to prediction and rational justication.27 The predominant


note of postmodernist social theory is that large encompassing metanarratives including religion, science, art, modernism and Marxism,
making absolute universal and all-embracing claims to knowledge
and truth have lost validity and legitimacy.28 Especially the metanarrative of Marxism and its claim to absolute truth, as . . . any theory which tries to read a pattern of progress into history have
become particularly suspect to postmodernists.29 It seems as if postmodernity is based on despair and total lack of faith. We have sold
our souls to idealism and see how horribly we have been betrayed
all these decades!. This seems to be the disappointment of the condition of postmodernity.
The general contours of the mentality of modernity are: rejection
of the past, irreversible change in all spheres of life, imposing rational control over a world that is seen as chaotic and irrational, increasing reliance on technological inventions, free market economy, and
very little ethics. Postmodernity then is just the slackening of government control, privatisation of social life and a consequent growing divide between rich consumers and those that were too stupid
or lazy to make it. Giddens does not discuss ethical concerns.
Bauman does, but despairs of both modernity and postmodernity.
However, both Giddens and Bauman implicitly treat modernity as
a mentality, rather than external institutions.

Modernity and eurocentrism


Anthony King in an insightful essay shows that in contemporary
social theory modernity is invariably dened only in relation to
Europe and the USA, and not within the worldsystem as a whole.
Modernity is often solely identied with the European Enlightenment
project emphasising rationality, order, the state, control and the

27

Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, pp. 323.


Dominic Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture (London and New
York, 1995), p. 227. See also the deliciously irreverent collection of essays on postmodernism and ethics by Ron Shapiro, Surviving Postmodernism: Some Ethical and not
so Ethical Debates in the Media and Universities (Delhi, 1998).
29
Strinati, An Introduction, p. 227.
28

292

belief in progress.30 This Eurocentrism is an obvious shortcoming.


It is the direct consequence of dening the modern . . . by reference to a particular point in time, but without reference to space.31
King proposes to dene modernity at least by taking a very recent
point in time as the moment of its departure. Such a recent vantage point will allow us to view modernity as the multicultural mixture that one can experience in large cities like Rio, Calcutta or
Mombasa.32 King further argues that even postmodernity characterised by irony, pastiche, the mixing of dierent histories, intertextuality . . . fragmentation, incoherence . . . is a Eurocentric concept.
These characteristics existed decades, if not centuries before in
colonial societies . . . in Calcutta, Hong Kong, Rio or Singapore.33
Only recently, Third World intellectuals in the humanities have
brought a new consciousness of colonialism to Western debates.
Modernity and postmodernity stand in need of deep redenition in
the light of a view that is gradually ridding itself of its Eurocentric
shackles.
The space thus opened up allows us to see modernity not as a
Great Unier or a single route to progress, but rather, in the
words of Therborn, as a terrain, a cultural landscape through
which dierent routes and trajectories pass. He distinguishes four
major entries into modernity, the European one of revolution or
reform; the New World route of the Americans; imposed or externally induced modernity as in Egypt or the Ottoman Empire; and
lastly the route of colonial conquest and subjection. Especially the
fourth route is ridden with conict. Modernity under colonialism was
a foreign element that had to be absorbed and assimilated. National
emancipation and national identity have been of enduring signicance
also in the post-colonial era. The challenge for future study of modernity is to de-Westernize and de-centre the conception of the
global, to grasp the diversity of the modern world.34 Although it

30
Anthony D. King, The Times and Spaces of Modernity (or who needs postmodernism?) in Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson (eds.), Global
Modernities (London and New Delhi, 1995), p. 110.
31
King, The Times and Spaces, p. 111.
32
King, The Times and Spaces, p. 114.
33
King, The Times and Spaces, pp. 1201.
34
Gran Therborn, Route to/through Modernity, in Mike Featherstone, Scott
Lash, and Roland Robertson (eds.), Global Modernities (London and New Delhi, 1995),
pp. 1317.

293

is dicult to deny the validity of the demand to de-Westernise


modernity, from an historical perspective it is also dicult to altogether deny the Western birthplace of modernity. Perhaps one single factorirrespective of the originsaccounts for modernity as the
most pervasive phenomenon of our contemporary world: it can be
succesfully repeated and with every repetition there is added value
of various kinds. Modernity is a mode of individual and societal
behaviour that can be learned, imitated and adapted to local needs.
The imitating and learning aspect of adopting modernity, or of
becoming modern, suggests the imitators are obliged to follow the
Western master model. In other words, if one wants to become modern, one has to imitate the role model, the perfect original, from
Europe of course. However, the other aspect is adaptation and learning through adaptation and experimenting. Adaptation and experimentation with modernity imply that modernity is not a single
blueprint that can be mechanically copied. Wherever that happened
it failed. The process of modernity is comparable to the spread of
technology, industrialisation and economic growth. Ernest Gellner
regards the promise of economic growth as the hallmark of modern
society. Industrialisation dissolved traditional agrarian society. This
in its turn caused new mobility and a certain kind of egalitarianism. Hence modern society has to be mobile . . . because this is
required for the satisfaction of its terrible and overwhelming thirst
for economic growth.35 Economic growth is setting an example for
the rest of the world to emulate if it so wishes: great stories of successful economic development were about societies whose wealth and
power had the demonstration eect which pointed humanity towards
a new style of life.36 With every new experimentation, new improvements are made and the whole body of technological knowledge is
being enriched. Modernity can be likened to a process of learning
and improvement. The fact that modernity is open-ended and can
be learned, explains its success. Like technology, modernity is both
a motivating power and a body of ever-increasing expert knowledge
which are applied to social life. It need not necessarily follow only
one single trajectory.

35
36

Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 25.


Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 86.

294


Modernity and ethics

It is noteworthy that the social theorists we have so far discussed


completely left ethics and values out of their analysis of modernity.
Only Bauman returns to moral issues regarding the implementation
of modernity, but stops short of calling the thing by its name. His
Modernity and Ambivalence is permeated with the idea that modernity
can and does lead to the entire absence of any ethical considerations. If modernity means order, then everything that does not t
in the pattern must be ruthlessly eradicated. The worst example of
this is the Holocaust. The terms moral, ethics, values appear
on the same page and are used indiscriminately.37
The same page tells us that modern scientists hail objectivity
and disdain and avoid value judgements, while science itself is
objective and hence immune to ethical recrimination: not a moral
problem at all. In the following statement we nd Baumans understanding of modernity and morality neatly summarised: by radically
weakening the hold of moral inhibitions, and making large-scale
actions independent from moral judgement . . . and individual morality, modernity supplies the means for genocide.38 And for colonialism, we may add.39 Among the other authors, Anthony Giddens
devotes a few sentences to morality in his book-long essay Modernity
and Self-Identity. The most explicit reference to anything that may
vaguely look like a moral concern is found in his juxtaposition of
emancipatory and life politics. Emancipatory politics used to aim at
the reduction or elimination of exploitation, inequality or oppression. The corresponding form in life politics aims at the creation
of morally justiable forms of life that will promote self-actualisation
in the context of global interdependence.40 Giddens and Bauman
base their observations on the unquestioned assumption that modernity equals a purely secular outlook which ignores ethical concerns,
let alone religious inspirations. But not all social scientists on modernity are totally unconcerned about ethics.

37
38
39
40

Cf. Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 4950.


Bauman, Modernity and Ambivalence, pp. 4950.
Bauman expressed a sincere concern for ethics (Bauman, Postmodern Ethics).
Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, p. 215.

295

Cultural Studies
For an ethical perspective on modernity, which also takes note of
individual persons, we can turn to a recent new discipline, Cultural
Studies. Emerging from the study of English literature, sociology of
culture and committed British socialism in the sixties, Cultural Studies brings us closer to the lives of human beings and their daily concerns. Some of its practitioners claimed that Cultural Studies is of
course, the study of culture, or, more particularly, the study of contemporary culture. Cultural Studies concentrate on subjectivity,
which means that it studies culture in relation to individual lives,
breaking with social scientic positivism.41 But this approach roams
about in the realms of history and ethics as well. Values do play a
role in the motivation behind doing Cultural Studies. Fred Inglis in
his overview of Cultural Studies claims his book is . . . a mixture
of secular sermon, intellectual pilgrimage . . . and . . . strenuous aspiration towards entirely serious and syncretic thoughts.42 Protagonists
of Cultural Studies bear witness to values that include democracy,
equality, fullment, freedom. These values are trans-class and
seless. They are our common heritage and the ground in which
our common humanity is rooted. They arm solidarity as against
competition.43 Inglis wants Cultural Studies militants to practice
three special virtues: keenness of spontaneity, earnest serenity of
seriousness and solidarity. The political inspiration behind this
solidarity and behind Cultural Studies as a whole Inglis records on
the same page:
Solidarity is the rst value of socialism and although socialism is in
pretty bad cas . . . Cultural Studies started from socialisms old parabolas, its spirals of love and hope as well as of hatred and vengefulness.
The political commitment is inscribed in the values and conceptual
structures of all descriptions of the eld, and any revisions will have
to keep faith with that solidarity, its realm and fount of value, or else
ditch the whole project and begin again.44

As an intellectual inquiry in all the mansions of the . . . human sciences, cultural studies should try to balance the claims of life in
41
42
43
44

Simon During (ed.), The Cultural Studies Reader (London, 1993), p. 1.


Fred Inglis, Cultural Studies (Oxford, 1993), p. xiii.
Inglis, Cultural Studies, p. 9.
Inglis, Cultural Studies, p. 17.

296

the here-and-now against a larger objectivity. Or in the language


of morality, studying the human sciences should give us a way of
thinking and a speakable idiom to tell us an intelligible story about
history . . . and how we may live . . . principled lives in it.45 We may
disagree with Inglis claim that socialist solidarity as a moral and
political commitment is inscribed in all descriptions of the eld
of Cultural Studies. Socialist inspiration is often not very noticeable
in the recent developments of Cultural Studies. But let us take his
word for it that Cultural Studies as a multidisciplinary inquiry into
contemporary culture and into modernity itself, should be informed
with more positive emotion than mere academic detachment. How
one should analyse culture in a humanistic fashion we learn through
Cultural Studies in practice. The socialist inspiration behind it is
sympathetic, but can we nd more than observation of daily life?
Assuming that the study of modernity is to some extent the study
of human progress and self-realisation, we should be able to discover
historical moments when most dramatically human beings have been
inspired to transcend themselves on the basis of a particular liberating ethic. Socialism was one such a source of inspiration. Struggles
against oppression of whatever kind is another case in point. They
are the strongest moments of modernity, as we will show in the
sequel. Resistance against oppression (whether of tradition or monarchy or a church) often coincided with cultural and political emancipation. The most prominent Western examples of this are the
Reformation in the sixteenth century, and the various cultural and
political revolutions it engendered, from the establishment of the
Geneva Republic, the Dutch Republic, the Cromwellian Revolution
in England, up to the American Revolution, and the French Revolutions. In all of these Calvinism played an important role.46 The
Russian Revolution and the other twentieth-century revolutions owe
almost nothing to the spirit of Protestantism anymore. They were
all inspired by a secular sense of political and social freedom. Twentiethcentury revolutions were mostly guided by Marxist activists. Marxism
in the colonies was a strong force towards radical political emanci-

45

Inglis, Cultural Studies, p. 8.


On the political revolutionary aspect of Calvinism, see the massive study by
John Sap, Paving the Way for Revolution: Calvinism and the Struggle for a Democratic
Constitutional State (Amsterdam, 2001).
46

297

pation. Among the revolutionary decolonisation movements, the


Indian Freedom Movement gures prominently. In most cases anticolonial resistance meant conict and (armed) struggle in which there
were winners and losers. Marxism with its analysis of the political
economy of capitalism provided a credible diagnosis of the ills under
colonial rule. Hence it was followed by many serious anticolonial
freedom ghters, even though they later in life often again turned
away from Marxism.47

Radical emancipatory modernity


Digging in the recent past of modernity shows many roads to greater
liberty and justice such as the well-known ones of liberalism, nationalism, and socialism. What all these utopias have in common is the
idea and possibility of full human self-realisation and emancipation. But there are other less well-known utopias of modernity too:
anarchism, Gandhism, christian-democracy, libertarianism and even
anarcho-capitalism. However, not all utopias belong to the core of
the moral ethos of modernity. All brands of religiously inspired fundamentalism and revivalism (Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Judaic and
Christian) are utopias, but not modes of modernity. Nor are fascism,
nazism and other forms of authoritarianism. All utopias that completely reject the main ideals of greater self-realisation and social justice and liberty must be excluded from the core of modernity. This
exclusion is based on a clear recognition that the essence of modernity is an ethical concern, not an governmental instrument.
The real utopias of modernity may dier in emphasis: some emphasise economic reform, some social responsibility, some again advocate a strong welfare state, some want power structures to disappear
and advocate voluntary association and co-operation, some value personal freedom more than anything else. But all these truly modern
utopias share a concern for the future: to change the present for a
better future. They are all based on some condence in the eectiveness
of human agency. Above all, they are informed (or ideally ought to
be informed) by a deeply felt ethic of unselshness.
47
See on this the enlightening introduction by Sibnarayan Ray to the edited
writings of the Indian Freedom ghter and Marxist communist M.N. Roy: Sibnarayan
Ray (ed.), Selected Works of M.N. Roy, Vol. 1 (New Delhi, 2000), pp. 156.

298

After the fall of the Berlin Wall Fukuyamas End of History has
not arrived yet, nor has Samuel Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations
begun beyond the usual clashes of commercial and geo-strategic interests of the West versus the rest. What we do witness is a steep rise
in authoritarian politics, ranging from extremely violent manifestations of Islamic fundamentalism, to equally violent Hindu revivalism, the come-back of the extreme right in Europe and the coercive
policies of US-led globalisation. But this rise in extremist politics
does not indicate a clash of civilisations, rather a clash of authoritarian (national) interests. Nevertheless, one should make no mistakes
about the dangers they are posing for modernity, democracy and
human rights. There is apparently little cause for idealism these days.
Marxism seems to have outlived itself after numerous metamorphoses:
from the Workers International and nascent social-democracy in the
late nineteenth century, via Leninist-Stalinist adaptations to vaguely
postmodernist political correctness.
Thus for our idealism we are left with the tradition of radical liberty and social justice (which moved around the fringes of Marxist
orthodoxy) has never fully allied itself with authoritarian forms of
government.48 Perhaps from this radical perspective it is possible to
analyse and theorise idealistic but viable utopias of modernity. We
could call this radical emancipatory modernity. The central issue
here is the dierence between a modernity that is truly emancipatory and all the other socio-political utopias that end in authoritarianism, because they were based on control and a purely instrumental
governmental view of human beings that make up society. The other
problem is that the authoritarian mindset inherited from pre-Enlightenment, feudal times, were never fully shaken o. It is precisely
because of their authoritarianism that many utopias of modernity
have come in for severe criticism and were rightfully rejected. Authoritarianism and not abstract economics is the sickness of contemporary political utopias. Thus radical emancipatory concerns could be
regarded as the core and ideal of modernity for the future. One of

48
During the Civil War in Spain, around 1936, the anarchists, who were a force
to be reckoned with, joined the governments of Catalonia and Madrid. The anarchist ministers were drawn from the Confederacin Nacional del Trabajo and the
Federacin Anarquista Ibrica. See George Woodcock, Anarchism (Harmondsworth
Middlesex, 1977), pp. 36870.

299

its most important global manifestations nowadays is the deep concern for human rights. Is radical emancipatory modernity only a
typically Western concern?

Modernity, colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism


Many scholars have maintained that modernitybeing Western in
originhas travelled outside the West among others via colonialism.
In whatever way it came to the non-West, modernity was always
an imposition. Colonialism best exemplies the inequality involved
in the process: the giver imposes, the recipient obediently accepts,
modernity. Of course, we cannot separate colonialism from the colonialists, those who created colonial settings. These people were of
two kinds: European conquerors, merchants, missionaries, civil servants, soldiers, teachers, scholars; and their indigenous helpers: local
elites, clerks, urban middle classes, indigenous merchants, policemen,
landlords, translators, village headmen. In the friction between all
these groups, colonial and indigenous modernities arose. According
to Edward Said, colonial empire was about the interdependence of
cultural terrains in which colonizer and colonized . . . battled each
other through projections as well as rival . . . narratives, and histories. Now the time has come to study imperialism as neither monolithic nor reductively compartmentalized. The struggles to be free
from empire . . . prove the validity of a fundamental liberationist
energy that animates the wish to be independent.49 It is this liberationist energy that forms the core of modernity also outside Europe.
It is the same concern that inspires all genuine attempts at greater
liberty and self-realisation. This concern is in the last analysis a spiritual and ethical one, inasmuch as it does not seek self-realisation
for the personal self only but for humanity as a whole. The wish
to be independent animates struggles to become free. On societal
scale this wish translates into struggle for cultural and political independence, in other words, into anti-colonial nationalism.
Nationalism in general is widely understood as the most important bearer of modernity especially of the type Bauman so eloquently
denounces. In the words of Gellner,

49

Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London, 1994), pp. xxiiiii.

300


nationalism is, essentially, the general imposition of a high culture on
society, where previously low cultures had taken up the lives . . . of the
population. It means that generalized diusion of a school-mediated,
academy-supervised idiom, codied for the requirements of reasonably
precise bureaucratic and technological communication. It is the establishment of an anonymous, impersonal society, with mutually substitutable atomized individuals, held together . . . by a shared culture of
this kind . . .50

Modern education and shared high culture are stimulated by one great
motive force, the motive force of modernity par excellence, modern
rationalised industrialism, because it is modern industrial society alone
that requires for its smooth functioning universal literacy and a high
level of numerical, technical and general sophistication.51
Gellners important contribution to the investigation of the origins
and quasi omnipresence of nationalism in the modern world (nineteenth and twentieth centuries), is the fact that he convincingly demonstrates the necessary links between industrialisation and nationalism.
For it is modern calculating and rational industrialisation especially
which needs for its full blossoming compact, culturally homogeneous territorial nation-states.52 Gellner is, however, mainly thinking
of Europe as the role model for the rest of the world. In colonial
empires the function of indigenous nationalism is somewhat dierent.
But it has motivated liberation-movements and struggles for freedom. In this respect only, nationalism is a form of emancipatory
modernity.53

Contours of Indian modernity


In the last two decades, Indian social historians have produced exciting new interpretations of Indian anti-colonial nationalism.54 The two

50

Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 57.


Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, p. 35.
52
Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, pp. 3942.
53
Even nowadays, as Ranajit Guha, the founder of Subaltern Studies, remarked
once in an interview when he said that he called himself an Indian leftist, antiimperialist and anti-colonial nationalist.
54
See especially Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, A
Derivative Discourse. (London, 1993); Sudipta Kaviraj, The Imaginary Institution of
India, in Subaltern Studies, Vol. 7 (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 139; Tapan Raychaudhuri,
Europe Reconsidered, Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal (New Delhi, 1988);
51

301

monographs by Partha Chatterjee have been especially inuential.55


The main point Chatterjee argues in these books is that the ThirdWorld nationalismof which nascent Indian nationalism forms an
integral partis characterised by constructing new cultural identities as a response to the European enterprise of colonisation. In his
rst book, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, published in 1986,
Chatterjee maintains that such anti-colonial
. . . nationalism sought to demonstrate the falsity of the colonial claim
that the backward peoples were culturally incapable of ruling themselves in the conditions of the modern world. . . . it also asserted that
a backward nation could modernize itself while retaining its cultural
identity. . . . even as it challenged the colonial claim to political domination, it also accepted the . . . premises of modernity on which
colonial domination was based.56

Chatterjee does not oer an unambiguous denition of nationalism.


As nationalisms dominant note in the nineteenth century was anticolonialism manifesting itself in a great variety of cultural, historical
and political texts written initially predominantly by Bengali intellectuals, we must assume that a denition encompasses all these productions. Since a denition cannot run into endlessness, Chatterjee
characterises nationalism minimally by its common denominator as
anti-colonialism. This minimal requirement lands us in trouble, for
it does not make explicit the need to modernise Indian society from
within without the interference of the colonial overlords. Most of the
prominent nineteenth-century nationalist icons were in fact also modernisers and socio-political reformers.
Also in this second monograph Chatterjee does not clearly dene
nationalism in a short formula but rather intends the whole book to
dene the nation to be by presenting a mosaic of its bits and pieces.
That the nation (and what about nationalism?) is dicult to dene,
Chatterjee admits from the start. In his preface he calls the nation . . .
the one most untheorized concept of the modern world.57

Ashis Nandy, The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self
(New Delhi, 1994). The rst two authors are prominent exponents of the Subaltern
Studies approach to the writing of Indian history.
55
Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought; and Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments:
Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, New Jersey, 1993).
56
Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, p. 30.
57
Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, p. xi.

302

By way of a working hypothesis Chatterjee agrees with Benedict


Andersons famous theory of the imagined quality of the nation.
In his famous monograph on nationalism Benedict Anderson proposes the following denition of the nation: it is an imagined community . . . because the members of even the smallest nation will
never know most of their fellow-members.58 This imagination of the
nation was spread through printed books and newspapers written in
the national language of a given region. The production of all this
printed material Anderson calls print-capitalism. Or to put Andersons
thesis more briey: the mass-media create the image of the nation
in the minds of the consumers of these mass-media. And all this,
Anderson shows us, began to happen since the printing-press was
invented in the fteenth century.59
The place where the Indian nation is constructed Chatterjee locates
in the spiritual domain:
The material is the domain of the outside, of the economy and of
state-craft, of science and technology, a domain where the West had
proved its superiority and the East had succumbed . . . The spiritual . . .
is an inner domain bearing the essential marks of cultural identity . . . The colonial state . . . is kept out of the inner domain of
national culture . . . here nationalism launches its most powerful, creative . . . historically signicant project: to fashion a modern national
culture that is . . . not Western. If the nation is an imagined community, then this is where it is brought into being.60

In other words, Chatterjee embraces Andersons assumption that


the nation resides in the consciousness of the members that form the
national community. The most powerful form of nationalism, the
ideology of the nation, is the indigenous culture moving within
the inner domain of cultural production. This is the locus of the
formulation and dissemination of non-Western modes of modernity.
Thus the nascent Indian nation, also in Chatterjees view, is a modern phenomenon. But Chatterjee does not delve much further into
the content of the ideology of Indian modernity, least of all in its
revolutionary manifestations around the beginning of the twentieth
century well down into the early forties.

58
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism (London and New York, 1993), p. 6.
59
Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 3742.
60
Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, p. 6.

303

If nationalisms in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined


community from certain modular forms already made available to
them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?
History, it would seem, has decreed that we in the postcolonial world
shall only be perpetual consumers of modernity. Europe and the
Americas . . . have thought out on our behalf not only the script of
colonial enlightenment and exploitation, but also that of our anticolonial resistance and postcolonial misery. Even our imaginations must
remain forever colonized.61

Part of the problem Chatterjee points to, can be solved by being


more specic about what Europe (and by extension the Americas)
stand for: a homogenisation of Europe seems as much an orientalist trap as orientalising the East. Chatterjee feels uneasy about
Europe as coloniser and the emancipatory discourses that also, but
not solely, originated from Europe. The cultural elds inhabited, for
instance, by Lord Cornwallis and the poet Shelley are totally dierent:
the former an ambitious imperialist and royalist, the latter a republican and an advocate of atheism and anarchism. Still, both are nearcontemporaries and hail from Europe but there the similarity ends.
Furthermore, politically progressive European inuences on nineteenth-century Bengali intellectuals cannot simply be ignored on the
grounds of anti-colonial dierence. Chatterjees thematic can perhaps
be restated thus: what do non-European emancipatory modernities
look like? Whether they existed or not is not in question. But the
inner space they had occupied deserves more precise charting and
the activism that sprang out of this inner space may be taken a little
more seriously.62
In a later work, A Possible India, Chatterjee argues at some length
the existence of multiple modernities. They are characterised by their
dierence from the Western master modernity. It is the cultural
project of nationalism to produce a distinctly national modernity.
Modernity came to India as a double-faced gift from the colonising
West. Modernity imposed as foreign rule was [deemed] necessary,
because Indians must rst become enlightened in the Western sense

61

Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, p. 5.


It is remarkable that there is a wealth of literature on for instance Gandhi
and Nehru, to which the Subalterns headed by Partha Chatterjee also contributed;
but almost nothing serious on a Bhagat Singh, a Chandrashekhar Azad, or even
Madame Bhikhaiji Rustomji Cama. Perhaps the Freedom Struggle is still too close
in time to allow a more historically balanced and less hagiographical approach.
62

304

of the word. The same logic of modernity . . . led . . . to the discovery that imperialism was illegitimate. Modernity entailed both
the burden of reason and desire for power, as well as dreams
of freedom and the resistance to power. A sense of attachment
to the past determines the colour of Indian modernity; the desire to
be modern makes the Indians transpose their desire to be independent and creative on to their past. In spite of its desire for
power and control, modernity also is the rst social philosophy
which conjures up, in the minds of the most ordinary people, dreams
of independence and self-rule. Modernity leads to the desire for
autonomy and consequently to resistance of power. In the end,
Chatterjee asserts, there are two intellectual arenas of modernity:
a Western one claiming to be the universal and the national
aspiring to be dierent.63 One could seriously question this Western
universal claim. Claims to universality were made by most world
religions, not in the least Indian Buddhism and Hinduism which
travelled over the whole of East Asia and comfortably settled there.
It is up to sensitive Indian intellectuals to show the universality of
Indian cultural productions of the past and the present.
Indian indigenous modernity emerging in the early nineteenth
century, was itself by no means a homogeneous phenomenon. The
space of Indian modernity was lled with a number of adjacent plots
(of dierence): Hindu religious reforms, Indian philosophy of modernity, cultural nationalism, Indian linguistics and history-writing,
modern vernacular literature, experiments with national education,
Indian print-capitalism, building of Indian organisations. Within and
between these plots inuential Indian writers and theorists moved
about. Their writings told the story of Indian modernness, the new
cultural and religious ideals Indians were supposed to adopt, the stories and symbols by which Indians could imagine the Indian nation
in the making, and nally the possible roads to resist the empire.
Around the beginning of the twentieth century these stories of modernity and Indian nation-hood transformed some sensitive Indians into
hardened ghters for national freedom.64 They showed how to assert
control over ones own national destiny. The most radical ones among
63
Partha Chatterjee, A Possible India: Essays in Political Criticism (New Delhi, 1998),
pp. 27985.
64
Once more we should emphasise here the relative historiographical neglect of
the militant aspects of the Freedom Struggle.

305

them strove for total separation from the British Empire. The believed
in and worked for emancipation not only from British tutelage, but
also struggled for the upliftment of the Indian population from the
oppressions of the past. The major protagonists of this radical antiimperial nationalism regarded themselves as modernisers and educators. The sought to inculcate a sense of self-worth and capability
for improvement in the minds of the Indian public.
It is in the writings and acts of self-sacrice of these freedom
ghters that we ought to look for the contours and ideals of Indian
emancipatory modernity, a modernity that is yet unrealised. In other
words, we are looking at the group of nationalists that after the split
in the Congress at Surat in 1908 were designated as extremists.
We should not fully agree with Chatterjees pessimism about Indians
being perpetual consumers of a modernity that is actually of Western
origin. The Indian freedom movement oers many examples of where
Indians were not consumers of Western modernity but creators of
indigenous modernity.
What should worry us at this juncture is the weakness or wholesale retreat of modernity and the return of ancient rgime authoritarianisms in a new garb. At present this seems to be a worldwide
process. In South Asia it manifests itself primarily in Hindu rightist
extremism in India and Islamist radicalism in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The Hindu and the Islamic extreme right mirror each other. They
have much in common, but at the same time are at each others
throats. The rst victims of these elitist bully movements are the economically weakest sections of society. The higher echelons of Indian,
Pakistani and Bangladeshi society will be cowed into submission with
the passage of time, or so runs the expectation of the rightist extremists. The rise and apparent success of the extreme right in South
Asia is a poisonous hangover from the colonial era. The mentality
of rule without the need for popular support or consent characterised
the British Raj.65 This semi-feudal mentality has lingered on as a
ready-made elitist model to follow in perpetuity. The future of South
Asian modernity depends on the continuous struggle against these
authoritarian tendencies. Indian modernity needs to be fostered and
protected at all cost.

65
See the penetrating analysis of colonial governance by Ranajit Guha in Dominance
without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (New Delhi, 1998).

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MODERN MEDIA OF COMMUNICATION AND


INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN INDIA AND EUROPE:
TOWARDS AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Jan Brouwer

Introduction1
The on-going information revolution is supposed to have an impact
on social change. Rather like its preceding technological revolutions
it can be said to have an impact on the practical level of the livedin order.
All these revolutions were the result of a cognitive revolution which
is commonly known as the Enlightenment in Europe. This rst revolution was announced, so as to speak, by the Italian Humanist
Alberti in 1435 AD with the publication of his De Pictura or Theory
of Perspective.2 With increasingly shorter intervals, it was followed
by numerous technological innovations till the decade 19041914.3

1
The references to the arts could never have been made without the deep insights
of my teacher for the History of Art, Dr Mrs O.L. Bouma of The Hague. I am
greatly indebted to her. I also wish to thank Prof. Philppe Ramirez (CNRS, Paris)
for comments on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimers apply.
2
The humanist Leon Battista Alberti (14041475) wrote De Pictura in Latin in
1435 and the architect Filippo Brunellesco (also Brunelleschi) translated this into
Italian as Della Pittura in 1436. Alberti wrote: The painter should paint only those
objects/subjects that can be seen by means of Light. He has to represent these as
if he looks out of an open window ( nestra aperta). It was Leonardo da Vinci who
later replaced this concept by that of the glass wall.
3
The rst printing presses appeared in Europe in Strasbourg (1458), in Cologne
(1465), in Rome (1467), in Barcelona and Pilsen (1468), in Utrecht and Venice
(1469), in London (1476). Copernicus theory camera obscura (1501); Dutch windmills
(1550); Galileo Galilei (1564); Johannes Bayer, rst atlas of the stars (1603); Kepler
astonomia nova (1609); Chr. Huygens, light waves (1629); Antonie van Leeuwenhoek,
observatory at Leiden (1632); R. Boyle, chemical elements (1661); Hermann Boerhaave
The physician is the servant of Nature (1736); James Watt, steam engine (1736);
Celsius, thermometer (1742); Duchene du Boulogne, electro therapy (1748); Ampere
(1820); Mendeleyev, periodic system of elements (1869); Darwin (1871); Diesel (1893).
Pablo Picassos path breaking work Les Demoiselles dAvignon (1907) was not
abstract but cubic that is the ve ladies together seen from a multitude of viewpoints within a single frame. Piet Mondriaan was the rst radically abstract painter
with his work Composition (1913).

308

During this decade, the Artsnotably painting and musicmade


a second announcement of breaking open established views. This
was followed independently by the discovery of the atom as a miniconstellation. The process of breaking down continued and even
smaller particles than the atom were discovered and smaller units
than the second became necessary for time reckoning. It may be
argued that this second announcement is also one of the order of a
cognitive revolution upsetting hitherto established conceptions of Time
and Space. The information revolution seems to be of the cognitive
order with an impact on prevailing concepts of Time and Space.
It is extremely doubtful whether television and its programmes
have an impact that is on the cognitive level. Therefore, I agree
with John Fiske who said that it does not have an eect on people.
Television does not have an impact or eect: it has eectivity,
because it does work ideologically to promote and to prefer certain
meanings of the world, to circulate some meanings rather than others, and to serve some social interests better than others.4 Its socioideological eectivity is shown by Michaels who observed that Australian
Aboriginal viewers of Rambo found neither pleasure nor sense in his
nationalistic, patriotic motivation. Instead, they wrote him into an
elaborate kinship network with those he was rescuing, thus making
tribal meanings that were culturally pertinent to themselves.5
This paper is not a research based study. Rather it is an idea provoked by the still prevalent ideas that a farmer in Peru is the same
as a farmer in India and that television and internet have an impact
if not the same impact in India and in Europe. Twenty years before
the computer revolution and thirty years before the internet Marshall
McLuhan (2001) coined the phrases global village and the medium
is the message.6 McLuhans fate resembles that of all prophets.
People laughed at his ideas, but slowly began to use them to the
extend of ignoring the cultural dimensions of the problem. Here I
wish to explore the location and the level of eectivity of two types
of modern media. I shall try to view television as a means of mass
communication and the internet as a means of individual communication from the vantage point of Indigenous Knowledge.

4
5
6

J. Fiske, Television Culture (London, 1993), p. 20.


Michaels, Aborginal Content, quoted in Fiske, Television, p. 316.
M. McLuhan, Understanding Media (London, 2001).

309

The general public, the academic communities and the corporate


sectors are now well aware of the success of internet/email and software development in India. Many companies now recruit Indian
software engineers for work in Europe. The question is why the
Indians were so fast and the Europeans so slow in engaging themselves in this sector.7 In other words what is the eectivity of the
new media? As I see it, the advent of television and internet make
for a new cognitive revolution. I will suggest that television is eective
in the eld of life-style but not on world-view and that the internet
technology is eective as means to reinforce indigenous categories.
I will do so by focusing on views on observation, Nature and the
person, and perceptions of society and modes of communication.
What makes the modern media as systems of communication dierent
from the conventional modes of communication is their unilaterality. It is in this abstraction that social control and power are located.
Therefore a few words on the location of power are required. First
a brief description of the three Indian traditions from the vantage
point of the concepts of power and authority. It shows that in India
the Scriptural Tradition and the Traditional Practices share notions
of power, authority and communication. Together these two traditions distinguish themselves from similar notions of the Modern State.
It is followed by a few words on the concepts of power and authority in India as their location in the subcontinent is dierent from
that in Europe.
Television is a means of communication that belongs to the Modern
State. In India, the majority of audience with which it pretends to
interact belongs to a society which views and perceptions (rather its
sign systems) are signicantly dierent from those on which the
Modern State is based. Hence, the statement that the impact/eect
of television on social change has to be qualied in terms of concepts and practices and the research questions regarding the eectivity
of television in India has to be reformulated.
The Modern State actively encourages the internet, e-mail and
software development. In India the governmentss hope is now pinned
on e-governance. The arguments are clear: speed, removal of

7
There is, of course, on the empirical level also a demographic dimension in
this. Here I focus on the cognitive level.

310

human ineciency, outreach. What is far less clear is its eectivity


on the Modern State itself, the other Indian traditions and society.

Three Indian traditions


For the past 200 years, India houses three main traditions. Paraphrasing
Heesterman (1985), the Scriptural Tradition is not directed towards continuity, but towards discontinuity of established social links.8 The theoretical norm of strictly separated varas implies individualisation and
categorisation. The ideal life is placed outside the world, for the pure
individual (without any link with others) cannot survive. This theory
is characterised by (i) separation of basic units; (ii) roughly dened
categories; and (iii) lack of interdependence, which is replaced by
individualisation. There is thus an unbridgeable gap between the
ideal placed outside the world and the reality of the social world.
The theoretical concept of vara represents the norm for the reality concept of jti. The scriptural theory provides the legitimating
idiom of the second Indian tradition, namely, the Traditional Practices.
The sociological category of vara is independent and its members
are individuals without social relationships. It serves as a point of
reference for the jti concept that is recognized by collectivity (groups),
direct relationships (between groups and individuals), reciprocity (as
a system to maintain relationships), and interaction (ones position is
dened on the basis of mutual relationships). This traditional order
is based on networks of face-to-face communities. It is an interdependent, particularistic society legitimized by the vara theory.
Indias third tradition, the Modern State, breaks up society into basic,
independent units according to grids which means segregation. By
itself this furthers separation and reinforcement of the units, such as
caste, language, religion, region, and village. Secondly, the Modern
State works with nely dened categories, which appear as independent, complete units, such as the individual, the party, the city,
the district, the nation. Thirdly, the Modern States unity consists of
a fairly indirect system of relationships between these units. Fourthly,

8
J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship
and Society (Chicago, 1985).

311

people are impersonalised and viewed as mutually interchangeable


entities. Fifthly, the political unity of the Modern State is based on
a collective responsibilitythe constitutional democracy, which authorizes a single, sovereign power the monopoly of the use of violence
and the collection of taxes, centrally and directly. Thus, the key concepts of the Modern State are categories, separation of categories,
and the impersonalised individual. In the State, the power and means
are concentrated. It tries to be independent of society. Politics and
the political system is perceived as a separate domain of activity. In
the Modern State, power and authority are combined. For example, we speak of the local authorities to exercise their power to implement policies.

Power and authority


The location of power and its relationship to authority is dierent
in Europe and India. Within India the two concepts are perceived
dierently by Hindus and Muslims. When the Pope visited India,
he was received by the Government as the Head of Vatican State.
The Pope who is the Head of the Roman-Catholic Church is thus
also a Head of State. As Head of the Church he represents authority and as Head of State he represents worldly power. The Head of
State of Andorra is alternately the President of France and a Bishop
of Spain. In other words, in European culture power and authority
are not mutual exclusive concepts. They can be combined in one
institution.
In Indian culture it is unthinkable that the Head of a maha is
also the Head of State. The Head of a maha represents authority
or more precisely, is an exemplar of transcendent authority. He is
the ideal type of emancipation. The Head of State (the king) represents the world of interdependence and exchange. In other words,
in the Indian Indigenous Knowledge System, royal power and brahmanic authority belong to two distinct domains.
In the world, there are thousands of actually functionary groups
to which one belongs by birth. These groups are the jtis. The jtis
are interdependent, and collaborate with each other. It is these connections that the vara theory proposes to eliminate by disconnecting status from power. This leads to the brahman being acknowledged

312

as the highest and purest because of absence of power and his autonomy. Ideally he does not have provisions for the next day.9

A second cognitive revolution


The concepts of power and authority have remained connected in
Europe during the past 400 years. In India, they have remained separated during the same period. In both the subcontinental cultures
the location and position of these concepts have not been eected
by the numerous changes in the actual situations including the dierent
modes of communication.
Between 1435 and 1904, the conception of relationship between
Nature and Culture changed from a holistic one to one of separation, so that Culture can study Nature.10 The concept of the person
viewed as comprising more selves changed into a unitary concept:
one person is one self . The perception of society changed to one
in which society is seen as divided into logically separated domains.
In the eld of communication tremendous changes took place and
so did the viewpoint of observation and the expressions in image
and sound.

9
In the Islamic perception, authority is invested in Allahs representative (alf )
who is the leader of the community of all Muslims (umma). This is based on
Mohammeds Revelation. Worldly power is invested in the sultanate. The 'ulam is
the only institution that can legitimise the power of the sultanate. Both the 'ulam
and the sultanate belong to the same worldly order in which all have to submit to
Allahs will as laid down in the revelation (A. Wink, Land and Sovereignty in India.
Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-century Maratha Svarajya (Cambridge, 1986),
pp. 2230; H. Kulke and D. Rothermund, A History of India (London, 1990),
p. 203). The Islamic perception corresponds with the Hindu perception in so far
as power and authority are mutually exclusive categories. The two perceptions dier
in their location. For the Islam both power and authority are located in the world,
whereas in the Hindu perception only power is of the world.
10
We may see large cycles here: Ancient Europe, the Middle Ages, the Modern
period and the Postmodern period.

313

Figure 1: Changes in Europe


period

<1435

14351904

>1904

concepts
image

surreal

Real

virtual real

sound

monophony

polyphony

a-tonal

viewpoint

Theocentric

Anthropocentric

Cosmocentric

perspective

3-dimensional 3 in 2 dimensional multi dimensional

Nature

is Culture

versus Culture

versus Culture*

person (Self )

multiple

Unitary

unitary*

separated
domains

separated
domains

supralocal
(centralised)

global

perception of society intertwined


domains
mode of
communication

local

* undergoing change now

The concept of the Self seems to be linked with a perception of


Society.
Considering the past 150 years or so, we see the modern industrial democratic society can only function on the basis of a concept
of the unitary person that is one body houses one person who judges
all situations in all contexts on the basis of a single set of principles.11
This coincides with the European perception of Society in terms of
separate logical domains of reference. The social, cultural, economic,
political and other domains of society are viewed as logically separated from one another. In turn this coincides with the view on
Nature and Culture. The two are separated, so that Culture can
study Nature. Culture, then is divided into separated logical domains
of reference, so that a cause-eect chain operates only within one
domain and not across the domains boundaries.
It seems quite certain that the axiom Nature versus Culture and
the axioms on cause-eect are European since the Enlightenment,

11
The unitary person can play dierent roles without change in his set of
principles.

314

say since the late fteenth century. This cannot be said of the concept of the unitary person and the perception of society.
What does divine centric painting tell us? With the God(s) usually situated above, the divine centric view is one from above. This
would imply that a painter can put all 3-dimensional subjects and
objects in a 2-dimensional at surface as long or as small as he perceives them and at any place on the surface. Each subject/object is
then painted within its own context, while the relationships between
them is expressed in terms of scale, colour or angle. This method
of representation does not show logically separated domains but an
intertwining of domains.
I am not sure whether I am right here and even less sure whether
the perception of intertwining domains is necessarily linked with the
concepts of the multiple self. If these linkages can be proved, the
Enlightenment is clearly a Cognitive Revolution. The decade 1904
1914 is, then, a hinge as it makes for the culmination of the cognitive
revolution. At the same time it seems to me the announcement of
a new cognitive revolution.
The observed sequenceArts-Sciences-Politicsurges us to follow
modern art, particularly painting, closely. We may now look forward
to painting that will go beyond three dimensions, but will have to
stay within one sense (sight). House Art and the disappearing of Art
in itself: production was followed by reproduction and this is succeeded by no reproduction at all but the artist displays himself as
Art or he enters his painting himself; the magic of disappearance
(for example Streetwise in the Kunsthal, Rotterdam, 1998). The
fourth and other dimensions can be described as the third eye:
the clairvoyance or the looking around a corner. More complicated
announcements are thinkable if the artists make use of all ve senses
(sight, sound, smell, taste and touch) in a 3-dimensional object, or
in a simple or multiple spatial context, accomplish a transformation
of the dodecaphonic scale into the plastic arts without falling into
the trap of Dadaism.
These announcements may be followed by Scientic discoveries
of the 4th-n dimensions up-setting many of the existing theories.
Finally, it may lead to a complete overhaul of known political economic relationships. We may label this second breakthrough as cosmocentric. God will be completely out of the picture, Man totally
dissected, or reconstructed as a clone, and the planet and its micro
and macro relationships will take centre stage. The Cosmocentric

315

eraplans to colonize the planet Mars have already been worked


outmay ultimately proof the existence of cause-eect relationships
across the boundaries of domains. After having been separated since
the eighteenth century, astronomy and astrology may merge into a
qualitatively new science.
In each case (1435 and 1904) the Arts announced the change.
Science followed rst and then politics. The changed conception of
Nature triggered a series of disconnections over a period of time,
such as land/people; state/church; executive/legislative/judiciary
powers; politics/economics; and people/people.
The Arts of the decade 19041914 announced the second cognitive revolution which is still going on.12 It is cognitive for the information technology has touched established concepts in certain elds.
The relationship between Nature and Culture is no longer the same
in all domains. In Health sciences, for instance, the distinction between
Nature and Culture get increasingly blurred. The concept of the unitary self without which the Modern State cannot exist, is under attack
of the virtual reality created by integrated multimedia applications
promoting the hyperreal.

Cultural factors in Europe and India


The history of Europe shows a tradition of replacement. This is visible in two dierent domains that are relevant for understanding the
present. The histories of survival strategies and political systems show
gradual evolution in such a way that one system replaced the earlier one gradually although not always without considerable friction.
After Toynbee I believe that the survival strategies changed under
the impact of technological revolutions.13 Major discoveries in the

12
Between 1435 and 1904 the plastic arts represented, the music was tonal and
science had achieved. From this decade onwards the arts make visible, the music
becomes a-tonal and in science the atom as a mini-constellation was discovered. In
all cases the arts have preceded science as if the arts had premonitions of what science was going to achieve. The concept of the atom (a-tomos in Greek) was rst
formulated by Heraclites (544483 BC). Niels Bohrs atom model (1913 AD) was
a hypothesis based on calculations, not observations. In the political domain the
process of decolonization began and later the policy of Realpolitik that is the disconnection of economics from politics.
13
A. Toynbee, A Study of History (London, 1954).

316

eld of astro-physics forced an all-powerful God to legitimise himself and so the theocentric phase evolved into an anthropocentric.
Happiness was no longer sought in the Hereafter but in the Here
and Now. The rapid increase in the number of scientic discoveries at increasingly shorter intervals pushed God into the background.
As Zygmunt Bauman says: Bereaved by God and His secular emulators, the modern person needs somebody, some individual ideology
of justication, to replace the declining collective ideologies. [second
italics are mine].14 In Europe one survival strategy followed the other.
The Theocentric phaseGod is the all-powerful Other; Happiness
in the Hereafterwas followed by the Anthropocentric phaseGod
has to legitimise himself; Happiness Here and Now. Next came the
Anthropocentric phase: God became the third party in human love;
Happiness in erotic here and now. At present we witness the
Cosmocentric strategy: God is Dead; Solitary Happiness here and
now. The political system too evolved from one system into another.
Early tribal and State systems evolved into feudal systems and nally
into the Modern State. In India such evolutions can not be seen.
Here we see a tradition of juxtaposition of survival strategies and
political systems. In the history of India, cognitive revolutions did
take place, but unlike in Europe, they took place on an individual
level. With the introduction of Information Technology in India, the
second cognitive revolution was introduced by the Modern State.
As early as 1936, the German philosopher, Walter Benjamin, stated
that until the beginning of the twentieth century every work of Art
was unique. Thereafter, each work of Art could be reproduced.15
More than half a century later, the British novelist Julian Barnes,
gave a follow-up to Benjamin with his satirical novel England,
England. Inspired by the American lm Westworld he describes
the valorization of Culture in the age in which everything can be
reproduced. What is left over is the hyperreal and the loss of the
original. In all places where there is a concentration of industries in
the Information Technology sectors, whether in Europe or India, we
nd amusement parks (imagination as a separate industrialised
domain) of the kind of Disneyland. During the past ten years or so

14
Z. Bauman, Survival as a Social Construct, in M. Featherstone (ed.), Cultural
Theory and Cultural Change (London, 1992), p. 16.
15
W. Benjamin, Illuminations (London, 1973).

317

such Theme Parks have been erected near Paris (Eurodisney and
Parc Asterix), near Cologne (Fantasialand), in the Netherlands (the
updated Efteling Park), near Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mysore (GRS
Fantasy Park) in India. This is no coincidence. The parks that are
presented to us as imaginary in contrast to the real, but as Baudrillard
puts it concealing the fact the real is no longer real.16 In the same
environments we see heightened attention for fashion and fashion
shows and, of course in Paris, the headquarters of the worldwide
satellite FashionTV channel. Fashion has nothing to do with the contrast between beautiful and ugliness. It is the ecstacy of the beautiful: the pure and empty form of a spiralling aesthetics. Simulation
is the ecstacy of the real.17 The societies around the IT sectors,
wherever they are, are no longer real. The real does not concede
anything to the benet of the imaginary: it concedes only to the benet of the more real than real (the hyperreal) and to the more true
than true. This is simulation.18 We are witnessing the emergence of
the Simulation State.

Three traditions and communication


The three Indian traditions are juxtaposed. Each tradition has its
own mode of communication. For the Scriptural Tradition it is the
scriptures; for the Traditional Practices it is a variety of forms such
as iconography, song, ballad, theatre; for the Modern State it is railways, telecom (telegraph/telephone/radio/television/fax/internet/
e-mail). There is a certain degree of correspondence between the
modes of the Scriptural Tradition and Modern State. Both are
supralocal and function on the basis of high skills. Looking at the
principles underlying the three traditions, the correspondence is
dierent. Both the Scriptural Tradition and Traditional Practices are
based on a principle of segregation (which logically follows from the
dominant cultural ideology) whereas the Modern State is based on
a principle of integration.19

16
Baudrillard in M. Poster, Jean Baudrillard. Selected Writings (Cambridge, 1992),
p. 172.
17
Poster, Jean Baudrillard, p. 187.
18
Poster, Jean Baudrillard, p. 188.
19
On the cognitive level, the Scriptural Tradition and the Traditional Practices

318

Figure 2: Old and new juxtapositions in India*


Factor
Concepts

Scriptural
Tradition

Traditional
Practices

Modern
State

Simulation
State

image

realistic
perfection

abstract

real

virtual

sound

monophony

monophony

polyphony

polyphony

viewpoint

3-dimensional 3-dimensional

3 in 2
dimensions

3 in 2
dimensions

Nature

is Culture

is Culture

versus
Culture

versus Culture

person (Self)

multiple

multiple

unitary

multiple

power and
authority

separated

separated

equated

equated

perception of
society

integrated
domains

integrated
domains

separated
domains

separated
domains

local

supralocal

mode of
supralocal
communication

global

* In contrast to Figure 1, the horizontal axes here are not chronological

Considered from the point or view of location and message, the


Scriptural Tradition stands isolated against the Traditional Practices
and Modern State. The Scriptural Tradition is concerned with the
ideal placed outside the social world. The Traditional Practices and
Modern State are each grounded in the social world. Each having
its own mode of communication mainly serving the status quo,
although voices of protest can be clearly seen in the Traditional
Practices mode, less in the Modern State mode.
segregate the transcendent order from the immanent order of the world. Consequently
power and authority are separated in the world. The original segregation necessitates the ternary structure of society (two opposed elements and one neutral element) and communication through a series of monologues circulating between the
three elements. The Modern State integrates the two orders expressed in the sacrosanct value of its boundaries. Power and authority are integrated concepts. The
State is in fact a monopoly but appears as a binary structure. Its binary structure
necessitates dialogue as form of communication between two opposites.

319

Domains of society and the concept of the self


In Indian culture, it is not religious hierarchy which implies a social
structure, but renunciation implying the absence of a social structure. The mundane order is one of conict and interdependence. A
study of this order should, therefore, not take for granted the European
perception which divides society into separate domains such as the
social, cultural, economic, political, and religious. During the past
twelve years, a number of studies have shown that the Indian perception of society is dierent.20 The perception of intertwining domains
of the interdependent order cannot easily be understood from an
analysis based on another European notion, namely, the unitary concept of the person.
In a recent article, Mary Douglas considers the self as a convention and uses our own experience as an example of conventionalised
personhood. She thus places the study of personhood under the mentality component of culture. She concludes that in western societies
in contrast to Asian and African societies the embodiment of one
person for their lifetime in one body is axiomatic.21 Indeed, Hindu
mythology tells of individuals who may wander from their bodies, a
sage who may be turned into a woman, a goldsmith who becomes
a king temporally and so on. The Hindu mythology with which I
am acquainted abounds in examples of persons who can turn into
rocks, animals and other human bodies and do grave damage or
exemplary good in their alter persona.
It may be stated that the modern industrial, democratic state cannot function without the concept of the unitary person. Discussing
20

Galey demonstrated for a Hindu caste society of the Indian Himalayas that
the Indigenous Knowledge System of the inhabitants of the hill districts of Uttar
Pradesh is informed by the intertwining domains which we call the religious, the
social, the political and the economic ( J.-C. Galey, Creditors, Kings and Death,
in C. Malamoud (ed.), Debts and Debtors (New Delhi, 1983), pp. 67121). Ostors
analytical description of a Bengali town demonstrates the intertwining of such indigenous domains as history, market, ritual, theatre and revolution (A. Ostor,
Culture and Power: Legend, Ritual, Bazaar and Rebellion in a Bengali Society (New Delhi,
1984). In my own study on Indigenous Economic Concepts among South Indian
artisans I demonstrated that the social, religious, economic, and political domains
are intertwined in the Indigenous Knowledge System ( J. Brouwer, Conict between
Modern and Indigenous Concepts in the Small Enterprise Workplace. A Proposal,
Social Anthropology, 8 (2000), pp. 181202).
21
M. Douglas, The Cloud God and the Shadow Self , Social Anthropology, 3
(1995), p. 84.

320

the Modern State, Douglas states that a composite person is unacceptable not for intellectual but for forensic and political reasons.22
In the judicial eld, neither the theory of multiple personalities nor
that of intertwining domains is acceptable. In all its elds of operation the Modern State works with the concept of the unitary person and cause/eect relations within a single domain of reference.23
A relevant conclusion drawn from the indological insights states
that the Indian world is divided into a social realm of self-interested
immanence and an individualized realm of ritual and renunciatory
transcendence. Both Dumont and Heesterman agree that in Europe
the individual and society coexist in the world, while in India the
individual can exist only outside of society as renouncer.24 This leaves
Indian society with a collectivity of persons with multiple selves or
rather dividuals as the personal level always demands that the self
is placed in a context. Each context is guided by its own rules and
the person acts accordingly. This is possible if the person consists of
more selves. In contrast to the unitary person, the multiple person so to speak, is not an in-dividual but a dividual, whom I suggest
to call a soloist. This term is given by a comparison of Indian and
European classical music. In European classical music the counterpoint, that is dierent melodies played at the same time, is highly
developed. It necessitates harmony between the individual players.
Orchestral and particularly symphonic, music is unthinkable without
harmony or musical relationship between dierent but simultaneous

22

Douglas, The Cloud God, p. 85.


Modern science is axiomatic in its conception of Nature as distinct from Culture,
hence Culture can study Nature. It is also axiomatic in its belief in cause-eect
thinking. Western perspective regards Nature as a linear phenomenon in which
what happens in a given place and time is determined exclusively by what has
occurred at nearby places immediately beforehand ( J. Barrow, Theories of Everything
(London, 1991), p. 13). In other words, in western thinking, the cause-eect chain
takes place within in single logical domain of reference. These axioms made it possible to distribute Nature and Culture into dierent elds of study to the extent of
losing sight of the whole. The holistic approach by contrast allows considering the
structural relationships of various such reference elds of categories from the vantage point of a topology. It has to be borne in mind that this is signicantly dierent
from much of the non-western sciences, in which the holistic view assumes Nature
to be intrinsically non-linear, so that non-local inuences predominate and interact with one another to form a complicated whole (Barrow, Theories, p. 13).
24
Heesterman, The Inner Conict; L. Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus. The Caste System
and its Implications (Chicago, 1980).
23

321

melodies. By contrast in Indian classical music a limited number of


instruments, including the human voice, play the same melody at
the same time. The Indian orchestra appears as a group of soloists
each playing the same melody within the context of their own
instrument.

Eectivity of modern media


Television and its programmes are products of the Modern State.
On the level of conceptions, there is a high degree of correspondence between the Modern State and television. From the viewpoint
of the Modern State, the television is a medium that represents both
power and authority. In India, the majority of television audience
belong to the factors of the Scriptural Tradition and the Traditional
Practices. These traditions conceptualize power as being distinct from
authority.
With the death of the citizen as Baudrillard (1976) calls it,25 or
the shift from the Modern State to the postmodern Simulation State
of consumers, the eectivity of television is even less in India than
in the West. Surprisingly the Simulation State and two Indian traditionsthe Scriptural Tradition and the Traditional Practices
share a few concepts: the idea of virtual reality as an electronic
version of the ancient my; the concept of the multiple self and a
holistic view on the relationship between Nature and Culture.
Television is part of the actual situation. I locate life-styles on this
level. They are based on perceptions. These are formed in an arbitrary process of interpretation of the cultural ideology (cognitive level,
concepts) under abstraction of the actual situation. The eectivity of
television is restricted to life-styles and this level. Development of
software, in the internet cubicles of the IT Parks, for instance in
Bangalore and Mysore, is itself an activity isolated from the actual
situation. It is the Russian doll of virtual reality.
History has shown that in India new ideas or things are added
on to existing ones rather than replacing them. The Modern State
became juxtaposed to the other traditions. The Simulation State will

25

J. Baudrillard, Lechange symbolique et la mort (Paris, 1976).

322

be juxtaposed to the existing three traditions. The Simulation State


will be largely private sector beside the public sector of the Modern
State. The identity of the Simulation State may be recognized by:
consumers, world music, poster art, poster conferences, virtual reality, individualism in virtual reality and multiple selves.
Its success in India seems to be guaranteed for various reasons.
Apart from the Modern State, the Indian traditions value detachment and exclusiveness meaning that social relationships have to be
denied or made incidental. The indigenous concept of money supports consumerism.26 In the Simulation State that what is consumed
are not objects but the relation itselfsignied and absent, included
and excluded at the same timeit is the idea of the relation that is consumed in the series of objects which manifests it.27 Virtual reality
is an electronic version of the indigenous concept of my. The concept of personhood is already dened in terms of the multiple selves.
Each tradition has its own lingua franca. For the Scriptural Tradition
it is Sanskrit, for the Traditional Practices it is the modern Indian
languages; for the Modern State it is English; and for the Simulation
State it appears to become Hinglish (Hindi + English), Kinglish
(Kannada + English) and so on. After all, Hinglish and its equivalents, is an elite idiom emanating from the nubs of power located
elsewhere in class, education and money. It is an ideological, pidginized
form of English that has no space in the corridors of media power.
Finally, the dierence of location of the concepts of power and
authority in the two subcontinents, the mechanisms of locating
replacement and juxtapositionof the new and the indigenous views
and perceptions determine to a large extent the eectivity of the
modern media of communication. In India, television represents
unvindicated power. Its authority remains suspended mid-air as long
as the rivalry between the three traditions for this medium remains
inconclusive. For the internet, software and e-mail the relationships
are dierent. Where the Modern State still stands for the social, the
IT promotes the end of the social. It reinforces the individualism
that is so apparent in the Scriptural Tradition. From this correspondence it may establish its authority. It would not be surprising

26
27

See Brouwer, Conict between Modern.


Poster, Jean Baudrillard, p. 22.

323

if the Modern State and the Simulation State are the incipient avatrs
of indigenousjuxtaposedpower and authority.
In Europe, television because of its perceived power and authority and by its unilaterality has thrown the social process out of balance. The traditional collectivistic and exchange based European
society has pinned great hopes on the corrective eectivity of the
internet. But the combination of collectivity and virtual reality creates a new perception of the Self with unforeseen implications for
the Modern State.

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FROM CHARIOT TO ATOM BOMB:


ARMAMENT AND MILITARY ORGANISATION
IN SOUTH ASIAN HISTORY
Dietmar Rothermund

The instruments of warfare and social stratication


Men must have fought with each other for millennia, but the rise
of the professional warrior was a comparatively late phenomenon in
human history. The warrior acquired special skills which ordinary
people did not possess and he compelled them to work for his maintenance. In this way social stratication was introduced and in due
course the warriors formed a nobility. The instruments of warfare
contributed to this development. The more dicult it was to master these instruments, the higher was the demand for skilled warriors who made warfare their full-time profession.
Initially the exaction of agrarian surplus from a fairly limited region
was sucient for the maintenance of small groups of warriors. But
then the control of long-distance trade yielded higher returns in terms
of a protection rent. There was a reciprocal relationship between trade
and warfare. Larger empires provided more scope for long-distance
trade and could aord more expensive instruments of warfare. In
South Asia there have been several instances of this symbiosis of trade
and empire, but in general the collection of land revenue from extensive territories was the main source for the maintenance of warriors.
State-formation progressed along these lines of the rise of warrior
elites. There is, of course, more to the state than the organisation
of warfare. The legitimation and manifestation of royal power draws
on cultural resources which are not conned to the instruments of
warfare, but these instruments are a necessary element of state power.
In the present essay state formation will be discussed only in passing. The main emphasis will be on warfare and social stratication,
but since this had an impact on state formation it cannot be totally
neglected.
The instruments of warfare discussed here include weapons as well
as animals (war-elephant, war-horse). Discussing these instruments

326

also implies paying attention to their tactical or strategic use. But


the main emphasis will be on the social consequences of warfare
and on the composition and the functions of warrior elites. Social
rather than military history will be the mainstay of this essay.
The Indus or Harappan civilisation should be the rst subject to
be discussed in this context, but unfortunately the evidence available
is so meagre that it is impossible to arrive at any conclusions. At
the most one can draw some inferences from negative evidence. This
civilisation obviously did not know the horse. Accordingly there was
no man on horseback at that time. The excavated sites show no
traces of royal palaces or tombs, there were some elevated settlements and places of worship which would indicate that a kind of
priestly oligarchy rather than kings and warriors dominated this society. Agricultural planning must have been the major task of this oligarchy. Venturing out into the annually inundated plains of the Indus
valley was the essential achievement of the Indus civilisation. This
required various skills which went beyond those needed for subsistence agriculture in smaller valleys and plains. The Indus carries
twice as much water as the Nile. The inundated plains are fertile,
but in order to make use of the yield promised in this way, the people had to adopt new agricultural technologies, had to predict the
arrival of the ood and plan sowing and harvesting. For all this the
ruling oligarchy must have had specialists. The uniform system of
weights and measures which prevailed for about a millennium in
this vast region is evidence for the working of the minds of such
specialists. They were obviously not warriors and did not need a
king to lead them in battle.
Nevertheless, the massive fortications of the main cities show that
there must have been some kind of warfare. Traces of arson have
been found at some locations. Probably there were raiders from the
adjacent mountainous areas who wanted to plunder the rich harvests stored in the cities. Moreover, these cities were centres of longdistance trade in valuable commodities. Defence of this trade and
of the grain stored in the cities must have been of great concern at
that time. But perhaps there was no warrior elite but bands of peasant soldiers trained for this purpose.
The rst professional warrior elite of South Asia is obviously that
of the people who called themselves rya (noble). Their main instrument of warfare was the chariot and we shall start our study of military organisation with it.

327

The glories and limitations of chariot warfare


The evidence for this period of South Asian history is literary and
not archaeological. The literature concerned was not reduced to writing until much later, it was transmitted orally for many centuries.
But as it was learned and recited religiously, its transmission was
even more reliable than that of written texts. This literature tells us
a great deal about chariot warfare which was at the centre of Aryan
military preoccupations. But before delving into it, we must emphasize that the chariot entered South Asia as fully developed instrument sometime around 1500 BC or even somewhat later after it
had been in use in West Asia for quite some time. A Mesopotamian
chariot is depicted on a seal dated between 18501650 BC. It shows
two warriors standing in a chariot with spoked wheels running over
a slain enemy.1 The Hyksos conquered Egypt with their chariots and
established the fteenth dynasty (ca. 16481540 BC). They came
from western Asia and were thrown out by the Egyptians who adopted
the chariot and were henceforth ruled by a chariot-warrior elite.2
Such an elite was also prominent in the Mitanni Empire (northern
Syria and northern Iraq) of the Hittites (around 1500 BC). Their
chariot-based warriors were called mariyannu and it is stated that they
were nominated by the king.3 The Sanskrit sources refer to ugra (the
terrible ones) as companions of the king,4 and it is very likely that
they played a role similar to that of the mariyannu.
Chariot warfare depended on a number of essential elements. First
and foremost was the availability of suitable horses. Their natural
habitat were the Central Asian steppes and they had been tamed
by about the fourth millennium BC. Then there was the lightly built
and highly mobile chariot with spoked wheels. It was in evidence in
West Asia in the early 2nd millennium BC. The chariot was mainly
used for the swift transport of a skilled archer who could shoot arrows
with a composite bow of great strength. This bow seems to have
been invented in West Asia in the fourth millennium BC, it thus

1
P.R.S. Moorey, The emergence of the light horse-drawn chariot in the Near
East, World Archaeology, 18 (1986), pp. 196215
2
A. Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East c. 3000330 BC, 2 vols. (London, 1995), p. 190.
3
Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East, p. 297.
4
W. Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien nach den Brahmana-Texten dargestellt
(Wiesbaden, 1957), p. 68.

328

ante-dated the chariot. The archer had to wear a mailed coat (made
of rhinoceros-skin in South Asia), because he could not carry a shield.5
Next to the archer the driver of the chariot was of great importance. He was unarmed and according to Sanskrit sources he was
naked to the waist and would thus have been an easy target for the
enemy.6 But the code of honour ruled him out as a target. The concept of dharmayuddha (righteous warfare) prevailed among the warriors who would not attack unarmed men. In terms of rank the
chariot-driver was placed lower than the archer, but there are references to his being a close companion of the archer. Some sources
mention that the chariot driver was entitled to one fourth of the
booty which the archer made in a war.7 The king was expected to
be a good archer and the sta (herald) who accompanied him everywhere was presumably also the driver of his chariot.8
The chariot-culture extended all the way to Greece and there is
an ode of Pindar (522446 BC) celebrating a chariot-driver who
knows exactly how to guide the horse by restraining or whipping it
at the right moment.9 This was certainly also true of the chariotdrivers of ancient India. The best archer would be lost if he did not
have such an expert companion. The division of labour was very
pronounced, it seems that in general the one was not trained to
master the skills of the other. But there are some exceptions mentioned in Sanskrit literature. In an emergency even a king could volunteer to act as a chariot-driver which implies that he must have
learned this art, too. However, there seem to be no references to
chariot-drivers turning into archers.
In addition to those who used the chariot, the maker of chariots
(rathakra) was also a highly valued specialist. In Sanskrit sources he
is mentioned as one of the jewels (ratna) adorning the kings court.
The king had to visit him in the course of certain ceremonies and
he seems to have inhabited about the largest compound in the small
capital of such an early king. It is said that he had to house the
guards of the horse to be sacriced at the avamedha (horse sacrice)

5
6
7
8
9

Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 101.


Ibidem.
Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 103.
Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 109.
M. Theunissen, Pindar. Menschenlos und Wende der Zeit (Mnchen, 2000), p. 888.

329

and there could be 400 such guards according to some sources.10


The rathakra must have been a very wealthy man if he could play
host to such a crowd.
Chariot warfare appears to have been a chivalrous contest worthy of noble warriors. This would also explain why norms such as
not shooting at the unarmed driver of the chariot were scrupulously
observed. This type of warfare was restricted to an open and even
battleeld. Chariots were not suited for jungle warfare. Being very
delicate, they could not cross dicult terrain but had to be transported on bullock carts. They were certainly awe-inspiring for soldiers on foot armed with simple weapons, because they were swift
and the arrows of the archers were deadly. But chariot warfare was
in general limited to small regions. Most of the early states were
small and this type of warfare was adjusted to their needs. As soon
as the war-elephants of large empires appeared on the scene, the
chariots were lost.
The stratication of early Aryan society was undoubtedly deeply
inuenced by this chariot warfare. It was a society in which a nobility lorded it over the rest of the population. This nobility was
divided into a hereditary one from which the kings would be drawn
and a lower one, probably appointed by the king because of its military skills. It was explicitly stated that this lower nobility could not
be anointed (i.e. aspire to be king).11 But the respect for the kings
hereditary right did not necessarily protect him against internal rebellion. The de-throned king is a gure often mentioned in the Sanskrit
sources.12 It is also stated that the ratnas could give and take the
kingship. This seems to imply that this entourage could impeach
the king and drive him away.
The nature of this type of early kingship is reected by the ritual preceding the avamedha. The king would let the designated horse
roam freely for a year. It was accompanied by the guards mentioned
above. Anybody who would let the horse pass would implicitly
recognise the sovereignty of the king. If he stopped it and challenged
the guards, this was a declaration of war. This would presumably
be conducted by the warriors on their chariots. This exible test of

10
11
12

Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 112.


Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 68.
Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 128.

330

sovereignty was well suited to the society of noble warriors living


in small states. If later on rulers of large empires celebrated the
avamedha in order to manifest their status they did this without this
exible test as they dominated their territory by dierent means.
They also did not use chariots any longer, except perhaps for ritual
purposes. But the memory of the chariot was preserved for a long
time. As late as 1012 AD a Cambodian king, Suryavarman I of
Angkor, presented a chariot to the Chola king Rajaraja as a ceremonial gift.13 Even in recent years politicians have revived the rathytra (tour by chariot) as a symbol of Hindu nationalism. As there are
no ancient rathakras around any longer, they substituted little lorries for the genuine article, but saw to it that they were decorated
appropriately.

The triumph of the war-elephant


While the chariot survived as a symbol it was literally stamped out
as an instrument of warfare by the war-elephants of the great empires
of eastern India which soon conquered the entire Gangetic plains.
The elephants lived in the great forests of southern Bengal and
Orissa. They could never be domesticated, but they could be tamed
and made to perform all kinds of tasks. A tribal man from the forest where they had been recruited usually accompanied them as
their driver (mahout). His skills were very dierent from those of
the driver of a chariot and he could never aspire to the ranks of
the lower nobility. Nor were the archers on the back of the elephant
noble warriors. About ten archers could occupy the platform tied to
the back of the elephant and it was the shower of arrows which
they could direct at the enemy rather than the well aimed arrow of
the elite warrior which mattered in this new type of warfare.
The war-elephant was, of course, also the appropriate mount for
the king or emperor. Guiding his troops in a battle, he could have
an overview of the battleeld from the back of his elephant. Being
thus very conspicuous, he would inspire his troopsbut also attract
the attention of the enemy. The security of the king was of great

13

H. Kulke and D. Rothermund, A History of India (London, 1998), p. 117.

331

concern. His fall would put an end to the battle. Accordingly the
movements of the royal elephant were narrowly circumscribed. The
game of chess which mirrors an Indian battleeld shows this very
clearly. The king also mounted the elephant on ceremonial occasionseven British viceroys practised this later on.
War-elephants were expensive to maintain and it was not enough
to have just a few of them. In medieval times the price of a good
war-elephant was considered to be equivalent to that of 500 ordinary horses.14 Several hundred elephants were required for an ecient
army corps which could traverse long distances and overwhelm the
enemy. The famous transfer of 500 elephants to Seleukos Nikator
by Chandragupta Maurya clearly shows the dimensions of this kind
of armament. This transfer was made in the context of a peace
treaty, it was thus not a generous gift. But presumably Chandragupta
had at least 1000 or more elephants left after he had parted with
those which he sent to Seleukos. The enormous investment in warelephants made sure that the great empires would expand and the
smaller ones would go to the wall. The elephant had a centralising
function which the chariot never had.
Social stratication in such empires was very dierent from that
of the earlier Aryan kingdoms. Imperial ocers rather than noble
warriors were the new ruling elite. The control of long-distance trade
became of much greater importance than ever before. One could
probably speak of trade-based empires, and the Mauryan one seems
to have been a particularly good example. The pattern of distribution of Ashokas famous edicts shows that while many areas of the
interior remained more or less untouched, the Gangetic plains, the
coasts and some trade routes running across the subcontinent were
under the control of the emperor. The war-elephants extended the
dimensions of military intervention enormously.
Imperial governors were posted throughout the empire. They also
had to get Ashokas edicts carved into rocks. There is evidence of
this in a South Indian inscription which contains so to speak the
covering letter of instruction in addition to the edict. The man who
carved it into stone may well have been illiterate and simply copied
everything contained in the paper or palmleaf given to him.

14

S. Digby, War-horse and Elephant in the Delhi Sultanate (Oxford, 1971), p. 68.

332

The Mauryas were of low-caste origin, their ocers presumably


were also not nobles but appointed by the emperor because of
their valour and loyalty to him. Ashoka also used Buddhist monks
as diplomats and imperial messengers. They also could not rank as
a nobility. A new social stratication appeared only in medieval
times when small regional kingdoms copied some of the features of
the ancient empires and also based their power on war-elephants.
The nobleman of medieval times was the smanta. This term
originally means neighbour but then came to mean the subdued
neighbour whose realm had been conquered. He was reinstated by
the victor but had to attend his court. He became part of a smantachakra (circle of neighbours). The gradient of power between smanta
and king was presumably determined by the number of elephants
which they possessed. The smanta in due course also attained a position in the royal administration. The chief minister of a king had
the title mahsmanta (big neighbour) which was somewhat of a paradox, because he was certainly part of the entourage of the king. It
has been stated earlier that in the ancient empires the war-elephant
helped to sustain central power. On a smaller scale this was also
true of the medieval regional kingdoms. But by that time there
were competing centres. Elephant-power helped to articulate their
importance.
The war-elephant retained its role in military aairs even after
the cavalry reigned supreme in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Delhi Sultanate maintained large contingents of warelephants. When it was defeated by Timur in 1398 AD the sultanate
could still put up 120 elephants which duly frightened Timurs army
although their number was modest as compared to earlier times.15
It was only when eld artillery appeared on the battleeld that the
power of the war-elephant came to an end. The Great Mughal Babur
defeated the sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim Lodi, with his guns, although
Ibrahim had about 1000 elephants on the battleeld.

The man on horseback: From slave to ruler


When the Delhi Sultanate was established at the beginning of the
thirteenth century its power was based on the swift cavalry which
15

Digby, War-horse, p. 80f.

333

could cover long distances at a high speed. Just like the chariot which
was developed in western Asia and then introduced into India, cavalry warfare had emerged in that area, too. It had contributed to
the rapid spread of Islamic rule. But unlike the chariot which gave
rise to a nobility of free professional warriors, Islamic cavalry warfare depended on highly specialised slaves who were trained to ride
and ght from their childhood. Promising boys could be literally
caught young. As slaves they were bound to their ruler by stronger
bonds than any noble warrior to his overlord. On the other hand
there was an amazing social mobility in such a slave society. A good
ghter could quickly rise to become a general and if he was daring
enough he could usurp the throne and become a sultan.
The war-horse by itself did not have a centralising function, but
the system of military feudalism based on the assignment (iq' ) of
revenue grants which were given to ocers for supporting cavalry
troops did have such a centralising eect. The sultan usually saw to
it that such grants were distributed evenly. Moreover, the holders of
such grants were often shifted from one position to the other; by
birth as well as by promotion they were usually strangers in the
places where they served. Therefore they did not have the benet
of specic local support. They could not think of secession as their
colleagues could easily put them down. If they were very ambitious
they could only try to conquer the centre of power and replace the
sultan. This strengthened central power as only the most daring commander would emerge victorious.
In one respect the war-horse also contributed to the centralising
of power: it was very expensive. The breeding of war-horses proved
to be very dicult in India. The climate was not suited for horses
and they succumbed to many illnesses, but there were no experienced veterinarians in India. However, the most important impediment to horse-breeding in India was the absence of adequate pastures which would provide the horses with good grass to eat and
ample space to move about. The interior of the Kathiawad peninsula was one of the few places in India which provided such ideal
conditions. Typically the local horse-breeders were semi-nomadic
predatory tribes.16 Such people would be a pain in the neck for

16
J.J.L. Gommans, The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, c. 17101780 (Delhi, 1999),
p. 91f.

334

settled agriculturists who needed no war-horses but peace and quiet.


In due course both these tribes and the horses they bred disappeared.
More orderly people would tend horses in stables, depriving them
of the free movement which they needed so much and feeding them
with fattening food which ruined their health. Thus good war-horses
had to be imported into India at a high price. There were two major
trade routesone overland route from Central Asia via Afghanistan
and the sea route from the Persian Gulf. The overland route was
less expensive and there were fewer casualties among the horses.
They could recover on their long march by spending some time in
the vast pastures of Afghanistan.17 But for places further down South
like Vijayanagara, the sea route dominated by Persian horsetraders
was the major one. The king of Vijayanagara paid for horses dead
or alive, thus insuring the traders against the risks of sea transport.
The total volume of this horse trade must have been enormous.
At a rough estimate there must have been more than 500,000 warhorses in South Asia for most of the period from the thirteenth to
the eighteenth century. Presumably one tenth of these horses had to
be replaced every year.18 Making some allowance for local breeds
this means that about 3040,000 horses must have been imported
annually. This was a substantial burden for the budgets of the states
which depended on such imports.
In assessing the relative value of war-horses a comparison of their
price with that of cows and slaves will be useful. A good horse was
worth about 30 cows in the Delhi Sultanate around 1300 AD whereas
an adult slave could be bought for the price of 4 to 5 cows.19 A slave
who was a good cavalryman was perhaps somewhat more expensive,
but at any rate the horse would be more valuable than the rider.
For every horse and rider there was at least one groom whose price
was presumably much less than that of the cavalryman. Nevertheless
a cavalry contingent of about 20,000 horses plus riders and grooms
would represent an investment equal to the value of about one million cows. The sultans of Delhi often had more than 100,000 horses
at their disposal. When Malik Kafur, sultan Ala al-Din Khaljis great
slave-general, raided southern India in 1310 he brought back 20,000

17
18
19

Gommans, The Rise, p. 80.


Gommans, The Rise, p. 89.
Digby, War-horse, p. 37.

335

horses which had belonged to the Kakatiya king of Warangal. Such


plunder deprived the enemies of the Delhi Sultanate of any chance
of resistance. It would take them a long time before they could
replace such great quantities of horses.
All Hindu rulers of the South who had to defend their territories
against the Delhi Sultanate had to copy the cavalry system. However,
they did not copy the institution of military slavery. Their cavalry
ocers (nyak) were free men whose loyalty they tried to preserve
in a rather special way. Prataparudra, the Kakatiya king of Warangal,
seems to have invented the institution of commanders of bastions of
his capitals fortications. There were 70 such bastions and each of
the important nyaks of his kingdom was assigned one of them.
Tirumala Nayak of Madurai who was originally a subject of the king
of Vijayanagara but was practically an independent ruler in the seventeenth century still followed the same custom more than 300 years
later. This shows the persistence of a new type of social stratication.
The cavalry ocer was literally the kingpin in the district which he
commanded. Occasionally he could even become the founder of a
new city like Kempe Gowda, amaranyaka of the Vijayanagara kingdom, who established Bangalore.
The towns which served as centres of military feudalism all had
similar characteristics. They were rst and foremost the garrison of
a large cavalry contingent and the captain of the cavalry was the
highest political authority in the respective district. He controlled the
collection of the land revenue and if the peasants were not paying
it, he could send men on horseback to frighten them into submission. Earlier institutions of local government would wither away under
cavalry domination. In this respect a certain uniformity prevailed
throughout the subcontinent due to the exigencies of cavalry warfare regardless of the type of commanders. Whether an ocer was
a Muslim slave or a Hindu nyak did not make much of a dierence
as far as his military and political functions were concerned. Cavalry
domination smothered all other forms of governance like a wet blanket. Enduring for many centuries, this system had a lasting impact
on the polity of the subcontinent. The next stage of centralised military power based on eld-artillery did not introduce much of a
change at the local level where the cavalry ocer remained in control, it only promoted a new style of empire building.

336


The impact of eld-artillery

Heavy artillery of a stationary kind was know already to the sultans


of Delhi who used it in defending their realm against the Mongols.
But artillery warfare reached a new dimension when guns could be
moved to the battleeld where they proved to be highly eective
both against the cavalry and against war-elephants. Their deployment was, of course, a matter of great strategic skills. If the swift
cavalry left the slow-moving guns behind, the battle was over before
the guns were in position. The coordination of cavalry and eldartillery was the hallmark of a good general in this new age. Very
often the use of the artillery degenerated into an mere display of
repower. Military showmanship was then more in evidence than
strategic or even tactical skills. Generals had normally been trained
as horse warriors and treated the artillery with disdain. They shared
the feelings of the Syrians and Egyptians whom the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, had defeated with his eld-artillery in 1517. They condemned artillery warfare as unchivalrous conduct. Selim, however,
was victorious and emerged as the pioneer of this kind of warfare
in Asia.
The Turks had learned this art from the Europeans. Charles the
Bold of Burgundy had won several battles with his modern eldartillery around 1470. His technicians had developed brass guns
which could be adjusted with special mechanisms so as to aim at
distant targets with great accuracy. This technology spread very fast
and while Charles the Bold operated in a fairly small region, Selim
extended his empire with his repower very rapidly over large distances. Before he conquered Syria and Egypt in 1517 he had defeated
the Safavid Shah Ismail of Persia in the battle of Chaldiran in 1514
(Chaldiran is located about 100 kilometers Southwest of Erivan, the
present capital of Armenia). Shah Ismail quickly recovered from this
defeat and adopted artillery warfare too. Only twelve years after the
battle of Chaldiran, Babur, the rst Great Mughal, defeated the sultan of Delhi with the guns produced for him by Turkish experts.
Babur had been trained as an archer. Artillery warfare was new
to him and yet he used it to such good eect that he conquered
almost the whole of northern India with its help. His strategic design
of the battle of Panipat near Delhi was admirable. He deployed his
guns in a broad front, placing marksmen with muskets between them
so as to prevent the enemys cavalry from overwhelming the gun-

337

ners. This was what Selim had done at Chaldiran, a battle plan
which Babur obviously had studied in detail. But in addition Babur
used the Uzbek tactics of archers on horseback to drive the huge
army of the sultan towards the battery of guns.20 The archers would
dash along the anks of the sultans army, turn around their horses
and shoot their arrows at the moment when the horse stood still.
They repeated this manoeuvre again and again. Combining these
tactics with artillery warfare was certainly a strategic feat. Presumably
Babur was the rst one to adopt this combination.
The eld-artillery remained the mainstay of Mughal power throughout. It was an extremely expensive type of armament and its production required special skills. Even when the Rajputs had become
trusted allies of the Mughals, the art of producing guns remained a
secret which was not passed on to them. The maharaja of Jaipur
could start his own gunfoundry only much later when the power of
the Great Mughal had declined.
The Mughals not only paid much attention to the gunfoundry,
they also improved the gun carriages to make the guns more mobile
and better suited for accurate ring. Baburs guns were only loosely
mounted on carts and had to be taken down in order to be put in
a proper ring position. In addition to the improvement of guns and
carriages, the Mughals also produced better gunpowder than the
Europeans, because they had access to excellent Indian saltpetre
which was also exported at a handsome prot.21
The Great Mughal spent a great deal of his time on tour so as
to display his power in all parts of his vast empire. His camp was
huge and well equipped. The eld-artillery always accompanied him.
When the camp was shifted, the artillery was sent ahead two days
earlier to the next location.22 This was a rather leisurely procedure.
But the artillery also accompanied the Mughal army to distant
battleelds. Thus Prince Dara Shukoh on an expedition to Afghanistan
managed to cross the Bolan Pass with his artillery in 1653.23

20
S. Frster, Feuer gegen Elefanten, Panipat, 20. April 1526, in S. Frster
et al. (eds.), Schlachten der Weltgeschichte. Von Salamis bis Sinai (Mnchen, 2001), pp. 12337.
21
J.J.L. Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Frontiers and High Roads to Empire, 15001700
(London, 2002), pp. 1489.
22
Gommans, Mughal Warfare, p. 107.
23
Gommans, Mughal Warfare, p. 24.

338

How did the introduction of eld-artillery contribute to a new


type of social stratication as the chariot, the elephant and cavalry
warfare had done? Its impact was indirect rather than immediately
obvious. First of all it remained a comparatively rare and highly centralised type of armament. Those who operated it were usually foreign specialists and their numbers were limited, they certainly did
not constitute as new nobility. But the indirect social consequences
were important. The new Mughal imperial hierarchy of manabdrs
created by Akbar could be conceived of only in an artillery-based
empire with strong central authority. One the face of it, this was a
hierarchy of cavalry ocers dened to a large extent in terms of the
number of horses and cavalrymen to be maintained by the respective manabdr. But manab meant rank and though it was initially
dened in terms of cavalry contingents, the system was also extended
to all kinds of imperial ocers and even to poets and musicians who
were naturally not obliged to maintain cavalry troops. The regulation of manab and the appointment of the ocers remained an imperial privilege, and the emperors superior position rested to a large
extent on the power of his artillery.
In general a nobility is constituted by birthright, ocers appointed
and removed at will by an emperor are usually not considered to
be noblemen. But detailed research has shown that the imperial
hierarchy of the manabdrs under Mughal rule showed an amazing
stability and continuity. Sons of manabdrs had a good chance to
join the imperial service. They would not necessarily inherit the position which their father had attained at the end of his career, but
they would often rise to a similar position during their lifetime. To
that extent the manabdrs evolved into a quasi-nobility. Moreover,
there was a peculiar mechanism which strengthened the position of
this quasi-nobility, this was the pattern of succession to the throne
of the Great Mughal. There was no primogeniture, any Mughal
prince could aspire to the throne and sometimes the war of succession started even when the father of the princes was still alive. Such
a war of succession would only be fatal for the princes who lost it.
One could speak of a kind of dynastic Darwinism which actually
strengthened the Mughal Empire, because it would not be governed
by a weakling who happened to succeed because it was his turn.
The manabdrs would invariably take sides with one prince or the
other in such a war of succession, but even if it turned out that they
had been on the wrong side, this would in general not harm their

339

career. On the contrary, the victor would do his best to reconcile


them to his rule as he needed them in order to consolidate his control of the vast empire. The imperial quasi-nobility thus held a
fairly strong position for nearly two centuries.
This system collapsed in the eighteenth century, because the Mughal
Empire had so to speak lived beyond its means. The agrarian base
could no longer bear the expensive superstructure. Local discontent
of various types took a violent turn and challenged imperial authority. Such insurgency could not be easily suppressed by the mighty
eld-artillery. Guerilla warfare eluded the Mughal army. The Great
Mughal became a powerless gure in the eighteenth century who
did not control more than his capital Delhiand even that was
sacked several times. A number of regional kingdoms emerged and
there was a general commercialisation of power. Tax farmers often
controlled such regional states and had a greater say in the aairs
of the state than the respective ruler. Artillery proliferated, its production was no more a closely guarded secret. All rulers had some
guns, but as they still remained expensive, none of them had enough
of them to build a new empire with their support. Moreover, the
rulers of the eighteenth century rarely had the ability to use their
artillery strategically as Babur had done. When there was another
battle at Panipat in 1761, it took a course which was dierent from
that of 1526. The Marathas met the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah
Durrani in this fateful battle. They had deployed an impressive eldartillery, but they had no means to drive the enemys army towards
their guns. The actual battle then took place beyond the reach of
that mighty artillery. Ahmad Shah, however, used a very eective
stratagem. He put light swivel guns on the back of camels and caused
havoc among the Marathas in this way. Such swivel guns (zambrak)
mounted on camels had earlier been used by Aurangzeb.24 But it
seems that only Ahmad Shah used it to good eect against an enemy
who was not prepared for it. He won the battle but then retired to
Afghanistan while the Marathas returned to their Southern habitat.
This left a power vacuum in Northern India which was soon lled
by the British. The secret of their success was based on a new type
of warfare. They had drilled a native infantry which mowed down

24

Gommans, Mughal Warfare, p. 128.

340

the Indian cavalry with merciless precision. The weapons used by


those infantry men were freely available everywhere, they were also
rather cheap. The superiority of the British-trained infantry was only
a matter of military organisation, not of any technological advantage.

Standing armies: The rise of modern infantry


Muskets and other such guns had been known in India since the
days of Babur. But the typical Indian marksman was an individualist. He looked for his own specic aim and shot at it, often with
remarkable precision. But the loading and cleaning of the type of
guns available in those days took time. This could be only compensated for by carefully timed collective action. While one le of
soldiers red their shots the other would re-load their guns. With
precise timing this kind of manoeuvre could produce the eect of a
human machine gun. This was a matter of drill and a few European
drill sergeants were enough to introduce this new type of warfare in
India.
Infantry warfare of this kind was a relatively new achievement
even in Europe. Important advances in infantry warfare had been
introduced in Europe even before infantry was armed with guns.
They were also based on well-timed collective action. Thus Swiss
footsoldiers had been trained to form a tight column which could
be driven like a wedge through the lines of the enemy. Once they
were behind the lines, these footsoldiers would swarm out and attack
the enemy from the back. This was not exactly chivalrous but very
eective. In 1476 the Swiss were able to defeat Charles the Bold of
Burgundy in this way at the battle of Murten.25
The Ottoman sultans had a well-trained infantry in the early sixteenth century, the janissaries, who were armed with muskets,26 but
the most prominent infantry of that century was the Spanish one.
They impressed the enemy with huge formations which were called
terzios. A single terzio would often consist of 2000 men, mostly

25
G. Himmelsbach, Je lay emprinsich habs versucht. Murten, 22. Juni
1476, in Frster, Schlachten, p. 118.
26
G. Kronenbitter, Belagern und Entsetzen. Wien, 12. September 1683, in
Frster, Schlachten, p. 155.

341

armed with pikes, but with musketeers at the four corners. The imperial army of the Hapsburg dynasty deployed such mighty terzios in
the battles of the Thirty Years War. But they were confronted with
a highly innovative enemy, the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus,
who perished in the battle of Ltzen in Saxony in 1632 when he
was only 38 years old. He was the rst to form small companies of
musketeers who would take turns in ring their salvoes and reloading their guns. He also supplemented his cavalry with dragoons,
musketeers on horseback, who could swiftly attack or encircle the
enemys lines.27 His astute tactics and brilliant strategy were copied
by others in later years. The common denominator of European
infantry warfare was organised collective action and not individual
marksmanship.
The rise of the new infantry warfare coincided with the recruitment of standing armies in Europe. The idea that one could defend
oneself in a fortress and recapture ones territory after the enemy
had disappeared was given up. The fate of states was now decided
in the open battleeld were large numbers of troops were pitted
against each other. These troops consisting of well-trained footsoldiers were housed in barracks and maintained on a permanent footing. In India troops were usually recruited ad hoc and there was
always a oating population of soldiers looking for suitable employment.28 Infantry drill, however, was like a strenuous type of sport
for which constant exercise was required.
Actually infantry warfare was not at all of the centralising kind.
It was cheap and it could easily proliferate. But in India, due to the
prevailing cavalry mentality of its warriors who always looked down
on the humble footsoldier, infantry warfare was simply beyond the
comprehension of rulers and generals. The Mughals had never
recruited a specialised infantry like the Ottoman janissaries.29 At the
most they relied on their marksmen (tufangchs) who aimed their shots
individually but were not trained in collective action. This was of
great advantage to the European East India Companies. They did

27
R. Weigley, Auf der Suche nach der Entscheidungsschlacht. Ltzen, 16.
November 1632, in Frster, Schlachten, p. 142f.
28
D.H.A. Kol, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy. The Ethnohistory of the Military
Labour Market in Hindustan, 14501850 (Cambridge, 1990).
29
Gommans, Mughal Warfare, p. 156.

342

not attract much attention when they started to recruit native footsoldiers and trained them in their factories as their trading posts
were called. The French Governor Dupleix was the pioneer in
this eld. The British soon copied his methods and even imported
British soldiers who could do double duty. As quite a few of them
had been weavers before, they could give technical advice to Indian
weavers so that they could produce exactly the kind of cloth which
the East India Company neededand they could also train native
footsoldiers.30
By the early eighteenth century when this type of infantry warfare was introduced into India, the footsoldiers had not only mastered the method of rapid re invented by Gustavus Adolphus, but
also the additional skill of shifting to lethal attacks with the bayonet
mounted on the gun which replaced the earlier pike in the late seventeenth century. When the pike was still in use it was wielded by
footsoldiers without guns who usually outnumbered those carrying
muskets. Combining the gun with the pike by means of the bayonet which could be xed to the gun in no time made smaller contingents doubly eective. Moreover, the old musket had by now been
replaced by improved guns with greater precision and more convenient ignition.
In addition to being masters of infantry warfare, the East India
Company had also another great advantage. As it was in itself a
product of the commercialisation of power at home it tted quite
well into the trend of commercialisation of power in India in the
eighteenth century. Moreover, its leading men were bookkeepers
rather than daring military heroes. They always paid their soldiers
regularly and never indulged in military adventures which were
unprotable. In this way they were far superior to Indian rulers and
generals who often won a battle but lost the war, because they suddenly found out that they could not pay their soldiers any longer.
This calculating spirit of the British was accompanied by a rather
reliable collective memory. All servants of the Company, bookkeepers and heroes alike, were parts of an organisation with a strong
esprit de corps. Due to the need of reporting all essential events and
decisions to the distant headquarters in London, the servants of the

30
S. Aiol, Calicos und gedrucktes Zeug. Die Entwicklung der englischen Tuchveredelung und
der Tuchhhandel der East India Company, 16501750 (Wiesbaden, 1987), p. 381f.

343

Company kept records to which they could easily refer. Collective


action backed up by collective memory was the secret of the power
of the British in India.

The military heritage of the British-Indian Empire


While military organisation was very important for the rise of British
power in India, the consolidation of that power depended on the
civil service. Actually in the earlier years of British rule, many of
the new civil servants who formed the backbone of the territorial
administration had a military background. But once they took up a
civil position, they became part of a bureaucratic hierarchy and
the rank they had acquired as a military ocer remained a purely
honoric title. The military, on the other hand, retained its professional integrity and did not meddle with political aairs. There was
never a military coup in the British-Indian Empire. Of course, the
large colonial armyrst of the East Indian Company and then of
the Crownwas an army of Indian soldiers commanded by British
ocers. The idea of a rebellious British ocer leading his Indian
soldiers against his own countrymen was simply inconceivable. The
Mutiny of 1857 showed that it was not inconceivable that the soldiers got rid of their British ocers and rebelled against British rule.
But it also proved that without adequate military leadership such a
mutiny was bound to fail. This conrmed the British resolve never
to commission Indian ocers. They had to break this rule only in
the Second World War when two million Indian soldiers defended
the empire and there were not enough British ocers available at
that time. This is how about 8000 Indian ocers were commissioned
during the war who after independence formed the ocer corps both
of the Indian and of the Pakistan army.
The British success in controlling a large imperial army for about
150 years with a corps of expatriate ocers and keeping the population unarmed by the rigorous application of an Arms Act had
no parallel in history. In addition, they managed to support this
army entirely from the money paid by Indian taxpayers. When this
army was serving abroad on imperial missions it was supposed to
be nanced from British sources, but even this was circumvented
and the Indian taxpayer had to foot the bill for several of such ventures, too. For instance, when Indian troops were deployed in Egypt,

344

the government in London argued that the Suez Canal was actually more important for India than for Great Britain so as to justify its refusal to pay for those troops.31
The British-Indian army was a big standing army. After the Mutiny
it was considered to be necessary to station a substantial number of
British soldiers in India (about 60,000) as a counterweight to the
Indian soldiers (about 120,000). The cost of maintaining the British
soldiers in India was much higher than the amount spent on the
much larger Indian contingent. As imperial duties such as the annexation of Upper Burma demanded more military power, the total
strength of the army was augmented to 210,000.32
The infantry remained the mainstay of the British-Indian army.
It was only at a very late stage that a new type of armament was
introducedthe tank. This new military vehicle combined the mobility of a chariot with the ruggedness of a war-elephant and the
repower of the eld artillery. Other services such as the navy and
the airforce had no role in British-India. They emerged only in independent India and Pakistan.
The recruitment for the British-Indian army was highly skewed.
As Sikhs and Panjabi Muslims had helped the British at the time of
the Mutiny, they were praised as martial races and were given
preference in the British-Indian army. This meant that the Panjab
beneted much more than any other British-Indian province from
the remittances of the soldiers to their families at home. The lions
share of military emoluments was, however, claimed by the British
ocers who not only received a high pay while they were in service, but also very generous pensions after they retired and settled
in Great Britain. These pensions were part of the famous Home
Charges, the substantial transfer of funds from India to Great Britain.
Indian nationalists had criticised this excessive expenditure and
had asked for an Indianisation of the corps of ocers. They could
rejoice in the Indianisation brought about by the Second World War.
After the attainment of independence, the army was welcomed as a
national asset and not treated as mercenaries of the British. The
Indian National Army (INA) recruited from among Indian prison-

31
W. Simon, Die britische Militrpolitik in Indien und ihre Auswirkungen auf den britischindischen Finanzhaushalt, 18781919 (Wiesbaden, 1974), p. 229.
32
Simon, Die britische Militrpolitik, p. 277.

345

ers of war in Southeast Asia by the militant nationalist, Subhas


Chandra Bose, was not re-integrated into the Indian army who
regarded them as traitors. Some lip-service of national respect was
accorded to the INA, but it simply faded awayas old soldiers are
expected to do. In Southeast Asia and even in Burma, which had
been a part of British-India until 1936, political armies emerged
which had actively participated in freeing their nations from colonial rule. The ocers of such political armies felt entitled to interfere with national politics. The INA could have easily emerged as
such a force in India, but the course of events prevented thisand
saved Indian democracy.
Strangely enough two very dierent armies emerged from the same
stock of the British-Indian army in India and Pakistan. The British
tradition was that of a professional army loyal to civil authority. But
preserving this tradition also required a strong civil authority. Such
an authority emerged in India where Nehru as Prime Minister laid
the foundations of a resilient parliamentary democracy. It did not
emerge in Pakistan, where Jinnah opted for the post of GovernorGeneral and continued the viceregal tradition of running the state
with the help of the bureaucracy. Moreover, Jinnah died very soon
and his successors were not of his stature. Under such circumstances
the army took over and ruled the country with the help of the
bureaucracy.
Although the Indian and the Pakistani army were strongly inuenced
by British traditions, there soon emerged a fundamental dierence
of their social structure after independence. There was no conscription in British-India nor in independent India or Pakistan. As has
been pointed out earlier, the British recruited their soldiers mostly
from the martial races of the Panjab. Of those martial races,
India inherited the Sikhs and even today about 20 per cent of the
ocers of the Indian army are Sikhs. But as a democratic state,
India had to balance its recruitment for the army so that all parts
of India were adequately represented amongst its soldiers, the more
so as service in the army is highly coveted. Soldiers are respected
and comparatively well paid. The same is true in Pakistan, but there
no compulsion was felt to deviate from the old practice of recruiting soldiers from among the martial race of Panjabi Muslims. This
produced a very cohesive army which is extremely proud of its valour and looks down upon everybody else in South Asia. Unfortunately
this has prompted the generals of that army to embark ever so often

346

on risky ventures which invariably ended in defeat. Nevertheless they


refused to learn from past experience, nor did any politician emerge
who could put them in their place.
It so happened that this proud army again and again got a shot
in the arm from the Americans who needed partners in rst ghting
communism, then the Soviets in Afghanistan and nally the Taliban
who had been initially nurtured by Pakistan with American aid. All
this contributed to the rise of the Pakistan army as a state within
the state claiming not only the attention of the Americans but also
the lions share of Pakistans budget. This latter claim they could
only sustain by constantly pointing to the Indian threat. In reacting
to Pakistan, India obliged the Pakistan army in living up to such a
threat perception. Sabre-rattling along the border thus became almost
a standard ritual.
The most conspicuous defeat of the Pakistani army manifested
itself in the loss of East-Pakistan which then became Bangladesh.
Actually the social composition of the Pakistani army which has been
mentioned above contributed to this defeat and also helped it to
shrug it o. When sent to East-Pakistan to ght against secession,
the Panjabi army behaved like a rather insensitive occupation force
and thus precipitated this secession rather than preventing it. Faced
with the loss of East-Pakistan which had always remained a strange
place to the Panjabis, they did not regret is very much. The 90.000
Pakistani soldiers who had been captured by the Indian army in
what was now Bangladesh were promptly returned to Pakistan, thus
the Panjabi army had lost very few men in that war and could
return to business as usual.
President Bhutto who actually owed his rise to the presidency to
the secession which he ocially deplored but secretly enjoyed, tried
to frame his generals by holding them responsible for that defeat.
He was nally executed by a general for this very reason. After having liquidated their most resourceful challenger, the Pakistani army
could deal with lesser lights in due course.
Before meeting his fate, Bhutto had taken a major step in launching Pakistan on the path to nuclear power. As early as 1972 he was
advocating the Islamic bomb with which Pakistan hoped to gain
parity with India. With the emergence of the atomic bomb South
Asia then parted with the British-Indian heritage and set up a completely new pattern. The contours of this pattern are not yet as
clearly visible as the historical features which we have discussed so

347

far. The last section of this paper is therefore conjectural rather than
based on rm evidence.
The centralised power of the atom state
In dealing with the atom state in South Asia we are again primarily interested in the social and political consequences of the adoption of this new type of armament rather than in the technological
and strategic aspects of nuclear warfare. Nevertheless, a short review
of the emergence of the atom bomb in India and Pakistan is required
in order to understand its consequences. Until the tests of 1998 all
preparations were closely guarded secrets and nuclear ambiguity
was the policy of both India and Pakistan. Now, since the bombs
are so to speak on display, the history of the respective preparations has been openly discussed. The review must also include a
brief summary of the conicts between India and Pakistan. These
conicts gave rise to the quest for the atom bomb and now shape
the relations between the two atom states.
The quest for the bomb started in India in the late 1960s after
China had joined the nuclear club in 1964 and Prime Minister
Shastris idea of a nuclear umbrella which another big power would
be prepared to hold over India had failed for obvious reasons. In
1971 at the time of the secession of Bangladesh, President Nixon
had sent an aircraft carrier armed with nuclear missiles into the Bay
of Bengal. As he later on admitted, he would have used those missiles against India if the Soviet Union had joined the war. He would
have probably hesitated to do so if India would have had nuclear
weapons, too. Indira Gandhi may have known about this, at any
rate she ordered the explosion of a nuclear device in 1974 and
this spurred Bhutto to speed up his quest for an Islamic bomb.
He encouraged the activities of the Pakistani scientist, A.Q. Khan,
who was later on praised as the father of the Islamic bomb, but
he also got additional technological support from China. Writing
about it in his death cell in 1977, Bhutto stated that his greatest
claim to national fame could be based on his success of concluding
a treaty on nuclear technology transfer with China in 1976.
General Zia got Bhutto executed but continued his nuclear programme with equal vigour. In 1977 Morarji Desai had become Prime
Minister of India. As an old Gandhian he did not like the idea of

348

India having an atom bomb. He even deplored the explosion of a


nuclear device in 1974. Indira Gandhi then returned to power in
1980 and once more encouraged the quest for an Indian atom bomb.
She actually wanted to conduct a test in 1983, but did not do it
because of American pressure. By 1989 Abdul Kalam, who was later
praised as the father of the Indian atom bomb was already working on the actual production of such bombs.
By 1990 the Government of Pakistan was in a position to lower
the veil of nuclear ambiguity and actually dropped hints at its
nuclear potential. When Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao came
to know that China had supplied Pakistan with M-11 rockets which
could be tted with nuclear warheads, he was about to order Indian
nuclear tests in 1995 but then succumbed to American pressure. In
1996 Narasimha Rao lost the elections and Atal Behari Vajpayee
failed to form a government, otherwise he could have fullled his
partys programme of going nuclear even at that time. The Third
Force of regional parties which then formed the government was
neither willing nor able to go nuclear. Moreover, Pakistan which
was troubled by economic problems did not aunt its nuclear potential at that time. When Vajpayee then did form a coalition government in 1998, his rst statement sounded as if he wished to continue
the policy of nuclear ambiguity. But soon thereafter Pakistan tested
a missile called Ghauri, named after the Muslim conqueror who
had overrun northern India around 1200 AD. The missile was of
North-Korean origin and had only been renamed in Pakistan, but
its new name was a message which Vajpayee could not ignore. He
forthwith ordered the series of nuclear tests in May 1998 which were
soon followed by Pakistans. Both nations had now outed themselves as atomic powers.
Vajpayee, who obviously believed that the theory of mutual deterrence would now also apply to India and Pakistan, started a peace
initiative by taking a bus to Lahore and embracing his Pakistani
colleague, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Sharif was embarrassed by
Vajpayees hug, because he knew that General Musharraf, the chief
of the Pakistan army, was preparing a proxy war in Kashmir at
that time. Musharraf is a specialist in mountain warfare and had
made preparations for this venture for a long time. He rmly believed
that such proxy wars can be conducted without nuclear escalation. In fact, the threat of such escalation would give the aggressor
a tactical advantage. In this particular instance his troops would cross

349

the Line of Control in Kashmir and gain some advantages while the
Indian defenders would be taken by surprise and not dare to cross
the line for fear of nuclear retaliation.33
In the Kargil war of summer 1999 which Musharraf had planned
in this way, everything seemed to work according to his expectationsexcept for the successful Indian reaction. While the Pakistanis
had crossed the Line of Control, the Indians did not do so but managed to defeat the Pakistanis nevertheless. By the end of June 1999
when Musharraf met the American Chief of Sta, General Anthony
Zinni, who had come to Pakistan in order to put and end to this
aair, Musharraf knew that his game was up and readily agreed to
a withdrawal. But he also saw to it that President Clinton would
receive Prime Minister Sharif in Washington on July 4, 1999. Sharif
was not in Pakistan at that moment and when he returned Musharraf
sent him o to Washingtom, assuring him of Clintons personal interest and asserting that the Kashmir issue had been successfully internationalised in this way.34 Due to this clever arrangement, it was
not Musharraf but Sharif who had to sign a capitulation in Washington,
taking the blame for Musharraf s unsuccessful brinkmanship.
Although the Kargil war ended with a defeat for Pakistan, it nevertheless established the fact that proxy wars can be conducted
under the roof of mutual deterrence. Of course, the USA and the
Soviet Union had also conducted hot proxy wars in the era of the
Cold War, but these had not been fought across a Line of Control
which was practically the border between the two nations. Actually
it seems strange that Musharraf should speak of a proxy war in this
context. But in order to understand this one must know that Pakistan
maintained throughout that the troops that had crossed the Line of
Control were Kashmiri freedom ghters and not regular Pakistani
soldiers. The Indian side could prove that they were ghting regular Pakistani troops and not freedom ghters, but the Pakistani
side stuck to its pretence and even refused to accept the corpses of
its soldiers.
The events of September 11, 2001 and the American alliance
against terror complicated the relations between the two South Asian

33
D. Rothermund, Krisenherd Kaschmir. Der Konikt der Atommchte Indien und Pakistan
(Mnchen, 2002), p. 99.
34
Rothermund, Krisenherd, p. 105f.

350

atom states even further. Islamic terrorists now felt called upon to
drive a wedge between the two new partners of this alliance. The
rst attempt was a suicide attack on the legislative assembly of the
state of Jammu and Kashmir in Srinagar. Maulana Masood Azhar
who planned this attack immediately thereafter released the names
of four of those who had sacriced their lives in Srinagar. They were
all citizens of Pakistan. Obviously this was meant to embarrass
Musharraf whom the terrorists regarded as a traitor. India obviously
saw this point and did not make much of this incident so as not to
upset the American sponsors of the alliance against terror. But the
next attack which was probably also masterminded by Azhar could
not be taken lightly. In December 2001 terrorists attacked the Indian
Parliament. They were gunned down by Indian police at the last
moment. They had used a police car and police uniforms to disguise themselves. The Government of India claims that they have
rmly established the complicity of two Pakistani terrorist groups in
this attack. The Pakistani side denies that, but has not oered an
alternative explanation.
The Government of India had to react to this severe provocation
and massed Indian troops at the border so as to force Musharraf to
do something against the terrorists. He also had to respond to
American pressure concerning this and got some terrorists arrested.
He then made Prime Minister Vajpayee the target of all kinds of
friendly gestures, but, of course, Vajpayee continued to see in him
the man who had prepared the Kargil war while he was hugging
Sharif in Lahore. For the time being the feud between the two atom
states has been suspended due to massive American eorts at mediation. But the feud could easily are up again due to some provocation. The special problem in South Asia is that this provocation
may not come from a government but from freewheeling terrorists
who have their own agenda.
When we turn to the centralising aspects of the atom state which
we want to highlight here, we may start with the issue of ghting
terrorism, because terrorists pose a twofold challenge to the atom
state, they may attack nuclear installations or steal nuclear weapons
and they may cause a nuclear war between two atom states by hitting the centre (Parliament or government etc.) of one state while
obviously representing the other. Therefore the atom state needs
special methods and forces dedicated to counterinsurgency. Indias
National Security Guards (Black Cats) are a special force of this

351

kind. Nowadays they mostly serve as bodyguards of members of government. They are a small force of at the most 10,000 men. Their
manpower and their equipment must be upgraded in order to meet
the new requirements of the atom state.
Black Cats can only operate successfully if they are backed up
by suitable intelligence. Very intensive surveillance will certainly be
one of the undesirable but necessary consequences of maintaining
an atom state. Citizens will have to acquiesce in it, because they
otherwise face the alternative of perishing in a nuclear holocaust.
The Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan which has so far been
mostly active in breeding terrorists may also be useful when it comes
to controlling them.
But not only counterinsurgency requires new forces and new methods, the armed forces in general have to face new tasks in an atom
state. The hope that mutual deterrence may put an end to conventional warfare and help to reduce military expenditure is an illusion. Musharraf s Kargil war has demonstrated this very clearly.
Moreover, there is the new type of auxiliary armament without which
nuclear warheads would be useless. Rockets of various kinds are
required, and there have to be rocket regiments to handle them. So
far there are very few of such rocket regiments in South Asia, but
they will certainly proliferate. Then there are military satellites which
may be used for reconnaissance as well as for targeting. All this
equipment is very expensive and will be a burden on the defence
budget.
The central budget which in India has always been much larger
than the sum of al state budgets will probably have to be upgraded
for such purposes. This will be a further blow to Indian federalism.
In fact, just as all other expensive weapons like elephants, good warhorses and eld artillery which have been discussed above, the atom
bomb privileges the central power. Moreover, decision making will
have to be highly centralised in an atom state. In may ways the
atom bomb serves as a symbol of centralised national power. India
which has always been attuned to symbolism in politics has even
managed to provide this with a personal equation: Abdul Kalam,
the Father of the Indian Atom Bomb has been elected President
of India.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY OF D.H.A. KOLFF

1966
Kol, D.H.A., Libertatis Ergo: De beroerten binnen Leiden in de jaren 1566 en
1567, Leids Jaarboekje, pp. 11848.
1969
Duke, A.C. and D.H.A. Kol, The Times of Troubles in the County of Holland,
15661567, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 82, pp. 31637.
1971
Kol, D.H.A., Sanyasi Trader-Soldiers, Indian Economic and Social History Review,
8,2, pp. 2138.
1972
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van E. Leach and S.N. Mukherjee (eds), Elites in
South Asia, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 85, pp. 2357.
1973
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van N. Mansergh and E.W.R. Lumby (eds), The
Transfer of Power, 19427, Vols I & II, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 86, pp. 4879.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of A.M. Serajuddin, The Revenue Administration of the
East India Company in Chittagong, 17611785, Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient, 16, pp. 1112.
1974
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van A.C. Niemeijer, The Khilafat Movement in
India, 19191924, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 87, pp. 1235.
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van C. Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India:
Politics and Communities in Bombay City, 18401885, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis,
87, p. 265.
Kol, D.H.A., Economische ontwikkeling zonder sociale verandering: De katoen
van Hindoestan, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 87, pp. 54553.
1975
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van Aparna Basu, The Growth of Education and
Political Development in India, 18981920, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 88, pp.
4201.
1976
Kol, D.H.A., Indi in de Middeleeuwen [i.e. Kols Dutch translation of A.K.
Majumdar], in G. Mann and A. Nitschke (eds), Universele Wereldgeschiedenis, VI,
Den Haag and Hasselt, pp. 10784.

354

...

1978
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van H.K. sJacob (red.), De Nederlanders in Kerala
16631701: De memories en instructies, in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 91, pp.
1156.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of P.J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal
in the Eighteenth Century, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient,
21,3, pp. 3346.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of R.N. Banerjee, Economic Progress of the East India
Company on the Coromandel Coast, 17021746, Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient, 21,3, p. 336.
1979
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van J.M. Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience:
The Mahatma in Indian politics, 192834, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 92, pp.
26971.
Kol, D.H.A., A Study of Land Transfers in Mau Tahsil, District Jhansi, in K.N.
Chaudhuri and C.J. Dewey (eds.), Economy and Society: Essays in Indian Economic and
Social History, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 5385.
Kol, D.H.A., Kaste in India, Zuid-Azi Bulletin, 1, pp. 18.
Kol, D.H.A. and H.W. van Santen (eds.), De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over
Mughal Indi, 1627: Kroniek en Remonstrantie (Werken uitgegeven door de LinschotenVereeniging, LXXXI), The Hague: Martinus Nijho.
Van Anrooij, Francien, Dirk H.A. Kol, Jan T.M. van Laanen, and Gerard J.
Telkamp (eds), Between People and Statistics: Essays on Modern Indonesian History presented to P. Creutzberg, The Hague: Martinus Nijho.
Kol, D.H.A., De Kontroleur G.K. van Hogendorp (18441879): Een enthousiast statisticus, in Van Anrooij et al. (see above), pp. 175206.
Kol, D.H.A., Introduction to Chapter I: Science and Technology in Indian
History, in Asie du Sud: Traditions et Changements (Colloques Internationaux du Centre
National de la Recherche Scientique, no. 582), Paris, pp. 312.
1980
Hoetjes, B.J.S., D.H.A. Kol, en D. Kooiman, India (Panorama van de Wereld), Haarlem:
Romen.
1981
Kol, D.H.A., Review of E. van Donzel, Foreign Relations of Ethiopia 16421700:
Documents relating to the Journeys of Khoja Murad, Bibliotheca Orientalis, 38,
pp. 2025.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of Keller, Strukturen der Unterentwicklung, Indien 17571914,
The Journal of Asian Studies, 40,2, pp. 4089.
1982
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van S.F. Dale, Islamic Society on the South Asian
Frontier: The Mappilas of Malabar 14981922, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 95,
pp. 23940.
Emmer, P.C., D.H.A. Kol, and R.J. Ross, The Expansion of Europe and the
Transformation of Third World Agriculture: Two Colonial Models, Itinerario, 6,
pp. 43377.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of Susil Chaudhuri, Trade and Commercial Organization in Bengal, 16501720: With Special Reference to the English East India

...

355

Company, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 25,3, pp. 3289.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of H.W. van Santen, De Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie
in Gujarat en Hindoestan, 16201660, Itinerario, 6, pp. 102.
1983
Kol, D.H.A., An Armed Peasantry and its Allies: Rajput Tradition and State
Formation in Hindustan, 14501850 (Unpublished PhD thesis, Leiden University).
Kol, D.H.A., Review of C.A. Bayly, Rulers Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian
Society in the Age of British Expansion, 17701870, Itinerario, 7, pp. 14850.
1984
Kol, D.H.A. (gen. ed.), Twee culturen: De Republiek en Java (Orintatiecursus Cultuurwetenschappen Open Universiteit), 8 vols, Heerlen.
Kol, D.H.A., La Nation Chrtienne Surate au Debut du XVIIme Sicle, in
J.L. Mige (ed.), La Femme dans les Socits Coloniales (IHPOM, Univ. de Provence),
Aix-en-Provence, pp. 716.
Kol, D.H.A., India, een Parlementaire Democratie: echt, maar anders, Grenzeloos, 5 (Nov./Dec.), pp. 145.
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van M.C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia:
c. 1300 to the Present, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 97, pp. 2367.
1985
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van R.J. Moore, Escape from Empire, Tijdschrift
voor Geschiedenis, 98, pp. 2935.
Kol, D.H.A., Indische Geschiedenis: een Overwonnen Contradictie?, Groniek, 92,
pp. 2841.
1986
Bayly, C.A. and D.H.A. Kol (eds.), Two Colonial Empires: Comparative Essays on the
History of India and Indonesia in the Nineteenth Century, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijho.
Kol, D.H.A., Administrative Tradition and the Dilemma of Colonial Rule: An
Example of the Early 1830s, in Bayly and Kol (see above), pp. 95109.
Fasseur, C. and D.H.A. Kol, Some Remarks on the Development of Colonial
Bureaucracies in India and Indonesia, Itinerario, 10,1, pp. 3155.
1987
Kol, D.H.A., Geweld en Geweldloosheid: de twee Gezichten van India, Reector
(Feb.), pp. 22631.
Kol, D.H.A., De Dekolonisatie van Brits-Indi: Rijksreconstructie en Dorpsopbouw, Spiegel Historiael, 22, pp. 3206.
Kol, D.H.A., Historiograe in Zuid-Azi: Een geval van late bloei, in R.B. van
de Weijer, P.G.B. Thissen and R. Schnberger (eds.), Tussen traditie en wetenschap:
Geschiedbeoefening in niet-westerse culturen, Nijmegen: Stichting Annales Noviomagenses
Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, pp. 113131.
1988
Houben, V.J.H. and D.H.A. Kol, Between Empire Building and State Formation:
Ocial Elites in Java and Mughal India, Itinerario 12,1, pp. 16594.
Kol, D.H.A., History and Indology at Leiden University, South Asia Newsletter, 2
(Dec.), pp. 910.

356

...

1989
Kol, D.H.A., De wijzen uit het Oosten waren woestijnhandelaren, NRC-Handelsblad
(Cultureel Supplement), 6 January.
Kol, D.H.A., and L.G. Dalhuisen, Mahatma Gandhi en de dekolonisatie van
Brits Indi, in Speellm en Geschiedenis: Congresverslag, Rotterdam Erasmus Universiteit,
April 1988, Amsterdam, pp. 323.
Kol, D.H.A., Huizingas Dissertation and the Stemmingen of the Literary
Movement of the Eighties, in W. Otterspeer (ed.), Leiden Oriental Connections 1850
1940, Leiden, New York, Copenhagen, Cologne: E.J. Brill, pp. 14152.
Kol, D.H.A., The End of an Ancien Regime: Colonial War in India, 17981818,
in J.A. de Moor and H.L. Wesseling (eds.), Imperialism and War: Essays on Colonial
Wars in Asia and Africa (Comparative Studies in Overseas History, 8), Leiden, New York,
Copenhagen, Cologne: E.J. Brill, pp. 2249.
Kol, D.H.A., Huizingas proefschrift en de stemmingen van Tachtig, Bijdragen
en Mededelingen betreende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 104, pp. 38092.
Kol, D.H.A., Op zoek naar root-paradigms in de Indische beschaving, in H.J.M.
Claessen (eds.), Hulp of hindernis? Het spanningsveld tussen model en werkelijkheid (ICA
Publicatie 88), Rijksuniversiteit Leiden: Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen, pp.
13153.
1990
Kol, D.H.A., Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: the Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in
Hindustan, 14501850, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [paperback ed.
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002]
1991
Kol, D.H.A., India: het einde van een beproefde consensus, Jason, 16 (April),
pp. 226.
Kol, D.H.A., De hartstochtelijke nadruk op het individu leeft nog steeds in India,
NRC-Handelsblad, 17 June.
Dalhuisen, L.G., D.H.A. Kol, and A.P.C. Vendel, Gandhi: Film en werkelijkheid
(Bouwstenen voor intercultureel onderwijs, AV3), Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Minderhedenstudies).
Kol, D.H.A., Huizinga en de Vedisch-Brahmaanse religie: Zijn college als privaat-docent te Amsterdam in 190304, in Hanneke van den Muyzenberg en
Thomas de Bruijn (eds.), Waarom Sanskrit? Honderdvijfentwintig jaar Sanskrit in Nederland
(Kern Institute Miscellanea 4), Leiden: Vereniging Vrienden van het Instituut Kern,
pp. 6473.
Kol, D.H.A., Boekbespreking van L.M. van der Mey, Nehrus droom voorbij:
1962 als keerpunt in Indias verhouding tot China, Transaktie: Tijdschrift over de
Wetenschap van Oorlog en Vrede, 20,4, pp. 4057.
Kol, D.H.A., Een Brits-Indische omwandeling, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden: Inaugural Lecture.
1992
Kol, D.H.A., The Indian and the British Law Machines: Some Remarks on Law
and Society in British India, in W.J. Mommsen and J.A. de Moor (eds.), European
Expansion and Law: The Encounter of European and Indigenous Law in 19th- and 20thCentury Africa and Asia, Oxford, New York: Berg, pp. 20135.
Hoek, A.W. van der, D.H.A. Kol, and M.S. Oort (eds.), Ritual, State and History in
South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman, Leiden, New York, Cologne: E.J. Brill.
Kol, D.H.A., Huizinga and the Vedic-Brahmanic religion. His rst series of lectures at the University of Amsterdam in 190304, in A.W. van der Hoek et al.
(see above), pp. 57886.

...

357

Kol, D.H.A., Zuid-Azi na 1945, in D.F.J. Bosscher et al. (eds.), De Wereld na


1945, Utrecht: Het Spectrum/Aula, pp. 475508.
Kol, D.H.A., Een zware verkoudheid, Mare, 17 December.
Kol, D.H.A., A British Indian Circumambulation, Itinerario, 16,2, pp. 85100.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of R. Glazer and N. Glazer (eds.), Conicting Images: India
and the United States Pacic Aairs, 65,2, pp. 2701.
1993
Kol, D.H.A., De cultuur van het Mughal Rijk, in Thomas van Maaren and
Jan Weerdenburg (eds.), In grote lijnen: De oude culturen, Universiteit Utrecht: Bureau
Studium Generale, pp. 7790.
Kol, D.H.A., Een Brits-Indische omwandeling, De Gids, 156, pp. 63545.
1994
Kol, D.H.A., Remarks on the Conference, in Yamada Keiji (ed.), The Transfer
of Science and Technology between Europe and Asia, 17801880 (International Symposium,
7), Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, pp. 914.
1995
Kol, D.H.A., Boerensoldaten in India, in H.Ph. Vogel, H.W. Singor and J.A.
de Moor (eds.), Een wereld in oorlog: Militaire geschiedenis in hoofdstukken, Utrecht: Het
Spectrum, pp. 27389.
Kol, D.H.A., The Rajput of Ancient and Medieval North India: A WarriorAscetic, in N.K. Singhi and Rajendra Joshi (eds.), Folk, Faith & Feudalism: Rajasthan
Studies, Jaipur and New Delhi: Rawat, pp. 25794.
1996
Kol, D.H.A., Zuid-Azi, in Doeko Bosscher et al. (eds.), De Wereld na 1945, 2nd
ed., Utrecht: Het Spectrum/Aula, pp. 50540.
1998
Kol, D.H.A., Waarom was er geen Multatuli in Brits-Indi?, in Theo Dhaen
en Gerard Termorshuizen (eds.), De Geest van Multatuli: Proteststemmen in vroegere
Europese kolonin (Semaian 17), Leiden University, pp. 23344.
Kol, D.H.A., De Indische Diaspora: Een historisch-culturele benadering, in Piet
Emmer en Herman Obdeijn (eds.), Het Paradijs is aan de overzijde: Internationale immigratie en grenzen, Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, pp. 6782.
Kol, D.H.A., A Warlords Fresh Attempt at Empire, in Muzaar Alam and
Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds.), The Mughal State 15261750 (Themes in Indian History,
Oxford in India Readings), Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 75114.
2000
Kol, D.H.A., Aziatische, Afrikaanse en Amerindsiche talen en culturen (het nietwesten), in H.J. de Jonge and W. Otterspeer (eds.), Altijd een vonk of twee: De
Universiteit Leiden van 1975 tot 2000, Leiden: Universitaire Pers, pp. 5965.
2001
Gommans, Jos J.L., and Dirk H.A. Kol (eds.), Warfare and Weaponry in South Asia,
1000 1800, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gommans, Jos J.L. and Kol, Dirk H.A., Introduction, in Gommans and Kol
(see above), pp. 142.

358

...

Kol, Dirk H.A., The Polity and the Peasantry, in Gommans and Kol (see
above), pp. 20231.
Kol, D.H.A., De bajonet erin! Een kleine oorlog in Brits-Indi, in Arend Huussen,
Janny de Jong, and G Prince (eds.), Cultuurcontacten: Ontmoetingen tussen culturen in
historisch perspectief (Historische Studies IV), Groningen, pp. 12336.
Kol, D.H.A., Schilderijen van Rameshwar Singh: Kennismaking met een Indiaas
kunstenaar, Beeldaspecten 13, 4/5 (May), pp. 1214.
Kol, D.H.A., Review of Ahuja Ravi, Die Erzeugung kolonialer Staatlichkeit und
das Problem der Arbeit, International Review of Social History, 46,2, pp. 2801.
Kol, D.H.A., Jacob Haafners Journey in a Palanquin: A Passionate Farewell from
a Colonial Ancien Rgime, in Dirk W. Lnne (ed.), Tohfa-e-dil. Festschrift Helmut
Nespital, Vol. 2: Kulturwissenschaften, Reinbek: Verlag fr Orientalische Fachpublikationen, pp. 72748.
2002
Kol, Dirk, De Engelse Oostindische Compagnie, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 115,4,
pp. 54465.
Kol, D.H.A., Op zoek naar een passend geschiedbeeld: Boekbespreking van
Barbara D. Metcalf en Thomas R. Metcalf, A Concise History of India, Tijdschrift
voor Geschiedenis, 115,4, pp. 5868.

INDEX

Abd al-Khan, 89
Abd al-Lah, 160, 165, 16970
Abdul Halim, 168
Abdul Kalam, 348, 351
Abid Ali Khan, 146
Abul Fazl, 24, 163, 170, 214
Aceh, 33, 501
Ackroyd, P., 243, 249
Adams, Maj., 143, 154, 157
Addiscombe Military College, 237
Adilshahs, 1002
Adrichem, D. van, 56
Afghans, 23, 86, 95, 138, 15965,
171, 176, 179217, 339 (see also
Pathans)
Afghanistan, 23, 86, 175, 182, 190,
198, 204, 213, 215, 334, 337, 339,
346
Africa, 276, 319
Afridis, 183, 195, 2012
Agra, 21, 39, 50, 567, 5964, 199,
203
Aguado, 78
Ahmad Khan Bangash, 1856, 188,
191, 1935, 2013, 2058
Ahmad Shah Durrani, 203, 207, 339
Ahmadabad, 47, 60
Ain Khan Sarvani, 179
Ajmer, 263
Akbar, 24, 188, 214, 217, 265, 269,
2756, 338
Ala al-Din Khalji, 334
Alam Khan, 148, 150
Alavi, S., 12, 195
Albert, L., 307
Ali Muhammad Khan Rohilla, 204
Alivardi Khan, 120
Allahabad, 163, 1856, 188, 2002,
204
Allen, B., 233
Almas Ali Khan, 2103
Alva, Conde de, 76, 87
Amar Singh, 27982
Amber, 282
Americans (USA), 2513, 261, 2689,
282, 289, 292, 296, 303, 316, 346,
34850

American Revolution, 296


Amethi, 201, 205
Amin Beg, 58
Amyatt, 146, 154
Anderson, B., 302
Andorra, 311
Angkor, 330
Anjapur, 98
Arabs, 31, 35, 38, 97, 171, 187, 260
Arabian Sea, 105
Arasaratnam, S., 48, 54
Arathoon, 138, 150, 154, 1567
Arba Naik, 989
Armenians, 22, 1338, 140, 143, 146,
1525
artillery, 27, 106, 1378, 140, 147,
150, 237, 241, 332, 3359, 344, 351
Arya, 26, 277, 3267, 329, 331
Asad al-Lah Khan, 14950, 152
Asaf al-Daula, 208
Asaf Khan, 56, 59, 63
Ashoka, 259, 3312
Assam, 146
Assolna, 88
avamedha, 32030
Aurangzeb, 40, 55, 179
Austen, J., 264
Australians, 2334, 308
Ava, 44
Awadh, 201, 23, 534, 56, 124, 160,
1635, 1678, 184, 186, 194, 198,
2013, 206, 20813, 2156
Ayodhya, 1634, 2235, 227
Azad Khan, 88
Azam Khan, 60
Baak, J., 1256, 12930
Babhoji, 94
Babur, 1645, 181, 217, 332, 3367,
33940
Bachgotis, 159, 1645, 16970, 174,
178
Baghdad, 215
Baghelas, 161, 163, 165, 167, 170, 174
Bagstock, Maj., 249
Baizis, 181
Baksariyas, 8

360

Balaji Rao, 76
Balasore, 128
Balochistan, 176
Balwant Singh, 202
Balzac, H. de, 264
Bamtelas, 197
Bandaris, 80
Bangalore, 317, 321
Bangash, 234, 179216
Bangash (Valley), 179, 1814
Bangladesh, 117, 305, 3467
Bannu, 181
Banquibazar, 120, 124, 130
Banten, 126
Bapoji Pant, 989
Barabanki, 164
Barani, Zia al-Din, 173
Barath Ram Nathji, 279
Barbak Shah, 1634, 1667, 169, 175,
177
Bardes, 72, 76, 78, 80, 83, 85, 88,
956, 99
Barendse, R., 19, 21, 69
Barid Khan Bahadur, 86
Barkat Ali, 156
Barnagul, 118
Barnes, J., 316
Bassein, 73, 768, 812, 86
Batavia, 22, 51, 56, 58, 10813,
11827, 12931
Bath, 236
Baudrillar, J., 317, 3201
Bauman, Z., 28891, 294, 299, 316
Bayana, 44, 53, 162, 166
Bayazid Biyat, 176
Bayly, C., 12
Beadnell, Mr., 241
Bedara, 117, 128, 155
Bednore, 265
Belkhana, 2289
Benares, 169, 185, 198, 202, 219,
2215, 228
Bengal, 15, 223, 25, 41, 478, 525,
72, 87, 11758, 177, 213, 2334,
236, 23940, 242, 244, 247, 252,
2745, 301, 303, 330, 347
Benjamin, W., 316
Bentinck, Lord, 268
Bento, J., 99
Berlin Wall, 298
Bes, L., 67
Betav, 217
Betia, 147
Bhadoi, 185

Bhaidachandra, 1623, 167


bhakti, 24, 214, 21820, 229
Bhraticada, 217
Bharatpur, 193
Bhatta, 1613, 170, 174
Bhattacharya, B., 19, 223, 133
Bhils, 88, 91, 97, 100, 256
Bhojpur, 8
Bhonsles, 76, 88, 91, 93
Bhopal, 215
Bhgu, 290
Bhure Khan (chela), 188
Bhutto, Z., 3467
Bibi Sahiba, 1857, 192, 197, 201
Bicholim, 21, 74, 77, 85, 96, 99, 103
Bihar, 8, 117, 139, 145, 154, 1601,
1702, 213
Bijlert, V. van, 26, 283
Bintang, 33
Bra, 2218
Brabhadra, 2235, 2289
Bramsiha, 217, 221
Birbhan-Virabhanu, 163
Birbhum, 148
Bird, R., 16
Bisdom, A., 117, 119, 1227, 12930
Bissau, 251
Bohras, 86
Bolan Pass, 337
Bombay, 34, 80, 82, 85, 87, 255
Boulogne, 241
Boxer, Ch., 123
Brackenbury, J., 237, 240
Brahm, 221, 290
Brahm Sanaka, 290
brahmans, 46, 789, 88, 94, 96, 227,
2302, 242, 272 n. 41, 274, 311
Braj, 24, 218, 232
Brewer, J., 71
Bristol, 233
British, 89, 128, 247, 39, 46, 656,
6970, 73, 87, 120, 123, 133, 136,
194, 20813, 216, 233, 235, 237,
2416, 249, 2512, 256, 259, 262,
2656, 268, 2703, 275, 27881,
295, 305, 316, 331, 33940, 3426
(see also English and Scots)
Britons, 267, 274
Broome, A., 143
Brouwer, J., 26, 307
Bruggen, J. van der, 112, 114
Bryant, G., 87
Buckingham, J., 26971
Buddhism, 30, 297, 304, 332


Bundela, 24, 189, 21732
Bundelkhand, 79, 134, 245, 180,
189, 1967, 2001, 21732, 256
Burdett-Coutts, A., 23541, 2467
Burgundy, 340
Burhanpur, 61
Burke, E., 267
Burma, 44, 3445
Butto Savant, 98
Buxar, 123
Byron, Lord, 2634, 268, 271
Calangute, 78
Calcutta, 246, 34, 39, 118, 120, 126,
135, 1456, 1578, 234, 2434,
246, 248, 252, 255, 257, 26970,
292
Calicut, 29
Calvinism, 296
Cambodia, 330
Cambridge, 6, 14, 237
Candal, 80, 85, 88, 92
Candela, 217, 222
Candrvara, 228
Carter, R., 248
caste, 810, 17, 46, 78, 80, 93, 989,
164, 170, 189, 191, 215, 242,
2712, 282, 31011, 332
Catholic, 69, 802, 84, 868, 95, 102,
311
Caucasus, 275
Cave Browne, J., 247
Central Asia, 10, 31, 39, 41, 204, 275,
327, 334
Ceylon, 22, 73, 107, 1135, 126
Chaldiran, 3367
Champanagar, 150
Chanderi, 174, 176
Chandernagore, 119, 128, 136
Chandra Parbhu, 879
Chandragupta Maurya, 331
Chardos, 78, 93
chariots, 267, 32531, 333, 338, 344
Charles the Bold, 336, 340
Charnoe, 126
Chatrasla, 218
Chatterjee, P., 3015
Chattopadhyay, B., 23, 134, 13942
Chauhans, 263
Chaul, 802, 103
Chaund, 159162, 166, 1703
Chausa, 163
chelas, 24, 180, 184, 18695, 197201,
205, 2078, 210, 2146

361

Cheribon, 118
Chinese (China), 301, 33, 144, 3478
Chinsura, 47, 1178, 120, 122,
12530, 155
Chitor, 265, 282
Cholas, 330
Christian, 29, 81, 94, 297
Chunar, 1601
Clark, G., 256
Clinton, B., 349
Clive, R., 120, 123, 1256, 129, 252,
258, 278
Cochin, 47, 80, 1056, 111, 1134
Coculim, 74
Cohn, B., 101 n. 24
Coimbra, 87
Colachel, 21, 10510, 1134
Cologne, 317
Columbus, C., 29
Congress Party, 281, 305
Conquistas Novas, 749, 87, 99
Conrad, J., 34
Coreld, W., 248
Coromandel, 32, 40, 48, 54, 79, 121,
1267
Cotton, E., 156
Couto, D. de, 73
Cromwellian Revolution, 296
Crooke, W., 165
Cultural Studies, 26, 2957
Cunra, 228
Curzon, Lord, 273, 277
Dadaism, 314
Daim Khan (chela), 188
Dalamau, 1678
Dalani Begam, 1412
Dalpat Sah, 178
Dalpat Singh (Raja), 1778
Daman, 51, 812, 856, 90
Dna, 221
Danapur (also Dinapore), 175
Danish, 118
Dara Shukoh, 337
Dariabad, 163, 167
Darling, M., 25
Dasgupta, A., 48
Dastagool, 135
Daulat Rao Scindia, 257
Daulatabad, 63
Deccan, 3940, 92, 17980, 1967,
200, 204, 217, 271
Delhi (Dehli), 14, 27, 35, 39, 50, 101,
159, 162, 167, 173, 181, 193,

362

1989, 201, 2035, 2134, 2178,


244, 254, 256, 273, 332, 3346,
339
Delhi Sultanate, 27, 2134, 332,
3345
Dewey, C., 16, 278 n. 59
Dhaka, 1178, 146
dharma, 6, 46, 218, 2212, 231, 328
Dickens, A., 234, 245
Dickens, Ch., 245, 23349
Dickens, Ch. ( jr), 233, 236, 241, 247
Dickens, F., 234, 247
Dickens, H., 233
Dickens, P., 234
Dickens, S., 234
Dickens, W., 245, 23349, 264
Digby, S., 23, 159
Dilir Himmat Khan Bangash
(also Muzaar Jang), 185, 1945,
2078, 216
Dilir Khan (chela), 189, 216
Dirks, N., 10 n. 24, 277 n. 57
Disraeli, B., 254, 273
Diu, 51, 86
Douglas, M., 31920
Douwes Dekker, E. (also Multatuli), 16
Dulba Naik, 92, 101
Dumont, L., 46, 320
Dungara Naik, 92
Dupleix, J., 78, 342
Durranis, 2034, 2067, 213, 215, 339
Dutch (East India Company, Republic,
Holland, Netherlands), 3, 7, 136,
202, 29, 33, 40, 44, 4770, 734,
78, 80, 10532, 135, 138, 147, 155,
296, 317
Eastwick, W., 238, 246
Eaton, R., 20, 412
Ega, Conde de, 76, 79, 83, 902
Egypt, 292, 327, 336, 343
elephants, 267, 65, 161, 180, 192,
1967, 201, 2056, 211, 282, 325,
32932, 336, 338, 344, 351
Eliot, G., 264
Ellis, W., 1478, 156
Emerson, 14
English (East India Company; England),
215, 29, 49, 51, 546, 634, 6974,
79 80, 823, 85, 93, 103, 1178,
1205, 12730, 13358, 206, 2336,
23840, 2424, 246, 248, 2534, 258,
264, 268, 2702, 276, 2956, 316, 322
(see also British)

Enlightenment, 253, 2634, 291, 298,


303, 307, 3134
Erasmus, 5
Erivan, 135, 336
Essoji Raja Pattacar, 85
Estado da ndia, 21, 49, 69104
Etawah, 228
Eurocentrism, 280, 2912
Europeans (Europe), 34, 10, 147,
1921, 26, 30, 323, 35, 445, 47,
526, 6971, 749, 81, 83, 856,
901, 93, 102, 105, 1178, 121,
124, 126, 12830, 133, 13640,
1434, 146, 152, 158, 242, 25960,
262, 2689, 271, 274, 2823, 286,
289, 2913, 298301, 303, 3079,
3113, 3156, 31920, 323, 3367,
3401
Faizabad, 164
Fakhr al-Daula (chela), 194, 2078, 216
Fakir Muhammad Khan, 88
Falck, A., 117
Falck, J., 117
Falta, 126
Farah, 175
Farhat Ali, 156
Farmulis, 1634, 167, 169
Farrukhabad, 234, 179216
Farrukhsiyar, 1967, 204
Fasseur, C., 14
Fatehgarh, 203, 209
feudalism, 27, 2613, 333, 335
Fido, M., 235
Firishta, 168
Flaubert, 264
Forster, E., 16
Fort St. David, 121, 130
Fort William, 118, 129, 145, 154, 157,
2478
Foucault, M., 259
French (France), 74, 86, 103, 106, 113,
118, 1201, 1234, 12930, 143,
240, 289, 296, 342
French Revolution, 289, 296
Fukuyama, F., 286 n. 7, 298
fundamentalism, 2978, 305
Furber, H., 123
Furnivall, J., 14, 16
Gaastra, F., 123
Gads Hill, 241, 246
Gaharavras, 22132
Gakbur Sarvani, 167


Galenfels, Dom F. de, 80
Gama, V. da, 29
Gandhi, I., 3478
Gandhi, M., 2756, 280, 297
Ganesha Bhai Raja, 978
Ganesha Rana, 85
Ganga (also Ganges), 23, 39, 1604,
1667, 169, 172, 1745, 197, 201,
203, 2234
Garcia de Sta. Theresa, D. de, 84
Garha-Katanga, 177
Gahakura, 217
Gaur, 177
Geleynssen de Jongh, W., 56, 634, 67
Gellner, E., 283, 293, 299300
Geneva Republic, 269
Gentil, J.-B., 1534
Gentlemen XVII, 56, 121, 129
George IV, 270
Georgina, 247
German, 271, 289, 316
Ghats, 88, 118
Ghazipur, 169
Ghaznavids, 23, 213
Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai, 136,
140, 1423, 14851, 153, 1567
Ghurids, 234, 213
Gibbon, E., 262
Giddens, A., 2868, 291, 294
Girnar, 259
globalisation, 298
Goa, 21, 49, 51, 72, 74, 76, 7881,
846, 88, 929, 102, 111, 121
Goga, 86
Gomati, 16870
Gommans, J., 12, 19, 234, 67, 179
Gopala Naik, 86
Gore Lla (Lla Kavi), 218, 2258
Govind Rao, 74
Grant, M., 225
Grant, S., 225
Greeks (Greece), 253, 260, 263,
26772, 328
Grierson, G., 10
Gujarat, 20, 4750, 535, 60, 176,
271
Gulbadam Begam, 163
Gurgin Khan, 23, 13344, 1467,
1501, 1538
Gustavus Adolphus, 3412
Gwalior, 162, 166
Hackert, J., 212, 10515
Haz Rahmat Khan, 203, 206

363

Haidar Ali, 79, 92


Haldighati, 268, 271, 2756
Hallam, H., 2612, 267
Hanut Singh, 281
Hapsburgs, 71, 341
Haqiqat Khan, 47
Harappa, 326
Haricandra, 2289
Hastings, Lord, 257
Hastings, W., 145, 158, 212, 260
Hathras, 193
Hay, 146, 148, 154
Heatley, M., 253
Heatley, P., 2524, 256
Heatly, A., 253
Heesterman, J., 5, 11, 16, 1920, 29,
310, 320
Hellenism, 31, 2689, 271, 273
Herat, 175
Himalayas, 191, 203
Himmat Khan Bangash, 179
Hindi, 24, 218, 254, 322
Hindu(ism), 24, 30, 43, 63, 845,
92, 94, 99, 101, 162, 174, 177,
182, 191, 198, 214, 244, 276,
280, 2978, 3045, 311, 319,
330, 335
Hittites, 327
Hogendorp, G. van, 135
Holocaust, 289, 294
Hong Kong, 292
Hooghly, 135, 147
Hooghly (river), 118, 126, 128
horses, 26, 65, 97, 149, 153, 168,
1968, 2012, 2046, 212, 3259,
3318, 341, 351
Hourani, A.H., 36 n. 11
Hugo, V., 264
Huizinga, J., 35, 10, 19
Humayun, 163, 168, 217
Hume, D., 262
Huntington, S., 298
Husain Shah Sharqi, 160, 1702,
1778.
Hyderabad, 317
Hyksos, 327
Ibrahim Adil Shah Qazi, 102
Ibrahim Khan, 88, 912, 96
Ibrahim Lodi, 217, 332
Ilyas Shah, 177
Imam Khan Bangash, 186
Imho, G. van, 119
Inchbird, J., 802

364

Indian Ocean, 19, 2930, 33, 456,


69, 71, 133
Indonesia, 136, 32, 42, 50, 57, 118
Indus, 25, 39, 181, 256, 326
internet, 26, 258, 3089, 317, 3213
Inverness, 225
Iranis, 201, 204, 213 (see also Persians)
Irrawaddy, 44
Irvine, W., 185, 188
Isami, 171
Isfahan, 135, 140
Islam, 1920, 24, 2931, 346, 403,
45, 165, 169, 175, 181, 187, 191,
193, 208, 214, 298, 305, 333,
3467, 350
Islam Khan (chela), 193
Islington, 253
Ismail Khan, 95
Jacob, H. s, 19, 22, 48, 117
Jafar Khan, 61
Jagaseth Fatehchand, 156
Jagdish Patvardan, 100
Jahandar Shah, 196
Jahangir, 40, 217, 220
Jai Narayan Vyas, 281
Jaipur, 251, 27981, 337
Jaiselmer, 282
Jambi, 33
Jammu, 350
Jamuna, 26, 165, 167, 217, 228, 256
Janissaries, 3401
Japan, 47, 55, 282
Jaswant Singh (Raja), 185
Jats, 203, 272, 281
Java, 156, 37, 44, 73, 118
Jawhar, 163
Jawnpur, 23, 15970, 172, 1745,
1778, 228
Jayacandra, 2289
Jeerson, Th., 256
Jellyby, Mrs., 249
Jhansi, 7, 13, 217
Jhusi Prayag, 1613
Jinnah, M., 345
Jodhpur, 24, 229, 279, 2812
Joga Hindu, 162
Johnson, E., 235
Johore, 33
Jones, W., 258 n. 9, 260
Judaism, 297
JWKA, 15978
Kabul, 179, 181, 198
Kaghzais, 1814

Kakatiyas, 335
Kalpi, 167, 1746
Kamgar Khan, 150, 152
Kamgar Khan Baluch, 202
Kampil, 200
Kanara, 79
Kanauj, 163, 223
Kangra, 170
Kannada, 322
Kanpur, 25, 167, 242, 244
Kantat, 170
Karamnasa, 163
Karana, 2214
Kargil, 34951
Karim Khan Zand, 215
Karlanis, 1814
Karra, 1623, 167
Kasganj, 193
Kashmir, 34850
Kasim Khan Bangash, 185
Kasimbazar, 1178, 122, 125
Kathiawad, 333
Katwa, 149, 152
Kayamkulam, 105
Keay, J., 259
Kejariwal, O., 258
Kelwa, 265
Kempe Gowda, 335
Kerala, 478, 73, 80
Keavadsa, 21832
Ketelaar, J., 56
Kha Khan, 52
Khajuraho, 218
Khan Jahan, 166
Khan Jahan Khan Lodi, 185
Khataks, 182
Khirilchis, 181
Khoja Anton, 147
Khoja Barsick Arathoon, 1345, 143,
147
Khoja Gregory (see Gurgin Khan)
Khoja Minas Elias, 135, 147
Khoja Petrus, 1345, 138, 143, 147,
154
Khoqand, 215
Khorasan, 23, 213
Khudabanda Khan Bangash, 208
Khugianis, 181
Khwaja Bayazid Ansari, 179
Khyber Pass, 181
King, A., 291
Kipling, R., 16, 266, 277
Kistaba Rana, 85
Klerk de Reus, G., 1223, 125
Kohat, 181


Kol, D., 119, 23, 70, 73, 85, 188,
235, 242, 2778
Kol, G., 2 n. 4
Kolis, 90, 94, 98
Koller, H., 10714
Konkan, 85, 889, 978, 100, 102
Kooiman, D., 245, 233
Kora, 167
Koraes, A., 260, 268 n. 34
Kottayam, 105
Ka, 21821, 2902
Kruijtzer, G., 67
kshatryas, 78, 923, 272 n. 41, 278
Kumbalghar, 282
Kunbis, 802
Kurram, 181
Kua, 2235, 2278
Kuasthal, 223
Kuavat, 2245, 227
Lahore, 47, 57, 634, 1989, 348, 350
Lakshmi Naik, 98
Landars, 181
Landor, W., 2367
Lannoy, M. de, 19, 212, 105
Lawrence, W., 276
Leask, W., 268
Leninist-Stalinist, 298
Leslorant, A., 212, 1056, 1135
Lewis, M., 256
liberalism, 267, 297
Lobha, 221
Loch, J., 235
Locke, J., 267
Lodis, 23, 159, 1612, 164, 166, 168,
1702, 1745, 178, 185, 207,
3201, 332
Lohanis, 167, 169
London, 17, 25, 121, 2356, 239,
2412, 251, 253, 255, 271, 276,
342, 344
Louisiana, 256
Lucknow, 25, 1634, 169, 20810,
242, 2445
Lushington, 148
Ltzen, 341
Lyall, A., 276
Lytton, Lord, 273
Macaulay, Th., 264
Machalahara, 228
Machilipatnam, 121
MacMunn, G., 274
Madhukara ha, 217, 219
Madras, 32, 34, 120, 251, 276

365

Madurai, 335
Mahadaji Malik, 100
Maharana Bhim Singh, 254
Mahatab Rai, 155 (see also Seth
brothers)
Mah, 113
Mahmud Khan Bangash, 2067
Maitreya, A., 143, 1512 n. 34
Mala Parbhu, 89
Malabar, 212, 35, 48, 10515, 1234
Malaccan peninsula, 32
Malay(sia), 37, 45, 50
Maldon, J., 249
Malik Ain Khan Bangash, 179
Malik Kafur, 334
Malik-Miris, 181
Malleson, G., 143, 1578
Malwa, 174, 197, 2001, 204, 257
mamlks, 234, 187, 190, 195, 2135
Man Singh, 280
Mandovi, 789
Mandu, 176
Manickulal Verma, 281
Mappilas, 35
Marathas, 12, 26, 7680, 82, 858, 90,
93, 96100, 103, 120, 197, 2001,
203, 208, 252, 254, 2567, 259,
268, 271, 339
Margar Johannes Khalanthar, 1389,
143, 14850, 1524, 1567
Martanda Varma, 105
Marxism, 288, 291, 2968
Masih al-Zaman, 5766
Mataram, 44, 118
Mathur, 2901
Mau ( Jhansi), 78, 13
Mau (Rashidabad), 17980, 186, 190,
1923, 1967, 208
Maulana Masood Azhar, 350
Maurya, 27, 332
Mayapur, 128
McLuhan, M., 308
Mecca, 1756
Mediterranean, 2930, 36
Mehta, U., 267
Melaka, 323
Mello e Castro, Caetana de, 789
Mendona Benvenido, J. de, 100
Menezes da Silva, J., 90
Meos, 256
Mercer, G., 256
Mesopotamia, 327
Mewar, 25, 252, 2547, 259, 262,
2656, 26872, 2756, 280
Micawber, Mr., 233

366

Michaels, E., 308


Middle East, 2931, 389, 53, 57,
187, 214
Mill, J., 258 n. 9, 266
Millar, J., 262
Mir Badr al-Din, 14950
Mir Haibat al-Lah, 14850
Mir Himmat Ali, 150
Mir Jafar, 22, 122, 1245, 130, 133,
136, 140, 141 n. 31, 1545, 1578
Mir Mahdi Khan, 146, 148
Mir Musa, 624
Mir Nasser, 1489
Mir Qasim, 223, 124, 13358
Mir Saiyid Khan, 173
Mir Sher Ali Khan, 146, 149
Miran (Prince), 122, 124, 130
Mirza Khan (Nawab), 179
Mirza Mahmud, 58
Mirzapur, 219, 2289, 283
Mitanni, 327
modernity, 5, 26, 102, 251, 283323
Mohan Lal Sukhadia, 281
Mohan Singh Kanota, 282
Moluccas, 4950, 52
Mombasa, 292
Monghyr, 23, 1367, 1468, 1536,
158
Montaigne, M. de, 5
Montesquieu, Ch. de, 262
Moore, T., 2645
Moreland, W., 25, 48, 57
Mossel, J., 119, 121, 1234, 12930
Mow, 147
Mubarak Khan Nohani, 1613, 1667
Mughals, 67, 913, 15, 201, 24,
267, 33, 35, 38, 40, 434, 4767,
73, 99, 1013, 120, 124, 126, 128,
134, 144, 146, 148, 1513, 171,
174, 17981, 187, 189, 19599,
2045, 2078, 214, 2167, 220,
254, 256, 265, 2689, 2713, 275,
2779, 280, 332, 3369, 341
Muhabbad Khan, 86
Muhammad Ali, 156
Muhammad Ali Beg, 146
Muhammad Amin Khan (also Itimad
al-Daula), 204
Muhammad Farmuli Kala Pahar,
1634, 167
Muhammad Ghr, 228
Muhammad Kabir, 1601, 163, 1667,
1703

Muhammad Khan Bangash, 17980,


182, 185, 18791, 1947, 2001,
2045, 216
Muhammad Khan Sur, 170
Muhammad Naqi Khan, 150
Muhammad Taqi Khan, 137
Muhammad Wali al-Lah, 1823
Murshidabad, 118, 120, 129, 144,
149, 156
Muscat, 215
Musharraf, 34851
Mushtaqi, 15960, 162, 16574
Muyan Nizam, 172
Mylapur, 79
Mysore, 79, 92, 215, 317, 321
Nadir Shah, 86, 205
Nadora, 85
Nagapattinam, 121, 126
Nagarkot, 170
Nagoa, 80
Nagua, 101
Najaf Khan (Mirza), 150, 152
Najib al-Daula, 207
Nakhna, 165, 167
Nana Ksatri, 96
Napoleon Bonaparte, 268
Narasimha Rao, 348
Narhat-Simai, 14950
Nasir Khan, 174
naukar, 10, 19, 24, 173, 17980,
1956, 200, 207, 212, 2146
Nawal Rai, 202
Nawaz Sharif, 34850
Nazis, 289, 297
Nehru, J., 281, 345
Nepal, 1478, 151
Nerva, 95
New Julfa, 135
New York, 253
Newport (Rhode Island), 225
Niknam Khan (chela), 192
Nile, 326
Nirodbhushan Roy, 168, 170
Nixon, R., 347
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, 159160,
16272
Nizam al-Mulk, 200, 204
Nobit Roy, 146
Noronha, Dom A. de, 79, 82, 88, 92
North Korea, 348
nuclear bomb, 27, 34651
Nunes Pintado, M., 83


Ochterlony, D., 254, 255 n. 4, 256,
257 n. 8, 266, 270
Ogerdias, C., 120
Opium Society, 22, 119, 131
Orakzais, 1812
Och, 2179, 227
Orissa, 47, 120, 134, 139, 330
Ostend Company, 121
Ottomans, 2689, 272, 336
Oxford, 237, 260
Pacama, 2258
Pakistan, 27, 305, 34351
Palembang, 118
Panchmahal, 147
Panipat, 206, 336, 339
Panjab, 15, 164, 203, 3446
Pann, 218
Paraurma, 290
Paris, 268, 317
Pathans, 867, 90, 1834, 187, 190,
193, 195, 2012, 2056, 2089, 211,
216 (see also Afghans)
Patna, 23, 1178, 121, 128, 138, 142,
1468, 153, 1556, 175
Pegu, 44
Pelsaert, F., 7, 9, 13, 34, 40, 67
Perlin, F., 55
Persians, 10, 23, 65, 96, 135, 171,
176, 187, 189, 2045, 215, 218,
260, 268, 2712, 334, 336 (see also
Iranis)
Persian Gulf, 334
Peru, 308
Peshawar, 181
Peshwa, 102, 257
Pilakhna, 167
Pilibhit, 169
Pindar, 320
Pindaris, 97
Plassey, 22, 120, 123, 129, 135,
1445, 1556, 252
Ponda, 74, 79, 87, 91, 95, 98101
Pope, 308
Portuguese (Portugal), 21, 29, 323,
4951, 56, 69104
postmodernity, 5, 18, 286, 28992,
298, 321
Praas do Norte, 7385
Prakash, O., 12, 48, 524, 118, 123
Prataparudra, 335
Prinsep, J., 259
Protestant, 80, 296

367

Pulamar Naik, 100


Pune, 101, 249
Purnia, 146, 149
Putta, 265, 267
Qaim Khan Bangash, 1856, 188,
201, 2046
Qaimganj, 197
Qais, 183
Qandahar, 175, 181
Quelni, 101
Quilon, 106, 108
Rachol, 83
Raghubir Singh, 251
Ragoji Savant, 90, 101
Ragunat Pant, 77, 103
Raj Ballabh, 146
Raja Ganesh, 177
Rajaraja, 330
Rajasthan (also Rajputana), 12, 25,
229, 25182
Rajmahal Hills, 137
Rajputs, 24, 1601, 165, 172, 174,
183, 18990, 200, 216, 229, 2512,
254, 257, 26470, 27282, 337
Ram Narayan, 146
Rama Naik, 100
Rma ha, 217
Rama( ji) Sinay, 86, 967
Rma, 218232
Rmacadra, 221, 230
Rana Pratap, 268, 2756, 280
Rangamati, 146
Rangpur, 146
Rathores, 24, 229, 279
Ravara, 85
Raymond, M., 137
Reformation, 296
Reinhardt, W. (see Sumroo)
Rieu, Ch., 241
Rijtel, 106
Rio de Janeiro, 292
Roberts, Lord, 274
Rodrigus, C., 79
Roh, 179, 182
Rohilkhand, 180, 190, 198, 2001,
2034, 2123, 215
Rohillas, 138, 1824, 201, 2038,
2123
Romans, 29, 35, 378, 25960
Roshaniyya, 179, 181
Rothermund, D., 267, 325

368

Roussel, J.-B., 126, 128


Rudawli, 1636, 176
Rudolph, L. and S., 256, 251
Rudrapratpa, 217
Rukn al-Din, 1645
Russia, 271, 296, 321
Russian Revolution, 296
Rustam Khan Afridi, 202
Sa"ad al-Lah Khan, 203
Sada Shivaji Khamat, 90
Safavids, 336
Safdar Jang, 2014
Safed Koh, 181
Said, E., 259, 299
Saidabad, 135
Saiyid Abd al-Lah Khan, 1967
Saiyid Jalal Bukhari, 146
Saiyid Kasim, 86
Saiyid Muhammad Khan, 149
Saiyid Muhammad Mahdi Jawnpuri,
1748
Salcete, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 87, 99
Sanhyas, 2901
Sanaka, 290
Sandomil, Conde de, 79
Sanskrit, 4, 220, 232, 254, 260, 322,
3279
Santen, H. van, 13, 1921, 47
Sart, M., 1134
Sarvanis, 1645, 167, 172, 179, 183
Satara, 101
Satroji Raja, 77, 93, 97, 101
Saurashtra, 252
Savant, 76, 88, 90101
Savantvad, 767, 89, 91, 967,
99101
Sawyer, B., 233
Saxony, 341
Sazoa, M. de, 79, 93
Schmitz, J., 107
Schokker, G., 234, 217
Scots (Scotland), 253, 2634, 267
Scott, W., 2634
Scythians, 267274
Seleukos Nikator, 331
Selim I, 3367
sepoys, 68, 12, 21, 745, 77, 82,
8499, 128
Serampore, 118
Seth brothers, 1558
Seth, M., 135, 139, 144
Shah Dilawar, 175
Shah Ismail, 336

Shah Jahan, 21, 47, 56, 65, 67, 185


Shah Jalal, 41, 43
Shahab al-Din, 156
Shahabad, 1646
Shahpur-Akbarpur, 188
Shahu Bhonsle, 76, 93
Shaikh Abd al-Quddus Gangohi,
1647, 172
Shaikh Abd al-Rahman, 90
Shaikh Daud, 86
Shaikh Ismail, 99
Shaikh Murtuza, 99
Shamshabad, 179, 188, 1923, 200
Shastri, L. Bahadur, 347
Shelley, P., 264, 268
Sher Khan Nohani, 162
Sher Shah Sur, 8, 217
Shiism, 181, 2089, 213
Shore, F., 178
shudras, 272 n. 41
Shuja al-Daula, 2068
Siersma, R., 106, 111
Sikandar Lodi (Sultan), 23, 159,
16278
Sikhs, 276, 3445
Sind, 176
Singapore, 292
Sion, 83
Sir Pratap Singh, 279
Siraj al-Daula, 22, 120, 133, 140,
1423
iva, 219
Sladen, D., 251
slavery, 234, 74, 149, 17981, 1845,
187, 1901, 1945, 2067, 2136,
3325 (see also mamlks, chelas,
Janissaries)
Sleeman, 16
Smith, A., 263
socialism, 7, 2957
Son, 1601
Southampton, 241
Southeast Asia, 19, 301, 36, 39,
445, 345
Soviet Union, 3467, 349
Spanish (Spain), 298 n. 48, 311, 40
Sparta, 265, 268, 2712
Srinagar, 350
St. Johns Wood, 236
Stael, Mme de, 265
Stanhope, L., 2701
Steengaard, N., 32 n. 5
Stein van Gollenesse, J., 21, 10615
Stokes, E., 6, 16


Strachey, R., 256
Streusand, D., 13
Subrahmanyam, S., 48, 54
Suez, 243, 344
Su, 18, 20, 234, 412, 160, 164,
166, 171, 175, 198, 214
Sulaiman Mountains, 181
Sultan Buhlul Lodi, 164, 173, 175,
178
Sultanpur, 1646, 16970, 178
Sumatra, 32, 118
Sumroo, 139, 143, 14950, 152, 155
Sunda, 76, 80, 87, 96, 100
Sura Savant, 98
Surat, 21, 334, 47, 4952, 5466,
117, 144, 305
Surrey, 241
Surs, 8, 159, 170, 217
Suryavarman I, 330
Suti, 150, 152
Swarupchand, 155 (see also Seth
brothers)
Swiss (Switserland), 271, 340
Sylhet, 41
Syria, 38, 327, 336
Taillefert, L., 11920, 155
Taliban, 346
Tamilnadu, 47, 53
Tanjavur, 121
Taqi Khan, 1489, 152
Tarai, 203
Tatar Khan Lodi, 172
television, 26, 285, 3089, 317,
3213
Telicherry, 80
Tennyson, A., 261 n. 17
Thackerey, W., 264
Thedens, J., 111
Therborn, G., 292
Thermopylae, 268, 271, 2756
Thomason, J., 16
Thomaz, L., 6970
Timur, 332
Tirumala Nayak, 335
Tocqueville, A. de, 251
Tod, J., 25182
Tolstoy, L., 264
Toulmin, S., 5 n. 8
Toynbee, A., 315
Travancore, 21, 80, 1058, 1112,
114
Trollope, A., 264
Tulsidas, 17, 19

369

Turanis, 201, 204


Turis, 181
Turks, 23, 189, 213
Turko-Persia, 234, 187, 18990,
2134, 216
Tuticorin, 106, 10910, 114
Udaipur, 252, 269, 281
Udhuanala, 143, 150, 1523, 157
Ujjainiyas, 9, 165, 174
Umar Khan Sarvani, 1645, 167
Usgao, 89, 91
Uspa, 77, 103
Uttar Pradesh, 23, 319
Uzbeks, 215, 337
vaishyas, 272 n. 41
Vajpajee, A., 34850
Vlmki, 2234
Vansittart, H., 145, 158
Vatican, 308
Vaudeville, Ch., 10
Vednta, 221
Vernet, G., 122, 1256, 12930, 156
Veroda, 74
Vicente de Vidal, P., 77, 103
Victoria, 254, 273
Vijayanagara, 101, 3345
Vindhyas, 224, 227
Vindhycala, 219
Vindhyavsin Dev, 2189, 2248
Vink, M., 123
Virji Vohra, 21, 49, 5767
Viu, 2189
Vitoba Naik, 98
Wandiwash, 123
Warangal, 335
Waugh, Capt., 254
Weber, M., 285
Wendel, F., 1989
Willes, J., 20913
Wills, W., 238
Wimbledon, 237, 2401
Winius, G., 123
Wink, A., 112
Woodru, Ph (also Ph. Mason), 252
Woolwich, 253
Wynne, Ch., 237
Yakut Khan (chela), 185, 194
Yasin Khan Ustazai Bangash, 180
yugas, 2223, 290
Yusuf Khan, 90

370
Zabardast Khan, 77, 103
Zia ul-Haq, 3478
Ziegler, N., 189, 277 n. 57
Zimbaulim, 74, 87, 1001

Zinni, A., 349


Zulqar Khan (chela), 188
Zwaardecroon, H., 33

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