Part 9 (1/2)
4.--Maheput Sing, of Dhunawa.*
5.--Surnam Sing, of Arta.*
6.--Maheput Sing, of Paruspoor.*
[* All four are at present on good terms with the Government and its local authorities.]
They have each a fort, or stronghold, mounting five or six guns, and trained bands of armed and brave men of five or six hundred, which they augment, as occasion requires, by Gohars, or auxiliary bands from their friends.
Hurdut Sing, of Bondee, _alias_ b.u.mnootee, held an estate for which he paid one hundred and eighty-two thousand (1,82,000) rupees a year to Government; but he was driven, out of it in 1846-47, by Rughbur Sing, the contractor, who, by rapacity and outrage, drove off the greater part of the cultivators, and so desolated the estate that it could not now be made to yield thirty thousand (30,000) rupees a- year. The Raja has ever since resided with a few followers in an island in the Ghagra. He has never openly resisted or defied the Government, but is said to be sullen, and a bad paymaster. He still holds the estate in its desolate condition.
The people of Nawabgunge drink the water of wells, close to the bank of the river, and often the water of the river itself, and say that they never suffer from it; but that a good many people in several villages, along the same bank, have the goitre to a very distressing degree.
_December_ 6, 1849.--Halted at Byram-ghat, in order to enable all our people and things to come up. One of our elephants nearly lost his life yesterday in the quick-sands of the river. Capt. Weston rode out yesterday close to Bhitolee, the little fort of Rajah Gorbuksh Sing, who came out in a litter and told him, that he would come to me to- day at noon, and clear himself of the charges brought against him of rescuing and harbouring robbers, and refusing to pay the Government demand. He had been suffering severely from fever for fifteen days.
Karamut Allee complains that his father, Busharut Allee, had been driven out from the purgunnahs of Nawabgunge and Sidh.o.r.e, by Ghoolum Huzrut and his a.s.sociates, who had several times attacked and plundered the town of Nawabgunge, our second stage, and a great many other villages around, from which they had driven off all the cultivators and stock, in order to appropriate them to themselves, and augment their landed estates; that they had cut down all the groves of mango-trees planted by the rightful proprietors and their ancestors, in order to remove all local ties; and murdered or maimed all cultivators who presumed to till any of the lands without their permission, that Busharut Allee had held the contract for the land revenue of the purgunnah for twenty years, and paid punctually one hundred and thirty-five thousand (1,35,000) rupees a-year to the treasury, till about four years ago, when Ghoolam Huzrut commenced this system of spoliation and seizure, since which time the purgunnah had been declining, and could not now yield seventy thousand (70,000) rupees to the treasury; that his family had held many villages in hereditary right for many generations, within the purgunnah, but that all had, been or were being seized by this lawless freebooter and his a.s.sociates.
Seeta Ram, a Brahmin zumeendar of Kowaree, in purgunnah Satrick, complains, that he has been driven out of his hereditary estate by Ghoolam Imam, the zumeendar of Jaggour, and his a.s.sociate, Ghoolam Huzrut; that his house had been levelled with the ground, and all the trees, planted by his family, have been cut down and burned; that he has been plundered of all he had by them, and is utterly ruined. Many other landholders complain in the same manner of having been robbed by this gang, and deprived of their estates; and still more come in to pray for protection, as the same fate threatens all the smaller proprietors, under a government so weak, and so indifferent to the sufferings of its subjects.
The n.a.z.im of Khyrabad, who is now here engaged in the siege of Bhitolee, has nominally three thousand four hundred fighting men with him; but he cannot muster seventeen hundred. He has with him only the seconds in command of corps, who are men of no authority or influence, the commandants being at Court, and the mere creatures of the singers and eunuchs, and other favourites about the palace. They always reside at and about Court, and keep up only half the number of men and officers, for whom they draw pay. All his applications to the minister to have more soldiers sent out to complete the corps, or permission to raise men in their places, remain unanswered and disregarded. The n.a.z.im of Bharaetch has nominally four thousand fighting men; but he cannot muster two thousand, and the greater part of them are good for nothing. The great landholders despise them, but respect the Komutee corps, under Captains Barlow, Bunbury, and Magness, which is complete, and composed of strong and brave men. The despicable state to which the Court favourites have reduced the King's troops, with the exception of these three corps, is lamentable. They are under no discipline, and are formidable only to the peasantry and smaller landholders and proprietors, whose houses they everywhere deprive of their coverings, as they deprive their cattle of their fodder.
_December_ 7, 1849.--Hissampoor, 12 miles north-east, over a plain of fine soil, more scantily tilled than any we saw on the other side of the Ghagra, but well studded with groves and fine single trees, and with excellent crops on the lands actually under tillage. One cause a.s.signed for so much fine land lying waste is, that the Rajpoot tallookdars, above named, of the Chehdewara, have been long engaged in plundering the Syud proprietors of the soil, and seizing upon their lands, in the same manner as the Mahomedan ruffians, on the other side of the river, have been engaged in plundering the small Rajpoot proprietors, and seizing upon their lands. Four of them are now quiet; but two, Prethee Put and Mirtonjee, are always in rebellion. Lately, while the Chuckladar was absent, employed against Jote Sing, of Churda, in the Turae, these two men took a large train of followers, with some guns, attacked the two villages of Aelee and Pursolee, in the estate of Deeksa, in Gonda, killed six persons, plundered all the houses of the inhabitants, and destroyed all their crops, merely because the landholders of these two villages would not settle a boundary dispute in the way 'they proposed'. The lands of the Hissampoor purgunnah were held in property by the members of a family of Syuds, and had been so for many generations; but neighbouring Rajpoot tallookdars have plundered them of all they had, and seized upon their lands by violence, fraud, or collusion, with public officers. Some they have seized and imprisoned, with torture of one kind or another, till they signed deeds of sale, _Bynamahs_; others they have murdered with all their families, to get secure possession of their lands; others they have despoiled by offering the local authorities a higher rate of revenue for their lands than they could possibly pay.
The n.a.z.im has eighteen guns, and ten auxiliary ones sent out on emergency--not one-quarter are in a state for service; and for these he has not half the draft-bullocks required, and they are too weak for use; and of ammunition or _stores_ he has hardly any at all.
Rajah Gorbuksh Sing came yesterday, at sunset, to pay his respects, and promised to pay to the Oude Government all that is justly demandable from him. Written engagements to this effect were drawn up, and signed by both the ”high contracting parties.” Having come in on a pledge of personal security, he was, of course, permitted to return from my camp to his own stronghold in safety. In that place he has collected all the loose characters and unemployed soldiers he could gather together, and all that his friends and a.s.sociates could lend him, to resist the Amil; and to maintain such a host, he will have to pay much more than was required punctually to fulfil his engagements to the State. He calculates, however, that, by yielding to the Government, he would entail upon himself a perpetual burthen at an enhanced rate, while, by the temporary expenditure of a few thousands in this way, he may still further reduce the rate he has. .h.i.therto paid.
The contract for Gonda and Bahraetch was held by Rughbur Sing, one of the sons of Dursun Sing, for the years 1846 and 1847 A.D., and the district of Sultanpoor was held by his brother, Maun Sing, for 1845- 46 and 1847 A.D. Rughbur Sing in 1846-47 is supposed to have seized and sold or destroyed no less than 25,000 plough-bullocks in Bhumnootee, the estate of Rajah Hurdut Sing, alone. The estate of Hurhurpoor had, up to that time, long paid Government sixty thousand (60,000) rupees a-year, but last year it would not yield five thousand (5,000) rupees, from the ravages of this man, Rughbur Sing.
The estate of Rehwa, held by Jeswunt Sing, tallookdar, had paid regularly fifty-five thousand (55,000) rupees a-year; but it was so desolated by Rughbur Sing, that it cannot now yield eleven thousand (11,000) rupees. This estate adjoins Bhumnootee, Rajah Hurdut Sing's, which, as above stated, regularly paid one hundred and eighty-two thousand (182,000) rupees; it cannot now pay thirty thousand (30,000) rupees. Such are the effects of the oppression of this bad man for so brief a period.
Some tallookdars live within the borders of our district of Goruckpoor, while their lands lie in Oude. By this means they evade the payment of their land revenues, and with impunity commit atrocious acts of murder and plunder in Oude. These men maim or murder all who presume to cultivate on the lands which they have deserted, without their permission, or to pay rents to any but themselves; and the King of Oude's officers dare not follow them, and are altogether helpless. Only two months ago, Mohibollah, a zumeendar of Kuttera, was invited by Hoseyn Buksh Khan, one of these tallookdars, to his house, in the Goruckpoor district, to negotiate for the ransom of one of his cultivators, a weaver by caste, whom he had seized and taken away. As he was returning in the evening, he was waylaid by Hoseyn Buksh Khan, as soon as he had recrossed the Oude borders, and murdered with one of his attendants, who had been sent with him by the Oude Amil. Such atrocities are committed by these refractory tallookdars every day, while they are protected within our bordering districts. Their lands must lie waste or be tilled by men who pay all the rent to them, while they pay nothing to the Oude Government. The Oude Government has no hope of prosecuting these men to conviction in our Judicial Courts for specific crimes, which they are known every day to commit, and glory in committing. In no part of India is there such glaring abuse of the privileges of sanctuary as in some of our districts bordering on Oude; while the Oude Frontier Police, maintained by the King, at the cost of about one hundred thousand (100,000) rupees a-year, and placed under our control, prevents any similar abuse on the part of the Oude people and local authorities. Some remedy for this intolerable evil should be devised.
At present the magistrates of all our conterminous districts require, or expect, that their charges against any offender in Oude, who has committed a crime in their districts, shall be held to be sufficient for their arrest; but some of them, on the other band, require that nothing less than some unattainable judicial proof, on the part of the officers of the Oude Government, shall be held to be sufficient to justify the arrest of any Oude offender who takes refuge in our districts. They hold, that the sole object of the Oude authorities is to get revenue defaulters into their power, and that the charges against them for heinous crimes are invented solely for that purpose.
No doubt this is often the object, and that other charges are sometimes invented, for the sole purpose of securing the arrest and surrender of revenue defaulters; but the Oude revenue defaulters who take refuge in our districts are for the most part, the tallookdars, or great landholders, who, either before or after they do so, invariably fight with the Oude authorities, and murder and plunder indiscriminately, in order to reduce them to their own terms.
The Honourable the Court of Directors justly require that requisition for the surrender of offenders by and from British officers and Native States, shall be limited to persons charged with having committed heinous crimes within their respective territories; and that the obligation to surrender such offenders shall be strictly reciprocal, unless, in any special case, there be very strong reason for a departure from the rule.* But some magistrates of districts disregard altogether applications made to them by the sovereign of Oude, through the British Resident, for the arrest of subjects of Oude who have committed the most atrocious robberies and murders in the Oude territory in open day, and in the sight of hundreds; and allow refugees from Oude to collect and keep up gangs of robbers within their own districts, and rob and murder within the Oude territory. Happily such Magistrates are rare. Government, in a letter dated the 25th February, 1848, state--”that it is the duty of the magistrates of our districts bordering on Oude to adopt vigorous measures for preventing the a.s.sembling or entertaining of followers by any party, for the purpose of committing acts of violence on the Oude side of the frontier.”
[* See their letter to the Government of India, 27th May 1835.]
_December_ 8, 1849.--Pukharpoor, a distance of fourteen miles, over a fine plain of good soil, scantily tilled. For some miles the road lay through Rajah Hurdut Sing's estate of b.u.mnootee, which was, with the rest of the district of Bahraetch and Gonda, plundered by Rughbur Sing, during the two years that he held the contract. We pa.s.sed through no village or hamlet, but saw some at a distance from the road, with their dwellings of naked mud walls, the abodes of fear and wretchedness; but the plain is well studded with groves and fine single trees, and the crops are good where there are any on the ground. Under good management, the country would be exceedingly beautiful, and was so until within the last four years.
In the evening I had a long talk with the people of the village, who had a.s.sembled round our tents. Many of them had the goitre; but they told me, that in this and all the villages within twenty miles the disease had, of late years, diminished; that hardly one-quarter of the number that used to suffer from it had now the disease; that the quality of the water must have improved, though they knew not why, as they still drank from the same wells. These wells must penetrate into some bed of mineral or other substance, which produces this disease of the glands, and may in time exhaust it. But it is probable, that the number who suffer from this disease has diminished merely with the rest of the population, and that the proportion which the goitered bear to the ungoitered may be still the same. They told me that they had been plundered of all their stock and moveable property by the terrible scourge, Rughber Sing, during his reign of two years, and could not hope to recover from their present state of poverty for many more; that their lands were scantily tilled, and the crops had so failed for many years, since this miscreant's rule, that the district which used to supply Lucknow with grain was obliged to draw grain from it, and even from Cawnpore. This is true, and grain has in consequence been increasing in price ever since we left Lucknow. It is now here almost double the price that it is at Lucknow, while it is usually twice as cheap here.
_December_ 9, 1849.--Bahraetch, ten miles north-east. We encamped on a fine sward, on the left bank of the Surjoo river, a beautiful clear stream. The cultivation very scanty, but the soil good, with water everywhere, within a few feet of the surface. Groves and single trees less numerous; and of villages and hamlets we saw none. Under good government, the whole country might, in a few years, be made a beautiful garden. The river Surjoo is like a winding stream in a park; and its banks might, everywhere, be cultivated to the water's edge. No ravines, jungle, or steep embankments. It is lamentable to see so fine a country in so wretched a state.
The Turae forest begins a few miles to the north of Bahraetch, and some of the great baronial landholders have their residence and strongholds within it. The Rajah of Toolseepoor is one of them. He is a kind-hearted old man, and a good landlord and subject; but he has lately been driven out by his young and reprobate son, at the instigation and encouragement of a Court favourite. The Rajah had discharged an agent, employed by him at Court for advocating the cause of his son while in rebellion against his father. The agent then made common cause with the son, and secured the interest of two powerful men at Court, Balkrishen Dewan and Gholam Ruza, the deputy minister, who has charge of the estates in the Hozoor Tehsel. The jurisdiction over the estate had been transferred from the local authorities to the Hozoor Tehsel; and, by orders from Court, the father's friends, the Bulrampoor and other Rajahs of the clan, were prevented from continuing the aid they had afforded to support the father's authority. The father unwilling to have the estate devastated by a contest with the band of ruffians whom his son had collected, retired, and allowed him to take possession. The son seized upon all the property the father had left, and now employs it in maintaining this band and rewarding the services of Court favourites. The n.a.z.im of the district is not permitted to interfere, to restore rights or preserve order in the estate, nor would he, perhaps, do either, if so permitted, for he has been brought up in a bad school, and is not a good man. The pretext at Court is, that the father is deranged; but, though not wise, he is learned, and no man can be more sober than he is, or better disposed towards his sovereign and tenants. That he is capable of managing his estate, is shown by the excellent condition in which he left it.
Prethee Put, of Paska, is not worse than many of the tallookdars of Oude, who now disturb the peace of the country; and I give a brief sketch of his history, as a specimen of the sufferings inflicted on the people by the wild licence which such landholders enjoy under the weak, profligate, and apathetic government of Oude.