Part 19 (2/2)
I have had several visits from my old friend Sheikh Mahb.o.o.b Allee, the subadar-major, who is mentioned in my _Essay on Military Discipline_. He is now an invalid pensioner in Oude, and in addition to the lands which his family held before his transfer to the invalids, he has lately acquired possession of a nice village, which he claimed in the usual way through the Resident. He told me that he had possession, but that he found it very difficult to keep cultivators upon it.
”And why is this, my old friend?” I asked. ”Cultivators are abundant in Oude, and glad always to till lands on which they are protected and encouraged by moderate rents and a little occasional aid in seed, grain, and stock, and you are now in circ.u.mstances to afford them both.”
”True, sir,” said the old subadar, ”but the great refractory landholder, my neighbour, has a large force, and he threatens to bring it down upon me, and my cultivators are afraid that they and their families will all be cut up some dark night if they stay with me.”
”But what has your great neighbour to do with your village? Why do you not make friends with him?”
”Make friends with him, sir!” replied the subadar; ”the thing is impossible.”
”And why, subadar sahib?”
”Sir, it was from him that the village was taken by the orders of the Durbar, through the interposition of the Resident, to be made over to me, and he vows that he will take it back, whatever number of lives it may cost him to do so.”
”And how long may he and his family have held it?”
”Only thirty or thirty-five years, sir.”
”And neither you nor your family have ever held possession of it for that time?”
”Never, sir; but we always hoped that the favour of the British Government would some day get it for us.”
”And in urging your claim to the village, did you ever tell the Resident that you had been so long out of possession?”
”No, sir, we said nothing about _time_”
”You know, subadar sahib, that in all countries a limit is prescribed in such cases, and at the Residency that limit is six years; and had the Resident known that your claim was of so old a date he would never have interposed in your favour, more especially when his doing so involved the risk of the loss of so many lives, first in obtaining possession for you, and then keeping you in it.” Cases of this kind are very numerous.
The estate of Rampoor which we lately pa.s.sed through belonged to the grandfather of Rajah Hunmunt Sing. His eldest son, Sungram Sing, died without issue, and the estate devolved on his second son, Bhow Sing, the father of Rajah Hunmunt Sing. The third brother separated from the family stock during the life of his father, and got, as his share, Sursae, Kuttra Bulleepoor, and other villages. He had five sons: first, Lokee Sing; second, Dirguj Sing; third, Hul Sing; fourth, Dill Sing; and fifth, Bul Sing, and the estate was, on his death, subdivided among them. Kuttra Bulleepoor devolved on Lokee Sing, the eldest, who died without issue; and the village was subdivided among his four brothers or their descendants. But Davey Buksh, the grandson, by adoption of the second brother, Dirguj Sing, unknown to the others, a.s.signed, in lieu of a debt, the whole village to a Brahmin named Bhyroo Tewaree, who forthwith got it transferred to Hozoor Tehseel, through Matadeen, a havildar of the 5th Troop, 7th-Regiment of Cavalry, who, in an application to the Resident, pretended that the estate was his own. It is now beyond the jurisdiction of the local authorities, who could ascertain the truth; and all the rightful co-sharers have been ever since trying in vain to recover their rights. The Bramin [Brahmin] and the Havildar, with Sookhal a trooper in the same regiment, now divide the profits between them, and laugh at the impotent efforts of the old proprietors to get redress. Gholam Jeelanee, a shopkeeper of Lucknow, seeing the profits derived by sipahees, from the abuse of this privilege, purchased a cavalry uniform--jacket, cap, pantaloon, boots, shoes, and sword--and on the pretence of being an invalid trooper of ours, got the signature of the brigadier commanding the troops in Oude to his numerous pet.i.tions, which were sent for adjustment to the Durbar through the Resident. He followed this trade profitably for fifteen years. At last he got possession of a landed estate, to which he had no claim of right. Soon after he sent a pet.i.tion to say that the dispossessed proprietor had killed four of his relations and turned him out. This led to a more strict inquiry, when all came out. In quoting this case to the Resident, in a letter dated the 16th of June 1836, the King of Oude observes: ”If a person known to thousands in the city of Lucknow is able, for fifteen years, to carry on such a trade successfully, how much more easy must it be for people in the country, not known to any in the city, to carry it on!”
The Resident communicated to the King of Oude the resolution of the Honourable the Court of Directors to relieve him from the payment of the sixteen lacs of rupees a-year for the auxiliary force; and on the 29th of July 1839, he reported to Government the great gratification which his Majesty had manifested and expressed at this opportune relief. But his gratification at this communication was hardly so great as that which he had manifested on the 14th of December 1837, when told by the Resident that the British Government would not insist upon giving to the subjects of Oude who might enlist into that force the privilege of forwarding complaints about their village affairs and disputes, through their military superiors and the Resident; and it appeared to the Resident, ”that this one act of liberality and justice on the part of the British Government had done more to reconcile the King of Oude to the late treaty, in which the Oude auxiliary force had originated, than all that he had said to him during the last three months as to the prospective advantages which that treaty would secure to him and his posterity.” The King observed: ”This kindness on the part of the British Government has relieved my mind from a load of disagreeable thoughts.” The prime minister, Hakeem Mehndee, who was present, replied: ”All will now go on smoothly. When the men have to complain to their own Government, they will seldom complain without just cause, being aware that a false story will soon be detected by the native local authorities, though it could not be so by European officers at a distance from the villages; and that in all cases of real grievances their claims will soon be fairly and speedily adjusted. If,” added he, ”the sipahees of this force had been so placed that they could have enlisted their officers on their side in making complaints, while such officers could know nothing whatever of the circ.u.mstances beyond what the sipahees themselves told them, false and groundless complaints would have become endless, and the vexations thereby caused to Government and their neighbours would have become intolerable. These troops,”
said he, ”will now be real soldiers; but if the privileges enjoyed by the Honourable Company's sipahees had been conferred upon the seven regiments composing this force, with the relations and pretended relations of the sipahees, it would have converted into corrupt traders in village disputes sixteen or seventeen thousand of the King's subjects, settled in the heart of the country, privileged to make false accusations of all kinds, and believed by the people to be supported in these falsehoods by the British Government.” Both the King and the minister requested the Resident earnestly and repeatedly to express to the Governor-General their most sincere thanks for having complied with his Majesty's solicitations on this point.*
[* See King of Oude's letter to the Governor-General, dated 5th October, 1837, and Residents letters of the 7th idem and 14th December, 1837.]
This privilege which the native officers and sipahees of our native army enjoy of pet.i.tioning for redress of grievances, through the Resident, has now been extended to all the regular, irregular, and local corps of the three Presidencies--that is, to all corps paid by the British Government, and to all native officers and sipahees of contingent corps employed in and paid by native States, who were drafted into them from the regular corps of our army up to a certain time; and the number cannot be less than fifty or sixty thousand. But European civil and political functionaries, in our own provinces and other native States, have almost all some men from Oude in their offices or establishments, whose claims and complaints they send for adjustment to the Resident; and it is difficult for him to satisfy them, that he is not bound to take them up in the same manner as he takes up those of the native officers and sipahees of our native army; and he is often induced to yield to their importunity, and thereby to furnish grounds for further applications of the same sort.
This privilege is not recognized or named in any treaty, or other engagement with the Sovereign of Oude; nor does any one now know its origin, for it cannot be found in any doc.u.ment recorded in the Resident's office.
If the Resident happens to be an impatient, overbearing man, he will often frighten the Durbar and its Courts, or local officers, into a hasty decision, by which the rights of others are sacrificed for the native officers and sipahees; and if he be at the same time an unscrupulous man, he will sometimes direct that the sipahee shall be put in possession of what he claims in order to relieve himself from his importunity, or that of his commanding officer, without taking the trouble to inform himself of the grounds on which the claim is founded. Of all such errors there are unhappily too many instances recorded in the Resident's office. This privilege is in the hands of the Resident an instrument of _torture_, which it is his duty to apply every day to the Oude Durbar. He may put on a _screw more_ or a _screw less_, according to his temper or his views, or the importunity of officers commanding corps or companies, and native officers and sipahees in person, which never cease to oppress him more or less.
The most numerous cla.s.s of complaints and the most troublesome is that against the Government of Oude or its officers and landholders, for enhanced demands of rents; and whenever these officers or landholders are made to reduce these demands in favour of the privileged sipahees, they invariably distribute the burthen in an increased rate upon their neighbours.
Officers who have to pa.s.s through Oude in their travels or sporting excursions have of late years generally complained that they receive less civility from villages in which our invalid or furlough sipahees are located than from any others; and that if they are anywhere treated with actual disrespect, such sipahees are generally found to be either the perpetrators or instigators. This complaint is not, I fear, altogether unfounded; and may arise from the diminished attachment felt by the sipahees for their European officers in our army, and partly from the privilege of urging their claims through the Resident, enjoyed by native officers and sipahees, now ceasing on their being transferred to the invalid establishment.
But the privilege itself is calculated to create feelings of dissatisfaction with their European officers, among the honest and hard-working part of our native army. Such men pet.i.tion only when they have just cause; and not one in five of them can obtain what they demand, and believe to be their just right, under an administration like that of Oude, whatever efforts the Resident may make to obtain it for them; and where one is satisfied, four become discontented; while the dishonest and idle portion of their brother soldiers, who have no real wrongs to complain of, and feign them only to get leave of absence, throw all the burthen of their duties upon them. Others again, by fraud and collusion with those whose influence they require to urge their claims, often obtain more than they have any right to; and their unmerited success tends to increase the dissatisfaction felt by the honest, and more scrupulous portion of the native officers and sipahees who have failed to obtain anything.
<script>