Part 21 (2/2)
The remains of Mokuddera Ouleea were interred within the compound of that house, near those of her mother, though the King, Mahommed Allee Shah, wished to have them buried by the side of those of her husband, the late King. The house is still occupied by Shurf-on Nissa, who succeeded to her sister's pension and property, under the sanction of the British Government, and has built, or completed within the enclosure, a handsome mosque and mausoleum.
On the death of Mr. Walters, Mrs. Whearty made application, through the house of Colvin and Co., for the arrears of pension or half-pay due to him up to the time of his death, and for some provision for herself as his widow; but she was told that unless she could produce the usual certificate, or proof of her marriage with him, she could get neither. No proof whatever of the marriage was forthcoming, and the claim was prosecuted no further. Shurf-on Nissa, and her brother and his son, continued to live with Buksh Allee, who, upon the wealth and pension left by Mokuddera Ouleea to her sister, kept up splendid establishments both at Lucknow and Cawnpoor.
At the latter place he a.s.sociated on terms of great intimacy with the European gentlemen, and is said to have received visits from the Major-General commanding the Division and his lady. With the aid of his wealth and the influence of his brother domes (the singers and fiddlers who surround the throne of his present Majesty), Buksh Allee secured and held for some years the charge of this fertile and populous district of Russoolabad, through which pa.s.ses the road from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, where, as I have already stated, he kept up bands of myrmidons to rob and murder travellers, and commit all kinds of atrocities. This road became, in consequence, the most unsafe of all the roads in Oude, and hardly a day pa.s.sed in which murders and robberies were not perpetrated upon it. Proof of his partic.i.p.ation in these atrocities having been collected, Buksh Allee was, in October 1849, seized by order of the Resident, tried before the King's Courts, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, and ordered to restore or make good the property which he was proved to have taken, or caused to be taken, from travellers. His house had become filled with girls of all ages, whom he had taken from poor parents, as they pa.s.sed over this road, and converted into slaves for his seraglio.
They were all restored to their parents, with suitable compensation; and the Cawnpoor road has become the most safe, as well as the best, road in Oude.
On the death of Mokuddera Ouleea, a will was sent to the Resident by her sister, who declared that it had been under her sister's pillow for a year, and that she had taken it out on finding her end approaching, and made it over to her, declaring it to contain her last wishes. By this doc.u.ment pensions were bequeathed to the persons mentioned in the note below* out of one-third, and the other two- thirds were bequeathed to her sister and brother. In submitting this doc.u.ment to Government, the Resident declared that he believed it to be a forgery; and in reply he was instructed to ascertain whether the persons named in the doc.u.ment had any objections to consider Shurf-on Nissa sole heir to her sister's property and pension. Should they have none to urge, he was directed to consider her as sole heir, and the pretended will as of no avail. They all agreed to consider her as sole heir; and the Resident was directed to make over to her the property, and pay to her the pension or the princ.i.p.al from which it arose. The Resident considered the continuance of the pension as the best arrangement for the present, and of this Government approved.
[* Buksh Allee, 1,000 rupees per month; Allee Hoseyn, 75; Sooraj Bhan, 40; Syud Hoseyn, 30; Sheik Hingun, 20; Mirza Allee, 30; Ram Deen, 12; Meea Sultan, 15; Sudharee, 10; Imam Buksh, 3; Ala Rukhee, 10; Sadoo Begum, 20; Akbar, 15; Mahdee Begum, 30.]
Shurf-on Nissa has no recognised children, and her brother and his reputed son are her sole heirs, so that no injury can arise to him from the omission, on the part of Government and the Resident, of all mention of his right as co-sharer in the inheritance. Neither brother nor sister had really any legal right whatever to succeed to this pension, for Mokuddera Ouleea was an illegitimate child, and had no legal heirs according to either English or Mahommedan law. This fact seems to have been concealed from the Resident, for he never mentioned it to Government. It was the dread that this fact would cause the whole pension to be sent to the shrines in Turkish Arabia, that made them forge the will. All readily consented to consider Shurf-on Nissa the heir, when they found that our Government had no objection to consider her as such. The King wished to have the money to lay out on bridges and roads in Oude, and the Resident advocated this wish; but our Government, ignorant of the fact of the illegitimacy of the deceased, and with the guaranteed bequest of the late King before them, could not consent to any such arrangement.
Government has long been strongly and justly opposed to all such guarantees, and the Resident was told on the 14th November 1840, ”that the Governor-General in Council could not consent to grant the absolute and unqualified pledge of protection which the King was solicitous of obtaining in favour of four other females; and directed to state to his Majesty that, although in the instances he had cited, such guarantees had certainly been afforded in former times, yet they were always given either under the impression of an overruling necessity, or in consequence of some acknowledged claims, or previously existing engagements, the force of which could not be avoided; that their existence had often operated practically in the most embarra.s.sing manner, while it const.i.tuted a standing and perpetual infringement of the rights of the Government of Oude; and that his Lords.h.i.+p in Council was, consequently, decidedly opposed to the continuance of a system so plainly at variance with every just principle of policy.” The objections of the British Government to such guarantees are stated in letters dated 18th February, 28th March, 20th May, 3rd October, and 19th December 1839, and 11th May 1848.
In a despatch from the Honourable the Court of Directors, dated 4th March 1840, their just disapprobation of such guarantees is expressed; and reference is made to former strong expressions of disapprobation. In their despatch of the 28th March 1843, the Honourable Court again express their disapprobation of such guarantees; and refer to their letter of the 16th March, in which they gave positive orders that no such engagement should ever be concluded without a previous reference to the Court. The argument that the arrangement did not, in any particular case, add to the number of guaranteed persons, such persons being already under guarantee, did not in the opinion of the Court touch the stronger objection to such a measure, that of the impropriety of our aiding, especially by the grant of peculiar privileges, the appropriation of the resources of the State to the advantage of individuals. The Court expresses a hope that they shall never have occasion to notice any future violation of their orders as respects such engagements.
_January_ 16, 1850.--We were to have gone this morning to Ouras, but were obliged to encamp at Burra, eight miles from Meeangunge, on the left bank of the Saee river, which had been too much increased by the late rains to admit of our baggage and tents pa.s.sing over immediately on anything but elephants. As we have but few of them, our tents were pitched on this side of the river, that our things might have the whole day before them to pa.s.s over on carts and camels, as the river subsided. Ouras is three miles from our camp, and we are to pa.s.s through it and go on to Sundeela to-morrow. There is no bridge, and boats are not procurable on this small river, which we have to cross and recross several times.
The country from Meeangunge is scantily cultivated, but well studded with trees, and generally fertile under good tillage. The soil is the light doomuteea, but here and there very sandy and poor, running into what is called bhoor. The villages and hamlets which we could see are few and wretched. We have few native officers and sipahees in our army from the districts we are now in, and I am in consequence less oppressed with complaints from this cla.s.s of the Oude subjects.
We met, near our tents, a party of soldiers belonging to Rajah Ghalib Jung, a person already mentioned, and at present superintendent of police, along the Cawnpoor road, escorting a band of thieves, who robbed Major Scott some ten months ago on his way, by dawk, from Lucknow, and an European merchant, two months ago, on his way, by dawk, from Cawnpoor to Lucknow. They had been seized in the Sundeela districts, and the greater part of the stolen property found in their houses. They are of the Pausie tribe, and told me that thieving was their hereditary trade, and that they had long followed it on the Cawnpoor road with success. The landholder, who kept them upon his estate and shared in their booty, was also seized, but made over to the revenue contractor, who released him after a few days'
imprisonment for a gratuity.
Of these Pausies there are supposed to be about one hundred thousand families in Oude. They are employed as village watchmen, but, with few exceptions, are thieves and robbers by hereditary profession.
Many of them adopt poisoning as a trade, and the numbers who did so were rapidly increasing when Captain Hollings, the superintendent of the Oude Frontier Police, arrested a great many of them, and proceeded against them as Thugs by profession, under Act III. of 1848. His measures have been successfully followed up by Captain Weston, his successor, and this crime has been greatly diminished in Oude. It prevails still, however, more or less, in all parts of India.
These Pausies of Oude generally form the worst part of the gangs of refractory tallookdars in their indiscriminate plunder. They use the bow and arrow expertly, and are said to be able to send an arrow through a man at the distance of one hundred yards. There is no species of theft or robbery in which they are not experienced and skilful, and they increase and prosper in proportion as the disorders in the country grow worse. They serve any refractory landholder, or enterprising gang-robber, without wages, for the sake of the booty to be acquired.
Many of the sipahees of the Mobarick Pultun, on detached duty with the king's wakeel in attendance upon me, were this morning arrested, while taking off the choppers from the houses of villages along the road and around my camp, for fuel and fodder, in what they called the ”_usual way_.” The best beams and rafters and the whole of the straw were fast moving off to my camp; and when seized, the sipahees seemed much surprised, and asked me what they were to do, as they had not received any pay for six months, and the Government expected that they would help themselves to straw and timber wherever they could most conveniently find it. All were fined; but the hope to put a stop to this intolerable evil, under the present system, is a vain one.
The evil has the acquiescence and encouragement of the Government and its functionaries of all kinds and grades throughout the country. It is distressing to witness every day such melancholy proofs of how much is done that ought not to be done, and how much that ought to be done is left undone, in so fine a country.
A want of sympathy or fellow-feeling between the governing and governed is common in all parts of India, but in no part that I have seen is it so marked as in Oude. The officers of the Government delight in plundering the peasantry, and upon every local Governor who kills a landholder of any mark, rewards and honours are instantly bestowed, without the slightest inquiry as to the cause or mode. They know that no inquiry will be made, and therefore kill them when they can; no matter how, or for what cause. The great landholders would kill the local Governors with just as little scruple, did they not fear that it might make the British Government interpose and aid in the pursuit after them.
_January_ 17, 1850.--Sundeela, about thirteen miles from our last camp, on the bank of the little River Saee, over a plain of good doomuteea soil, very fertile, and well cultivated in the neighbourhood of villages. The greater portion of the plain is, however, uncultivated, though capable of the best tillage, and shows more than the usual signs of maladministration. In this district there are only three tallookdars, and they do not rob or resist the Government at present. They distrust the Government authorities, however, and never have any personal intercourse with them. The waste is entirely owing to the bad character of the contractors, and the license given to the troops and establishments under them. The district is now held in _amanee_ tenure, and under the management of Hoseyn Buksh, who entered into his charge only six weeks ago. He is without any experience in, or knowledge of, his duties; he has three regiments of Nujeebs on duty under him, and all who are present came out to meet me. Anything more unlike soldiers it would be difficult to conceive. They are feared only by the honest and industrious.
Wherever the Amil goes they go with him, and are a terrible scourge to the country--by far the worst that the country suffers under.
The first thing necessary to effect a reform is--to form out of these disorderly and useless bodies a few efficient regiments; do away with the purveyance system, on which, they are now provided with fuel, fodder, carriage, &c.; pay them liberally and punctually; supply them with good clothing, arms, accoutrements, and ammunition; and concentrate them at five or six points in good cantonments, whence they can move quickly to any part where their services may be required. No more than are indispensably required should attend the local authorities in their circuits. All the rest should remain in cantonments till called for on emergency; and when so called for, they should have all the conveyance they require, and the supplies provided for them--the conveyance at fixed rates, and the supplies at the market price, in good bazaars. For police duties and revenue collections there should be a sufficient body of men kept up, and at the disposal of the revenue and police authorities. The military establishments should be under the control of a different authority.
But all this would be of no avail unless the corps were under able commanders, relieved from the fear of Court favourites, and under a Commander-in-Chief who understood his duty and had influence enough to secure all that the troops required to render them efficient, and not a child of seven years of age.
Several of the villages of Sundeela are held by Syud zumeendars, who are peaceable and industrious subjects, and were generally better protected than others under the influence of Chowdhere, Sheik Hushmut Allee, of Sundeela, an agricultural capitalist and landholder, whom no local authority could offend with impunity. His proper trade was to aid landholders of high and low degree, by becoming surety for their punctual payment of the Government demand, and advancing the instalments of that demand himself when they had not the means, and thereby saving them from the visits of the local authorities and their rapacious and disorderly troops: but in an evil hour he ventured to extend his protection a little further, and, to save them from the oppressions of an unscrupulous contractor, he undertook to manage the district himself, and make good all the Government demand upon it. He was unable to pay all that he had bound himself to pay.
His brother was first seized by the troops and taken to Lucknow. He languished under the discipline to which he was there subjected, and when on the point of death from what his friends call a _broken heart_, and the Government authorities _cholera-morbus_, he was released. He died immediately after his return home, and Hushmut Allee was then seized and taken to Lucknow, where he is now confined.
The people here lament his absence as a great misfortune to the district, as he was the only one among them who ever had authority and influence, united with a fellow-feeling for the people, and a disposition to promote their welfare and happiness.*
[* Hushmut Allee is still in confinement, but under the troops at Sundeela, and not at Lucknow. July 20, 1851.]
END OF VOL. 1.
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