Part 31 (1/2)
Unless he pays his patrons the same he knows that he shall soon be removed, or driven to resign by the want of means to enforce the payment of the revenues justly due.
The objections which are urged against the employment of British troops in support of the authority of revenue contractors, are equally applicable to their employment in support of that of amanee managers. Their employment is just as liable to abuse under the one as under the other. It is not a whit easier to ascertain whether a demand for balance of revenue from, or a charge of contumacy against, a landholder is just or unjust in the one than in the other. In neither is the demand set forth in public doc.u.ments understood by either party to be the real demand. Both parties are equally interested in preventing a portion of the _real_ demand from appearing in the public accounts; and the quarrel is almost always about the rate of this concealed portion--the collector trying to augment, and the landlord trying to reduce it.
In a letter to the Resident, dated the 29th of March, 1823, Government observes: ”As some palliation of the mischief of our forces being constantly employed in what might be too often termed the cause of injustice and extortion, the Government in 1811 distinctly declared our right of previously investigating, and of arbitrating the demands which its troops might be called upon to support as also its resolution to exercise that right on all future occasions. The execution of the important duty in question seems to be almost invariably delegated by the Resident to the officers commanding at the different stations, who, after receiving general powers to attend to the requisitions of the amils, become the sole judges of the individual cases, in which aid is to be afforded or withheld; and the discretion again unavoidably descends from them, in many instances, to the officers commanding parties detached from the main body. It is obvious that an inquiry of this description can afford but a partial check to, and a feeble security against, injustice and oppression where specific engagements rarely exist, and where the point at issue is frequently the demand for augmenting rates of revenue, founded on alleged a.s.sets sufficient to meet that increase.
”Neither is the aid thus afforded at all effectual for the purposes of the Government of Oude, whether present or future, as is clear from the annual repet.i.tion of the same scenes of resistance and compulsion. As fast as disorders are suppressed in one quarter they spring up in another. Forts that are this year dismantled are restored again the next; the compulsion exercised upon particular individuals in one season has no effect in producing more regularity on their parts, or on that of others in the ensuing season, until the same process has been again gone through; whilst the contempt and odium attaching to a system of collecting the revenues, by the habitual intervention of the troops of another State, infallibly tend to aggravate the evil, by destroying all remains of confidence in his Majesty, or respect for his authority.”
The aid of British troops in the collection of the revenues of Oude has long ceased to be afforded; but when they have been afforded for the suppression of leaders of atrocious bands of robbers, who preyed upon the people, and seized upon the lands of their weaker neighbours, and they have been driven from their forts and strongholds, the privilege of building them up again, or re-occupying and garrisoning them with the same bands of robbers, to be employed in the same way, is purchased from the local authorities, or the patrons of these leaders at Court, during the same or the succeeding season. The same things continue to be done every season where no British troops are employed. Such privileges are purchased with as much facility as those for the supply of essence or spices in the palace; unless the Resident should interpose authoritatively to prevent it, which he very rarely does. Indeed it is seldom that a Resident knows or cares anything about the matter.
I may say generally, that in Oude the larger landholders do not pay more than one-third of their net rents to the Government, while some of them do not pay one-fifth or one-tenth. In the half of the territory made over to us in 1801, the great landholders who still retain their estates pay to our Government at least two-thirds of their net rents. In Oude these great landholders have, at present, about two hundred and fifty mud forts, mounting about five hundred guns, and containing on an average four hundred armed men, or a total of one hundred thousand, trained and maintained to fight against other, or against the Government authorities; and to pillage the peaceful and industrious around whenever so employed. In the half of the territory ceded to us in 1801, this cla.s.s of armed retainers has disappeared altogether. Hence from the Oude half we have some fifty thousand native officers and sipahees in our native army, while from our half we have not perhaps five thousand.
One thing is clear, that we cannot restore to the Oude Government the territory we acquired from it by the treaty of 1801, and the people who occupy it; and that we cannot withdraw our support from that Government altogether without doing so. It is no less clear that all our efforts to make the Government of Oude, under the support which we are bound by that treaty to give it, fulfil the duties to its people to which it was pledged by that treaty, have failed during the fifty years that have elapsed since it was made.
The only alternative left, appears to be for the paramount power to take upon itself the administration, and give to the sovereign, the royal family, and its stipendiary dependents, all the surplus revenues in pensions, opening as much as possible all employments in the civil administration to the educated cla.s.ses of Oude. The military and police establishments would consist almost exclusively of Oude men. Under such a system more of these cla.s.ses would be employed than at present, for few of the officers employed in the administration are of these cla.s.ses--the greater part of them are adventurers from all parts of India, without character or education.
The number of such officers would be multiplied fourfold, and the means of paying them would be taken from the favourites and parasites of the Court who now do nothing but mischief.
Such a change would be popular among the members of the royal family itself, who now get their pensions after long intervals--often after two and even three years, and with shameful reductions in behalf of those favourites and parasites whom they detest and despise, but whom the minister, for his own personal purposes, is obliged to conciliate by such perquisites. It would be popular among the educated cla.s.ses, as opening to them offices now filled by knaves and vagabonds from all parts of India, It would be no less so to the well-disposed portion of the agricultural cla.s.ses, who would be sure of protection to life, property, and character, without the expensive trains of armed followers which they now keep up. But to secure this, we should require to provide them with a more simple system of civil judicature than that which we have at work in our old territories.
The change would be popular, with few exceptions, among all the mercantile and manufacturing cla.s.ses. It would give vast employment to all the labouring cla.s.ses throughout the country, in the construction of good roads, bridges, wells, tanks, temples, suraes, military and civil buildings, and other public works; but above all, in that of private dwellings, and other edifices for use and ornament, in which all men would be proud to lay out their wealth to perpetuate their names, when secured in the possession by an honest and efficient Government; but more especially those who would be no longer able to employ their means in maintaining armed bands, to resist the local authorities and disturb the peace of the country. On the whole, I think that at least nine-tenths of the people of Oude would hail the change as a great blessing; always providing, that our system of administration should be rendered as simple as possible to meet the wants and wishes of a simple people.
Though the Resident has never been able to secure any substantial and permanent improvement in the administration, he often interposes successfully in individual cases, to relieve suffering, and secure redress for wrongs; and the people see that he interferes in no others. Their only regret is, that he does not interpose more often, and that his efforts, when he does, should be so often thwarted or disregarded. The British character is, in consequence, respected in the remotest village and jungle in Oude; and there is, I believe, no part of India where an European officer is received, among the people of all cla.s.ses, with more kindness and courtesy than in Oude. There is, certainly, no city or town in any other native State in India where he is treated in the crowded streets with more respect. This must of course be accounted for in great measure from the greater part of the members of the royal family, and the relatives and dependents of the several persons who have held the highest offices of the State since 1814, either receiving their incomes from the British Government in treaty pensions, or in interest on our Government securities, or being guaranteed in those which they receive from the Oude Government by ours. A great many of the families of the middle cla.s.ses depend entirely upon the interest which they receive from us on our Government securities. There is, indeed, hardly a respectable family in Lucknow that is not more or less dependent upon our Government for protection, and proud to have it considered that they are so. The works and inst.i.tutions which would soon be created out of revenues, now absorbed by worthless Court favourites, would soon embellish the face of the country, improve the character, condition, and habits of the people, stimulate their industry in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; and render our connection with the Oude Government honourable to our name in the estimation of all India.
CHAPTER V.
Baree-Biswa district--Force with the n.a.z.im, Lal Bahader--Town of Peernuggur--Dacoitee by Lal and Dhokul Partuks--Gangs of robbers easily formed out of the loose characters which abound in Oude--The lands tilled in spite of all disorders--Delta between the Chouka and Ghagra rivers--Seed sown and produce yielded on land--Rent and stock --Nawab Allee, the holder of the Mahmoodabad estate--Mode of augmenting his estate--Insecurity of marriage processions--Belt of jungle, fourteen miles west from the Lucknow cantonments--Gungabuksh Rawat--His attack on Dewa--The family inveterate robbers--Bhurs, once a civilized and ruling people in Oude--Extirpated systematically in the fourteenth century--Depredations of Pa.s.sees--Infanticide--How maintained--Want of influential middle cla.s.s of merchants and manufacturers--Suttee--Troops with the Amil--Seizure of a marriage procession by Imambuksh, a gang leader--Perquisites and allowances of Pa.s.see watchmen over corn-fields--Their fidelity to trusts--Ahbun Sing, of Kyampoor, murders his father--Rajah Singjoo of Soorujpoor-- Seodeen, another leader of the same tribe--Princ.i.p.al gang-leaders of the Dureeabad Rodowlee district--Jugurnath Chupra.s.sie--Bhooree Khan-- How these gangs escape punishment--Twenty-four belts of jungle preserved by landholders always, or occasionally, refractory in Oude --Cover eight hundred and eighty-six square miles of good land--How such atrocious characters find followers, and landholders of high degree to screen, shelter, and aid them.
_February_ 14, 1850.--Peernuggur, ten miles south-east, over a plain of the same soil, but with more than the usual proportion of oosur.
Trees and groves as usual, but not quite so fine or numerous. The n.a.z.im of Khyrabad took leave of me on his boundary as we crossed it about midway, and entered the district of ”Baree Biswa,” which is held in farm by Lal Bahader,* a Hindoo, who there met us. This fiscal officer has under him the ”Jafiree,” and ”Tagfore” Regiments of nujeebs, and eight pieces of cannon. The commandants of both corps are in attendance at Court, and one of them, Imdad Hoseyn, never leaves it. The other does condescend sometimes to come out to look at his regiment when _not on service_. The draft-bullocks for the guns have, the n.a.z.im tells me, had a little grain within the last month, but still not more than a quarter of the amount for which the King is charged. Peernuggur is now a place of little note upon the banks of the little river Sae, which here flows under a bridge built by Asuf- od Dowlah some sixty years ago.
[* This man was in prison at Lucknow as a defaulter, but made his escape in October, 1851, by drugging the sentry placed over him, and got safe into British territory.]
Gang-robberies are here as frequent as in Khyrabad, and the respectable inhabitants are going off in the same manner. One which took place in July last year is characteristic of the state of society in Oude, and may be mentioned here. Twelve sipahees of the 59th Regiment Native Infantry, then stationed at Bareilly, lodged here for the night, in a surae, on their way home on furlough. Dal Partuk, a Brahmin by caste, and a man of strength and resolution, resided here and cultivated a small patch of land. He had two pair of bullocks, which used to be continually trespa.s.sing upon other men's fields and gardens, and embroiling him with the people, till one night they disappeared. Dal Partuk called upon his neighbours, who had suffered from their trespa.s.ses, to restore them or pay the value, and threatened to rob, plunder, and burn down the town if they did not.
A great number of pausees reside in and around the town, and he knew that he could collect a gang of them for any enterprise of this sort at the shortest notice. The people were not disposed to pay the value of his lost bullocks, and they could not be found. While he was meditating his revenge, his relation, Dhokul Partuk, was by a trifling accident driven to take the field as a robber. An oil- vender, a female, from a neighbouring village, had presumed to come to Peernuggur, and offer oil for sale. The oil-venders of the town, dreading the consequences of such compet.i.tion, went forthwith to the little garrison and prayed for _protection_. One of the sipahees went off to the silversmith to whom the oil-vender had sold twopence-worth of oil, and, finding the oil-vender still with him, proceeded at once to seize both, and take them off to the garrison as criminals. Dhokul Partuk, who lived close by, and had his sword by his side, went up and remonstrated with the sipahee, who, taking him to be another silversmith, struck him across the face with his stick. Dhokul drew his sword, and made a cut at the sipahee, which would have severed his head from his body had he not fallen backwards. As it was, he got a severe cut in the chest, and ran off to his companions. Dhokul went out of the town with his drawn sword, and no one dared to pursue him.
At night he returned, took off his family to a distant village, became a leader of a band of pausee bowmen, and invited his kinsman, Dal Partuk, to follow his example.
Together, they made an attack at night upon the town, and burnt down one quarter of the houses. Dal Partuk offered to come to terms and live in the town again, if the people would pay the value of his lost bullocks, and give him a small income of five rupees a-month. This they refused to do, and the plunder and burning went on. At last they made this attack upon the party in the surae, which happened to be so full that several of the sipahees and others were cooking outside the walls. None of the travellers had arms to defend themselves, and those inside closed the doors as soon as they heard the alarm. The pausees, with their bows and arrows, killed two of the sipahees who were outside, and while the gang was trying to force open the doors of the surae, the people of the town, headed by a party of eight pausee bowmen of their own, attacked and drove them back. These bowmen followed the gang for some distance, and killed several of them with their arrows. The sipahees who escaped proceeded in all haste to the Resident, and the Frontier Police has since succeeded in arresting several of the gang; but the two leaders have hitherto been screened by Goorbuksh Sing and other great landholders in their interest. The eight pausees who exerted themselves so successfully in defence of the town and surae were expecting an attack from the pausees of a neighbouring village, and ready for action when the alarm was given.
These parties of pausee bowmen have each under their charge a certain number of villages, whose crops and other property they are pledged to defend for the payment of a certain sum, or a certain portion of land rent-free. In one of these, under the Peernuggur party, three bullocks had been stolen by the pausees of a neighbouring town. They were traced to them, and, as they would neither restore them nor pay their value, the Peernuggur party attacked them one night in their sleep, and killed the leader and four of his followers, to deter others of the tribe from trespa.s.sing on property under their charge.
They expect, they told us, to be attacked in return some night, and are obliged to be always prepared, but have not the slightest apprehension of ever being called to account for such things by the officers of Government. Nor would Dal and Dhokul Partuk have any such apprehension, had not the Resident taken up the question of the murder of the Honourable Company's sipahees as an international one.
After plundering and burning down a dozen villages, and murdering a score or two of people, they would have come back and reoccupied their houses in the town without any fear of being molested or _questioned_ by Government officers. Nor would the people of the town object to their residing among them again, provided they pledged themselves to abstain in future from molesting them. Goorbuksh Sing, only a few days ago, offered the contractor, Hoseyn Allee, the sum of five thousand, rupees if he would satisfy the Resident that Dal Partuk had nothing whatever to do with the Peernuggur dacoitee, and thereby induce him to discontinue the pursuit.*
[* Dhokul Partuk and Dal Partuk were at last secured. Dhokul died in the king's gaol, but Dal Partuk is still in prison under trial.]
The people of towns and villages, having no protection whatever from the Government, are obliged to keep up, at their own cost, this police of pausee bowmen, who are bound only to protect those who pay them. As their families increase beyond the means derived from this, their only legitimate employment, their members thieve in the neighbouring or distant villages, rob on the highroads, or join the gangs of those who are robbers by profession, or take the trade in consequence of disputes and misunderstandings with Government authorities or their neighbours. In Oude--and indeed in all other parts of India, under a Government so weak and indifferent to the sufferings of its subjects--all men who consider arms to be their proper profession think themselves justified in using them to extort the means of subsistence from those who have property when they have none, and can no longer find what they consider to be suitable employment. All Rajpoots are of this cla.s.s, and the greater part of the landholders in Oude are Rajpoots. But a great part of the Mahommedan rural population are of the same cla.s.s, and no small portion of the Brahmin inhabitants, like the two Partuks above named, consider arms to be their proper profession; and all find the ready means of forming gangs of robbers out of these pausee bowmen and the many loose characters to whom the disorders of the country give rise.
A great many of the officers and sipahees of the King's nujeeb and other regiments are every month discharged for mutiny, insubordination, abuse of authority, or neglect of duty, or merely to make room for men more subservient to Court favourites, or because they cannot or will not pay the demanded gratuity to a new and useless commandant appointed by Court favour. The plunder of villages has been the daily occupation of these men during the whole period of their service, and they become the worst of this cla.s.s of loose characters, ready to join any band of freebooters. Such bands are always sure to find a patron among the landholders ready to receive and protect them, for a due share of their booty, against any force that the King's officers may send after them; and, if they prefer it as less costly, they can always find a manager of a district ready to do the same, on condition that they abstain from plundering within his jurisdiction. The greater part of the land is, however, cultivated, and well cultivated under all this confusion and consequent insecurity. Tillage is the one thing needful to all, and the persons from whom trespa.s.ses on the crops are most apprehended are the reckless and disorderly trains of Government officials.
_February_ 16, 1850.--Biswa, eighteen miles east, over a plain of excellent soil, partly doomut, but chiefly mutteear, well studded with trees and groves, scantily cultivated for the half of the way, but fully and beautifully for the second half. The wheat beginning to change colour as it approaches maturity, and waving in the gentle morning breeze; intervening fields covered with mixed crops of peas, gram, ulsee, teora, surson, mustard, all in flower, and glittering like so many rich parterres; patches here and there of the dark-green _arahur_ and yellow sugar-cane rising in bold relief; mango-groves, majestic single trees, and cl.u.s.ters of the graceful bamboo studding the whole surface, and closing the distant horizon in one seemingly- continued line of fence--the eye never tires of such a scene, but would like now and then to rest upon some architectural work of ornament or utility to aid the imagination in peopling it.