Kitabı oku: «Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official», sayfa 36
A robbery affords a rich harvest. Some article of stolen property is found in one man's house, and by a little legerdemain it is conveyed to that of another, both of whom are made to pay liberally; the man robbed also pays, and all the members of the village community are made to do the same. They are all called to the court of the Thānadār to give evidence as to what they have seen or heard regarding either the fact or the persons in the remotest degree connected with it—as to the arrests of the supposed offenders—the search of their house—the character of their grandmothers and grandfathers—and they are told that they are to be sent to the magistrate a hundred miles distant, and then made to stand at the door among a hundred and fifty pairs of shoes, till his excellency the Nāzir, the under-sheriff of the court, may be pleased to announce them to his highness the magistrate, which, of course, he will not do without a consideration. To escape all these threatened evils, they pay handsomely and depart in peace. The Thānadār reports that an attempt to rob a house by persons unknown had been defeated by his exertions, and the good fortune of the magistrate; and sends a liberal share of spoil to those who are to read his report to that functionary.977 This goes on more or less in every district, but more especially in those where the magistrate happens to be a man of violent temper, who is always surrounded by knaves, because men who have any regard for their character will not approach him—or a weak, good-natured man, easily made to believe anything, and managed by favourites—or one too fond of field- sports, or of music, painting, European languages, literature, and sciences, or lastly, of his own ease.978 Some magistrates think they can put down crime by dismissing the Thānadār; but this tends only to prevent crimes being reported to him; for in such cases the feelings of the people are in exact accordance with the interests of the Thānadārs; and crimes augment by the assurance of impunity thereby given to criminals. The only remedy for all this evil is to fill up the great gulf between the magistrate and Thānadār by officers who shall be to him what I have described the patrol officers to be to the collectors of customs, at once the tapis of Prince Husain, and the telescope of Prince Ali—a medium that will enable him to be everywhere, and see everything.979 And why is this remedy not applied? Simply and solely because such appointments would be given to the uncovenanted, and might tend indirectly to diminish the appointments open to the covenanted servants of the company. Young gentlemen of the Civil Service are supposed to be doing the duties which would be assigned to such officers, while they are at school as assistants to magistrates and collectors; and were this great gulf filled up by efficient covenanted officers, they would have no school to go to. There is no doubt some truth in this; but the welfare of a whole people should not be sacrificed to keep this school or play-ground open exclusively for them; let them act for a time as they would unwillingly do with the uncovenanted, and they will learn much more than if they occupied the ground exclusively and acted alone—they will be always with people ready and willing to tell them the real state of things; whereas, at present, they are always with those who studiously conceal it from them.980
It is a common practice with Thānadārs all over the country to connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from their distant expeditions.
They [scil. the gangs] go out ostensibly in search of service, on the termination of the rains of one season in October, and return before the commencement of the next in June; but their vocation is always well known to the police, and to all the people of their neighbourhood, and very often to the magistrates themselves, who could, if they would, secure them on their return with their booty; but this would not secure their conviction unless the proprietors could be discovered, which they scarcely ever could. Were the police officers to seize them, they would be all finally acquitted and released by the judges—the magistrate would get into disrepute with his superiors, by the number of acquittals compared with convictions exhibited in his monthly tables; and he would vent his spleen upon the poor Thānadār, who would at the same time have incurred the resentment of the robbers; and between both, he would have no possible chance of escape. He therefore consults his own interest and his own case by leaving them to carry on their trade of robbery or murder unmolested; and his master, the magistrate, is well pleased not to be pestered with charges against men whom he has no chance of getting ultimately convicted. It was in this way that so many hundred families of assassins by profession were able for so many generations to reside in the most cultivated and populous parts of our territories, and extend their depredations into the remotest parts of India, before our System of operations was brought to bear upon them in 1830. Their profession was perfectly well known to the people of the districts in which they resided, and to the greater part of the police; they murdered not within their own district, and the police of that district cared nothing about what they might do beyond it.981
The most respectable native gentleman in the city and district told me one day an amusing instance of the proceedings of a native officer of that district, which occurred about five years ago. 'In a village which he had purchased and let in farms, a shopkeeper was one day superintending the cutting of some sugar-cane which he had purchased from a cultivator as it stood. His name was Girdhārī, I think, and the boy who was cutting it for him was the son of a poor man called Madārī. Girdhārī wanted to have the cane cut down as near as he could to the ground, while the boy, to save himself the trouble of stooping, would persist in cutting it a good deal too high up. After admonishing him several times, the shopkeeper gave him a smart clout on the head. The boy, to prevent a repetition, called out, "Murder! Girdhārī has killed me—Girdhārī has killed me!" His old father, who was at work carrying away the cane at a little distance out of sight, ran off to the village watchman, and, in his anger, told him that Girdhārī had murdered his son. The watchman went as fast as he could to the Thānadār, or head police officer of the division, who resided some miles distant. The Thānadār ordered off his subordinate officer, the Jemadār, with half a dozen policemen, to arrange everything for an inquest on the body, by the time he should reach the place, with all due pomp. The Jemadār went to the house of the murderer, and dismounting, ordered all the shopkeepers of the village, who were many and respectable, to be forthwith seized, and bound hand and feet. "So", said the Jemadār, "you have all been aiding and abetting your friend in the murder of poor Madārī's only son." "May it please your excellency, we have never heard of any murder." "Impudent scoundrels," roared the Jemadār, "does not the poor boy lie dead in the sugar-cane field, and is not his highness the Thānadār coming to hold an inquest upon it? and do you take us for fools enough to believe that any scoundrel among you would venture to commit a deliberate murder without being aided and abetted by all the rest?" The village watchman began to feel some apprehension that he had been too precipitate; and entreated the Jemadār to go first and see the body of the boy. "What do you take us for," said the Jemadār, "a thing without a stomach? Do you suppose that government servants can live and labour on air? Are we to go and examine bodies upon empty stomachs? Let his father take care of the body, and let these murdering shopkeepers provide us something to eat." Nine rupees' worth of sweetmeats, and materials for a feast were forthwith collected at the expense of the shopkeepers, who stood bound, and waiting the arrival of his highness the Thānadār, who was soon after seen approaching majestically upon a richly caparisoned horse. "What," said the Jemadār, "is there nobody to go and receive his highness in due form?" One of the shopkeepers was untied, and presented with fifteen rupees by his family, and those of the other shopkeepers. These he took up and presented to his highness, who deigned to receive them through one of his train, and then dismounted and partook of the feast that had been provided. "Now", said his highness, "we will go and hold an inquest on the body of the poor boy"; and off moved all the great functionaries of government to the sugar-cane field, with the village watchman leading the way. The father of the boy met them as they entered, and was pointed out by the village watchman. "Where", said the Thānadār, "is your poor boy?" "There," said Madārī, "cutting the canes." "How, cutting the canes? Was he not murdered by the shopkeepers?" "No," said Madārī, "he was beaten by Girdhārī, and richly deserved it! I find." Girdhārī and the boy were called up, and the little urchin said that he called out murder merely to prevent Girdhārī from giving him another clout on the side of the head. His father was then fined nine rupees for giving a false alarm, and Girdhārī fifteen for so unmercifully beating the boy; and they were made to pay on the instant, under the penalty of all being sent off forty miles to the magistrate. Having thus settled this very important affair, his highness the Thānadār walked back to the shop, ordered all the shopkeepers to be set at liberty, smoked his pipe, mounted his horse, and rode home, followed by all his police officers, and well pleased with his day's work.'
The farmer of the village soon after made his way to the city, and communicated the circumstances to my old friend, who happened to be on intimate terms with the magistrate.982 He wrote a polite note to the Thānadār to say that he should never get any rents from his estate if the occupants were liable to such fines as these, and that he should take the earliest opportunity of mentioning them to his friend the magistrate. The Thānadār ascertained that he was really in the habit of visiting the magistrate, and communicating with him freely; and hushed up the matter by causing all, save the expenses of the feast, to be paid back. These are things of daily occurrence in all parts of our dominions, and the Thānadārs are not afraid to play such 'fantastic tricks' because all those under and all those above them share more or less in the spoil, and are bound in honour to conceal them from the European magistrate, whom it is the interest of all to keep in the dark. They know that the people will hardly ever complain, from the great dislike they all have to appear in our courts, particularly when it is against any of the officers of those courts, or their friends and creatures in the district police.983
When our operations commenced, in 1830, these assassins [scil. the Thugs] revelled over every road in India in gangs of hundreds, without the fear of punishment from divine or human laws; but there is not now, I believe, a road in India infested by them. That our government has still defects, and great ones, must be obvious to every one who has travelled much over India with the requisite qualifications and disposition to observe; but I believe that in spite of all the defects I have noticed above in our police System, the life, property, and character of the innocent are now more secure, and all their advantages more freely enjoyed, than they ever were under any former government with whose history we are acquainted, or than they now are under any native government in India.984
Those who think they are not so almost always refer to the reign of Shāh Jahān, when men like Tavernier travelled so securely all over India with their bags of diamonds; but I would ask them whether they think that the life, property, and character of the innocent could be anywhere very secure, or their advantages very freely enjoyed, in a country where a man could do openly with impunity what the traveller describes to have been done by the Persian physician of the Governor of Allahabad? This governor, being sickly, had in attendance upon him eleven physicians, one of whom was a European gentleman of education, Claudius Maille, of Bourges.985 The chief favourite of the eleven was, however, a Persian, 'who one day threw his wife from the top of a battlement to the ground in a fit of jealousy. He thought the fall would kill her, but she had only a few ribs broken; whereupon the kindred of the woman came and demanded justice at the feet of the governor. The governor, sending for the physician, commanded him to be gone, resolving to retain him no longer in his service. The physician obeyed; and putting his poor maimed wife in a palankeen, he set forward upon the road with all his family. But he had not gone above three or four days' journey from the city, when the governor, finding himself worse than he was wont to be, sent to recall him; which the physician perceiving, stabbed his wife, his four children, and thirteen female slaves, and returned again to the Governor, who said not a word to him, but entertained him again in his service.' This occurred within Tavernier's own knowledge and about the time he visited Allahabad; and is related as by no means a very extraordinary circumstance.986
CHAPTER 70
Rent-free Tenures—Right of Government to Resume such Grants
ON the 27th987 we went on fifteen miles to Bēgamābād, over a sandy and level country. All the peasantry along the roads were busy watering their fields; and the singing of the man who stood at the well to tell the other who guides the bullocks when to pull, after the leather bucket had been filled at the bottom, and when to stop as it reached the top, was extremely pleasing.988 It is said that Tānsēn of Delhi, the most celebrated singer they have ever had in India, used to spend a great part of his time in these fields, listening to the simple melodies of these water-drawers, which he learned to imitate and apply to his more finished vocal music. Popular belief ascribes to Tānsēn the power of stopping the river Jumna in its course. His contemporary and rival, Birjū Baulā, who, according to popular belief, could split a rock with a single note, is said to have learned his bass from the noise of the stone mills which the women use in grinding the corn for their families.989 Tānsēn was a Brahman from Patna, who entered the service of the Emperor Akbar, became a Musalmān, and after the service of twenty-seven years, during which he was much beloved by the Emperor and all his court, he died at Gwālior in the thirty-fourth year of the Emperor's reign. His tomb is still to be seen at Gwālior. All his descendants are said to have a talent for music, and they have all Sēn added to their names.990
While Mādhojī Sindhia, the Gwālior chief, was prime minister, he made the emperor assign to his daughter the Bālā Bāī in jāgīr, or rent- free tenure, ninety-five villages, rated in the imperial 'sanads' [deeds of grant] at three lākhs of rupees a year. When the Emperor had been released from the 'durance vile' in which he was kept by Daulat Rāo Sindhia, the adopted son of this chief,991 by Lord Lake in 1803, and the countries, in which these villages were situated, taken possession of, she was permitted to retain them on condition that they were to escheat to us on her death. She died in 1834, and we took possession of the villages, which now yield, it is said, four lākhs of rupees a year. Bēgamābād was one of them. It paid to the Bālā Bāi only six hundred rupees a year, but it pays now to us six hundred and twenty rupees; but the farmers and cultivators do not pay a farthing more—the difference was taken by the favourite to whom she assigned the duties of collection, and who always took as much as he could get from them, and paid as little as he could to her.992 The tomb of the old collector stood near my tents, and his son, who came to visit it, told me that he had heard from Gwālior that a new Governor-General was about to arrive,993 who would probably order the villages to be given back, when he should be made collector of the village, as his father had been.
Had our Government acted by all the rent-free lands in our territories on the same principle, they would have saved themselves a vast deal of expense, trouble, and odium. The justice of declaring all lands liable to resumption on the death of the present incumbents when not given by competent authority for, and actually applied to, the maintenance of religious, charitable, educational, or other establishments of manifest public utility, would never have been for a moment questioned by the people of India, because they would have all known that it was in accordance with the customs of the country. If, at the same time that we declared all land liable to resumption, when not assigned by such authority for such purposes and actually applied to them, we had declared that all grants by competent authority registered in due form before the death of the present incumbents should be liable on their death to the payment to Government of only a quarter or half the rent arising from them, it would have been universally hailed as an act of great liberality, highly calculated to make our reign popular. As it is, we have admitted the right of former rulers of all descriptions to alienate in perpetuity the land, the principal source of the revenue of the state, in favour of their relatives, friends, and favourites, leaving upon the holders the burthen of proving, at a ruinous cost in fees and bribes, through court after court, that these alienations had been made by the authorities we declare competent, before the time prescribed; and we have thus given rise to an infinite deal of fraud, perjury, and forgery, and to the opinion, I fear, very generally prevalent, that we are anxious to take advantage of unavoidable flaws in the proof required, to trick them out of their lands by tedious judicial proceedings, while we profess to be desirous that they should retain them. In this we have done ourselves great injustice.994
Though these lands were often held for many generations under former Governments, and for the exclusive benefit of the holders, it was almost always, when they were of any value, in collusion with the local authorities, who concealed the circumstances from their sovereign for a certain stipulated sum or share of the rents while they held office. This of course the holders were always willing to pay, knowing that no sovereign would hesitate much to resume their lands, should the circumstance of their holding them for their private use alone be ever brought to his notice. The local authorities were, no doubt, always willing to take a moderate share of the rent, knowing that they would get nothing should the lands be resumed by the sovereign. Sometimes the lands granted were either at the time the grant was made, or became soon after, waste and depopulated, in consequence of invasion or internal disorders; and remaining in this state for many generations, the intervening sovereigns either knew nothing or cared nothing about the grants. Under our rule they became by degrees again cultivated and peopled, and in consequence valuable, not by the exertions of the rent-free holders, for they were seldom known to do anything but collect the rents, but by those of the farmers and cultivators who pay them.
When Saādat Alī Khan, the sovereign of Oudh, ceded Rohilkhand and other districts to the Honourable Company in lieu of tribute in 1801, he resumed every inch of land held in rent-free tenure within the territories that remained with him, without condescending to assign any other reason than state necessity. The measure created a good deal of distress, particularly among the educated classes; but not so much as a similar measure would have created within our territories, because all his revenues are expended in the maintenance of establishments formed exclusively out of the members of Oudh families, and retained within the country, while ours are sent to pay establishments formed and maintained at a distance; and those whose lands are resumed always find it exceedingly difficult to get employment suitable to their condition.
The face of the country between Delhi and Meerut is sadly denuded of its groves; not a grove or an avenue is to be seen anywhere, and but few fine solitary trees.995 I asked the people of the cause, and was told by the old men of the village that they remembered well when the Sikh chiefs who now bask under the sunshine of our protection used to come over at the head of 'dalas' (bodies) of ten or twelve horse each, and plunder and lay waste with fire and sword, at every returning harvest, the fine country which I now saw covered with rich sheets of cultivation, and which they had rendered a desolate waste, 'without a man to make, or a man to grant, a petition', when Lord Lake came among them.996 They were, they say, looking on at a distance when he fought the battle of Delhi, and drove the Marāthās, who were almost as bad as the Sikhs, into the Jumna river, where ten thousand of them were drowned. The people of all classes in Upper India feel the same reverence as our native soldiery for the name of this admirable soldier and most worthy man, who did so much to promote our interests and sustain our reputation in this country.997
The most beautiful trees in India are the 'bar' (banyan), the 'pīpal', and the tamarind.998 The two first are of the fig tribe, and their greatest enemies are the elephants and camels of our public establishments and public servants, who prey upon them wherever they can find them when under the protection of their masters or keepers, who, when appealed to, generally evince a very philosophical disregard to the feeling of either property or piety involved in the trespass. It is consequently in the driest and hottest parts of the country, where the shade of these trees is most wanted, that it is least to be found; because it is there that camels thrive best, and are most kept, and it is most difficult to save such trees from their depredations.
In the evening a trooper passed our tents on his way in great haste from Meerut to Delhi, to announce the death of the poor old Bēgam Samrū, which had taken place the day before at her little capital of Sardhana. For five-and-twenty years had I been looking forward to the opportunity of seeing this very extraordinary woman, whose history had interested me more than that of any other character in India during my time; and I was sadly disappointed to hear of her death when within two or three stages of her capital.999
Great caution should always be used by local officers in making comments on statistics. The subordinate cares nothing for the facts. When a superior objects that the birth-rate is too low and the death- rate too high in any police circle, the practical conclusion drawn by the police is that the figures of the next return must be made more palatable, and they are cooked accordingly. So, if burglaries are too numerous, they cease to be reported, and so forth.
The old Superior Court was known as the Sadr Nizāmat Adālat, on the criminal, and as the Sadr Dīwānī Adālat, on the civil side. These courts have now been replaced by the High Courts, and equivalent tribunals. In the author's time the High Court for the Agra Province had not yet been established. Its seat is now at Allahabad, but was formerly at Agra.
Mr. Fox Strangways notes that Hindu critics hold Tānsēn 'principally responsible for the deterioration of Hindu music. He is said to have falsified the rāgs, and two, Hindol and Megh, of the original six have disappeared since his time' (op. cit., p. 84).
Akbar, in the seventh year of his reign (1562-3), compelled the Rājā of Rīwā (Bhath) to give up Tānsēn, who was in the Rājā's service. The emperor gave the musician Rs. 200,000. 'Most of his compositions are written in Akbar's name, and his melodies are even nowadays everywhere repeated by the people of Hindustān' (Blochmann, op. cit., p. 406). Tānsēn died in A.D. 1588 (Beale).
