1

Editorial Note

2

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014

3

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awam: The Emergence of Urdu Literary Culture in

North India

Saifuddin Ahmad

This article attempts to explore Urdu literary culture in eighteenth-century north India by studying the textual predilections of people, forms of ex-pertise, the aesthetics and patronage to particular types of literary cultures. The social and cultural world of the native Indians and their literary pref-erences if explored can lead to a better understanding of medieval society. Mughal literary culture, to the little extent that has been studied has too often been approached from the point of privileging Persian over all other literary cultures including Urdu/Hindavi as the only court language leading to almost unbalanced picture of Mughal literary landscape so far. There has been substantial work in the field by scholars of literature especially in Urdu; however in these works the specificity of historical context in which it is written is missing. It endeavours to foreground Urdu literary culture in historical perspective. Some of the literary figures, poets, intellectuals and genres of their work is analysed in an effort to construct the Urdu literary scene of north India, adding to existing knowledge on historiography of the eighteenth century.

It is fascinating to note that despite turmoil and turbulences the de-velopment of Hindavi/Urdu took place in the eighteenth century. For the history of Urdu literature, it was a period of successful innovation, dynamism and attainment of maturity. Persian, the court language of the Mughals which was regarded as the standard medium for literary and cul-tural expression, was gradually over-shadowed by Urdu. Initially Urdu was looked down upon with a faint air of disapproval, as something different and inferior to Persian, unworthy of the dignity of poetry. However, within the span of a century, it became the language of both the common masses and the ruling elite. The language increasingly began to be perceived as the embodiment of erudition and refinement, and the myriad poetic forms that arose within Urdu signified its flexibility. Most of the Persian poets shifted their loyalty towards Urdu seeing its popularity among the masses. In the initial phase, Delhi, and later on, different regional centres were the upholders of this new language.

The origin and different names of UrduUrdu drew its support from the languages that were brought in by the Muslims and the various local dialects that were in use at that time. Urdu writing in its early forms can be traced to Amir Khusrau (1259–1325 ce)

4

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 and Khwaja Muhammad Husaini (1318–1422 ce). It started to flourish in

the Deccan kingdoms of Golconda and Bijapur, where one can find the ear-liest Urdu writings in its Deccani variant. The Sufi saints were the earliest promoters of Urdu.1 The Chisti mystic Khwaja Banda Nawaz Gesudaraz is considered to be the first prose writer of Deccani Urdu.2 The first literary work in Urdu is a masnavi ‘Kadam Rao Padam Rao’ written between 1421 and 1434 ce by Fakhruddin Nizami (a poet from Bidar).

Urdu during its formative period was identified by different names – Amir Khusrau referred to it as ‘Hindavi’ or ‘Hindi’ and later called it ‘Rekh-ta’. Abul Fazl described it as ‘Dehlavi’ or the dialect of Delhi. In the Deccan the new language was known as ‘Deccani’ or ‘Hindi’. In Gujarat it was variously termed as ‘Hindi’, ‘Gujari’ or ‘Gujrati’.3 In north India, ‘Rekhta’ and ‘Hindi’ were in use before the eighteenth century, while from around mid-nineteenth century ‘Hindi’ was in vogue in preference to ‘Rekhta’. Edward Terry describes the language as ‘Indostan’, and states that it has the power to say a lot in few words, and is influenced by Arabic and Persian.4

Ordu (Urdu) means ‘military camp’ or ‘cantonment’ in Turkish and the easy conclusion that is drawn is that of a military language (lashkari zuban). It is assumed that Urdu was born in the Mughal military camps, where soldiers from diverse background and nationalities speaking dif-ferent languages mingled and interacted with each other that led to the development of a new language and culture. However, one must bear this in mind that the word Ordu in Turkish has other meanings and usages such as that of harem, royal palace and fort.5 Also, Urdu in the Persian sources of the subcontinent meant the capital city of the empire and not the military camps. 6 The name Urdu was employed for the first time in around 1780 ce is found in one of the couplets of Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi (1750–1824):

Mushafi ko hai Rekhte me da‘awayani ke hai zaban dan Urdu ki wo zaban ka

(Mushafi has claims of superiority in RekhtaThat is to say, he is an expert of Urdu language.)

‘Urdu’ began to be known as zaban-i Urdu-i mu’alla-i Shahjahanabad (language of the exalted city of Shahjahanabad i.e. Delhi). Gradually it was abridged to zaban-i Urdu-i mu’alla, then to zaban-i Urdu, and finally to Urdu. By the eighteenth century the word Urdu came to be identified with the language used in and around the city of Delhi and it continued till the early part of the nineteenth century. However, it signified Persian and not Urdu language clearly indicated in Muthmir, by Khan-i Arzu, where he specifically mentions that the language of royal court or city is Persian.8 It was only in the last decade of the eighteenth century under Mughal emper-or Shah Alam II that, zaban-i Urdu-i mu’alla began to imply Urdu/Hindi

5

instead of Persian.9 It is interesting to observe the emergence of Urdu literary tradition

and culture in a period of political flux when the grandeur and awe of the Mughal Empire was on the ebb. Culturally, intellectually and spiritually the eighteenth century was more vibrant than the one that preceded it.10 Urdu was not an alien language to north India. It was the native language and had the status of a composite language of the masses in the subconti-nent for centuries. In the Deccan, since the beginning of fifteenth century the literary tradition began in Urdu and during three hundred years of its existence attained almost the same status in the south as that of Persian language and culture in north India. Persian at that time was the language of refined discourse and taste of the urban Mughal elite. In fact, all through the Mughal history, command over Persian language was the hallmark of erudite self. Knowledge of Persian was also essential to connect with the Mughal court and administration in the same ways as the knowledge of English was during the British period. Allison Busch cogently argues that in the early modern period, both the classical as well as vernacular languages occupied variable positions in the complex cultural system. No doubt Per-sian enjoyed the dominant position at the Mughal court, however, other languages also figured substantially. The Mughals sponsorship of Braj mu-sician and patronisation of poets is well-known. Braj bhasha literature was an important part of the domain of Mughal court culture starting from Akbar to the later Mughal Bahadur Shah.11 Ma’asir-i Alamgiri reports that Aurangzeb took keen interest in Hindi orthography and was known to cite Hindi verses. The Braj poets accompanied his entourage and were spon-sored by the Emperor.12

With the disintegration of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth centu-ry, the primacy enjoyed by Persian was gradually lost to Urdu, a language of the masses. Languages, like civilizations, take time and gradually fade away into obscurity. This holds true with Persian which stayed on in the picture for a longer time before Urdu completely overshadowed it. For long both the streams – Persian and Urdu – flowed together and were locked so tight in embrace that it was difficult to set them apart. Persian and Urdu continued to be written by same set of authors, the Persian speaking writers composing verses in Rekhta/Urdu and the Rekhta/Urdu speaking one in Persian. However, by the end of the eighteenth century the ascendancy of Urdu was complete.

Mughal familiarity with UrduBabur mentions many Hindustani words in his memoir, and a Hindavi couplet is found in his diwan where Urdu words such as pa’ni (water) and roti (bread) are found.13 Jamali Kamboh (d. 1535 ce), one of the famous Sufi poets of the reign of Babur who wrote Siyarul Arifin in Persian, is also reported to have composed poetry in Urdu.14 Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

6

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 and Aurangzeb had familiarity with Urdu language and as per necessity

even conversed in it. Akbar was born and brought up in India, married a Rajput princess and is believed to be a good speaker of Hindavi. Akbar is credited for the use of a large number of Hindavi words and expressions for almost every occasion. The nobles at the court imitated him through their poetic attempts at the language. Faizi (brother of Abul Fazl) com-posed Hindi couplets. Likewise Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan enjoyed the status of most accomplished Hindi poets of Akbar’s time. Raja Todar Mal’s revenue reform had far reaching consequences for the development of Urdu. The revenue records were kept in Hindi with which the immigrant muslim administrators were hardly familiar. Hence, it was ordered that the administrative heads would familiarise themselves with the native language (Hindi) and all the employees of the finance department would learn Per-sian. This impetus under Akbar led to the consolidation of the language which attained further synergy under Shahjahan.15 Akbar and his son Jah-angir were also fond of conferring Hindi names to their pets and favourite animals. We come across elephants in the royal stable called Gun-Sundar, Ran-rawat, Gajpati, Fauj-sangar, Bansi-badan, Surat-gaj, etc.16 Jahangir’s successors, Shahjahan and then Aurangzeb had full command over ‘Hin-dustani’.17 With the Great Mughals are also associated the names of some Hindavi poets and of a couple of Sanskrit lexicographers. In the later Mu-ghal times especially under Jahandar Shah and Ahmad Shah, Urdu became the unofficial language of the court. Muhammad Shah wrote in Urdu.18 Najmuddin Shah ‘Abru’, Shakir Naji, Yakrang et al. were poets of this age. The diwan of Ashraf Ali Khan-i-Fughan, the foster brother of emperor Ahmad Shah, was published during this time. Shah Alam was a poet par excellence and also wrote Ajaib-ul Qissas, a dastan in Urdu language, which has a historical role in the development of Urdu prose. This tradition of Urdu-i mu’alla continued from Muhammad Shah to Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ and made the tradition of Urdu culture respectable.

Patronage and the creative use of Urdu language succeeded in bridging the gap between the common masses and the elite. It led to an unprece-dented upsurge in the creative flair of the public, poetry now began to be talked about in the streets and bazaars.19 In this rapidly changing state of affairs one episode which weaned away the attention of the younger gener-ation from Persian to a more affable Urdu was the confrontation between two intellectuals of their age Sirajuddin Ali Khan-i-Arzu (1689–1756 ce) and Shaikh Muhammad Ali Hazin (1691–1766 ce), the former an Indian native and the later an Iranian. The row cropped up in this era but its his-tory can be traced to the condescending attitude of the Iranians towards the Indians from the distant past.

Early traditions of Urdu poetry and the practice of RekhtaThe court language of the Mughals was Persian which was regarded as

7

the standard medium for literary and cultural expression. This in no way meant that the Mughals were entirely indifferent to the vernacular lan-guages.20 Akbar spoke good Hindavi. Many Hindavi phrases are found in the Memoir of Jahangir. Shahjahan and Aurangzeb had full command over ‘Hindustani’. Jamil Jalibi, in his Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, claims that in Shah-jahan’s time familiarity with Urdu (Hindavi) was an essential requirement for state service. Nonetheless, it is not to suggest that Hindavi at any junc-ture in the seventeenth century was considered as a language of the Mughal court or administration.21 There is evidence of increasing interest of the Mughals in Hindavi-Braj poetry in the early eighteenth century.

Urdu poetry grew under the shadow of Persian poetry. In the begin-ning the language was simple; however, as it began to develop into a literary language, its vocabulary was enriched with words from Persian, Arabic and Turkish. Persian script was borrowed with some modifications and Urdu poetry modelled itself on Persian poetry by adopting its meters, themes, imagery, allusions, phrases and constructs. It even followed the laws of Persian prosody implicitly and out rightly. Initially poets wrote in mixed Persian and Urdu using words from both in the same couplet, which came to be known as rekhta. Urdu even adopted the Persian poetic forms like qasida, masnavi, ghazal, rubai, marsiya and even tazkirah.

Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu and Shaikh Sadullah Gulshan were the earliest promoters of Urdu language in north India. Another important figure often ignored by historians and scholars of literature alike despite his significant contribution to the linguistic evolution of Urdu language is Mir Muhammad Ja’far, popularly known as Zatalli (d. 1713 ce). He was the first major Urdu literary figure – the first Urdu prose writer, satirist and humorist of north India – whose most noteworthy contribution is the inventive use of language. It is hard to dismiss him despite his alleged absurdity. He played an important role in the evolution of Urdu language in its formative phase. The unusual linguistic innovations of Zatalli helped accelerate this process through insertion of Persian words and expressions into Urdu couplets and newly-coined Urdu words and phrases in Persian couplets. Sometimes he wrote a couplet in Persian, followed by the one in Urdu. In other instances one can see a line of the couplet in Persian and the other in Urdu, sometimes even Urdu and Persian expressions in same line exhibiting his mastery over the language as well as exemplifying literary and cultural appropriation.22

There is perceptible influence of Hindavi language on Zatalli’s Persian poetry. In his verses one can actually discern the waning of the Persian and the rise of a new language, i.e. Urdu. It is believed that there was no poetry or prose in Hindavi/Hindi in Delhi before him. He chose the rekhta style over Hindi/Hindavi. His prose and poetry are fine illustration of Urdu writing; however it was only in the beginning of the eighteenth century that a more sophisticated north Indian variation of the Urdu language began

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

8

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 to evolve. Mir Muhammad Ja’far was a phenomenon himself in being the

creator and concluder of this tradition. His verses modify the overriding assumption of ghazal as the starting point of Urdu verse in north India that started with the arrival of Wali Deccani’s diwan (collection of ghazal) to Delhi around eighteenth century (1700). His poetry enjoys the status of a historical and cultural document and is the earliest step in the development of linguistics in north India.23

Contrary to the significant contributions of Ja’far Zatalli, historians of medieval India and literary critics remain indifferent to him. He suffers neglect and even derision of modern critics.24 His writings have often been dismissed out rightly as nonsensical, obscene, vulgar and of little value. Almost nothing is known of Zatalli’s life, except that he came from a good family of Narnaul, a small town in modern day Haryana (in the neighbour-hood of Delhi).25 There is a need for proper evaluation of his work from the historico-cultural and linguistic perspective. Jafar’s poetry is not devoid of meaning and carries with it his observation on the social situation of the time and human behaviour in general. It may be concluded that Urdu verse in Northern India took a start not as the poetry of love, but of social criticism.

Zatalli established the tradition of satirical verse (hijv) in Urdu that ultimately led to the evolution of a new mode of expression known as shahr Ashob. One can find the imprints and effects of Zatalli on the themes and ex-pressions of the poetry of later generation of poets such as Mirza Rafi Sauda, the great satirist of the eighteenth century and Sadullah Khan Rangin. Shah Hatim (1699–1783 ce), the first poet of Delhi to create a big fan following, wrote satire on the physicians of the times imitated Jafar.26 He did not spare even the kings and princes while commenting on the corruption rampant in society. He was in the service of Prince Kam Bakhsh, son of Aurangzeb. He was dismissed from his service when he wrote a satire on the Prince. But when he wrote a satire commenting bluntly on the ruling ways of King Far-rukh Siyar, it costed him his life.

Another prominent figure Wali Deccani’s (1665/7–1708 ce) historical role is unquestionable towards popularisation of Urdu literature in north In-dia. He set the stage for the ascendancy of Urdu on a larger scene in the North by enlightening the possibilities of the mother tongue (Hindavi) as a viable medium for poetry. Mushafi describes an eye witness account of Shah Hatim that Wali’s poetry took Delhi by storm, and became instantly popular with young and old, rich and poor. Diwan-i Wali served as a model and initiated a new philosophy of poetry and its composition that provided a jumpstart to Rekhta/Hindi poetry in Delhi. It dealt a severe blow to the prestige to Persian which gradually lost its hold on the masses as well as the elite. Historically, Wali’s most important contribution was to infuse a sense of a new poetics that owed as much to the Indian style Persian poetry. Rekhta/Hindi in Delhi acquired a literary status and sophistication under the influence Wali.

9

The Driving Force: Iranian AttitudeIndians made great efforts in attaining expertise in their pursuit of Persian language. The contribution made by the Indians in the field of Persian lex-icography surpassed even the Iranians. The Indian subcontinent produced poets and scholars such as Amir Khusrau, Faizi and Abul Fazl, however the Iranians never recognised and praised their efforts and indeed, showed disdainful attitude towards them.27 Such attitude prevailed for a long time as an outcome of the influx of Iranians to the Mughal court. During the Akbari dispensation clash between Urfi and Faizi is a well-known episode. In the reign of Shahjahan, Munir Lahauri in his Karnamah-i Munir de-scribes the attitude and objections of Iranians vis-à-vis Indians.28 Mulla Shaida was so unhappy with the mind-set of the Iranians that he made fun of them and objected to their use of language (zaban-dani). Brindavan Das Khushgo in his tazkirah has copied the introduction (dibacha) of one of the books of Mulla Shaida, which gives an idea about the derisive attitude of the Iranians:

. . . the Iranians don’t respect me owing to my being Indian. To be proud of

being Iranian or Indian is not right. Human beings are revered and respected

because of their personality, and if the Iranians think that Persian is their lan-

guage and don’t make use of the language, then are unfamiliar with style of

eloquence.29

The Iranian objections were mainly due to two reasons – firstly, In-dians (ahl-i hind) wrote Persian from the knowledge they had received from books. Secondly, they (Indians) used idioms and words to express the peculiar socio-cultural life of their country with which the Iranians were unfamiliar. Every country in order to articulate its distinct culture borrows new words from the native language and lays down idioms of daily usages, which is a natural process. Even in the poetry composed by Iranians in the sub-continent, such words and idioms were aplenty with which native Iranians were unfamiliar. These objections and hostility of Iranians were endured until a time when the Mughal Empire was strong but, with the gradual disintegration of empire, benefaction and primacy of Persian language also received a setback. However, Iranians still maintained their contemptuous approach in the changed state of affairs. The conflict aggravated with the coming of Shaikh Muhammad Ali Hazin, an Iranian nobleman to Delhi, in 1734–35 ce. Hazin’s arrival led to a long-running debate about the competence of Indians in Persian. He wrote Tazkirat-ul Ahwal, where he criticised Indian poets writing in Persian as incompetent and their language as substandard. Hakim Lahauri writing about it states: ‘the motive of writing is to very much condemn India and Indian’.30 Sir-ajuddin Ali Khan-i-Arzu responded by writing Tambih-ul Ghafilin and comprehensively critiqued the defects and inaccuracies of Hazin’s work.31

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century Mirza Rafi Sauda (1713–

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

10

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 1780 ce) and Mirza Fakhir Makin (d. 1814 ce) episode had the same back-

drop of Iranian (Persian) versus the native Indian.32 However, it should be kept in mind that Makin was born and brought up in Delhi. The quatrain Sauda wrote, on the one hand, represented the views of Arzu and, on the other, of the new generation of poets, clearly illustrated their outlook to-wards Urdu poetry vis-à-vis Persian:

Jo chahe yah ke kahe Hind ka zabandan sha‘ir To behtar uske liye Rekhta ka hai aaiyin . . . kahan tak tu unki zaban ko durust bolega Zaban apni mei tu baandh ma’ani-e rangin. (Sauda)

(If one wants to be called poet of Indian languages, Nothing better for him than writing in Rekhta . . . To what extent can you speak their language accurately? Compose colourful poetry in your own language).

The Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century was at the cusp of col-lapse and the new generation of poets had realised the fact that despite their best efforts and output, they cannot attain the level of Iranians in Persian poetry. Therefore the best thing to do was to compose in their own language, i.e. in Rekhta/Urdu. This notion completely transformed north Indian Urdu literary culture. The cultural trends of the Deccan also played a significant role in this process, apart from the other factors.

The conquest of Deccan by Aurangzeb brought north and south to-gether. It opened the gates for cultural exchange; as a result Urdu was able to make inroads into the north. Nasir Ali, the celebrated Persian poet who went to Deccan, started to write in Deccani Urdu. There is clear influence of Deccani culture on the expressions of poetry of Mirza Jafar ‘Zattalli’, Fa‘iz, Mubtala, Najmuddin Shah Abru, Shakir Naji, and Shah Hatim’s po-etry – ‘diwan-i-qadim’.

Thus, for the growth of Urdu in the eighteenth century, explanation may be sought in the convergence of a number of factors including the influence of Deccani literary cultures. It is often reiterated that that Urdu poetry is the product of decaying Mughal culture; however viewed in the historical and cultural perspective, it is the Persian language which repre-sented the old decadent Mughal culture. Urdu language and poetry em-bodied the new revolutionary thought and the changing socio-economic, linguistic patterns of the era that rapidly spread throughout the Indian subcontinent.

One may ask why the new generation under the leadership of Khan-i-Arzu – when retaliated against Persian language by making Urdu as their sole medium of creative expression – turned to Persian poetic tradition than to Indian influences? The answer could be found in the socio-cultural

11

circumstance prevailing in the subcontinent. Persian enjoyed the status of the language of court and administration since Delhi Sultanate down to the eighteenth century. Persian over the years had become the repository of rich culture and knowledge by absorbing Delhi’s cultural influences, customs and traditions. The literary tradition of this language had become part of the cultural milieu of the India. Therefore when Urdu emerged, the poets naturally inclined towards Persian literary traditions. They imitated the themes of Persian poetry, its different forms, metrical structures, imag-ery, phrases and allusions etc. 33 Forms like ghazal, qasida, tazkirah, aiham (double entendre) and the images of homosexual love are imports from Persian language.

Exactly similar borrowings and influences from Arabic can be seen during the evolutionary process of Persian language as well. When the Arabs conquered Iran, there was no formal literary tradition in Persian. The pre-Islamic Persian poetry was not available and merely few examples worth mentioning existed, two hundred years after the establishment of Islam. Analysis of these samples of Persian poetry reveals the composer’s expertise in Arabic language. Most of the early Persian writers were from Arabic background. With the establishment of Arab rule in Persia, Iranians started taking interest in the Arabic language. Arabic was the official and courtly language of Arabs and was seen as an embodiment of sophistica-tion and culture. The Iranian poets composed and recited elegy (qasida) in praise of their Arab masters in Arabic language.34 When Persian poetry began in Iran, poets adopted the genres, theme, style, metres and prosody of Arabic poetry. If one reads Manuchehri (the eleventh century court poet of Persia) he would be found pleading for adopting Arabic qasidas com-pletely.35 For Persian poet Anwari, the Arab poets and their poetry was a model to be emulated. In the same vein Persian poets were role model for Urdu poets. Nusrati takes pride in claiming to have laid the foundation of Shair-i-tazah by mixing Persian in his poetry. One can hear similar flow in Wali’s poetry

Urfi wa Anwari wa KhaqaniMujh ko dete hain sab hisab-e sukhan.

(Urfi, Anwari and Khaqani,All give account of their poetic eloquence to me)

The influence of Persian literary tradition was not confined to Urdu only, and comprehensively affected many regional languages of the sub-continent like Marathi, Telugu, Pashto, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Sindhi etc.36 The society had abandoned Persian language in this era; however, they still loved its culture and drew inspiration from Persian poetry.37 In fact, Urdu poetry strictly followed the standards set within the Persian genres, from

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

12

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 allusions, similes, metaphors, conventions of love and of the beloved and

all ingredients related to it. It is an indication of the cultural and literary in-fluences, Persian had on Delhi and its surrounding areas during the Mughal period. The influence of the mystic tradition on Urdu started as a result of imitating Persian mystic poetry by the Urdu poets, and also because sev-eral Persian poets switched to Urdu language. The emergence of poetry on mystic themes further elevated literary Urdu to hitherto unknown realms of expression and achievement. In the course of time, mysticism became one of the most important motivational forces for the popularity of Urdu poetry. 38

With adoption of Urdu as the medium of expression in this age, there was rapid proliferation of creative potential of the society to the extent that by the end of the eighteenth century, poets of different denomination through their compositions laid the foundation of a dynamic Urdu cul-ture.39 One of the advantages of the influence of Persian on Urdu language in this age was that Urdu created an individual identity of its own in a very short span of time. Not only thousands of Persian compositions became part of Urdu language in this age but poets also created innumerable styles which enriched the language in civility and expressions.40 Apart from this, two other significant developments occurred – firstly, innumerable Persian idioms were translated into Urdu. Secondly, thousands of Persian couplets became the assets of Urdu language. Shibli Numa‘ni writing about the early age of Persian notes that in the beginning Persian poets literally translated the Arabic verses in Persian. There are poems, quatrains, and qasidas etc. in Persian, considered to be Iranian heritage in reality are however, trans-lations of the Arabic poetry. Urdu poets did the same in the initial years of its beginning.41

Cultivation of an Innovative StyleSirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu (1689–1756 ce) was one of the most distin-guished literary figures of the late seventeenth and eighteenth century. He was a great scholar, linguist, lexicographer, grammarian, commentator, well versed in Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Sanskrit languages. In the field of poetry he was a genius and imparted a whole new technique, who con-sidered the expression of novel ideas in elegant language to be the beauty of poetry. He commanded almost uniform mastery over ghazal, qasida, masnavi etc. In lexicography and linguistics his supremacy is simply un-challenged. Khan-i Arzu’s critical acumen, a rarity among Persian scholars can be seen in his criticism of Persian classics and his treatise Tambih-ul Ghafilin (criticism of Hazin’s poetry) and Dad-i Sukhan. Arzu’s Navadir-ul Alfaz (Urdu dictionary), Siraj-ul Lughat and Chiragh-i Hidayat opened a whole new world for the critical study of lexicography.

Arzu not only excelled in respect to his contribution to Persian but also championed the cause of Urdu which is our primary concern at the mo-

13

ment. Mir considered him to be the most learned and eloquent personality of his times. Muhammad Husain Azad in Ab-i Hayat writes

Khan-i Arzu can make the same claim on Urdu language, which Aristotle can

make on philosophy and logic. As long as all logicians will be called the descen-

dents of Aristotle, all Urdu speakers will be called the descendents of Khan-e

Arzu. As his Persian works left him no time for composition of a divan in

Urdu, it would be enough to say here that it was Khan-i Arzu who educated

those promising pupils who came to be called the reformers of Urdu .42

His services to Urdu are many fold. Arzu was the guide, mentor and friend of a number of upstart poets of the day. Shah Najmuddin ‘Abru’,43 Sheikh Sharafuddin ‘Mazmum’,44 Mustafa Quli Khan ‘Yakrang’, Tek Chand Bahar, Brindaban Das ‘Khushgo’ learnt the art of poetry from him.45 Mir Taqi ‘Mir’ in his tazkirah, Nikat-ush Sho‘ara’ describes Arzu as his teacher and expresses high opinion about him.46 Arzu’s corpus of Urdu verses is too few to accord him a place in the literary history of the language; however he commands enviable influence and respect in the intellectual circles for successfully defending the cause of Urdu by strengthening a strong public opinion in its favour. Urdu poetry in north India began with double enten-dre (aiham) which remained the dominant trend for a long time eclipsing all other forms of poetry. Arzu composed aiham poetry in tune with the trend of the age, though he also contributed in transforming the poetry from allegory (tamsil goi) to speaking a fresh (taza goi). This tradition be-came the basis of Urdu ghazal/poetry later.

Arzu laid the foundation of linguistic and comparative philology by comparing Persian with Urdu words which he calls linguistic harmony (tawafuq lesanin). He was the first to point out the harmony (tawafuq) of Persian with Hindavi and Sanskrit language in his work Muthmir. Arzu argued that Persian could not be the property of Iranians only and held that Indian poets have every right to modify the language as per need in the Indian milieu. Arzu came heavily on Hazin and all those who argued that Persian language was the sole patrimony of the Iranians as it was their national (qaumi) language and had questioned the competence of Indians in Persian. Sirajuddin Ali Khan-i Arzu responded by writing Tambih-ul Ghafilin and comprehensively critiqued the defects and inaccuracies of Hazin’s Tazkirat-ul Ahwal.47

Khan-i Arzu elevated Sabk-i Hindi 48 to a respectable position vis-à-vis Sabk-i Irani in the unique cultural milieu of the subcontinent, so far denied by Iranians. He fixed the principles of dictation (imla) and shed light on the rules of accidence and syntax (qava‘id sar‘f-o-nah’u) and lexicon of Urdu language. In the field of philology, Arzu laid the foundation of the explica-tion of words in an abridged (ikhtisar) but clear terms.

Mir Abdul Wasey Hanswi compiled a dictionary Gharaib-ul Lughat during the reign of Aurangzeb. It contained the meaning of unusual Urdu

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

14

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 words and its synonym in Persian. According to Hanswi the aim of Gharaib

was to provide the meaning and usages of uncommon words and phrases in clear terms for greater public usages. Arzu felt that the meanings of the words in the dictionary were wrong and the explanations inadequate. He wrote Navadir-ul Alfaz to address the shortcomings of Gharaib-ul Lughat and included in it many words from Persian, Turkish and Sanskrit, which had become part of Urdu language.49 He writes in Muthmir:

Though there have been numerous lexicographers and other researchers in

Persian and Hindi language, to date no one, except this humble (faqir) Arzu

has discovered the tawafuq (harmony/correspondence) between Hindi and

Persian. I have used this principle to assess the accuracy of some of the Persian

words, which I have illustrated in my books like Siraj-ul-Lughat and Chiragh-i

Hidayat.50

Navadir provides indication on the subject of linguistic concord and the import of words from other languages like Persian, Turkish and Arabic, that became part of Urdu. From this point of view Navadir is not merely a dictionary but is the first book of linguistics of Urdu language.

There is no diwan of Arzu in Urdu, however his compositions found in different tazkirah gives an impression of steadiness and gravity akin to his Persian compositions. There is obvious influence of Persian on his composition and style. Some scholars have contended that Arzu was primarily a poet of Persian language and only for the sake of changing the taste (tafan‘nun-i- taba‘) composed few couplets in Urdu; however this does not seems to be the case here. In an era when Persian had already reached its highest point, Arzu by composing in rekhta was crafting a precedent for imitation by other poets. When Khan-i-Arzu advised Sau-da and other poets to use the medium of rekhta in their composition to create an impression in the field, then it was but natural that he himself should compose in rekhta and lead the way. It also meant that there was hardly any scope left for further growth in Persian, whereas rekhta had lot of potentialities. By analysing his Urdu poetry one can surmise that they are more mature than that of other Persian poets of the time writing in rekhta. These compositions do not give any impression of lack of interest or been composed under any kind of duress. On the contrary it gives a feeling of maturity and does not at all present the impression of having been composed in the initial phase of Urdu poetry in north India. When historical analysis of any poet is undertaken, one does not only takes into account the high levels of poetic composition but also the efforts to ex-press feelings conscientiously and sincerely despite the limited resources at command.

It was under the influence and mentorship of Khan-i-Arzu that the new generation of poets at Delhi increasingly become conscious that, Per-sian was not their mother tongue and their hard work would not help in

15

attaining the level of the Iranians in poetry. Hence they started to explore the possibility of writing in their own tongue i.e. rekhta. It changed the trend of literary cultural milieu of north India and Urdu became part of the lives of elite and common masses. Following this trend and advice of Khan-i-Arzu, Sauda also started to write in Urdu.51 Muhammad Husain Azad has written about Sauda:

He was not the pupil of Khan-i Arzu, but benefited a lot from his association

with him. Thus, in the beginning always composed poetry in Persian language.

Khan-i Arzu told, Mirza (Sauda), Persian is not your mother tongue. In it

(Persian) you cannot become such that your poetry would be worthy of praise

when compared with that of the native speakers. You have the temperament

for poetic composition, if you write in Urdu then will be matchless in your

era.52

Majlis-i-mushairah (assembly of poets) was organised on the fifteenth day of every month, at his house in order to promote the taste of rekhta among the new generation of poets.53 Mushairas were the most important literary and social gatherings of the time where poets recited their compo-sitions in front of the other poets and the masses and sought the applause from the audience.54 Amongst them were included members of the aristoc-racy and even the Emperor, for all wrote poetry and loved to listen to it. The poets and audience expressed their appreciation or made brief critical comments upon completion of a verse recited by poets. This distinctive character that evolved as part of mushairas also contributed greatly to the development of Urdu poetry. Mir Taqi ‘Mir’ in his tazkirah refers to the mushairas held at the residences of Mir Sajjad, Mir Ali Naqi and Hatim.55 Mir himself regularly convened a majlis-i-rekhta on the fifteenth of every month.56 It has been recorded that Khwaja Mir Dard used to organise mushaira on the twenty-third of every month.57

The Age of Efflorescence: Sauda and Mir The importance of Mir Taqi Mir and Sauda lies in the fact that it was under them that the Urdu poetry attained maturity, prestige and a new height. Their age is considered to be the golden period of Urdu literary culture. They established the prestige of Urdu poetry on a firm ground that even surpassed Persian in many aspects. These poets excelled in lyrics (ghazal), satire (hijv) and eulogy (qasida). Sauda’s songs were virtually sung in the streets and he was given the title of ‘prince of poets’. Mir was the master of simple and heart-rending lyrics. In this era of Sauda and Mir, Urdu poetry reached its high point and replaced Persian. Most of the forms of poetic compositions reached its climax. Eighteenth century is the age of exceptional development of Urdu poetry and the age of Mir and Sauda is the high point of it. The oeuvre of eighteenth century rekhta poets could be seen in oozing self-confidence in their poetry never seen in the poets of

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

16

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 earlier times. Hidayat Khan writes:

Hidayat kiya Rekhta jab se hum neRevaj uth gaya Hind se Farsi ka58

(Ever since Hidayat has started composing verses in RekhtaThe popularity of Persian has disappeared from Hindustan)

The tradition of poetry that was laid down by Wali, continued during the age of Yaqeen and Hatim and matured in this age. Sauda (1713–1781 ce) is the most striking personality of eighteenth century along with Mir Taqi Mir. He was born in Delhi and was son of a rich merchant. Sauda began his carrier as a poet of Persian however, on the advice of Khan-i-Arzu started to write in rekhta. He attained name and fame quickly, and was arguably the most famous Urdu poet of his time. Sauda commanded a reputation greater than perhaps that of Mir Sauda spent a comfortable life and served as companion or employee to many nobles, including Nawab Asifud Daulah at Lucknow.

The mastery of his craft in poetic creation is extraordinary. He handles with ease the complex metres and rhetoric. Sauda wrote on most varied themes and has used with uniform ease a wide range of vocabulary for each of his compositions. Sauda is primarily known for his qasidahs; however he cannot be tied to any single genre. Individuals and society are the focus of his satires and it portrays his vast experience of life and observation power.

Muhammad Husain Azad in Ab-i Hayat writes about the satires of Sauda:

His fieriness and sharp temperament had the effect of lightning and a force, that no reward could douse and no danger could restrain. As a result of it even a little annoyance caused him to lose control. Incapable to do anything, instantly composed a satire.59

He is credited of giving marsiah (elegy) a literary elegance, and his ghazals, are noted for an intimate understanding of a man in the universe with all its charms and inadequacy. He is credited for raising Urdu poetry to a level never attained before.

Mir Muhammad Taqi Mir (1722–1810 ce) is acknowledged as the greatest Urdu poets and enjoys a pre-eminent position as ghazal writer. He is popularly called God of Poetry (Khuda-i-Sukhan) was the son of Mir Muttaqi, a Sufi saint of Akbarabad (Agra). At the time his father’s death Mir was only eleven years of age, forced by circumstance he had to leave his home town of Akbarabad for Delhi to earn a living. After days of wander-ings, Khwaja Basit, a Sufi saint of Delhi recommended him to his uncle Mir Samsamud Daula, who fixed a daily stipend of one rupee.60 However, with the death of Mir Samsamud Daula in February 1739 CE due to the injury in the battle with Nadir Shah, this arrangement came to an end, forcing Mir to

17

return to Agra once again.61 The situation was no better here. It is reported that in Agra Mir fell in love with a beautiful women, who happened to be one of his relatives, which brought hostility of his family members. In Delhi, he stayed for some time with Khan-i-Arzu, an uncle from the side of his step mother. Arzu began to treat him harshly forcing Mir leave the place. The harsh realities of life-agonizing love experience, penury, injured self esteem took a toll in on him and he became mentally unstable and suf-fered from bout of lunacy. It is also reported that this disease was perhaps in the family which claimed the life of his uncle. Mir has described in detail about it in his Zikr-i-Mir and one of the masnavis – Khwab-o-Khayal-i Mir specifically describes his hallucinatory experiences. In this condition of frenzied melancholy Mir was preoccupied by a fairy-faced spirit that would descend every night from the moon, and disappear at dawn of the day, leaving him restless. He was cured of it after treatment.62

Following years of unemployment, he found among his patrons the Rajas and Nawabs to the likes of Riayat Khan, Javed Khan, Raja Nagar Mal, and Raja Jugal Kishore. Mir shifted to the court of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula in Lucknow (1782 ce), on an invitation from the Nawab and a monthly salary of rupees three hundred was fixed for him. He lived here for thirty and died in 1810 ce. He spent all his life like a wanderer in search of peace. For Mir, love was his religion that he worshiped in the celestial as well as physical manifestations alike. His father, while on death bed, instructed Mir to adopt the path of love. A life without love is an ordeal and losing one’s heart in love is the real art. Though this path is riddled with difficulties, love is what drives the world.63 This is a philosophy reflected by Mir in of his masnavis and ghazals, where the supremacy of man is implied.

In even extreme situations of adversity, Mir was epitome of elegance, poise and uprightness. He never asked for favors and his patrons had to be forbearing to his susceptible temperament. His writings are full of sufistic thoughts and values and rejection of orthodoxy:

Mir ke deen wa mazhab ko kya puchte ho tum ‘un ne toKashkah khincha’ dair mei baitha kab ka tark islam kiya.

(Why for ask the faith of Mir? He sits in the temple now,A vermillion mark painted on his forehead, long lost the faith in Islam)

Hasti apni habab ki si haiYeh numaish sharab ki si hai.

(Life rises into view like bubbles does,What meets the eyes is just a mirage)

His chief quality was realism and truism of moods, emotions and vul-

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

18

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 nerabilities. Whatever he felt and experienced he wrote about it in most

simple words devoid of any allusion, subtleties and complexities. Momin, Ghalib, Nashikh and all subsequent writers have acknowledged his great-ness and consider him as their master. Ghalib wrote

Rekhta ke tumhi ustaad nahi ho Ghalib,Kehte hain agle zamane me koi Mir bhi tha.

(You are not the only master of Urdu, Ghalib,They say there used to be a Mir in the past).

Mir had full command over the language and successfully adopted

many of the terms and phrases of Persian into Urdu with great ease. He used language spoken by the masses of Delhi in his expressions that in-creased the simplicity and beauty of his ghazals and easily enabled him to establish direct relationship with the audience.64 The confidence and matu-rity of Urdu poetry could be seen his compositions:

Dur tak ruswa hua hun shahron shahron mulk mulkMere shaer-o-shairi ka tazkirah ghar ghar hai ab.

(In every region, every city far and wide my fame is known;The beauty of my poetry is spoken of in every home).

Marsiahs and qasidas composed by Mir are fewer, however, he is known for ghazals in which he is truly the greatest genius Urdu has ever produced. He has written a few books in Persian also. Zikr-i-Mir is an autobiography, Nikat-ush Sho‘ara’, one of the earliest memoirs of Urdu poets and Faiz-i-Mir is a collection of stories of saints and dervish. His Urdu kulliyat consists of six divans that consist of ghazals, qasidahs, masnavis, rub’ais and other genres. There are nine masnavis – among it Khwab-o-Khayal, Josh-i-Ishq, Mo’amlat-i-Ishq are autobiographical in nature.65

Khwaja Mir Dard refined Urdu language and freed it from aiham (double-entendre), introduced themes of Sufism and spiritualism and pro-vided corrective to Urdu poetry. Dard enjoyed the respect and esteem of his contemporaries – Mir spoke very reverentially about him in his Nikat-ush Sho‘ara’.

ConclusionThe eighteenth century in north India was a period of successful innovation, dynamism and attainment of maturity for Urdu language. Urdu gradually over-shadowed Persian, as the court language of the Mughals and as the standard medium of literary cultural expression. Most of the Persian poets shifted their allegiance towards Urdu considering its recognition and reach

19

among the masses. Initially Delhi and later on other regional centres were the upholders of this new language. There were a number of factors respon-sible for the emergence of Urdu in a big way in the eighteenth century. Per-haps this resulted out of the condescending Iranian attitude towards Indian Persian poetry and a growing realisation among the new generation of poets that in spite of their best efforts and output, they could not attain the level of Iranians in Persian poetry. Therefore, the best bet was to compose in Urdu language, and this perception entirely transformed north Indian literary cul-ture. Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu, one of the most distinguished literary figures of eighteenth century played a significant role by championing the cause of Urdu and successfully defending it in the intellectual circles. He was the guide, mentor and friend of a number of upstart poets of the day including Abru, Mazmum, Yakrang, Sauda and Mir.

When Mir Asr, the brother of the eighteenth century poet Mir Hasan (1736–1786 ce), wrote his masnavi- Khawab-o-Khayal (Dream and Imagina-tion) in Urdu, it instantly became a hit among all the sections of the society. Urdu which was considered as unworthy of the pride of poetry, within the span of a century became the language of both the commoners and the ruling elite. Mir Asr was writing in an age preceded by the stalwarts of Urdu poetics – Sauda, Mir, Dard and Mir Hasan under whom it accomplished prestige and grandeur. In their age Urdu poetry reached its high point and replaced Persian. Most of the forms of poetic compositions reached its cli-max. Eighteenth century is the age of exceptional development of Urdu po-etry and the age of Mir and Sauda is the high point of it. The language more and more began to be perceived as the quintessence of sophistication and refinement. Over period of time myriad poetic forms arose within Urdu, signified its flexibility and adaptability.

With the adoption of Urdu as the medium of expression in this age, there was rapid proliferation of creative potential of the society to the extent that by the end of the eighteenth century, poets of different denomination through their compositions laid the foundation of a dynamic Urdu culture.

It would be apt to sum up our discussion with a couplet (she’ir) of Mir Asr, which pertinently illustrates the wide popularity of Urdu among the masses:

Ek to Rekhta hai sahal zabandusre jab ke ho bah sokhi-e bayan Bas ke samjhe hain is ko sare awam jin ko na nazm se, na nasr se kam.

(One Rekhta is easy languageSecondly, when it is matter of humorous statementThus it is understood by all the publicWho do not have anything to do with poetry or prose).

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

20

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Notes and References

1 See Maulvi Abdul Haqq (2011), Urdu ki ibtadaee nashu-o-numa mein sufiya-i- kiram ka kaam, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind, Delhi.

2 Ibid., pp. 17–20, 69–71. 3 Salimullah Qadri (1930), Urdu-i-Qadim, Vol. II, Lucknow, p. 308. 4 Edward Terry (1777), A Voyage to East India, section xii, W. Cater; S. Hayes; J.

Wilkie and E. Easton, Salisbury/London, p. 217. 5 Mazhar Mahmud Sherani ed., (1966), Maqalat-i Hafiz Mahmud Sherani, Vol. I,

Majlis-e Taraqqi Adab, Lahore, p.11; See Tarique Rahman (2011), From Hindi to Urdu: A Social and Political History, chapter two, Oxford University Press, Karachi. It contends that the origin of Urdu is the urban culture marked by sophisticated life in the court of kings and not military camps.

6 Sirajuddin Ali Khan-i-Arzu (1992), in Dr. Syed Abdullah, ed., Navadir-ul- Alfaz, reprint, Anjuman Taraqqi-e Urdu, Karachi, p. 214. Arzu frequently uses both Urdu and Urdu-i mu’alla to indicate Delhi.

7 Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi (1969), Kulliyat, Majlis-i Ishaat-i-Adab, ed., Nurul Hasan Naqvi, Delhi, Vol. I, p. 38.

8 Sirajuddin Ali Khan-i-Arzu (1991), Muthmir, ed., Rehana Khatoon, Institute of Central and West Asian Studies, University of Karachi, Karachi, p. 32.

9 Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (2001), Early Urdu Literary Culture and History, Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp. 25–29.

10 Current researches in recent decades have questioned and argued for a rethink on the very idea of Mughal decline in the eighteenth century, see C.A. Bayly (1983), Rulers, Townsmen, and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870, Cambridge University Press, New York; Muzaffar Alam (1986), The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh & Punjab, 1707–1748, Oxford University Press, Delhi; Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam eds., (1998), The Mughal State, 1526–1750, Oxford University Press, Delhi; P.J. Marshall (2003), ed., The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution?, Oxford University Press, Delhi; David Washbrook (1988), ‘Progress and Problem: South Asian Economic and Social History c. 1720-1860’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 22, issue I, pp. 57–96.

11 Allison Busch (2012), Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughals, Oxford university Press, Delhi, pp. 130–62, reprint. There was a lively and favorable climate fostered by the princes and nobility also. The reception and commemoration of the work of leading Braj poets like Chintamani Tripathi beyond the portals of Mughal court, in the mehfils of governors and elite officials attests to the popularity of the language and its charm did not diminish even with the shift of the Mughal capital to Aurangabad in the Deccan.

12 Sailesh Zaidi (1977), Hindi ke katipay musalman kavi, Aligarh University Publishing House, p. 180. He shows numerous Braj poets connected to Aurangzeb were – Ishvar, Samant, Krishna, Divedi, Madhanayak, Mir Jalil and Nehi etc. as quoted in Busch, Poetry of Kings, p. 157.

13 Maqalat-i Hafiz Mahmud Sherani, Vol. II, p. 9; Maulana Hakim Saiyid Abdul Hai (1951), Gul-i Ra‘na : Tazkirah-i Sho‘ara’-i Urdu, Darul Musannefeen Shibli Academy, Azamgarh, p. 8; See also, Muzaffar Alam (1998), ‘The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 32, issue 2, pp. 317–49.

14 Maqalat-i Hafiz Mahmud Sherani, Vol. II, p. 56. 15 Ram Babu Saksena (1999), History of Urdu Literature, Adam Publishers &

Distributors, Delhi, pp. 12–13, reprint. 16 Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (1999), trans., Alexander Rogers, ed., Henry Beveridge, Low

21

Price Publication, Delhi, Vol. I, pp. 237, 243, 287, 289, 338, 423 & vol. II, p.41, reprint; see Maulana Hakim Saiyid Abdul Hai, Gul-i Ra‘na, pp. 9–12 for Akbar affectionately calling Jahangir Shekhu-Jiyu, Murad as Pahadi; Shahjahan in his childhood use to address his father Jahangir as Shah Bhai and his grandfather Akbar as Shah Baba .

17 Muhammad Kazim (1865–73), Alamgir-nama, ed., Khadim Husain and Abdul Hai, Calcutta, p. 1095; Abdul Hamid Lahori (1866), Badshah-nama, ed., Kabiruddin Ahmad and Abdur Rahim, Bibl. Indica, Calcutta, Vol. I, p. 132.

18 Syed Sabahuddin Abdur Rahman (1948), Bazm-i-Taimuriya, Darul Musannefin, Azamgarh, p. 306.

19 Hakim Qudratullah Qasim (1973), Majmua-i-Naghz, ed., Hafiz Mahmud Sherani, Taraqqi Urdu Bureau, Delhi, Vol. I, p.14; describes a novel state of affairs of his era – ‘Wherever I turn my eyes, I see poets, and wherever I turn my ears, I hear the vibrations of the recitation of poems. He further states that nearly everyone considers himself, the malik-us-shu’ra (poet-laureate) and even greater than the renowned poets.’

20 For an excellent work on Hindi literature especially Braj see Busch, Poetry of Kings. 21 Alam, ‘The Pursuit of Persian’, p. 344. 22 Jamil Jalibi (2000), Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, Atharvin Sadi, Educational Publishing

House, Delhi, Vol. II, part I, pp. 100–01, reprint; Raziuddin Aquil (2009), In The Name of Allah: Understanding Islam and Indian History, Penguin Viking, Delhi, Chapter 6.

23 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 98. 24 Hamid Hasan Qadiri (1988), Dastan-i-Tarikh-i Urdu, Urdu Academy, Sindh,

Karachi. It summed up Zatalli in a single page describing him a minor clownish figure; Muhammad Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature, does not at all mention him; Annemarie Schimmel (1975), Classical Urdu Literature from the beginning to Iqbal, Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, accords a little importance to Zatalli as a social satirist; Ali Jawad Zaidi (1993), A History of Urdu Literature, Sahitya Academy, Delhi. It discusses in brief devoid of any appreciative value of the linguistic significance of Zatalli. There are few exceptions to this ‘overriding trend’. Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, pp. 90–118, gives adequate space to discusses his importance and accords a respectable positions to him as the one with whom the starts the tradition of Urdu writing in the north India even before Wali. Faruqi, Early Urdu Literary Culture, pp. 121–24, is affirmative of Zatalli’s role in the evolution of Urdu language. For appreciating Ja’far Zatalli in historical perspective see Aquil, In The Name of Allah, chapter 6.

25 Mir Taqi Mir (1922), Nikatus Sho’ra, ed., Habib-ur Rahman Khan Sherwani, Nizami Press, Badaun, p. 31. The tazkirahs like Makhzan Nikat, Chamanistan-i Sho‘ara’, Tazkirah-i Shorish, Tazkirah-i Mir Hasan and Majmu’a-i Naghz etc. only mention that Jafar was famous as Jafar Zatalli. Lakshmi Narayan Shafiq (1928), Chamanistan-i Sho‘ara’, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu, Aurangabad, pp. 47, 49, writes that he was blunt (out-spoken) and haughty natured. His compositions were lucid, representing day to day affairs of life and famous among masses that needed no introduction. Emperor Muhammad Azam stated if Jafar did not compose nonsensical poetry, he would have been malik-us sho‘ara’ (poet laureate).

26 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 115. 27 Rehana Khatoon (2004), ‘Khan-i-Arzu wa Ali Hazeen Ka Ilmi Ma‘rika’, in Shahid

Mahuli, ed., Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzoo: Ek Muta’la‘ah, Ghalib Institute, Delhi; See also Alam, ‘The Pursuit of Persian’, especially the section dealing with Indian Persian vs Iranian Persian, pp. 335–42.

28 Manshurat Tamanna Azimabadi, Nuskha Qutubkhana Mashriqiya, Patna, p. 334,

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

22

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 as quoted in Qazi Abdul Wadud, ‘Ahd-i Shahjahani Ka Ek Adabi Manaqsh aur

Ghalib’, Ma‘asir, Patna, No. 5, p. 152. 29 Brindavan Das Khushgo (1959), Safinah-i Khushgo, ed., Ata Kakowi, Idarah

Tahqiqat Arabi wa Farsi, Patna, p. 332. 30 Hakim Lahauri (1931), Mardum Didah, ed., by Dr Saiyid Abdullah, Oriental

College Magazine, Lahore, p. 64. 31 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, pp. 22–23, 148–64; Rehana Khatoon, ‘Khan-i-Arzu

wa Ali Hazeen Ka Ilmi Ma‘reka’, pp. 86–97. 32 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 24. Sauda wrote Ibrat-ul Ghafilin (Warning to the

Heedless), pointing out the mistakes of Fakhir Makin’s Persian verses. In response Makin resorted to violent means, see Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam (1968), Three Mughal Poets George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, pp. 57–59; Abdul Bari Asi, ed., (1932), Kulliyat-i Sauda, Naval Kishore Press, Lucknow, Vol. II, pp. 358–65, as quoted in Shamshur Rahman Faruqi (1998), ‘Unprevileged Power: The Strange Case of Persian and Urdu in the Nineteenth Century India’, The Annuals of Urdu Studies, Vol.13, pp. 19–21.

33 Kulliyat-i-Mushafi (1971), ed., Nurul Hasan Naqvi, Majlis Taraqq-i-Adab, Lahore, Vol. III, p. 364.

34 Umar Muhammad Daudpota (1934), Influence of Arabic Poetry on the Persian Poetry The Fort Printing Press, Bombay, p. 14, for an analogous case of English literature during the Hundred Years’ War when the increasing hostility to French consequently augmented absorption of French influences. English language became more and more like the French; M. Sadiq (1984), A History of Urdu Literature, Oxford University Press, Delhi, pp. 92–93.

35 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 28. Manuchehri came from the region of Damaghan in Iran and was associated with the court of Emperor Manuchehir of Ziyarid dynasty and probably got his pen name from here. He later also served as the royal poet in the court of Sultan Shihab ud-Dawlah Mas’ud I of Ghazni son of Mahmud of Ghazna.

36 Aziz Ahmad (1964), Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 233.

37 Kulliyat-i-Mushafi, III, p. 364. 38 Abdul Haqq, Urdu ki ibtadaee nashu-o- numa; Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 29. 39 Ibid. 40 Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi (1933), Tazkirah-i Hindi Goiyan, ed., Maulvi Abdul

Haque Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu, Aurangabad, p. 288, while accepting the influence of Persian writes – ‘ein hamah shereni ke dar Rekhta daram tufail farsi ast’.

41 Shibli Nu’mani (1947), She’rul Ajam Ma’arif Press, Azamgarh, Vol. IV, p. 121. 42 Mohammad Husain Azad (1998), Ab-i Hayat, Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy,

Lucknow, pp. 113–14. 43 Arzu, Majmu-un Nafais, p. 376. 44 Nikat-ush Sho‘ara’, p. 16. 45 Qaim Chandpuri (1966), Makhzan Naqat, ed., Iqtada Hassan, Majlis Taraqqi

Adab, Lahore, pp. 42, 64, 68, 133. 46 Nikat-ush Sho‘ara’, p. 4. 47 Mardum Didah, p. 64. 48 Sabk-i Hindi is the Persian style of writing which originated in India during the

sixteenth century and was in full flow till the nineteenth century, however it was not confined only to India and poets who never visited India also wrote in this style. There has been domination of writers of a particular region in the history of Persian literature; the style is named after that region or country. The earliest style of Persian writing for example is Sabk-i Khurasani, named after Khurasan

23

from where poets like Rudaki, Unsari, and Farrukhi belonged. Similarly, poets like Sadi and Hafiz from southern Iran were celebrated names and it came to be called Sabk-i Irani, then the region of Herat overtook from where early rulers of the Mughal Empire came, see Waris Kirmani (1986), Dreams Forgotten: An Anthology of Indo-Persian Poetry, Academic Books, Aligarh, pp.19–36; Paul E. Losensky (1998), Welcoming Fighani, Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal, Mazda Publishers, California.

49 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 155. 50 Arzu, Muthmir, p. 221. 51 Majmua-i Naghz, p. 24. 52 Azad, Ab-i Hayat, p. 142. 53 Tazkirah-i- Sho‘ara’-i-Urdu, p. 186 54 Majmua-i-Naghz, I, pp. 155–56. 55 Nikat-us- Sho‘ara’, pp. 60–61. 56 Ibid., pp. 49–51. 57 Ibid., p. 49. 58 Tazkirah-i-Hindi, p. 274. 59 Azad, Ab-i Hayat, p. 146. 60 Mohammad Taqi Mir (1928), Zikr-i-Mir, ed., Abdul Haq, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu,

Aurangabad, p. 62. 61 Mirza Muhammad (1960), Tarikh-i-Muhammadi, ed., Imtiyaz Ali Khan Arshi,

History Department Publication, Aligarh, Part II, chapter VI, p. 10. 62 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 509; see also Ali Jawad Zaidi (1993), A History of

Urdu Literature, Sahitya Academy, Delhi, p. 98. 63 Zikr-i-Mir, pp. 5–6. 64 Jalibi, Tarikh-i Adab-i Urdu, p. 481. 65 A History of Urdu Literature, p. 98.

Saifuddin Ahmad is with the Department of History, University of Delhi.

Bas ke samjhe hain isko sare ‘awamSaifuddin A

hmad

24

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014

25

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom during pre-colonial India

Mamta Tyagi

The Mughal currency system survived even after the decline of the Mu-ghal Empire as it continued to be used by the regional states. The gradual decrease in the annual flow of silver led to paucity of this metal for its use as currency thereby causing enlarged use of the hundis. It goes without saying that use of metallic money served to overcome the restrictions of barter transactions whereas its absence threatened to obstruct the smooth operation of economic activities. Therefore, a system of credit was devised in developing market economies by which payments could be deferred or money claims could be transferred. It not only brought about an expansion in the existing volume of money but also led to an increase in its velocity. The volume of money transactions increased automatically when banking instruments, such as bills of exchange (hundis) or letters of credit began to be used in place of currency. In the medieval economy, the establishment of a widespread network of monetary exchange through hundi created the necessary conditions for the emergence of credit and regulated the func-tioning of banking. At the same time, the expansion and contraction in the volume of credit impinged upon actual monetary movements.

A Note on the SourcesThe primary sources used in this article are arzdashts, chithis, dastur kom-war mahajan, dastur komwar dakhini, yaddashti dakhiniyo-ki of Jaipur and Amber Records preserved in the Jaipur Historical Section, Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner. Arzdashts are petitions written by pargana officials to the diwan and the king of the Jaipur state. Chithis are letters written by the aggrieved party to the diwan (Chief administrative and revenue official) of Jaipur. Dastur komwar is a rule book applicable to different castes. In this paper dastur komwar mahajan and dastur komwar dakhini have been used which provide lot of information related to the prevalence of hundi system. Yaddashti dakhiniyo-ki is a kind of memoranda which provides rich infor-mation about the hundis written by the Jaipur bankers transferring money to the Marathas on behalf of the state. Amber Records are the reports written by the pargana amils to the diwan of Jaipur state. The parwana was an order or letter of instructions issued by the king to his diwan, vakil and other subordinates. All these records are available from 1650 ad onwards.

The hundi system performed the function of remitting cash and credit funds from one place to another. It was a written document promising the

26

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 payment of a certain sum of money at specified period to a named person

or its presenter named therein. This form of payment over long distances not only catered to the growing demand for credit, but also diminished the risks involved in the transfer of cash to distant places. The practice of issuing and discounting of hundi in the region of our study can be traced to the Mughal period. By the seventeenth century the deposit banking and the hundi system had become widely prevalent. Sarrafs or money changers acted as deposit bankers. Thus, if the supply of money in the hands of indi-vidual traders increased much of it could be attributed to the sarrafs. They did it by lending at interest and also by discounting and issuing bills, so that a large amount of credit money was made available. In the large markets, payments on bills were made through a process of endorsement.1 The ac-tual operation of the hundis becomes more clear by looking at the plethora of documents pertaining to eastern Rajasthan.

Before the foundation of the city of Jaipur, qasba (town) Sanganer was the major centre of issuing and discounting of hundis.2 In this regard Amber was also equally important. From the Amber records we get a lot of references about the existence of a large number of kothiwals (bankers) in Amber. They were largely involved in the hundi business but also carried trade and commercial activities on some scale.3 These bankers charged the hundawan or hundawan batta (commission) for facilitating the transfer of money, the rate of which varied according to the distance involved. Apart from hundawan, another charge known as adhat (scribal charge) payable to adhatia (the scribe) was also realised from the clients.4 The currency denomination, in which the bill was to be encashed, was clearly stipulated on the hundi.5 Before issuing a hundi the bankers checked the alloy of the currency and charged kasur rupya ka, i.e. damages for debased coins if de-tected.6 The money-changers usually levied a discount (batta/sarf) on the use of aged or coins with less weight in payment.7 For instance, the Jaipur State paid Rs 5,05,000 to the Marathas through banker Dhanesar Das. Out of this amount Rs 3,42,000 was paid in cash and rest of the amount was paid through hundis. A hundawan of Rs 2,480 and a batta of Rs 2,500 were charged on these hundis.8 Quite interestingly, the officials while transfer-ring the collected revenue of their pargana (a territorial unit of revenue administration) through bohras (bankers), sometimes deliberately made payments to the bankers in debased coins so as to utilise the standard coins for their personal use. This malpractice caused fall in state revenues as expressed by the diwan of Amber.9 He directed the local official to pay the collected amount in fresh coins.10 By resorting to this practice a sarraf made a gain in his profits.

The Jaipur State encouraged the bankers to promote the hundi system. For instance, when Kirat Ram Natani, an important mahajan (moneylend-er/trader) and sarraf, was appointed as amil (revenue official) of pargana Hindaun, the diwan of Jaipur asked the sarrafs to extend help through the

27

new amil by lending tagai (agricultural loans) along with the promise of its recovery. He also assured them of getting hundis issued from their hatis (shops) through the amil.11 The State made special efforts to invite bankers from distant places to settle and do business in Jaipur. Necessary facilities were assured to them. In pursuit of this policy the famous sahukars (Hindu bankers) of Delhi Bhikham Sen Chaudhari and Ghan Shyam shifted their business from Delhi to Jaipur on the request of Sawai Jai Singh.12 State allotted them land to construct hati and haveli to begin sarrafa activities.13 By 1729 Bhikam Sen Chaudhari had firmly established his hundi business in Jaipur.14 Subsequently, he was also appointed as the official sarraf of Jaipur.15

This paper is divided into five sections, each dealing with a sub-theme of the entire paper.

Types of HundiIn eastern Rajasthan four kinds of hundis were in use. First one called mud-dati hundi, was payable after a stipulated period as mentioned in it.16 The incorrect or non-mention of proper details such as the rate of hundawan or date of payment could result in the bouncing of hundis. For instance, a hundi of Rs 451 drawn in favour of Laldas-Lachhi Ram was rejected by the payee banker because the date of payment was incorrect (i.e. date Paus Sudi 2, vs 1795 in place of date Mah Sudi 1, vs 1798). However, the issuer after realising his mistake compensated his client.17 In another instance, Shah Govardhan Das Khemka and Ghasi Kherwal issued a post-dated hundi in advance payable at Jaipur to the amil of Hindaun in 1744 ad. The amil did not record the hundawani rate and date of payment in the official register and therefore hundi was finally returned to the banker.18 Bouncing of hun-di was also caused on account of the late arrival of bill to the discounting banker.19 In this region darshani hundi, a demand bill which was payable on sight, was also issued. This hundi was mainly used to make purchases from markets and fairs.20 The above two types of hundis, namely muddati and darshani, were widely prevalent in Rajasthan. Another hundi was known as shikari hundi mainly used in turbulent times. For instance, the fear caused by the imminent Maratha raids led Tek Chand, an official, to obtain a shikari hundi of Rs 10,000 from the hati of Ishar Mahajan, after much persuasion.21 Another hundi termed tip hundi was also in vogue. Usually the ijaradar (a person who took ijara) resorted to get tip hundi from the sarraf. The practice of tip hundi involved ijaradar and sarraf. Duration, instalment of payment, mode of currency and place of encashment were clearly mentioned by the sarraf. The sarraf paid the time bound (tip hundi) in instalments to ijaradar against a fixed income from his ijara (farming out of revenue of any given source). For instance, Mishra Kharagram, an official, wrote to Shah Loon-karan Natani asking him to furnish Rs 1,00,001 in hundis payable in instal-ments (kistvar) to Maharaja Himmat Singh against his ijara of Bhadawar.22

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

28

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Merchants and the Hundi Business

The system of hundi was operated both by individual bankers or big banking firms. The bankers were engaged in the business of purchase, sale or discount of hundis. The shahs or kothiwals generally credited the hundis either through their own branches or through their agents. Occasionally, some high ranking officials arranged payments through their agents on moderate scale. Besides issuing hundis, the bankers also encashed hundis issued for them by their agents living in distant places. The continuous movement of goods and services across various markets and the reciprocal flow of money in the reverse direction was supported by an organised system of mercantile credit. In this system the role of the money-lenders and bankers (mahajans and sarrafs) was crucial. These professional groups synchronised the supply and demand of money with cash advances and credit instruments. In Jaipur, there were many important merchants who played a dominant role in the hundi business. Prominent among them were Bhoj Raj Gang Raj Agarwal, Loonkaran Natani, Shah Girdhari Lal Kesho Das and Chaudhari Kushal Singh during the eighteenth century. 23 They were primarily based in the Jaipur city but widely connected with their branch-offices (katla or hatis) located in pargana headquarters or other commercial centres. Each shop was under the supervision of their agents (gumashtas). These banking firms were involved in multiple tasks such as banking, money-changing, issuing of hundis and giving zamini (sureties) etc.

Interestingly, some of these bankers began their career as amil of a pargana. For example, Loonkaran Natani began his career as amil of pargana Bahatri in 1720.24 Later with the help of his son he established a firm called as Loonkaran-Lakshmandas.25 These merchants enjoyed in-fluential positions due to their wealth and very often were conferred with important titles. In 1733, Sawai Jai Singh conferred the title of ‘Nagarseth’ on Loonkaran at a ceremony in the temple of Thakurji.26 A visit of the King of Jaipur to Loonkaran’s family to offer his condolence highlights his status.27 His son Lakshman Das was also conferred with the title of ‘Nagarseth’28 because of his wealth and influential positions like his father Loonkaran Natani.29 Other important and influential merchants were also conferred with important titles. For instance, Seth Dhanesar Das who was a wealthy bohra of Jaipur and made huge fortunes out of the hundi busi-ness was held in high-esteem and bestowed with the title of ‘Omkareshwar Vyas’ by the Jaipur ruler.30 His head office was situated in Hindaun and his hundis were famous for their reliability. Even the Marathas insisted for being paid through his hundis. As his residence-cum-office was located in Sanganer, the road approaching his house was known as ‘Seth Dhanesar ka Rasta’.31 All these merchants not only established banking firms but were also entrusted with administrative responsibilities. They seldom failed to seize the opportunities provided by the changing configuration

29

of economic and political forces in the eighteenth century. During this century, these merchants successfully emerged as powerful politicians, administrators and businessmen. With the help of their monetary power they managed to successfully penetrate into the overall economy of the Jaipur State. Such people have been characterised as ‘Portfolio Capitalists’ in an eminent scholarly work, albeit belonging to a different region.32

From our sources it also appears that there was no gender and caste barrier in running the hundi business. Besides the big banking firms and rich bohras, sahukars, shahs, mahajans, brahmins, even the queens and maharanis were also engaged in this business. In this regard the role of Purohit Ganga Ram, who was engaged in hundi business, is quite ex-emplary.33 In pargana Baswa, many brahmins (priestly caste) were also running hatis specialising in the hundi business.34 Even the chief queens of Jaipur State actively participated in the commercial hundi business through their hatis in different parganas.35 For instance, the Maharani of Jaipur had established her hati in pargana Pahari for the purpose of hundi business which was operated by her gumashta (agent). The amil of the pargana was instructed to send the collected revenue through her hati.36 Simultaneously, the amil was also directed to provide all the necessary facilities including grant of tax exemptions on the Maharani’s hati.37 Ma-harani of Jaipur had set up another hati dealing in hundis in Hindaun.38 The State allowed the business only if traders wrote hundis in favour of the Jaipur’s king. For instance, a bohra was allowed to do business in pargana Ghazi-ka-Thana on the condition that he would continue issuing hundis to the State.39

Role of the Hundis

The hundis were used in almost all financial transactions. The pargana officials were supposed to deposit the collected revenue with local hund-iwals who subsequently transferred the amount to the Jaipur exchequer in the form of hundis. For instance, the revenue of pargana Toda was sent through a hundi of Rs 37,900 in 1675.40 The amils of pargana Hindaun sent Rs 76,800 to Jaipur through hundis after obtaining separate bills of Rs 67,000 and Rs 9,800 from the hatis of Shah Loonkaran Natani and Shah Ram Chand respectively. A hundwani charge of Rs 175 was deducted by the sahukars.41 In another case, the amil sent Rs 73,819 from Malpura to Jaipur through a hundi issued from the hati of Loonkaran-Lakshman Das Natani.42 It seems that the practice of sending the collected revenue through hundi had become a common practice.43 It is important to note here that whenever the amil was unable to collect revenues, a matching amount was sent to the State through hundi taken from a sahukar. This practice was resorted to in order to avoid any financial crisis. Moreover, the State encouraged tip hundi (agreement of bill) to ensure its uninter-rupted income from villages earmarked as someone’s ijara. In this way

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

30

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 the hundi system became an important instrument for running the affairs

of the state. Consequently, it resulted in the use of increasing paper mon-ey and decrease in the physical movement of actual coins.

The hundis were also issued to meet the cost of local administrative expenditure. For instance, Harihar, an amil, managed daily expenditure of the pargana by borrowing loan from veoparis (banker-traders) and also dispatched hundis of Rs 50,000 and Rs 54,000 from the shops of bankers Jhalani and Loonkaran Natani respectively.44 Whenever, the State was in financial crisis its officials used to raise loans by means of hundis to meet their requirements. For example, a hundi of Rs 10,000 was obtained as loan by the officials for sending to Jaipur and a monthly interest rate of Rs 2 per cent which included the hundawan rate was charged.45 This rate was higher than the normal hundawan rate which was 12 anna per cent. In yet another case, the State procured a loan of Rs 1,00,000 in the form of hundi in installments from Paras Ram to pay some Nawab and paid hundawan charges amounting to Rs 2,500. Gradually, the State became more and more dependent on the bankers’ loan to extricate itself from mounting fiscal problems. Immediately after the death of Sawai Jai Singh in 1743, many letters dispatched by Diwan Vidhyadhar to pargana offi-cials give an impression of a financial crisis faced by the State. In order to overcome this crisis the State procured hundis from one set of sahukars in order to repay the loan of other sahukars. For example, the State had obtained a loan of Rs 33,257 and Rs 34,197 through hundis issued by Loonkaran-Lakshman Das Natani as well as Rs 25,865 and Rs 34,421 through hundis issued by Chaudhari Kushal Singh respectively in order to pay dues of Seth Dhanesar Das.46 Thus, procuring of hundi became an important instrument through which State officials usually raised loans.

The State also resorted to hundi as an important source of raising money to meet the expenditure of the royal household. Even the mem-bers of royal family including the queens contracted loans in the form of hundis. For instance, Maharani Chauhani had obtained a loan of Rs 2,000 through hundi issued by the firm of Bhikhari Das-Loonkaran Natani, af-ter paying a hundawan of Rs 40, for the construction of an inn (sarai).47 Even the State officials began to borrow money in order to finance their personal needs. For instance, Vidyadhar procured a loan from banker shah Loonkaran-Lakshman Das Natani for the purpose of construction of his haveli (palatial house).48

Money was sent through hundis to high ranking persons posted at distant places. For instance, a sum of Rs 8,002 was sent to Kunwar Ram Singh in 1665. Out of this total Rs 5,500 was sent as cash whereas Rs 2,502 was sent through a hundi.49 Likewise, a hundi of Rs 20,000 from Rabhesur Narain Das Gujarati was sent for a Kachhwaha prince in 1698.50 Occa-sionally, the tribute money to the Mughal Emperor was also sent from Jaipur in the form of hundi. For instance, the tribute of 101 mohurs (gold

31

coins) was sent to Emperor Shah Alam by the Jaipur ruler through a hun-di issued from the hati of Kashmirimal Jwala Nath. The mohurs costing Rs 1,450 and hundwani of Rs 48 and 15 annas at the rate of Rs 3 and 6 annas per cent amounted to a total expenditure of Rs 1,498 and 15 annas.51

There are also instances when the money for the maintenance of Lashkars (armed contingent) was also sent in the form of hundis. For instance, the Jaipur State paid Rs 30,000 to Rao Vikramaditya through hundi issued from the hati of Seth Dhanesar Das.52 Another hundi of Rs 30,000 was sent to the Lashkars of Raghunath Rao and Malhar Rao is-sued by Paras Ram Kukda. Total hundwani of Rs 450 was charged at the interest rate of Rs 1.5 per cent.53 Similarly, the Jaipur State had to give Rs 4,67,500 to the Lashkar of Rao Malhar out of which Rs 1,91,000 was given through a hundi issued by Paras Ram.54 In another instance, the Lashkar of a Pathan obtained hundis from Seth Murari, Kishanji, Amar Singh and Moti Ram Bhusawari at the hundawan rate of Rs 4 per cent.55 It is interesting to note that the hundawan charges of issuing hundis for Lashkars varied from person to person. Bankers usually charged lower interest rates on the hundis meant for the Lashkar of the Jaipur State. For instance, a hundi was issued for the lashkar of the Raja of Jaipur and hundwan at the rate of Rs 3.25 per cent was charged. But a hundawan rate of Rs 5.25 percent was charged on the hundis issued for the lashkar of the Mughal Emperor.56

In addition to sending of individual capital, state treasury was also transferred from one place to another through hundis. Transmission of large amount of money through hundis might have caused abundance of money in a particular city; thereby, enabling the state to overcome tem-porary scarcity of money in that city. In the event of disturbances in an area, hundi was the safest possible way to send financial assistance. For instance, in 1709 traders hesitated to go to the town of Sambhar due to the lurking fear of Shujat Khan, a Mughal faujdar. The Jaipur diwan sent a financial assistance of Rs 1,000 through hundis for the working of the local administration.57

Maratha incursion and the expansion of Hundi businessIn the second half of the eighteenth century when the Jaipur State was forced to pay tribute to the Maratha sardars (chiefs), the payments were largely paid in the form of hundis. There are numerous instances when sarrafs like Paras Ram Kukda, Seth Dhanesar Das, Balkishan Motiram, Bhikhari Das-Gulab Chand, Seth Keval Ram, Srikishan etc. furnished hundis on behalf of the Jaipur State to facilitate the payment of tribute to the Marathas. In one such case Bhikhari Das Gulabchand issued a hundi of Rs 20,000 in favour of Raghunath Rao.58 Similarly, he also furnished a hundi of Rs 5,000 to the Marathas in 1755.59 Srikishan furnished a hundi of Rs 12,000 in favour of Raghunath Rao charging hundawan at the rate

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

32

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 of Rs 1.5 per cent.60 Once, Sawai Madho Singh, king of Jaipur, requested

three bankers of pargana Hindaun to provide loan to the State through hundis for making payments to the Marathas. The ruler assured bankers to reimburse their money from the hasil of pargana Hindaun. The re-maining amount was to be paid from the income of chautra (a market place located at the crossings) at Hindaun.61 Similarly, Seth Keval Ram issued a hundi of Rs 4,00,000 to the Sahukar of Malhar Rao and charged hundawan at the rate of Rs 3.75 per cent.62

The Jaipur State duly utilised the services of the big firms which came forward to write hundis for making payments to the Marathas.63 These bankers were honoured by the king who bestowed robe of honour on the Nagarseth and others. For instance, Nagarseth Loonkaran Natani issued a hundi of Rs 19,00,000 in favour of the Marathas for which he was hon-oured with a siropao (headgear) in the Darbar (court).64 It may be noted here that most of the hundis in favour of the Marathas were written by Seth Dhanesar Das. On many occasions, he issued hundis of hefty sums on behalf of the Jaipur ruler to various Maratha sardars after charging appropriate hundawan money. The details of hundis issued in favour of the Marathas by various bankers of the Jaipur State on the instruction of its ruler are given in Table A. At times, bankers collaborated with one another and pooled cash and hundis in order to bail out the Jaipur State from excessive Maratha demand for tribute. For instance, when the Jai-pur State had to pay Rs 6,00,000 to Raghunath Rao, Seth Dhanesar Das pooled cash from other sahukars. The total amount of these hundis came to Rs 1,45,500. The contribution made by different sahukars in pooling this money was as follows: a hundi of Rs 50,500 by Seth Dhanesar Das, a hundi of Rs 75,000 by Masram Kukda and a hundi of Rs 20,000 by Moti Ram agent of Bhikhari Das Gulab Chand.65 In Table A several instances of pooled hundis and the name of their contributors are mentioned. It is important to note here that the above mentioned money was earmarked as loan contracted by the State from the bankers.66

Very often, if the cash was to be paid by more than one sahukar one of them could withhold his payment on the instruction of the Jaipur ruler thereby obstructing the entire payment. On one such occasion Dhanesar Das along with Paras Ram Kukda had furnished a guarantee of some payment to the Maratha on behalf of the Jaipur State. Later on the in-struction of the Jaipur ruler they delayed the payment. Ultimately when Jinkuji threatened the sahukars they issued three hundis of Rs 50,000, Rs 3,00,000 and Rs 25,00,000 each.67 Needless to say that there existed a ding-dong battle between the Marathas and sahukars on the timely issue of the promised payments.68

The forms of hundis discussed above clearly indicate that the prac-tice of borrowing from the sahukars of Jaipur had become an important

33

mode of money transactions by the rulers of Jaipur from seventeenth to nineteenth century. The sahukars earned good profit through the hundi business by charging varying hundawan rates which sometimes went up to Rs 25 per cent. Besides this, they also charged scribal charges (aadhat). Rise of hundawan rates could be caused either by political upheavals or absence of safety on trade routes or dearth of actual money.

A significant feature of the hundi system was the provision of its sale and purchase. Each hundi could be bought and sold on the payment of exchange rate. The exchange rate was determined by a variety of factors, such as issuance of the bill and the demand for credit. Another important factor was the availability of the cash at the places involved in the bill traffic.69 The hundi became saleable in the market at a small discount which was the gain of the buyer, even though his cash was locked up till the date of the bill’s maturity.70 For instance, the Jaipur State sold four hundis obtained separately from sahukars Gokul Chand and Paras Ram, one banjara and a faujdar of Chatsu. These hundis of Rs 6,000, Rs 2,600, Rs 1500 and Rs 3,101 were sold respectively at distinct discount of Rs 150, Rs 98, Rs 41 and Rs 46 charged at variable hundawan rates of Rs 2.5 per cent, 3 per cent, 2.75 per cent and 1.5 per cent.71 Clearly, each hundi was bought and sold at different prices.72

Rate of interest on the HundisThe rate of interest (hundawan) on hundis can be known from a study of the primary documents which are available in plenty. Needless to say that the rate of hundawan charges on hundi exhibited considerable variation under different circumstances. It appears from a perusal of archival doc-uments that the rates were largely determined by the amount of money involved, availability and non-availability of bohras and the distance of its destination as well as the political conditions in the area. For instance, a hundi of Rs 5500 was taken from a bohra of pargana Sambhar at the interest rate of Rs 5 per cent including hundi rate in the first month and subsequently the interest was to charged at the rate of Rs 30 per cent.73 Such high hundi rates were charged by the bohra who was assigned par-ganas Mandawar and Hasanpur where revenues were constantly plum-meting. The bohras of both the parganas were ready to issue hundis to the State at the interest rate of Rs 1.50 per cent which was higher than the normal rate of 12 annas per cent.74 The pargana officials were not ready to accept the hundis as the rate of interest was double. Likewise, in 1705 due to decline in wheat crop the bohras of parganas Chatsu, Maujabad, Bahatri, Fagi and Dausa demanded higher rates of interest for issuing hundis.75 In the inter-pargana transactions, the hundis issued from qasba Baswa (also known as Bahatri) enjoyed greater trust among the business community.76

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

34

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 We have collected considerable data and make comparison between

the interest rates on hundi charged at different places in the Jaipur State. For instance, in 1684 ad the hundawan charge in pargana Bahatri was Rs 2.5 per cent, whereas in pargana Amber it was Rs 1 to 14 per cent. But in pargana Fagi the rate remained to be 12 annas, which was very low as compared to the hundawan rates of other parganas.77 The variation in the hundawan charges in a particular pargana could be the result of local fac-tors. For instance, in 1683 the situation was chaotic and there was kapal ka fisad (riots of kapals) in Sanganer so the bankers of this qasba stopped issuing hundis.78 In 1686 the hundawan charge was 12 annas per cent. In 1692 ad it was Rs 1.5 per cent and in 1702 ad it rose up to Rs 3 per cent in Sanganer.79 Similarly, we have also compared the inter-pargana hundawan rates in Jaipur for a particular year i.e. 1763 ad. (See Table B)

The hundawan rates were relatively higher in the parganas of south-west of Jaipur whereas these were lower in the north-east parganas of the Jaipur kingdom (See Table B). The higher rates in south-west could perhaps be due to the disturbances created by the Maratha incursions. On the other hand in the parganas of north-east of the Jaipur state relative peace prevailed.

From the study of our sources, it also appears that there was a brisk hundi trade between Jaipur and distant cities/towns. The city of Jaipur had become a major hub of bankers who wrote hundis. The movement of hundis between cities other than Jaipur was also quite brisk. For instance, two hundis were written from the shop of shah Sanghraj at Sanganer to the shop of shah Pohkar Das at Lahore.80 There are instances when some hundis changed hands while in transaction. For example, hundis written from the shop of Shah Roop Chand at Sanganer to the shop of Shah Kushal Singh at Shahjanabad, were further transmitted to Lahore.81 Inter-regional hundawan rates given below clearly show that distance between both the centres was a determining factor in deciding the rates.

Place of origin to Place of encashment HundawanRates 1. Jaipur Agra 5 to 6 per cent.82

2. Jaipur Banaras 6 per cent.83

3. Jaipur Delhi 6 per cent.84

4. Jaipur Bikaner 4 per cent.85 However, it may be noted that hundawan rates were quite high on the hundis written for distant cities. In this inter-regional hundi network, Jai-pur had emerged as a major centre for the exchange of all types of hundis. During the eighteenth century hundis issued by the sahukars of Jaipur were even preferred by the lashkars of other states. Many important cities like Aurangabad, Naurangabad, Ujjain and Udaipur were linked with the city of Jaipur in this transactional grid.86

35

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

Year AD

Hundi in rupees

Merchants who issued hundis/Amount in rupees

Hundi receiverHundawan Charges in rupees

1752 11,10,000 Lunkaran Lachman Das – 8,00, 000

BalKisan Motiram Ji – 3,10,000

1764 6,00,000 Seth Keval Ram Sahukar Malhar Rao Holkar

1762 3,21,530 5530

1758 3,91,000 Paras Ram Kukda Malhar Rao Holkar

1756 51,000 Seth Dhanesur Das Ujjaini 1000

1757 9,30,000 Seth Dhanesur Das – 9,30,000 Rahunath Rao

Paras Ram Kukda – 2,00,000 Rahunath Rao

1755 1,50,000 Paras Ram Kukda Malhar Rao Holkar

1764 25,000 Paras Ram Kukda Ujjaini

1754 15,00,000 BalKisan Motiram Ji – 2,00,000

Paras Ram Kukda –1,00,000

Ramchand Pandit – 4,00,000

Diwan Kanhi Ram – 4,00,000

Halpuri – 4,00,000

1754 6,00,000 BalKisan Motiram Ujjaini & Au-rangabad

1751 1043000 Balkisan Motiram – 5,21,500

Ganesh va Sankra – 5,21,500

1752 500000 Balkisan Motiram – 3,50,000

Paras Ram Kukda – 1,50,000

1753 39000 Balkisan Motiram – 19,500 Sita Ram Pandit

Paras Ram Kukda – 19,500

1754 7,86, 350 BalKisan Motiram – 6,00,000

Paras Ram Kukda – 1, 86, 359

1757 6,00,000 Seth Dhanesur Das – 5,05,000

Paras Ram Kukda – 74,000

BalKisan Moti Ram – 20000

1757 2,50,000 Paras Ram Kukda – 1,25,000

Seth Dhanesur Das – 1,25,000

1758 30, 450 Paras Ram Kukda Malhar Rao Holkar

450

1758 1,19,500 Paras Ram Kukda Malhar Rao Holkar

1758 3,00,000 Seth Dhanesur Das Raja Har Sahay

1757 4,00,000 Balkisan Motiram– 2,25,000

TABLE- A

36

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Paras Ram Kukda –1,75,000

1757 1,25,000 Seth Dhanesur Das Raghunath Rao 3750

1757 2,79,500 Paras Ram Kukda – 2,00,000 Malhar Rao

Mahila Khazane –76,500

Teepavani – 3000

1750 10,00,000 Balkisan Motiram – 5,00,000 Malhar Rao

Ganesh & Sankra – 5,00,000

1754 15,00,000 Diwan Kanhi Ram – 7,00,000

Balkisan & Paras Ram Kukda – 4,00,000

Ram Chand Pandit – 4,00,000

1757 25,000 Seth Dhanesur Das Jinkuji & Mal-har Rao

500

1756 5,05,000 Dhanesar Das – 3,42,000 (cash) 2,480

Gulab Chand-Mauji – 1,00 ,000 (hundi)

Mishra Shri Kisan – 43,000

Sanghi Anad Ram – 20,001

Prepared from the Yaddashti-Dakhniyo ki available in the Rajasthan State Archives,

BikanerTABLE- B

Year Place of Issue Place of Discount Hundawan charged

1644 Bahatri 1.75%

1644 Jalalpur 1.75%

1646 Bahatri 0.75%

1646 Jalalpur 0.75%

1676 Fatehbad Sheopur 1.50%

1682 Fagi 0.75%

1684 Bahatri 2.50%

1684 Amber 1–14%

1686 Sanganer 3/4%

1687 Fagi 2.50%

1687 Malpura 2.50%

1692 Sanganer 3.00%

1692 Sanganer 1.50%

1699 Amber 3.75%

1702 Maujpur 6%

1702 Malpura 5.25%

1702 Malpura Aurangabad 3.00%

1702 Malarna Aurangabad 3.00%

1702 Sanganer Aurangabad 3.00%

37

In fact, hundawan rates also depended upon the availability of hundi-wals in a given area. Wherever there was a dearth of sahukars or bohras the hundi rates tended to be higher than the usual rates. For instance, in the absence of other hundiwals in pargana Khohri, Srikishan Govardhan Das charged high hundawan rates on the hundis written by him for Jaipur or other places.87 Sometimes hundawan rates could rise because of shortage of money with the bohras. Hundi rates in parganas Toda and Malpura rose to Rs 2.25 per cent as the traders were facing the shortage of money. Sometimes, business rivalry among the bohras could also affect the hundi rates. For example, when the mahajans of pargana Bahatri were fighting among themselves the hundi rates in this region rose to Rs 2.50 per cent.88 Moreover, due to such rivalries the bohras refused to issue hundis involv-ing large amount. This is evident from the resistance by the bohras of pargana Bahatri who were not prepared to issue hundis of more than Rs 200–300 in 1686.89 The hundi business occasionally received a setback due to disturbances created by the bhomias (zamindars) who seldom failed to target the mahajan community. The disturbed conditions affected the de-mand and supply of hundis in some areas. For instance, when the traders of parganas Malpura and Toda refused to write hundis90 due to the terror in the countryside, Purohit Harnabh had to arrange a hundi of Rs 25,000 from some other source.91 Infact, mahajans very often left their villages

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

1702 Amber Aurangabad 3.00%

1702 Malarna 5.25%

1716 Toda Bhim Udai 2.00%

1730 Jaipur 3/4%

1740 Sheopur 2–2%

1746 Hindaun Jaipur 2.50%

1763 Jaipur Khohri 2.50%

1763 Jaipur Bahatri 1%

1763 Jaipur Pindayan 2%

1763 Jaipur Tonk 2%

1763 Jaipur TodaraiSingh 2%

1763 Jaipur Dausa 1%

1763 Jaipur Gazi-Ka-Thana 3/4%

1763 Jaipur Lalsot 1.10%

1763 Jaipur Ramgarh 1.10%

1763 Jaipur Paragpur 1.50%

1763 Jaipur Udai 1.50%

1763 Jaipur Todabhim 1.50%

1763 Jaipur Pawata 2%

Prepared from the Amber Records, arzdashts and arhsattas preserved in the Jaipur

Historical section of the Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner.

38

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 or denied to issue hundis and sureties because of the political disturbance

in their area.92 In normal times the rate of interest on hundi could also increase but gradually. For instance, in pargana Hindaun the rate of in-terest increased from Rs 2 per cent in 1746 to Rs 2.5 per cent in 1747.93 It may be noted here that the rates for issuing hundi for the state was 12 annas per cent which was much lower than the rate charged from other persons. There are some instances indicating when some local officials managed hundis for themselves at the rate fixed for the state. For instance, Manram Natani, an official of qasba Sanganer, quite often indulged in extorting hundis for himself at the rates fixed for the State and thereby made fortunes for himself.94

There are numerous instances when the State officials misused their power and position and forced the bohras to issue hundis on the desired interest rates which were comparatively lower than the market rates. In some cases the officials got hundis issued from one sarraf and put it on interest with the help of another, and made profit out of it. For instance, when Sanghi Roop Chand and Purohit Harnabh pressurised the bankers to issue hundis to them, the bankers left their area and went to Pratap Singh Naruka, a rebel bhomia in pargana Malpura. Likewise, Manram Natani, the amil of qasba Sanganer, very often pressurised the bankers to issue hundis which he kept for months in order to earn interests on them. In one such case he got hundis of Rs 30,000–32,000 issued by the bank-ers of qasba Sanganer and put it on interest in collaboration with sarraf Mukund Das Godika.95 Such cases prove that the relations between the state officials and the bankers continued to become tense on the issue of the sharing profits from the hundi business.

Recovery of loansThe recovery of loans given in the form of hundis was a major problem faced by the bankers. There are numerous instances when the sarrafs and mahajans faced difficulties in recovering their loaned amount. Interesting-ly, Jaipur State took keen interest in facilitating the recovery of such loans. The refusal to pay back their loans was very common in case of influential individuals mainly thakurs (local chiefs). Whenever punctual repayment of loans was endangered the bankers directly approached the State for the recovery of loaned money. For instance when Parag Das-Girdhar Das Na-thawat refused to return the amount, Paras Ram mahajan approached the State to intervene for the recovery of loans given by the latter.96 The State immediately ordered its officials to help the said mahajan in recovering his money.97 The State very often intervened to recover the bankers’ money from the defaulting thakurs. For instance, diwan Vidhyadhar was ordered to collect the dues of banker Chaudhari Kushal Singh from the thakurs.98 In another instance, when the thakurs of pargana Pawata refused to repay their loans taken from Loonkaran-Lakshaman Das Natani, the State inter-

39

vened in favour of the banker.99 In 1752 Sawai Madho Singh instructed his officials to prepare the sanad (official estimate) about the outstanding due payable to Loonkaran Natani by the thakurs, who were also asked to give written muchalka (pledge).100 These cases prove that the recovery of loans from Rajput thikanedars/bhomias without the help of the State was impos-sible. But State patronage to the moneylenders was readily available because the later used to charge lower hundawan rates on the hundis written in favour of the Jaipur State.

The State itself being a major loanee had also to make arrangements for the repayment of the amount taken through hundis or cash from the sahukars. Invariably, the State assigned a fixed amount of income to the hundiwals from the revenues of the parganas. For instance, the revenues of parganas Gijgarh and Saneri were assigned to Nandwan etc., bohras for the realisation of their loans given to the state.101 Similarly, the State obtained a loan of Rs 35,000 through the hundis from Seth Dhanesar Das, Bishan Chand, Tek Chand and other sarrafs of pargana Hindaun and earmarked the forthcoming revenues of pargana Hindaun to them.102 Following this practice, Bhivsi Manohar Dayachand requested the king to allot the reve-nues of some pargana against his loan of Rs 27000.103 A hundi of Rs 30,911 and 6 annas had been issued by sahukar Bhikhari Das-Gulabchand to the Marathas in 1757. For recovery of this amount Jaipur State directed the amil of Sambhar to send money from the revenues of pargana in monthly installments.104 Similarly, in lieu of the loan of Rs 40,000 given in the form of hundi to the State by Seth Dhanesar Das in order to pay the Marathas, the State assigned the income of pargana Narnol for the year 1759 to the Seth for the realisation of his money.105

Whenever the bohras loaned money to Jaipur State or others they sometimes fixed a period for returning it. For instance, Diseshwar Prasad reminded Maharaja Ram Singh that he had loaned Rs 60,705 to the Jaipur State through hundi for a fixed period of forty-five days. When the State failed to repay the money in time a reminder was sent by the banker to Maharaja Ram Singh to quicken its repayment.106 Whenever the bankers pressurised the other loanees to repay their loan the concerned party usu-ally made all type of excuses to delay its payment.107

The volume and velocity of hundi business continued to grow up to the middle of the nineteenth century. However, the gradual decline in this business becomes noticeable in the third quarter of the nineteenth century when the State treasuries were established. Consequently, businessmen reduced money transactions through hundis. Later, in the nineteenth cen-tury the Scheduled banks were started by the British to handle the business transactions. The services of these Scheduled banks were preferred by different business houses and thus, the private firms or individual bankers who were engaged in the hundi business were badly affected and ultimately forced to take up other business.

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

40

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 In conclusion, we can say that the increasing volume and velocity of

hundis had led to the emergence of a rudimentary banking system in the Jaipur kingdom during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The main function of this credit system was to facilitate the circulation of existing money more efficiently. The use of hundis became indispensable for the Jaipur State, traders and the rural gentry for various purposes. Dependence of the State and other social groups on the use of hundis widened the role of the hundiwals. They became kingpin in the running of the administration and its economy including the collection of revenues and re-distribution of money. Many hundiwals not only made fortunes out of this hundi business but also became important functionaries in the bureaucratic hierarchy of the Jaipur State. The burgeoning hundi business in the Jaipur Kingdom clearly indicates that the economy of the region was quite vibrant during the eighteenth century.

Notes 1 Irfan Habib, ‘Usury in Medieval India’, Comparative Studies in Society and History,

Vol. 6 (4), 1964, pp. 393–419, pp. 401–05. 2 Amber Record, dt. Asoj Sudi 12, VS/AD 1818/1761. The year, in Vikram Samvat

(VS) was ahead of the Common Era by fifty-seven years. A hundi of Rs 72000 was sent from qasba Sanganer; a hundi of Rs 300 was sent from the shop of shah Sehba Raj sarraf of qasba Sanganer to the shop of Shah Umra and a hundawan of Rs 1.50 per cent was charged

3 Amber Record., Letter from diwan Kalyan Das to Shah Man Singh, Ram Singh and Dwarka Das, dt. Phagun Vadi 13, VS 1721/1664, letter no. 29/227; Amber Record., Letter from diwan Kalyan Das to Bhaiya Chhabila Ram and Shah Hem Raj, dt. Magh Sudi 10, VS 1721/1664, letter no. 17/215. Shah Man Singh, Ram Singh, Dwarka Das, Bhaiya Chhabila Ram and shah Hemraj are mentioned as the famous bankers of Amber.

4 Girija Shankar Sharma, ‘Sources on hundi business in Rajasthan (17th to 19th century)’, in B.L. Bhadani and Dwijendra Tripathi ed., Facets of a Marwar Historian – Aspects of India’s Social and Economic History, Jaipur, 1996, p. 185. However B.L. Bhadani, Peasants, Artisans and Entrepreneurs, Jaipur, 1999, p. 326, holds that adhat was charged by the bankers who worked as intermediaries in business and trade. The author cites Wilson’s definition of adhat as a commission denoting the difference between the principal and the amount to be repaid by creditor. Arsattha of pargana Malpura, dt. VS 1779/1722, the charge of adhat was quite nominal being approximately 4 annas per 100 rupees.

5 From the available data it is inferred that naurangshahi, muhammadshahi, farrukhshahi, khamshahi etc. were the standard currencies.

6 Arzdasht, dt. Phagun Sudi 10, VS 1708/1651. Maharaj Kunwar Ram Singh, while sending Rs 6,905 to Mirza Raja Jai Singh through hundi from pargana Bahatri to Sanganer had paid Rs 123 and 14 annas as hundawan charge which included Rs 54 as kasur ka rupya ka. Again, he sent Rs 974 through hundi from Jalalpur paying Rs 8 and 8 annas as kasur ka rupya ka.

7 J.B. Tavernier, Travels in India, trans., V. Ball, Rev. W. Crooke, London, Vol. 1, 1925, p. 25, second edition.

8 Yaddashti Dakhiniyo-Ki, dt. VS 1813/1756. 9 Amber was the capital of the Kachhwahas before the foundation of Jaipur city in

41

1727 ad. 10 Amber Record, dt. Baisakh Sudi 4, VS 1798/1741. 11 Nakal (Copy) Chithi, diwan Kanhi Ram, Nand lal to Seth Dhanesar Das, Kirpa

Shankar, Choubey Shyodas, Shah Gulab Chand Sarraf of qasba Hindaun, dt. Sawan Vadi 10, VS 1819/1762.

12 Chithi to Rao Jag Ram, dt. Jeth Vadi 2, VS 1784/1727. 13 Parwana to Kamaiti of Sawai Jaipur, dt. Chait Vadi 11, VS 1784/1727. 14 Shyah Huzur, dt. Sawan Vadi 11, VS 1786/1729. 15 Parwana to Vidyadhar, dt. Sawan Vadi 14, VS 1788/1731. 16 Amber Record, Hargovind to Shah Jadudas, dt. Asoj Vadi 14, VS 1798/1741.

Hargovind instructed shah Jadudas to send money through hundi drawn by the banker, as is evident in this letter. The duration of payment is mentioned as seventeen days from the date of issue of hundi.

17 Amber Record, Laldas Lachhi Ram to Jitmal, Nand Lal, dt. Mah Sudi 1, VS 1798/1741. Amber Record, Hargovind to Shah Jadudas, dt. Asoj Vadi 14, VS 1798/1741. Similarly, another hundi drawn in favour of the state also failed. Hence, the state directed his officials to recover the same amount from the issuer of Kama.

18 Chithi to amils of pargana Hindaun, dt. Phagun sudi 7, VS 1803/1746. 19 Amber Record, Hira Nand to Shah Jadudas, dt. Chait Vadi 13, VS 1808/1751.

Hundi payable in naurangshahi rupees failed because the bill reached late by twenty-six days to pargana Khohri from Delhi (Jahanabad).

20 Amber Record, Vidyadhar to shah Jadudas, dt. Phagun Sudi 7, VS 1798/1741, Vidyadhar sent a darshani hundi for Rs 9,000 to enable purchase of bulls and elephants for the State.

21 Amber Record, Tek Chand to Surat Ram, dt. Kati Sudi 11, VS 1816/1759. 22 The sahukar was supposed to issue hundis of Rs 15,000 on current date,

subsequently Rs 5,000 on Magisar Sudi 15; Rs 10,000 on Paus Sudi 15; Rs 10,000 on Mah Sudi 15; Rs 10,000 on Phagun Sudi 15; Rs 10,000 on Chait Sudi 15; Rs 10,000 on Baisakh Sudi 15; Rs 1000 on Jeth Sudi 15; Rs 10,000 on Asad Sudi 15 and Rs 10,001 on Bhadwa Sudi 15 respectively payable at Jaipur in khamshahi rupees after a duration of thirty-one days from the issuing date.

23 Parwana to Seth Bhoj Raj Gang Raj Agarwal, dt. Kartik Sudi 15, VS 1828/1771, Mawazana Kala, Jaipur Records, shows that he had a branch in Agra; B.L. Gupta, Trade and Commerce in Rajasthan, Jaipur Publishing House, Jaipur, 1987, p. 158, mentioned that shah Girdhari Lal Kesho Das had a branch in Pali.

24 S.P. Gupta, The Agrarian System of Eastern Rajasthan, Manohar Publications, Delhi, 1986, p. 192.

25 Chithi, dt. Sawan Sudi 5, VS 1802/1745. 26 Dastur Komwar Mahajan, Loonkaran Sukhram ka Pathu ka Pota Mahajan Natani

Sahukar, dt. Paus Sudi 11, VS 1790/1733. 27 Shyah Huzur, dt. Bhadwa Sudi 15, VS 1814/1757. 28 Amber Record, dt. Jeth Sudi 3, VS 1815/1758. 29 Dastur Komwar Mahajan, p. 219. 30 Parwana Khas Mohur, issued by Sawai Prithvi Singh to Dhanesar Das, dt. Jeth Sudi

12, VS 1826/1769. 31 Shyah Huzur, dt. Paus Sudi 10, VS 1828/1771. 32 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Clare Hall and C.A. Bayly, ‘Portfolio capitalists and the

political economy of early modern India’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 25 (4), 1988, pp. 401–24.

33 Amber Records, Nihal Chand to diwan Vidhyadhar, dt. Asad Sudi 1, VS 1800/1743. 34 Ibid., Vishwanath, Nihal Chand and Fateh Ram from pargana Baswa to Mohan

Ram, dt. Kati Sudi 1, VS 1821/1764.

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

42

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 35 Yaddashti, VS 1820/1763. The two state officials Sanghi Jivraj and Mohan Ram had

procured a loan of Rs 1,540 at the interest rate of Rs 1 per cent per month from the hati belonging to the Maharani of Jaipur, for incurring the expenditure of fodder in tabela (stable) at Suratkhana. It is to note here that the rate of interest charged was quite high as compared to the market rates.

36 Amber Record, Diwan Murli Dhar to amils of pargana Pahari, dt. Chait Vadi 13, VS 1808/1751.

37 Amber Record to amils of pargana Lalsot, dt. Mah Vadi 9, VS 1819/1762. 38 Chithis to amils of pargana Hindaun, dt. Asoj Sudi 15, VS 1820/1763. 39 Chithis to Bohra Jagdishwar from diwan, dt. Asad Sudi, dt. 5, VS 1804/1747. 40 Arzdasht, dt. Mah Vadi 7, VS 1732/1675. 41 Amber Record, Maluk Chand, Puran Mal to Vidyadhar, dt. Kati Vadi 14, VS

1797/1740. 42 Ibid., Bhagwan Das to Diwan Vidyadhar, dt. Bhadwa Vadi 3, VS 1801/1744. 43 Ibid., dt. Phagun Vadi 8, VS 1746/1689. 44 Ibid., Harihar to Vidhyadhar, dt. Bhadwa Sudi 2, VS 1801/1744. 45 Arsattha of pargana Hindaun, dt. VS 1803/1746. In the following year the interest

rate rose to monthly rate of Rs 2.5 per cent. 46 Yaddashti, hisab Seth Dhanesar Das and hundi Dakhniyo-Ki, dt. VS 1812/1755. 47 Chithi to amil shah Shri Nanig Ram, dt. Kati Vadi 2, VS 1793/1736. 48 Chithis to amils of pargana Hindaun, dt. Phagun Vadi 11, VS 1795/1738. 49 Amber Records, dt. VS 1722/1665. 50 Ibid., dt. Chait Sudi 8, VS 1755/1698. Amber Record., Letter from diwan Kalyan

Das to shah Man Singh, Ram Singh and Dwarka Das, dt. Phagun Vadi 13, VS 1721/1664 , It shows that a good amount of money was sent by the diwan of Amber to Mirza Raja Jai Singh at Jahanabad through hundis which were issued by the local bankers Man Singh, Ram Singh and Dwarka Das on their agents at Jahanabad in favour of the Maharaja.

51 Yaddashti, Raja Har Sahay, dt. Sawan Vadi 13, VS 1822/1765. 52 Dastur Komwar Dakhini, dt. Miti Asoj Budi 6, VS 1815/1758, pp. 465–68, a

hundawan of Rs 8,240 at the interest rate of Rs 5.5 per cent was charged on a hundi of Rs.1,50,000 by Seth Dhanesur Das to the Jaipur State.

53 Dastur Komwar Dakhini, dt. Miti Asoj Budi 6, VS 1816/1759, pp. 465–68. 54 Ibid. 55 Yaddashti, dt. Vaisakh Vadi 1, VS 1817/1760. 56 Arzdasht, dt. Paus Sudi, VS 1759/1702. 57 Amber Record, dt. Kati Sudi 15, VS 1766/1709. 58 Yaddashti, dt. Sawan Vadi 6, VS 1813/1756. 59 Chithi to amils of pargana Sambhar, dt. Asoj Vadi 7, VS 1814/1757. 60 Yaddashti, dt. Kati Vadi 8, VS 1814/1757. 61 Nakal (Copy) Parwana, Sawai Madho Singh to Seth Dhanesar, Kirpa Shankar and

Shivdas-Gulab Chand Sarraf, dt. Asad Vadi 1, VS 1817/1760. 62 Yaddashti, dt. Paus Vadi 7, VS 1822/1765. 63 The Maratha raids in Rajasthan started from the second decade of the eighteenth

century and after 1740, their raids became more frequent, organised and demanding of money. The fear of the Rajput kings becomes evident from a Kharita written on 24 November 1724, by Maharana Sangram Singh to Sawai Jai Singh of Amber.

64 Dastur Komwar Mahajan, Loonkaran Natani Sahukar, dt. Mah Sudi 12, VS 1809/1752.

65 Dastur Komwar Dakhini, dt. Miti Bhadwa Budi 4, VS 1813/1756, p. 897. 66 Yaddashti, dt. VS 1812/1755.

43

67 Ibid., dt. VS 1815/1758. 68 Draft Kharita-Parwana, letter from Jinkuji, dt. VS 1815/1758. 69 Irfan Habib, ‘The System of Bills of Exchange (hundis) in the Mughal Empire’,

Proceedings of Indian History Congress, 35 Session, Muzaffarpur, 1972, pp. 294–95. 70 Peter Mundy, Travels in Asia, II, p. 290. 71 Yaddashti Dakhniyo-Ki, dt. Jeth Sudi 13, VS 1818/1761. 72 Irfan Habib, ‘The System of Bills of Exchange (hundis) in the Mughal Empire’,

Proceedings of Indian History Congress, 35 Session, Muzaffarpur, 1972, pp. 294–95. 73 Amber Record, dt. Mah Vadi 7, VS 1732/1675. 74 Ibid. 75 Arzdasht, dt. Sawan,VS1762/1705 76 Amber Record, Viswanath, Nihal Chand, Fateh Ram from Baswa to Mohan Ram,

dt. Kati Sudi 1, VS 1821/1764. 77 See Table B, where Inter-Pargana hundawan charges are mentioned. 78 Arzdasht, dt. Magisar, dt. VS 1740/1683. 79 See Table B, for Inter- Pargana hundawan charges. 80 Amber Record, dt. Asad Vadi 9, VS 1744/1687. 81 Ibid., dt. Asad Vadi 10, VS 1744/1687. 82 Nirakh Mohar hundi Sawai Jaipur, dt. Asad Sudi 3, VS 1879/1822. 83 Ibid., dt. Asoj Vadi 7, VS 1879/1822. 84 Ibid. 85 Kagado-ri-Bahi, Bikaner Records, No. 14, dt. Chait Sudi 12, VS 1863/1806. 86 Yaddashti, dt. Kati Vadi 13, VS 1782/1725; Yaddashti, dt. Asad Vadi 1, VS

1792/1735; Amber Record, Raghunath Rao, Baji Rao to Sawai Madho Singh, dt. Sawan Sudi 4, VS 1814/1757; Yaddashti, dt. Magisar Vadi 11, VS 1816/1759.

87 Amber Record, Khoob Ram from Khohri to Sahaj Ram, Sambhu Ram, dt. Kati Vadi 13, VS 1810/1753.

88 Amber Record, dt, Sawan Sudi 3, VS 1741/1684. 89 Ibid., dt. Bhadwa Vadi 3, VS 1741/1684. 90 Ibid., dt. Mah Sudi 3, VS 1743/1686. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid., dt. Baisakh Sudi 15, VS 1767/1710. 93 Arsatthas of pargana Hindaun, dt.VS1803/1746; Yaddashti, dt. Asad Sudi 9, VS

1809/1752. 94 Amber Record, dt. Paus Sudi 6, VS 1743/1686. 95 Ibid., dt. Paus Vadi 7, VS 1743/1686. 96 Nathawats were the collateral branch of the Kachhwahas, ruler of Jaipur kingdom. 97 Nakal (Copy) Chithi, diwan Narayan Das, Kirparam to Vidyadhar, dt. Baisakh

Vadi 11, VS 1784/1727. 98 Nakal (Copy) Chithi, diwan Narayan Das, Fateh Ram to Diwan Vidyadhar, dt. Jeth

Vadi, VS 1802/1745. 99 Chithis to amils of pargana Pawata, dt. Sawan Sudi 11, VS 1808/1751. 100 Parwana, Sawai Madho Singh to Loonkaran Natani, dt. Baisakh Sudi 14, VS 1809/

1752.101 Amber Record, dt. Mah Vadi 12, VS 1744/1687.102 Sanad, diwan Kanhi Ram, Nand Lal to amils of pargana Hindaun, dt. Sawan Sudi

8, VS 1816/1760.103 Amber Record, dt. Bhadwa Vadi 7, VS 1742/1685.104 Chithi to amil of pargana Sambhar, dt. Asoj Sudi 7, VS 1814/1757; Installments are

as follows – Rs 3,500 on Asoj sudi 15, Rs 5,000 on Kati Sudi 15, Rs 5,000 on Magisar Sudi 15, Rs 2,000 on Paus Sudi 15, Rs 2,000 on Baisakh sudi 15, Rs 2,000 on Jeth Sudi 15, Rs 2,000 on Asad Sudi 15, Rs 2,000 on Sawan Sudi 15 and Rs 1,411 and 6

The Role of Hundis in the Jaipur Kingdom M

amta Tyagi

44

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 annas on Bhadwa Sudi 15.

105 Chithi to amil of pargana Narnol, dt. Mah Vadi 1, VS 1816/1759.106 Amber Record, dt. Mangsir Vadi 3, VS 1730/1673.107 Ibid., dt. Asad Vadi 10, VS 1744/1687.

Mamta Tyagi is a Research Scholar, Department of History, University of Delhi, Delhi.

45

The indigenous educational institutions had their own history of evolution and had been known as the repositories of knowledge. There was a set structure and curriculum and they often thrived on the patronage given by the ruling class/elite/local magnate. However, their very existence was placed under challenge with the coming of the East India Company. The administrative compulsions of the company nevertheless negated their abolition. On the contrary, they were seen as means of producing adminis-tratively suitable section of baboos and pundits who would act as the agents of spreading of ‘enlightened western education’ to the ‘backward Indians’. The institutions underwent a metamorphosis with the intervention of British attempts of establishing institutions for the spread of Western ideas along with the retention of traditional knowledge.

Sources of information regarding the curriculum and the structure of the indigenous educational institutions in the upper gangetic valley in the late-eighteenth and earlier half of the nineteen centuries can be found from various reports and files of the colonial period from various archives. The term school was initially used to signify a place where instructions were imparted in an informal manner. Accordingly, a family where a teacher was employed to give education to its children or where the father taught his own children – with or without other children from the locality – was also a school as understood as a place of knowledge transmission. In Bengal, Wil-liam Ward described that almost all villages possessed schools for teaching, reading, writing and elementary arithmetic.1 The indigenous educational institutions of that period in the words of Naik & Nurullah were divided into four main types as follows:2

In addition to the common schools the Hindus and the Muslims had separate schools of learning as well, several important teachers were com-mon to both the types of institutions. Both had a few teachers who not only taught on gratis, but also provided food and lodging to their pupils. In most cases, however, the schools were held in local temple or mosque and not infrequently in the house of some local magnate or patron or of the teacher himself. It must be noted that the state had nothing to do with the day to day work of these schools. The Hindu schools of learning were conducted almost exclusively by brahmins and a very large majority of the students attending them were brahmins. There were neither women students nor any persons belonging to the large number of communities

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic Valley:

Curriculum, Structure and Patronage

Amit K. Suman

46

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 who were denied the right to study the sacred lore. In the Persian–Arabic

schools on the other hand, though the teachers were generally Muslims, a Hindu teacher of Persian was not a rare phenomenon. Moreover, several Hindus attended Persian schools conducted by Muslims because Persian was the court language. In some of the Bengal districts, Adam even found that the majority of students in Persian schools were Hindus.3 Their chief object was to produce moulvies and pundits, and people were led to support them mainly by religious motives.

These catered, not to the needs of the priestly class, but to the mun-dane requirements of the petty zamindar, the bania and the well-to-do farmer. It had no religious veneration attached to it, and consequently it had no endowments either from the state or from the public. Occasion-ally some of the teachers in these schools followed some other professions or trade for their maintenance and conducted the school only as the side business.4 Unlike the schools of learning, it is worthy to note that the pupils in these schools included a small percentage of girls and children of many communities although the children of the upper classes formed the large majority. A pupil joined school at any time, became a class of him, followed his own pace of study and left the school when he had acquired all that he desired to know or the school had to teach. The amount of the payment depended upon the capacity of the parent and even the time and mode of payment were left to his convenience.

The exceptional merits of the indigenous system of elementary schools were their adaptability to local environment and the vitality and popu-larity they earned by centuries of existence under a variety of economic conditions. Their main defects were the exclusion of girls and lower caste pupils. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the indigenous system of education was decaying fast in account of the prevailing anarchy or the growing impoverishment of the people under the British rule. It is difficult to say for definitive as to whether the system had potentialities, which

47

made capabilities of being developed into a national system of education by suitable improvement and extension. It can be said that it certainly had these potentialities because in most countries of the world which are now educationally progressive the national system of education was built upon the foundations of the traditional system – in spite of its admitted and nu-merous defects.5 What the voluntary school did to the mass education in England, the indigenous school could certainly have done to the cause of education in India as a whole, if only those in authority had seen their way to help them to lead, expand and improve. Adam, for instance, was thor-oughly convinced that a national system of education could be build up in India on the foundation of the indigenous school. William Adam, therefore, recommended that-

Existing native institution from the highest to lowest, of all kinds and classes,

were the fittest means to be employed for raising and improving the character

of the people that to employ those institutions for such a purpose would be

the simplest, the safest, the most popular, the most economical, and the most

effectual plan for giving that stimulus to the native mind which it needs on the

subject of education, and for eliciting the exertions of the natives themselves

for their improvement, without which all other means must be unavailing.6

Adam also recommended the establishment of normal schools where the teachers of indigenous schools could be encouraged to study from one to three months a year for about four years so that their qualifications could be improved without causing inconvenience to the pupils. For several rea-sons, the process was slow and it could hardly compensate for the loss of the indigenous schools with the result that the educational position of India in 1921 was hardly better than that in 1821. It is an irony of fate that the in-digenous schools of India should thus contribute to the spread of education in England and be of no avail in spreading mass education in India herself.

Likewise in England during first half of eighteenth century the Charity School Movement became rather dormant; but about 1780 it was succeed-ed by the Sunday School Movement. However, popular education even at this period was still approached as a missionary enterprise and the maxim was that every child should learn to read the bible. The ‘monitorial method’ of teaching used by Joseph Lancaster (and also by Andrew Bell, and said to be borrowed from India) came into practice and greatly helped advance the cause of education. However, it was not till 1851 that mathematics became a part of the regular school work and even at that date those who taught the subject were not regarded as the persons of high intellect like those of ‘English masters’.

The main propaganda of British administration regarding Indian edu-cation was mainly to extend Christian ‘light’ and ‘knowledge’ to the people, and in order to facilitate the same the preparation of grammar of various Indian languages became urgent. The task according to William Wilber-

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic ValleyA

mit K

. Suman

48

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 force was, ‘the circulations of the holy scriptures in the native languages’

with a view of general diffusion of Christianity, so that the Indians ‘would in short become Christians, if I may so express myself without knowing it’.7 All these efforts culminated into; the founding of a few British sponsored Sanskrit and Persian colleges, to the publication of some Indian texts or selection from them which suited the purpose of government. However, es-sentially the British interest was centered not on the people as such, or their knowledge, or education, or the lack of it, but rather in such ancient texts which served their purpose and could make people conform to what was chosen for them from such texts and their new interpretations. The condi-tion under which teaching took place in the Indian schools was less dingy and more natural and the teachers in these schools were generally more dedicated and sober than their English counterpart. The only aspect and certainly a very important one where Indian institutional education seems to have lagged behind was with regard to the education of girls, which quite possibly may have been proportionately more extensive in England in 1800. Education of any sort in India till very recent decades was mostly limited to the twice-born amongst the Hindus and among the Muslims to those from ruling elite.8

Thirteen years after the initiation of the survey in the Madras Presi-dency a more limited semi-official survey of the indigenous education was taken up in the Presidency of Bengal. This was what is known as the cele-brated Adam’s Reports, or to give the full title Reports on the state of educa-tion in Bengal in 1836 and 1838. It consists of three reports, the first dated 1 July 1836 being a survey of the available existing information regarding indigenous education and its nature and facilities in the various districts of Bengal.9 Adam’s report mentions perhaps one lakh village schools still existent in Bengal and Bihar in some form till the 1830’s. He himself was no great admirer of the Indian teacher or the nature and content of the Indian education as he saw it. He had initially come to Bengal in 1818, as a Baptist missionary and later left missionary activity after some year and the report of Adam though not formal official document was none the less sanctioned and financed by the Governor–General himself. In his first Report which was a general statement of the situation and a presentation of the data derived from post 1800 official and other sources he concludes that every village had at least one school and there will still be 1,00,000 villages that have these schools. Many others before him had made similar observations including Thomas Munro in his Evidence to the House of Commons Com-mittee; Munro had then observed that if civilization is to become an article of trade between England and India the former will gain by the import car-go and he also referred to schools established in every village for teaching, reading, writing arithmetic.10

The total number of schools of all types in selected districts numbered 2,566 and these schools were divided into Bengali (1,098), Hindi (375),

49

Sanskrit (353), Persian (694), Arabic (31), English (8), Girls (6) and infants (1). Adam divided the period spent in the elementary schools into four stages, first, seldom exceeding ten days, the young scholars were taught ‘to form the letters of alphabet on the ground with a small stick or slip of bamboos’ or on a sand board. The second stage did extend from two and a half to four years, where the scholar was taught to write and read. The third stage extended from two to three years which were employed in the writing on a plantain-leaf. And the fourth and the last stage of up to two years writing was done on paper and the scholar was expected to be able to read the Ramayana, Mansa, Mangal, etc. at home, as well as be able to qualified in accounts, and the writing of letters, petition, etc.11 He also studied about the presence of lower caste in missionary and native schools and found, that thirteen missionary schools of Burdwan had only four dom and chandal scholars and as Adam mentions only eighty-six of the scholars belonging to sixteen of the lowest castes in these missionary schools while 674 scholars from them were in the native schools. Those studying Persian (which was treated more as a school subject than one of higher learning by Adam) numbered 3,479 the largest, 1,424 being in south Behar. Over half of those studying Persian were Hindus, the kayasths being predominant. The institutions Adam describes received no funds from the state or other governmental agencies. They were supported entirely by the voluntary donations of parents and interested citizens. Often teachers encouraged students to learn by giving them small stipends out of their own pockets. Communal education in which Muslims went to one school, Christians to another and Hindus to a third was to develop later in the nineteenth cen-tury. In the early nineteenth century,12 Muslims and Hindus attended the same school.13 Adam recognised that in the districts which he visited the Muslims were under-represented both in schools and in domestic instruc-tions compared to the Hindus.

In Bengal the tols and madrasas were the main centers of Sanskrit and Arabic learning and the elementary schools scattered all over the country-side. In Bengal, for instance, in many places schools met in chandi mandaps, belonging to one of the principal families of the village where religious fes-tivals and worship took place, or in the private houses of local benefactors. Students assembled in the open in the dry season and in a shed when it rained. Village schools often depended on the will of the patron, where the teacher was the domestic tutor, or on the abundance and failure of harvests where zamindars supported them. Boys remained in these schools for a year and a half to two years and the maximum length being three to five years. Brahmin boys were meant to proceed to schools of higher learning and did not go to the village common schools, where accounts were the cheap subject of instruction but studied at home for the first few years. The Hindu schools of learning were called pathshalas in the Western India and tols in Bengal. There was no connection between these two schools of

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic ValleyA

mit K

. Suman

50

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 higher learning and the elementary schools. The latter were not considered

preparatory to the formal nor did the formal professed to complete the course of study begun elsewhere. There were two types of institutions, the elementary schools for trading and agricultural classes and the tols for the religious and learned classes. In Bengal there were few exceptional instances of pupils from inferior castes breaking through the Brahmin monopoly of higher learning but in Bihar no such instances were found. In Bengal the largest number of students were enrolled for grammar, lexicology, litera-ture which included poetry, law, drama, logic, rhetoric, mythology, medi-cine and astronomy, where the textbooks used were Panini, Sankshipta-Sar And The Mughdhaq-Bodha.

Next in importance to vernacular and Sanskrit schools were those in which Persian and Arabic were taught. Since Persian was either official or the court language, a large number on Hindu boys went to the Persian schools in Bengal. In these schools grammatical works, forms of correspon-dence, poems and stories were chiefly read; occasionally a book of rhetoric, theology or medicine was also studied. In the Arabic schools the course of study was more comprehensive and included numerous grammatical works; exhaustive courses of reading on rhetoric, logic and law, a detail study of the external observances and fundamental doctrines of Islam; illusive and Ptolemy in translations were not unknown; there were also courses in metaphysics and natural philosophy. Here also as in the tols, the experimental sciences were neglected. Many of the Hindus pursued Vedic studies and the Muslims, Islamic religious studies; some became priests; others specialised in magic and exorcism in astrology and astronomy. In Bengal, many of the tols were maintained by voluntary contributions of rich Hindus and by the produce of charity lands. Several British surveys and reports of the first decade of the nineteenth century portray Bengal as suffering from educational and literacy stagnation. Francis Buchanan’s survey of 1807, 1808 and 1809 for instance gives a depressing picture of the state of indigenous education. That Sanskrit learning was declining is also evident from the fact that while some Brahmins scholars in rural areas started practicing medicine and divination for a living and others were coming to Calcutta; many of whom secured appointments at the college of Fort William.14

The English rulers did not go all out for English education before 1835. Long before that there was a keen demand for English education in the country and the urge came mostly from the Bengalis themselves. They received invaluable help from some able and earnest Christian missionaries and broad minded English philanthropist and reformers. It is noteworthy that all the early educational institutions in Bengal owe their origin to the enterprise of the private individuals or non-official institutions. The gov-ernment came to the picture much later.15 There were other measures the colonial government took that hastened the demise of indigenous institu-

51

tions like the withdrawal of support for the vernacular schools.The East India Company’s primary educational aim was to produce

clerks who could be employed cheaply; the free traders hoped that the English educated Indians would develop a taste for the products of Lan-cashire. For the missionaries the new education was the first step towards the conversions of Indians to Christianity; while for the liberals, what was important was the civilising and human influence of western learning. For Macaulay the aim of English education was to form ‘a class of persons, In-dian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect; a class which could serve as interpreters between the government and the millions whom it governed’. Lord Hardinge announced in 1844, that Indians who had received English education would get preference in all government appointments. Education in the new schools became a passport for entrance to the professions and government service.16 Charles Wood was attracted by the model of London University whose main pur-pose then was to hold examinations, affiliate colleges and grant degrees. Thus, the universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay were set up in 1857 on the model of London University. The policy enunciated by Lord Auck-land in 1839 was to concentrate on the education of upper classes that have ‘leisure for study and who’s culture would then filter down the masses’. This ‘Downward Filtration Theory’ was not immediately successful because of the highly stratified nature of Indian society.17 An excessive emphasis on examinations dominated high school and university teaching and encour-aged cramming and parrot like learning.

There is little to narrate regarding the development of education in Bengal after Lord Auckland’s Minute. The General Committee of Public Instruction was replaced in 1842, by a Council of Education. In 1844, gov-ernment announced its policy of giving every encouragement to educated Indians by employing them in government service. In 1845, the Council of Education made a proposal for the establishment of a University at Calcutta but the Court of Directors rejected it on the ground that it was a premature idea. By 1854 the Council of Education established 151 educational institu-tions with 13,163 scholars and incurred a total expenditure of Rs 5,94,428 a year.18

Anglo–Indian SchoolsAn early nineteenth century accusation against the English Public school was that they were neither ‘English’, since they taught mainly Latin and Greek nor ‘public’, and were strictly private institutions; nor ‘schools’ in the fullest sense, since they placed greater emphasis on games and athletics than on studies.19 When the European (later Anglo–Indian) schools were first founded, they catered almost exclusively for Europeans or Anglo–Indians. The origin of this mixed community dates back over 350 years; its unof-ficial history antedates that of the coming of the British in India, being in

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic ValleyA

mit K

. Suman

52

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 fact contemporaneous with the history of the European traders and settlers

who preceded the British, viz. the Portuguese and the Dutch. To quote the Quinquennial Report on the progress of European schools in Bengal 1917–22, the term ‘European Schools’ posses a very wide unity in diversity as does the term Anglo–Indians, and the schools themselves are individual, diverse and complex in entities.20 It is an education that aims at a synthesis of the best elements of Western and Indian culture. Anglo–Indian schools in West Bengal, like other good schools, Indian or foreign, endeavoured to provide an education suited to the age, ability and aptitudes of their pupils and one which will enable them to be good citizens in the new India that was rapidly taking shape outside the school walls. Anglo–Indian schools, by and large did approach the ideal of encompassing the all round development of their students, physical, mental and spiritual. Non-Anglo–Indian schools by and large tended to over emphasise on the mental development of their pupils, or rather the training of their memory, to the relative neglect of their all round physical, moral and spiritual development.

It was recognised from the outset that Europeans could not be edu-cated in native; school whilst in many cases their means that’s sufficient to enable them to establish schools for themselves. There is little doubt that missionary agencies gave an impetus to government enterprise in educa-tion, says Dr Zellner; but it took many years before the East India Company and the British Government took really effective actions in these matters.21 Education in India under the British government, says Howell in a famous statement, was first ignored, then violently and successfully opposed, then conducted on system universally admitted to be erroneous and finally placed on its present footing.22 Dr S.N. Mukherjee holds that

The Portuguese may be considered to be the originators of the modern sys-

tem of education in this country. These schools and colleges, which were open

to European, Eurasians, and Indian children, and in which Portuguese from

combination of several languages of which, pure Portuguese was but a frame-

work, were the media of instruction, where the proto type and forerunners

of the European elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher

education established by British later.23

Three types of schools were started for children of mixed percentage in and around Calcutta in the eighteenth century – Charity, Military and Private. The first school to be started was a charity school, but the Company refused to pay for a school-master hence the idea remained in abeyance till 1730 when a school building was completed. A state system of education was absent in England and state interference was not relished by the En-glish people. The same analogy was applied to India also. It was thought that education in India could be spread without state interference with the result that the existing system of education was left to take care of itself. The Company neither started new institutions nor built on the existing ones

53

and its earliest servants busied themselves shaking the ‘pagoda trees’.24 In 1789, after a public meeting presided over by the Governor–General, the Free School Society of Bengal was formed to provide education for poor chil-dren when the school was started. In 1800, this was merged with the Chari-ty school in was called the Calcutta Free School which had 159 children on the rolls and which gave its name to the free schools history. The private venture schools, as well as the early schools started by the missionaries and philanthropic trusts, catered primarily for European and Eurasian children, but a few Indian children were admitted especially in the former. Taken as a whole, writes L. Mukherjee the arrangement for the education of women lagged much behind than men. As regard the early Hindu and the Buddhist period evidence suggests that a sort of secondary education was available to the ladies of the higher order. In the Muslim period, Muslims were generally hostile to female literacy and except for a handful of ladies of the Court who were in all probability taught by private tutors; there was no ef-fort for the education of women.25 For nearly two centuries of its existence says Mukherjee, the East India Company showed very little interest in the spread of education in India. Whatever effort was made to spread Western culture in India was done through Christian missionary organisations.26

The General Committee of Public Instruction was set up in 1823; it decided to spend the grant on the encouragement of Oriental learning through the medium of Sanskrit and Arabic, and not on education in European literature and science through the medium of English. Later a ‘Western Education’ pressure group developed in the committee. There was a division of opinion between this group and the Oriental group leading to stalemate. The Government official therefore found it difficult to aid missionary institutions which had not declared severance between their educational and proselytising departments. European schools at the time were ‘religious educational institutions’ hence, with the exception of one or two of them like the Calcutta Free School, they received little or no financial assistance from the General Committee of Public Instruction. In 1816 some native gentlemen of Calcutta possessing wealth, intelligence and public spirit associated together and subscribed a sum of Rs 1,13,129 to found a seminary for the instruction of the sons of Hindus in the Eu-ropean and Asiatic languages and sciences. This institution was called the Vidyalaya or Anglo–Indian College and represents the first effort made by the natives of India themselves for the education of their children in the English language and literature.27 The starting of this pioneer Anglicist in-stitution, with the founding of which famous people like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, David Hare and Chief Justice Hyde were associated; ranks as another landmark in the history of Indian education, and when a few years after its foundation, it was in need of funds and its appeal to government for assistance was granted. The British government for the first time brought into active participation for the cause of English education. This grant of

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic ValleyA

mit K

. Suman

54

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 money to the Calcutta Vidyalaya by the government was the first tangible

recognition of the fact that institutions providing ‘English education had as good a title to Government aid as those providing Oriental education. The period of ad 1830–35 has been described as a ‘time of controversies’ in the history of Indian education owing to the main disputes current at this time between educationists.

Charles Grant in his historic ‘observations of the state of society among Asiatic subjects of Great Britain, particularly with regard to the morals and means of improving them’, painted a depressing picture of the state of vernacular education and public morals in Bengal. The remedy he suggested was education and practically what has since been known as English Education through a network of schools to communicate knowl-edge of Western science and literature to the natives to lift them out of the ignorance and moral degradation.28 He was not in favor of imparting such knowledge through the vernaculars but leaned heavily towards the idea of ‘The communication of our knowledge by the medium of our language’. The missionaries were at first on the side of the Orientalist and concentrat-ed on the education of the masses through elementary schools conducted in the vernacular. But with the arrival of John Duff and the founders of Scottish Church College and School in 1830 to impart a Western education to the middle and upper classes, in the words of Richter, ‘the Age of English Schools had begun’29.T.B. Macaulay in his famous minute dated 2 February 1835, stated that

I have never found one among them who could deny that single shelf of a good

European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.

The intrinsic superiority of the western literature is indeed fully admitted by

those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education.30

Further, he says ‘We have to educate a people who cannot at present be ed-

ucated by means of their mother tongue. We must teach them some foreign

language. The claim of our own language it is hardly necessary to recapitulate.

It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the west. It abounds with

works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed

to us – with model of every species of eloquence – with historical compositions

which considered merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed and which

considered as vehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been

equaled – which just an lively representation of human life and human nature

– with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government,

jurisprudence, trade, with full and correct information respecting every exper-

imental science which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or

to expand the intellect of man’.31

Further Macaulay argued that since mass education was neither feasi-ble nor desirable, the best policy would be to ‘do our best to format class (of persons) who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we

55

govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and intellect’.32 Lord Bentinck, in his resolution on educational policies, 1835, proclaimed, ‘His lordship in council is of the opinion that the great object of the British government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India and all funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed on English education alone’.33 The early European schools were meant primarily for European and Anglo–Indian children, and there were such large numbers of them to be catered for that there were few vacancies left for the children of other Indian communities.

Many scholars and educationists had raised their concerns about adop-tion of English Education of Macaulay and opines that the former adoption of English Education as the prime object of government encouragement was a decision pregnant with important consequences some of them fore-seen and desired and others though they might have been foreseen and were by some few predicted would certainly not have been desired. Macaulay did not see the full necessity of giving attention to vernacular education though he did not altogether ignore it. He did not see that in India there might be other reasons for the study of Arabic and Sanskrit after the traditional method than the strictly utilitarian. He did not have the imaginative insight or sympathy which would have put him in a right attitude to his subject.34

Dispatch from the Court of Directors of the East India Company, to the Governor General of India in Council35 refers that the Colonial ad-ministration had moreover in their own words, always looked upon the encouragement of education as peculiarly important, because it meant ‘not only to produce a higher degree of intellectual fitness, but to raise the moral character of those who partake of its advantages and so to supply you with servants to whose probity you may with increased confidence commit of-fices of trust’ in India, where the well-being of the people was so intimately connected with truthfulness and ability of the officers of every grade in all departments of the state. They did also declared that

Nor, the character of England is deeply concerned in the success of our efforts

for the promotion of education are her material interests altogether affected

by the advance of European knowledge in India; this knowledge will teach the

natives of India the marvelous results of employment of labour and capital,

rouse them to emulate us in the development of vast resources of their coun-

try, guide them in their efforts and gradually but certainly confer upon them

all the advantages which accompany the healthy increase of wealth and com-

merce; and at the same time secure to us the large and more certain supply of

many articles necessary for or manufactures and extensively consumed by the

all classes of our population as well as an almost inexhaustible demand for the

produce of British labour.

Before proceeding further we must emphatically observe that the ed-

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic ValleyA

mit K

. Suman

56

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 ucation which was desired to be seen by the colonial government in India

which was only on paper and comprised in every manifestations of their declarations that

for its object the diffusion of the improved arts, science, philosophy and lit-

erature of Europe; in short, of European knowledge. It is neither our aim nor

desire to substitute the English language for the vernacular dialects of the

country. We have always been most sensible of the importance of the use of

languages which alone are understood by the great mass of the population.

These languages and not English have been put by us in the place of Persian

in the administration of justice and in interference between the officers of

government and the people. At the same time and as the importance of the

vernacular languages becomes more appreciated, the vernacular literatures of

India will be gradually enriched by the translation of European books or by the

original compositions of men who’s mind have been imbued with the spirit of

European advancement so that European knowledge may gradually be placed

in this manner within the reach of all classes of people. We look, therefore, to

the English language and to the vernacular languages of India together with the

media for the diffusion of European languages.

ConclusionThe British Government had always been of the opinion that the spread of education in India would produce a greater efficiency in all branches of administration, by enabling the Indians to obtain the services of intelligent and trustworthy persons in every department of the Government; and on the other hand they believed that the numerous vacancies of different kind which have to be constantly filled up might afford a great stimulus to ed-ucation and that their first object was to select persons properly qualified to meet the situation; secondary to this was the consideration was the way of distribution which would encourage popular education. Thus, the dual objective of fulfillment of utilitarian purpose of administrative convenience as well as subduing the emergence of strong indigenous educational insti-tutions was achieved by the colonial policy.

Notes and References 1 William Ward was the famous missionary of the Colonial Period. 2 J.P. Naik & Syed Nurullah; A Students History of Education in India (1800–1973),

Macmillan Co. of India Ltd., New Delhi, 1974, pp. 24. 3 Ibid., p. 25. 4 Ibid. 5 Joseph Dibona, One Teacher, One School: The Adam’s Report on Indigenous

Education in nineteenth Century India, Biblia Implex Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi,1982. 6 Vernacular Education in Bengal; A Report by William Adam to Governor General

of India, Lord William Bentinck, Home/Public, Proceeding, Corr., No. 1–4, 22 January 1835.

7 HANSARD, columns 832, 833, in Dharmpal, The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth century, 22 June 1813, Biblia Implex Pvt. Ltd., New

57

Delhi, 1983, p. 11. 8 That is those belonging to the brahmins, kshatriya and vaisya varnas, but excluding

the shudras and castes outside the four Varna division. 9 Dharmpal, The Beautiful Tree. 10 House of Commons Papers: 1812–13, Vol. 7, p. 131, see Dharmpal, The Beautiful

Tree, p.42. 11 Dharmpal, The Beautiful Tree, pp. 46–47. 12 Tols were the Sanskrit pathshalas in Bengal. 13 Dharmpal, The Beautiful Tree, p. 2. 14 D. Kopf, British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance: The Dynamics of Indian

Modernization 1773–1835, Firma, Calcutta, 1969, p. 58. 15 Amitabh Mukherjee, Reform and Regeneration in Bengal 1774–1823, Rabindra

Bharti University, Calcutta, 1968, p. 14. 16 Aparna Basu, Essays in the History of Indian Education, Concept Publishing Co.,

New Delhi, 1982, p. 7. 17 Ibid., p. 9. 18 Ibid., p. 80. 19 Austin A. D’souza, Anglo–Indian Education: A Study of Its Origin and Growth in

Bengal Upto 1960, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1976, p. vii. 20 Ibid. p. 33. 21 A.T. Zellner, Education in India, Bookman Association, 1951, p. 48. 22 Author Howell, Education in British India Prior to 1854 & in 1870–71, Government

Printing Press, Calcutta, 1872, p. 1. 23 S.N. Mukherjee, History of Education in India, Modern Period, Acharya Book

Depot, 1951, p. 15. 24 Austin A. D’ Souza, Anglo–Indian Education: A Study Of Its Origin and Growth in

Bengal Upto 1960, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1976, p. 61. 25 L. Mukherjee, Problems of Educational Administration in India, Kitab Mahal, 1960,

Allahabad, p. 17. 26 Ibid, p. 22. 27 Syed Mahmood, History of English Education in India, Aligarh College Press, 1893,

p.70. 28 H.R. James, Education and Statesmanship in India 1797–1910, Longman, 1917, p. 1. 29 J.A. Richter, A History of Missions in India, Revello & Co., New York, 1908, p. 10. 30 Minute by the Hon’ble T.B. Macaulay, dated the 2 February 1835, in Selection from

the Educational Records, Part I, 1781–1839, see W. H. Sharp, Superintendent Government Printing, Calcutta, 1920, p. 109.

31 Ibid, p. 110. 32 Ibid., p. 75. 33 B.D. Bhatt and J.D. Agarwal, Educational Documents in India, 1831–1968, Arya

Press, 1969, p. 4. 34 Ibid, p. 25. 35 Home, Public, Dispatch, No. 49, 19 July 1854, pp. 1–16, Hereafter National

Archives of India.

Amit K. Suman is a Research Scholar, Department of History, Delhi Uni-versity.

Indigenous Educational Institutions In Upper Gangetic ValleyA

mit K

. Suman

58

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014

59

IntroductionThe growing concern for the health and well-being of women in India from around the middle of the nineteenth century prompted the need for wom-en medical professionals to serve in India. The London School of Medicine for Women was established in 1874 with one of its stated purposes being to cater to the health needs of Indian women.1 Based on similar consid-erations, the first medical training for women was organised in India – in the Madras Presidency in 1875 and subsequently in other parts of India.2 Women were admitted into the Calcutta Medical College (CMC) from 1884 and Kadambini Ganguly was the first and the only female student of this batch. The Campbell Medical School (CMS) on the other hand had fifteen women in its first batch of female students in 1888. More women joined CMS due to its lower eligibility criteria and less rigorous course structure. It was felt that Indian women would be more suitable for treat-ing Indian women in need of medical aid – firstly, because they could be trained in larger numbers; secondly, patients would be able to interact with Indian doctors more comfortably; thirdly, they would be willing to serve in the districts and smaller towns and villages unlike the lady doctors from the West and finally, their services would be cheaper and hence more affordable to the common people in comparison to their Western counter-parts. Taking these aspects into consideration, this paper would look into the peculiar experiences, the trials and triumphs of some of the earliest Indian women doctors who acquired their medical qualification in Bengal. Women’s entry into the specialised professional field of medicine invites a distinctive focus at their unique experiences as women in a profession predominated by men as well as professional women operating within the colonial–patriarchal social milieu of late nineteenth and early twentieth century India. Biographical writings including autobiographies and diary entries have constituted a crucial archival resource for researching the lives and experiences of the women doctors.3

The image of ‘doctor’ as a male has been so pervasive across societies that women across the globe have found it very difficult to instill confi-dence regarding their own expertise as doctors. Well into the twentieth century and even today to some extent, doctors have been perceived as male figures and women have been stereotypically perceived as nurses or caregivers. Thus in order to study the experiences of women doctors, we

Women Doctors’ Masterful Maneuverings: Colonial Bengal, Late Nineteenth and

Early Twentieth Centuries

Sharmita Ray

60

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 need to look more closely at the social norms and structures that provided

the framework within which they were operating. In this paper, we will investigate how the complex interplay of factors such as gender, race and class determined the experiences and ordeals of some of the earliest female Indian doctors in Bengal in the given social milieu. It will primarily focus on some of the earliest women passing out of the medical schools and colleges in Bengal and through their career graphs illustrate congruencies in their experiences, highlighting certain aspects that universalised their experience of being female medical practitioners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.Rosemary Pringle writes:

‘Doctors’ come into being as subjects through the discursive practices that

structure teaching and learning, their interactions with patients, with doctors

and other health workers, and with all whose acknowledgement confers on

them the position of ‘doctor.’ The meanings of ‘doctor’ are created not just in

medical discourse but in wider culture.4

This concisely presents the framework through which one may make sense of the lived experiences of women doctors in the course of their train-ing and in their professional lives subsequently. The objective of this paper is to present a composite picture of the career of native women doctors in colonial Bengal in order to understand their accomplishments by means of achievement, accommodation and adaptation, thereby making an attempt to historicise the experiences of women entering into specialised profes-sions – medicine in this case.

Female Medical Practitioners of Indigenous Systems of Medicine

Prior to Western medicine making inroads into the Indian society from the late eighteenth century, a variety of indigenous systems of medicine flourished side by side. Ayurveda and Unani coexisted in most parts of the subcontinent. Although women were seldom encouraged to acquire knowledge in these two systems, we find evidence of a few successful female ayurveds.

Two women from early-nineteenth-century Calcutta are hailed as legendary medical practitioners, commonly known as Jadur Maa and Rajur Maa. 5 The former’s husband was an ayurvedic practitioner, whose untimely death encouraged Jadur Maa to take up the profession to run the family. Rajur Maa was a barber’s wife and was well known for her expertise in minor surgical procedures that she carried out with the barber’s knife. Various anecdotes regarding the success and fame of these two women practitioners describe the way in which the society appreciated their skills. Two short poems praise these two women’s skill respectively and empha-sise their superiority over the advanced Western medical sciences. The first

61

regarding Jadur Maa by poet Ishwarchandra Gupta reads:Dactar, Kabiraj rane jaare haare,Jadur janani giya joy kore taare.Shabaash shabaash bachha Jadur janani,Gangar nikate haar mane Kalapani.6

(Doctors and Kavirajs loose in the battle to. . .Jadu’s mother who emerges victorious.Bravo bravo dear Jadu’s mother,The Ganges reigns supreme over the Kalapani.)7

Regarding Rajur Maa the same poet wrote the following lines:Noruner karikuri jai bolihaari,Norun haraaye dilo shaaheber chhuri.Norun toh noy jeno madaner shar,Shwetanga dactar mohe hon jorjor.Dishi thaan-phera shaari bilati pajama,Haarilo shaarir kaachhe pajama mahima.Shabaash Rajur maar noruner khoncha,Meye hoye purushere banayilo boncha.8

(The blade’s finesse leaves me spellbound-The blade has defeated the white man’s knife.The blade is like the archer’s arrow,The white doctors too are in awe of the instrument.The native five yard long saari versus the foreigner’s trousers,The saari’s skill triumphs over the trousers’ expertise.Hail Raju’s Mother’s blade artwork!Being a woman she has made the men look blunt.)9

The popularity of female medical practitioners was not confined to Ben-gal alone. In the early twentieth century, Yashoda Devi was a well-known Ayurvedic practitioner from Allahabad. She received training in Ayurveda from her father and opened her own dispensary ‘Stri Aushadhalaya’ at Allahabad in 1908 and a female ayurvedic pharmacy subsequently.10 She also wrote a number of books, articles and published journals on men and women’s health issues and ayurvedic cures for various ailments.

Yashoda Devi’s success as those of the other women practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine is significant, for they reflect the resilience of the indigenous medical systems and their demand among Indians de-spite the vigorous attempts of Western medicine to establish its suprema-cy. At another level, it ought to be pointed out that with the institutional organisation of Western medicine, the transfer of medical knowledge on a hereditary basis or within the family was giving way to more democratic opportunities for women from diverse backgrounds to choose the medical

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

62

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 profession. However, the ease with which women from a family with a

medical background established their practice was conspicuously lacking for women who were the first timers in their family. This partly explains the difficulties faced by meritorious women who passed out of medical schools and colleges, as we shall see.

Initial Experiences in the Medical Profession The Annual Report of the Dufferin Fund stated:

With regard to the question of granting lady doctors entire control and inde-

pendence in their hospitals the opinion appears to be that capable ladies hold-

ing the higher qualifications in medicine may generally be safely trusted with

the internal control of their hospitals and the professional work therein. But

for many weighty reasons it is thought advisable that the Civil Surgeons should

as a rule be responsible for correspondence with the government, the financial

control of institutions.11

This was the general policy followed in the appointment of female doctors. Moreover, the Indian doctors’ capabilities were more suspect. Those Indian women, who looked for jobs in Dufferin Fund Hospitals or in Government hospitals were more often assigned positions subservient to their male counterparts and the European and Eurasian female doctors.

It is ironical that the purdahnasheen women, who were cited as the rea-son for encouraging the entry of Indian women in the medical profession, were in fact also those who did not have the discretion to choose their own physician. This was the prime reason why the women passing out from the medical schools and colleges found it difficult to attract the expected cli-entele for starting off a private practice. Kadambini was the first woman to pass out from the CMC in 1886. Although she was unable to qualify for the prestigious MB degree, she was given the GBMS (Graduate Medical College of Bengal), which certified her as a legitimate practitioner.12 She was given an opportunity to work in the Eden Hospital where she felt she was being looked down upon as a midwife rather than a doctor. After a while, she quit this job and set up a private chamber, but was unsuccessful in attracting a sizeable number of patients. She advertised about her clinic in the newspa-per ‘Bengalee’ which read as following:

A CARDMrs Gangulee, BA(45/5 Beniatola Lane, College Square North East Corner, Calcutta)Having studied in the Medical College for five years and obtained a college diploma to practice.MEDICINE, SURGERY AND MIDWIFERY has commenced practice and treats WOMEN and CHILDREN

Consultation free for poor patients at her home between 2 and 3 daily.13

This advertisement appeared repeatedly in this newspaper throughout 1888

63

but a lukewarm response to her advertisements compelled Kadambini to take up service in the Lady Dufferin Hospital in 1890. She was entitled to draw a salary of Rs 300 per month, which was more than what many Indian male doctors received at the time.14 It may be surmised that the growing demand for women doctors to serve in these budding hospitals especially meant for women and children, outdid the demand for male doctors with similar qualification by a considerable margin.

Jamini Sen, who passed out of CMC in the early 1890s, also encoun-tered similar restrictions while trying to set up her practice. However, due to dearth of patients she finally chose to work in the Sholapur Zenana Hos-pital, in order to safeguard her self-esteem and dignity rather than being eternally dependent on male doctors’ recommendation for patients.15 Ja-mini did not stay on in one place for very long. Instead she traveled widely, serving in Nepal, Agra, Shimla, Shikarpur, Puri, and even in Britain and Germany in order to explore and improve her skills as a doctor.

The numbers of Indian women joining medical colleges were much fewer as compared to those joining the medical schools. The latter were trained to become hospital assistants rather than doctors and they served extensively in the smaller towns and districts in Bengal. Haimabati Sen passed out of CMS as a hospital assistant with a VLMS (Vernacular Li-centiate for Medicine and Surgery) degree. She began by working on cases recommended by senior doctors. In her autobiography, Haimabati has narrated an incident when a doctor, Dayal Shome asked her to accompany him to assist him in delivering a baby in a European home. After a long and painful labour, Haimabati and Dr Shome’s assistant midwife safely deliv-ered the child. The following day Haimabati was given fifty rupees by Dr Shome. Later she found out that Dr Shome was paid one thousand rupees out of which the midwife was given one hundred and she only fifty. She was disappointed that her services were valued even lesser than that of a mid-wife. She wrote, ‘Lady doctors and midwives were but pawns in the hands of the male doctors. . . . I lamented the fact that we were born as women’.16

Many doctors felt a compulsion to go to the West for augmenting their qualifications to ensure steady progress in the medical profession. Although the Medical Colleges affiliated with the Indian Universities issued licenses to practice in any part of the British dominion, the truth of the matter was that the Indian degree was never given the same value as those issued in the West.17 After passing out from CMC, Kadambini felt that she was ready to take charge of a ward but instead she was consistently placed under the supervision of various European lady doctors. Feeling stifled in such a sit-uation, she decided to go abroad to enhance her professional qualification. She obtained three diplomas within three months from the Scottish Col-lege in 1893.18 Upon her return, Kadambini was able to secure the position of Senior Doctor in the Dufferin Hospital with much ease, but she soon moved out and set up a successful private practice.

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

64

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Similarly, after some years of service in the Sholapur Hospital, the

Nepal Royal household and in Calcutta, Jamini Sen came to the following conclusion;

I began to feel that my knowledge was getting timeworn while science has been

progressing continuously. I haven’t been able to keep up pace with it and hence

I’m lagging behind. I have a lot of responsibilities towards my sisters in my

country. The dearth of women doctors in our country is a very serious issue.

We need able doctors to tackle and cure female ailments. What I learnt as a stu-

dent regarding operative surgery and gynaecology, has progressed over time.

Thus, if I wish to serve my sisters in this country then I must learn the modern

procedures. And for this reason it is necessary that I should visit the hospitals

in England to learn and improve my skills as a doctor.19

Luckily she received a scholarship from the Dufferin Fund (which was generally reserved for the British and other Western candidates), and with-out delay she left for Britain on the 8 March 1911.20 Jamini’s educational so-journ was not with the singular motive to improve her career prospects, she in fact clearly expressed her humanitarian concern for the Indian women and her course of study distinctly exhibited her genuine desire to learn. Ja-mini acquired an LM degree from Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and passed an exam and obtained the title of Fellow of the Royal Faculty of Science and Physicians from Glasgow University in 1912. She was in fact the first woman ever to attain this prestigious title. Subsequently she went to Berlin to acquaint herself with newer procedures and equipments. Jamini then went to England to the London School of Tropical Medicine, from where she procured a certificate to go to Cambridge. Subsequently she obtained a diploma on Public Health and returned to India in 1924.21

The women who passed out from the medical schools with a VLMS degree did not have the adequate qualification to enhance their profes-sional qualifications abroad.22 However, this lot of women showed exem-plary competence in their work in zenana hospitals in the smaller districts. Mussammat Indennessa, the first Muslim woman who graduated from the CMS in 1894 took up service in the Bidyamoyi Female Hospital in My-mensingh.23 Haimabati assumed responsibility of the Hughli Lady Dufferin Hospital where she was the only female doctor, but was under constant supervision of an Assistant Surgeon and the Civil Surgeon who frequently and undesirably interfered with her work.24

Over time, more and more Indian women began taking charge of or began to function in important positions in the various zenana hospitals that sprung in different parts of the subcontinent. However, they were most often put under the rigorous vigil of superiors who were condescending and frequently obstructed their work. They rapidly equipped themselves both professionally and emotionally to shoulder grave responsibilities without giving in to the suspicions of their seniors and colleagues. The women

65

showed their dynamism not only in terms of the work that they performed but also the ways in which they expressed their eagerness to improve their proficiency as doctors as we have discussed. The following section discusses the nature of challenges and exploitation that these doctors occasionally faced and how these doctors braved them resolutely.

Prudent Management of the Professional and Domestic Realm

Although the Indian female doctors were rarely assigned important posi-tions, they were nonetheless burdened with an exhausting workload. Haim-abati described how her day began in the following words:

I would get up every day at four in the morning, prepare a breakfast for my

husband and children, and go downstairs with hot water and edibles for the

patients. I would first help the patients wash. . . . It would take me a little over

an hour to attend to the patients and come back. I would go back home, have

a wash, wake up the children, dress them give them breakfast, arrange for my

husband’s meal, get dressed, have something to eat and then go back to the

hospital.25

The above description enables us to infer the hectic schedule in which Haimabati had to juggle her role as a householder as well as a doctor. The excerpt suggests that her work in the hospital combined the roles of a doc-tor, a nurse and a caregiver. In addition Haimabati also attended to calls from private homes and her demand was considerable as she was the only qualified lady doctor in the Chinsura region.26

In contrast to the above, the daily routine of an average (European) medical woman- an imaginary Dr Mary Jones, presents an interesting com-parison. Balfour and Young have described it thus:

‘Chah taiyar hai’, (Tea is ready), are the first words that greet her, and while

she drinks her tea and listens to the swishing of water in the bathroom adjoin-

ing, she gathers her energy for a renewed tussle with the problems of the day.

Before breakfast, she hopes to read up a puzzling private case. . . . But just as

she finishes dressing, there comes a little note from the hospital. Dr Rao, the

Sub-assistant surgeon is out at a midder case and Sister is uneasy about yester-

day’s abdominal. . . . Dr Mary goes across. . . . Dr Mary stays some time trying

various remedies and finally returns to breakfast, leaving the patient easier.27

The above quotation makes the difference between the works of the Indian and the European doctors sufficiently conspicuous. The work of the native doctor was more exhaustive, involved longer working hours and was more monotonous in nature. The European doctors on the other hand were in charge of big hospitals with a large body of female medical person-nel taking orders and working under their supervision. Their engagement with cases was limited to the extent of handling the more serious ones and

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

66

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 supervising all the work from a distance.

Excruciating working schedule (with limited rewards) was not the only disadvantage that Indian women doctors faced. The profession to heal proved to be hazardous for many a doctors on different occasions. They encountered physical, psychological and even sexual harassment in the course of their work. Male superiors under whom the lady doctors were expected to work were not only condescending but also cynical of the female doctors’ abilities.

Haimabati in her autobiography has narrated some appalling instances of being subject to sexual harassment and under constant distress and men-tal trauma. Dr Mukherjee, the Assistant Surgeon supervising Haimabati’s work in the Dufferin Hospital in Chinsura, repeatedly subjected Haimabati to humiliation and sexual harassment.28 Even after he was warned he con-tinued to send goons to spy on Haimabati, even to her private residence, till the time Haimabati physically assaulted one of them out of exasperation as well as a means of self-defense.29

At a later instance, in 1902 a lady doctor, Pramilabala Roy, in charge of the female ward of the Malda English Bazaar Hospital, had filed a lawsuit against the zamindar, Madangopal Chaudhuri for sexual harassment.30 The court found the zamindar guilty and fined him Rs 1000.31 It ought to be emphasised that Pramilabala suing the zamindar reflects a certain amount of confidence and courage that women doctors had garnered over time. Their work beyond the domestic realm and their interactions with a variety of people may be held responsible for instilling this kind of fortitude.

Haimabati narrates an instance when the Civil Surgeon had coaxed Haimabati to take a bribe to remain silent when a girl of eleven was brutally raped by her husband and died as a result of severe hemorrhaging.32 The Civil Surgeon issued a death certificate stating that the girl was fourteen years of age and had developed septicemia from normal menstruation. Haimabati was shocked beyond words and was at a loss when the Civil Surgeon handed her a sum of Rs 500 to remain silent on the issue. She was more embarrassed and scared rather than guilty after this incident. She expressed keen anxiety regarding her husband’s reaction rather than registering alarm at the injustice done. In this case Haimabati exhibited an inherent sense of awe towards her husband’s sense of righteousness rather than trying to ease herself of the guilt by sharing her experience with him.

While the profession of a doctor, demanded female doctors to be alert, patient, hardworking, and simultaneously wage a continuous struggle to uphold their dignity, prove their merit and ensure their own progress, their personal lives were no less challenging. The choices made by these women with regard to their private lives and personal relations were inevitably or-chestrated in keeping with the expectations and norms of the society. Their experiences can be seen as demonstrating in general, the experiences of the earliest professional women in India.

67

Kadambini Ganguly was fortunate to have a supportive husband in the figure of Dwarkanath Ganguly, an ardent supporter of women’s reforms. She proved to be an efficient householder as she raised seven children by herself after her husband’s death and was as passionate in bestowing moth-erly affection as she was towards her profession.33 In contrast, Haimabati’s husband although a Brahmo social worker, was considerably regressive when it came to giving Haimabati adequate space and time to fulfill her professional commitments. Even though Haimabati was the sole earning member in her family, she was subjected to verbal as well as physical abuse by her husband when she devoted more hours in hospital work and ne-glected her household duties ever so slightly.34 Amidst all the unreasonable and brutal behaviour on the part of her husband, Haimabati bore five chil-dren as well as looked after a large number of orphaned children, young girls and widows in her own home.35

In order to circumvent all the trouble that married women faced, some women doctors chose to remain unmarried while some others did not find a match owing to their already well-established and busy medical practice and yet others who gave up their medical practice after marriage. Bidhu-mukhi Bose, MB from Calcutta University as well as her sister Bindubasini Bose did not get married and they stayed together and had successful indi-vidual practices.36 Jamini Sen also remained unmarried all her life and en-gaged herself in various socially motivated activities. Virginia Mary Mitra, who received the MB degree from Calcutta University, married a senior, Dr Purnachandra Nandy and quit her private practice subsequently. Virginia’s career as a medical practitioner lasted for not more than four to five years. However, even after giving up her independent practice, she took charge of some of the female patients of her husband. Her husband appreciated her caliber as a doctor and often told his children that their mother had the potential of having a very successful career.37

Apart from holding on their own and guarding their self-esteem in the professional arena, maintaining equilibrium between personal and profes-sional commitments was the other most challenging endeavour of the lady doctors. The lady doctors ought to be credited for being able managers along with being doctors. They made optimum use of their time, caliber and medical knowledge not only for their prescribed responsibilities but also indulged in other socially constructive activities as we shall see. They engaged in various philanthropic activities and considered it to be the obverse side of being a doctor. Some illustrations would help strengthen this claim. Kadambini had seven children of her own, two stepchildren and cared for other orphans as well.38 Haimabati also looked after a large number of orphaned children, young girls and widows.39 She not only gave them shelter and provided for them, she in fact organised their weddings and ensured that everyone was equipped to earn a living.40 These women and children in turn expressed their gratitude by partaking in the house-

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

68

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 hold chores and looking after the little children. On the other hand, Jamini

Sen’s popularity as a doctor was amplified by her successful management of the Baldeodas Maternity Home, a charitable institution.41

Besides acts of philanthropy, a doctor such as Kadambini Ganguly was an activist in other respects as well. She supported various campaigns associated with the Indian National Movement. She was one of the first ten women delegates to attend the fifth session of the Indian National Congress at Bombay in 1889.42 She also participated in satyagrahas and helped in raising funds for the national cause. Moreover, she traveled to Bihar and Orissa to probe into the conditions of women labourers in coalmines and campaigned in favour of the interest of the Transvaal Indians.43

These doctors thereby fulfilled multiple commitments and expertly managed the professional as well as the domestic realms of work. As it has become evident that we know a lot about the life and experiences of women doctors from their own writings – it must be pointed out that they used their education not only as a tool for professional qualification but in fact they articulately penned down every significant aspect of their lives, experiences and the contemporary times. The archives give us not just an obscure picture of their personal lives or their career graphs, but it is in fact their writings and the writings of their acquaintances, which give us a more comprehensive insight into the fascinating lives of these pioneering wom-en. Given their compassionate attitude towards the women they served and the spirit of service that all the women doctors embraced, they came to enjoy the trust, respect and admiration of the ‘native’ female clientele, as will be discussed subsequently.

Women Doctors Inspiring a Bond of Friendship and SisterhoodThe Indian women doctors were able to infuse a level of confidence among the local population which was unmatched by their foreign counterparts. Inherently anchored to the social milieu with the ability to communicate in the local language and well acquainted with the customary practices and taboos of the Indian society, they were more empathetic to the condition of their sisters than the outsiders, who more often treated the ‘native’ women as objects of pity and disdain, in need of redemption from their present cir-cumstances. The native lady doctors with their assuring sensitivity towards their sisters, successfully spread the knowledge and practices of Western medicine among the female population, who were otherwise suspicious of any intrusion into their private spaces.

Statistics show that the work of Indian lady doctors in various districts’ dispensaries and zenana hospitals steeply increased the number of patients who came for treatment to these places. The early women doctors treated ailments including paediatric, gynaecological, dental, surgical as well as snakebites and broken bones. ‘When operations were successful, their fame spread as women who were ‘performing miracles with a knife’. If the pa-

69

tient died, word often spread in the local community about the ‘evil ways’ of the ‘strange women’ and numbers dwindled at the dispensaries.’44 Haim-abati narrates about the time when there was a sudden outbreak of cholera epidemic due to which her work in the hospital escalated rapidly with fifty to sixty patients afflicted with cholera getting admitted to the hospital dai-ly.45 In the course of attending to her patients, she herself suffered from an attack of cholera. It is worth noting that while she had been treating female patients in the hospital, yet when she fell victim, two homeopathic doctors were summoned for remedying the situation. Haimabati herself rejected the Civil Surgeon’s prescription of inducting spinal saline and instead in-structed her compounder to minister a morphia injection.46 This instance shows that even though the lady doctors were steeped in the knowledge of Western medicine, they were not antipathetic to other systems of medicine and in fact trusted their outcome over and above that of Western medicine on certain occasions.

‘In her early years, Dr Sen (Haimabati) treated about 230 patients per year in the hospital, about fifteen times that number in the outdoor clinic, and approximately 150 patients in their homes.’47 The Annual Report of the Bengal Branch records that in 1905–06; Dr Sen had treated almost 400 patients in her hospital and close to 6,000 in her outdoor clinic. Her home visits had also grown to over 270. Reports from Dacca and Mymensingh show that the female doctors there attended to ten times more patients in their homes than in the hospital.48 The reports of the provincial branches of the Dufferin Fund are replete with such examples that show the magnetic effect of the work of Indian women doctors. For instance, the Report of the Dacca Lady Dufferin Female Hospital in 1903 reported:

Miss P. Sarkar, VLMS, the permanent incumbent in charge, remained away

on medical leave from July to November, when Miss Soshi Mukhe Nath, also

a VLMS acted for her. The latter proved to be very energetic and popular and

contributed to the increase in the attendance of patients. . . . The number of

purdahnasheen cases treated in hospital was 399 and at their own homes 344. .

. . Real purdahnasheen women availed themselves of the services of the female

HA at their own homes on payment and the poorer classes without it.49

Similarly, when Jamini Sen started working in the hospital attached to the Agra Medical School (sometime in the second decade of the twen-tieth century), she had become very popular among the local women. They showed a distinct preference for her over the European doctors, as they most often came looking for the ‘sariwali dactarin’.50 Jamini became similarly popular and increased the attendance of female patients in the hospital in Shikarpur as well. In one of her diary entries Jamini stated that during her service in the Shikarpur Hospital, the number of indoor patients increased from 213 to 478 from 1915–16. The number of women who came for child delivery increased from fifty-three to ninety-six.51 This kind of

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

70

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 miraculous increase in numbers was once again experienced when Jamini

moved to Puri in 1929.52

The practice of seclusion and the institution of zenana, which mo-tivated the entry of women in the medical profession in India, were not confined to India alone. These women doctors were equally in demand or even more so by the royal family in Nepal. Both Kadambini and Jamini be-came very popular in Nepal while serving the royal household. Kadambini assumed the responsibility of taking care of the health needs of the Rajmata of Nepal from around 1895–96. Within a very short time Kadambini had won the confidence of the women in the royal household and became an important part of it. Her service was greatly appreciated and they showed their gratitude by showering Kadambini with expensive presents. Punyalata has recounted in her autobiography that Kadambini was presented with expensive jewellery, silverware, rich clothes, ivory handicrafts and even a white pony among other things.53

Later, on Kadambini’s recommendation, Jamini moved to Nepal in 1899 and stayed there for a period of ten years. She not only shouldered the responsibility of the royal family but also took charge of the Kathmandu Zenana Hospital. She had a very busy schedule in Nepal attending to the women in the royal family, private cases as well as the hospital.54 The Queen had found an intimate friend in Jamini and continuously insisted that she must stay on in Nepal. Although Jamini was under too much work pressure in Nepal, she moved to Calcutta only after the Queen’s demise, thereby giving evidence of her true friendship besides her dedication to service.55

Although the faith of Indian women on Indian women doctors was intensifying with time, on some occasions the doctors’ identities were misconstrued as a notion of impurity was intrinsically associated with the medical profession. The fact that their work as well as their company was appreciated in both India and Nepal suggests the adaptability of these doc-tors to the local mores and milieu and their ability to suit their knowledge and medical practice to the environment. The doctors in fact made little distinction among their patients on the basis of caste, but nonetheless they observed particular rituals and practices when they went into the private homes of their patients. The flexibility and amiability of the doctors made them welcome figures into the inner quarters, which otherwise strictly pro-hibited outsiders’ entry.

Women Doctors from the West and those from IndiaThe women who came from Europe and America to provide relief to the lot of Indian women, both as missionaries or as trained medical practi-tioners, found ample justification for their stay and work within India. The peculiar norms of seclusion within the Indian society made them the direct benefactors of these practices. Women in India became the ‘white women’s burden’ just like the rejuvenation of the degenerating Indian society had

71

been taken up as a task to be ably accomplished by fair minded white men.56 While they had always remained in the margins as medical professionals at home, India became the site where their professional skills were nurtured and appraised. On behalf of the medical women educated in the European Universities, Edith Pechey wrote:

India presents one attraction to enthusiasts in medical science, in that she of-

fers hospital posts with the opportunities for scientific investigations which

hospital practice alone affords. If the appointment to these posts are made per-

manent in character, and the emoluments connected with them are such as to

secure competency, I believe that the Government of India will find candidates

amongst really able women who would bring credit to the service and who

would contribute greatly to the advancement of medical knowledge in India.

. . .57

This appraisal, however, came as an adjunct to the presumed racial, cultural and scholastic superiority of these ladies. Thus their work and presence in the colonial milieu deprecated the worth of the Indian female doctors who were otherwise more valuable for the local inhabitants. A preponderant imperial attitude cast its shadow over the prospects of the Indian doctors in the figure of doctors trained in the West, presumably more efficient and enterprising.

Kamini Roy has written emphatically about the kind of discrimination and ill treatment that Jamini was subjected to. Roy has highlighted the ex-plicit racial bias and the resultant discriminatory treatment vis-à-vis other European doctors, from the following instance:

In spite of the same capabilities, or even more, the Indian doctors do not get

the same positions, perks and respect that is earned by the English and Eur-

asians. Thus in June, 1914, when three English female doctors were required

to be transferred from the Agra Women’s Hospital due to some unpleasant

reason, as a means of punishment they were sent to Shimla and elsewhere. And

in this hot climate Jamini had to go to Agra and fill in for them. For some time

she had to manage the work of all three women by herself. But six months later

when the earlier problem was settled, in the bitter December winter, Jamini

was transferred to Shimla. Not once, but several times Jamini had had to face

such unfair dealings. There was no separate residence for doctors in Shimla,

for which Jamini made arrangements. She also arranged for a new block for

female patients, but once again in the summer months she was transferred to

Shikarpur.58

Instances of preferential treatment and subjugation by the European doctors might have been common. The European, Eurasian and American doctors more often than not appropriated the newer opportunities and benefits that were allowed to female doctors in India, while the Indian doctors were being subjected to racial disfavour repeatedly. This was the

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

72

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 case with the provisions made by the Dufferin Fund as well as the Women’s

Medical Service that started in 1914.As early as 1888, Edith Pechey had proposed the inclusion of women

doctors of high merit into the Indian Medical Service.59 This proposal had been summarily rejected by the Government on the grounds of un-reasonability and the fact that IMS is a military service whose members are employed in civil posts only during times of peace. It was further pointed out that women could only fill in the position of nurses in the army, which was not the demand of the lady doctors.60 The subject was once again brought up significantly before the Government after the constitution of the Association of Medical Women in India in 1907. Two deputations met the Secretary of State for India in 1910 and 1912 respec-tively, following which the demand for female doctors to be inducted into the Medical Service was paid heed to.61 The Women’s Medical Service (WMS) for India was instituted as a part of the National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India (or the Dufferin Fund) and it came into being on 1 January 1914.62 Balfour and Young point out that, ‘All the women chosen, however, had European qualifi-cations, and, as the older members passed out, care was taken to select well-qualified successors.’63 The records of the WMS clearly indicate that very few Indian women were actually inducted into the service and that too for a short span of time. The list of members of WMS for the year 1914 furnishes the name of ‘Yamini Sen’ who is probably the same as Jamini Sen in this study.64

The official archives in general exhibit a degree of indifference to-wards the work and accomplishments of the Indian lady doctors. Most often the mention of an Indian doctor comes only as a passing reference in the descriptions of the work undertaken by an English lady doctor. Moreover, the names of hospital assistants working in smaller districts appear mostly as statistical data rather than being given the due credit for being the key agents in popularising the practice of Western medicine among the local population. The vernacular works, both biographical and autobiographical, become significant in this regard, which provide substantial information regarding the Indian women doctors.

Fashioning an Unequivocal Identity in the Field of Medicine The experiences of the Indian women doctors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century tell us about the trials and tribulations of some of the earliest professional women in the subcontinent. These women managed to carve out a niche for themselves whereby they were deemed indispensable and were respected for their work even while they were often treated as the ‘other’ in this predominantly masculine profes-sion. In the course of adapting themselves to the demands of their pro-fessional and personal lives, they evolved a variety of ‘coping strategies’

73

in order to fit within the larger picture without merging with it.65 They were an aberration to the image of the ‘new woman’ at a time when pro-fessional women were looked upon with disfavour in the Indian society. Nonetheless, they relentlessly served and healed those in need, virtually till the end of their life.

The continuous balancing act that they performed comprised of sev-eral aspects. First, they had to strike a balance in their roles as a modern Western educated woman but at the same time attempt to fit with the image of the reconfigured model of the ‘new woman’ or bhadramahila. Secondly, they had to portray themselves as the sisters of the native wom-enfolk, while at the same time compete with the European lady doctors for demanding better terms of work. Thirdly, they had to prove their met-tle as doctors despite being women, vis-à-vis their condescending male superiors and colleagues. And finally, they were expected to show utmost devotion towards their family responsibilities and personal relations and fulfill their professional commitments with expertise at the same time.

Most of the women doctors about whom we have come to know of, have at some point in time, expressed their disappointment regarding their lived experiences of gender/racial inequality and discrimination. Their thoughtfulness and efforts towards ameliorating the conditions of other marginalized women-labourers, widows, orphans and the destitute is creditworthy. They ought to be credited for introducing a distinct fem-inine essence in the profession of medicine in India, while simultaneously challenging the sex stereotyping of ‘doctor’ as male and ‘nurse’ as female. Thus women doctors had to struggle to assert their independent identity while operating within a critical colonial–patriarchal framework. Geral-dine Forbes has quoted David Arnold that ‘Ideologically, medicine was a conspicuous part of the self-vindication of colonial rule and of its subor-dination of Indian society.’66 To this she added, ‘In this case, middle class women, at least on the surface, willingly accepted this subordination. But in vindicating hegemony, they were asserting their autonomy.’67

ConclusionWomen doctors in India, as we have seen, became key agents in the pro-cess of dissemination of the knowledge and practice of Western medicine among the local population. In the process however, they also found an in-dependent identity within the society. Braving all odds the women doctors were pioneers in their own right. In covert and overt ways they challenged dominant discourses around medicine, health, education, gender roles and gender spaces. Their masterful maneuverings in the field of medicine en-abled them to coalesce their former roles with new ones in order to carve out a place of consequence for themselves and redefine their identity as women.

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

74

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Notes

1 Sophia Jex-Blake, a pioneer among British women in medicine argued that even those who opposed female physicians practicing in Britain could not ‘dispute the urgent necessity that exists for their services in India and other parts of the East, where native customs make it practically impossible that women should be attended by medical men.’ In Antoinette Burton, ‘Contesting the Zenana: The Mission to Make “Lady Doctors for India” – 1874–1885’, The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3, 1996, p. 369.

2 A certificate course was introduced with the efforts of Surgeon General Dr Balfour and Mary Scharlieb. Mousumi Bandyopadhyay, Kadambini Ganguly: The Archetypal Woman of Nineteenth Century Bengal, The Women Press, Delhi, 2011, p. 80.

3 Kadambini Ganguly, the first woman to join the CMC, has not left behind any autobiographical account. However, she has been widely written about by various women from the Brahmo Samaj. Moreover, her granddaughter, Punyalata Chakravarty has written about Kadambini in her autobiography, Chhelebelar Dinguli, Ananda Publisher, Kolkata, 1997. Haimabati Sen, a trained hospital assistant from CMS, had written a detailed autobiographical account in Bengali, which has been translated in Geraldine Forbes and Tapan Raychaudhuri eds., The Memoirs of Dr. Haimabati Sen: From Child Widow to Lady Doctor, trans., Tapan Raychaudhuri, Lotus Collecion, Roli Books, New Delhi, 2000. Jamini Sen, a CMC graduate, maintained her personal diary, excerpts from which were published by her sister Kamini Roy after Jamini Sen’s demise, Kamini Roy, Dactar Kumari Jamini Sener Sankshipta Jeeban Charita (in Bengali); quoted in Chitra Deb, Mahila Dactar: Vin Groher Basinda, Ananda Publishers Pvt. Ltd., first edition 1994, second edition 2010 (in Bengali).

4 Rosemary Pringle, Sex and Medicine: Gender, Power and Authority in the Medical Profession, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 21.

5 Chitra Deb, Mahila Dactar: Vin Groher Basinda, Ananda Publishers, Kolkata 2010, p. 39, second edition.

6 This poem was composed by the poet Ishwarchandra Gupta for his publication Samvaad Prabhakar. This has been quoted in Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 39.

7 Translation my own. 8 Poem by Ishwarchandra Gupta, quoted in Deb, Mahila Dactar, 40. 9 Translation my own. 10 Charu Gupta, ‘Procreation and Pleasure: Writings of a Woman Ayurvedic

Practitioner in Colonial North India,’ Studies in History, Vol. 21, No.1, 2005, p. 26. 11 Annual Report of NASFMA, 1910, NAI, New Delhi. 12 Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 93. 13 Ibid., p. 98. 14 Ibid., p. 94. 15 Ibid., p. 128 16 Geraldine Forbes and Tapan Raychaudhuri eds., The Memoirs of Dr. Haimabati

Sen, p. 317. 17 A considerable number of archival files discuss the issue of comparative values

of degrees issued in the Indian and UK universities and therein, the justification of allowing registration of Indian doctors in the Medical Registers of UK so as to ‘acquire the right of practicing there or in any other country to which the provisions of the Act have been extended.’ Home Department (Education) October 1890, File No. 35–39.

18 Deb, Mahila Dactar, 100. 19 Ibid., 129–30.

75

20 Ibid., 130. 21 Ibid., 136. 22 Home Department (Medical) A, February, 1910, File No. 2–3. NAI. New Delhi. 23 Annual Report of NASFMA, 1905 and Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, 291. 24 Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, 325, 327–28. 25 Ibid., 336–37. 26 Ibid., 328. 27 Margaret Balfour and Ruth Young, The Work of Medical Women in India, Oxford

University Press, Bombay, 1929, p. 94. 28 She narrates in her autobiography that Dr Mukherji insisted on discussing the

symptoms and causes of ‘shameful diseases’ and such other ‘obscene topics’ that made her uncomfortable. Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, 328 and 343.

29 Ibid., 343. 30 The Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bengal Branch of the of the National

Association for Supplying medical aid to the Women of India, Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1902, quoted in Geraldine Forbes, Women in Colonial India: Essays on Politics, Medicine and Historiography, Chronicle Books, New Delhi, 2005, p. 131; Deb, Mahila Dactar, 119.

31 Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 119. 32 Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, p. 333–35. 33 Punyalata Chakravarty, Chhelebelar Dinguli, Ananda Publisher, Kolkata, 1997, p.

124. 34 Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, p. 347. 35 Ibid. p. 376. 36 Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 107. 37 Ibid., p. 110. 38 Chakravarty, Chhelebelar Dinguli, p. 125. 39 Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, p. 376. 40 Ibid., p. 376. 41 Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 136. 42 Mousumi Bandyopadhyay, Kadambini Ganguly: The Archetypal Woman of

Nineteenth Century Bengal, The Women Press, Delhi, 2011, p. 241. 43 Ibid., p. 244–45. 44 Maina Chawla Singh. ‘Gender, Medicine and Empire: Early initiatives in

Institution-building and Professionalisation, (1890s–1940s),’ in Shakti Kak and Biswamoy Pati eds., Exploring Gender Equations: Colonial and Post Colonial India, Nehru Memorial and Museum Library, New Delhi, 2005, p. 100.

45 Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, p. 364. 46 Ibid., p. 366. 47 Geraldine Forbes, Women in Colonial India, p. 132. 48 Ibid., p. 133. 49 Bandyopadhyay, Kadambini Ganguly, p. 110. 50 Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 133–34. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid., p. 137. 53 Ibid., p. 102. 54 Deb makes reference to Hemlata Sarkar’s descripion of Jamini’s work in Nepal

in Sarkar’s two books, Nepale Banganari and Satirthar Shraddhanjali: Swargiya Dactari Kumari Jamini Sen. Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 129.

55 Ibid., p. 129. 56 Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and

Imperial Culture, 1865–1915, The University of North Carolina Press, USA, 1994,

Women Doctors’ Masterful ManeuveringsSharm

ita Ray

76

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 p. 10.

57 Home Department (Medical) A, May, 1888, File No. 13–14, NAI, New Delhi. 58 Deb, Mahila Dactar, p. 132. 59 Home Department (Medical) A, May, 1888, File No. 13–14. NAI, New Delhi. 60 Ibid. 61 Kumari Jayavardena, The White Women’s Other Burden: Western Women and

South Asia During British Colonial Rule, Routledge, New York & London, 1995, p. 89.

62 Balfour & Young, The Work, p. 50. 63 Ibid., p. 51. 64 Annual Report of NASFMA, 1914. NAI, New Delhi. 65 Forbes & Raychaudhuri, The Memoirs, p. 26. 66 Quoted from David Arnold, ‘Medical Priorities and Practice in 19th century

British India,’ South Asia Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, November 1985, quoted in Geraldine Forbes Women in Colonial India, p. 99.

67 Ibid.

Sharmita Ray is a Research Scholar, Department of History, Delhi University.

77

Frank Broeze describes port cities as the gateways through which particular regions of the world are connected with overseas. As true ‘brides of the sea’, port cities integrate their hinterlands and forelands in dynamic union, giving birth to urban communities of a very special character and atmo-sphere.1 Even when the significance of ports and port cities is realised, port and dock work itself and the regime it has been subjected to, has scarcely been studied. The workers here are said to perform such labours that Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker would term as ‘labours of expropriation’ which is generally taken by historians as a given ‘the field is there before the ploughing starts; the city is there before the labourers begins the working day, likewise for long-distance: the port is there before the ship sets sail from it; the plantation is there before the slave cultivates its land’.2 There has been a lack of attention by historians to the actions and decisions of employers in relation to labour. In casual occupations as the dock work, employers gained only the most marginal advantages from regularity, reli-ability, sobriety, or other virtues of work discipline considered to be asso-ciated with constant employment and hence made little effort to regularise work. In spite of overcrowding of the villages and migration of people in search of livelihood, the newly established industries felt a dearth of work-ers while a number of men went without any work for days. This shortage of the industries became acute at the close of the nineteenth century and continued till the outbreak of the First World War. The root of the crisis lay as described by some scholars not in the real absence of labour as such rather in the absence of an organised labour market.3 However, imposition of order on increasingly global system of labour which Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh refer to as the ‘many-headed-hydra’ and more specifically dock labour had by the early twentieth century become significant.4

One of the most important decisions taken by the employers vis-à-vis dock labour in the twentieth century was decasualisation which has impact-ed their lives variously since then. This paper attempts to study the nature of dock work, the recruitment process and creation of a casual labour mar-ket in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It also enquires why this creation of a casual labour market becomes a grave matter of concern and examines the process of regulating dock work in India through deca-sualisation and why it failed to regularise work with special reference to the ports of Calcutta and Bombay.

Regulating Work:Decasualisation of Dock Labour

In Colonial India

Shubhankita Ojha

78

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Work at the Docks

It shall be useful at this point to understand ‘port and dock work’ to know the various forms of work these labourers are subjected to and to also understand the hierarchies of work structure it entails. Port Operations consist mainly of loading, discharging, embarking, and disembarking, bunkering, repairing, victualling, piloting, dredging, buoying, lighting, dry docking, receiving and delivering cargo, providing and maintaining cranes, hoists and quay equipments, providing power, lighterage, towing etc. The requirements of labour for shore work are complex and it is a rather het-erogeneous labour force consisting of different groups and categories of workers skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled employed by various agencies. Considering the arduous nature of the industry, aged men as well as wom-en and children are not usually found amongst the dockyard labour.

So far as the loading and unloading of ships and the handling of cargo at the docks are concerned, the labour employed for such work can be broadly classified into stevedore workers who handle cargo in the ship’s holds, and shore workers who handle cargo at the docks, in transit sheds, warehouses etc. The cargo which is handled by the stevedore labour in the hatches and elsewhere on the ship is gathered into a sling or into nets or gripped with other devices and lifted by the hook of the crane, and trans-ported by the crane from ship to dock. When this cargo touches the dock it is taken in charge by the Port Trust labour. When goods are being exported the reverse process follows; the cargo is loaded by Port Trust gangs and is unloaded in the hatches by the Stevedore labour. It is thus apparent that for the quick turnover of cargo all the three principle parties must work with the requisite effort, namely, the Port Trust employees, the stevedore employees and the crane-men. The crane-men like the shore workers are the employees of the Port Trust.

Apart from the port authorities and stevedoring firms, there are other employers of workers like the contractors for salt workers, food-grain han-dling workers and those handling bulk cargo like chemicals and fertilizers, ores, scrap iron, sulphur and workers engaged on cleaning, chipping and painting of vessels, coal stevedoring and coal bunkering. Apart from these of course are the workers employed at the dockyards who perform semi-skilled and sometimes skilled operations to the ship in docks.

However, there were a number of works at the port and docks that nev-er came to be recognised as ‘dock work’. The confusion around the exact definition of a ‘dock worker’ prevailed for a long time which explains why a number of workers working at the docks did not come under the provi-sions of any legislation. The Workmen’s Compensation Act 1923, applied to persons ‘employed for the purpose of loading, unloading or coaling any ship at any pier, jetty, landing place, wharf, quay, dock, warehouse or shed, on, in or at which steam, water or other mechanical power or electrical power is used’. This definition excluded persons employed in loading or

79

unloading ships which were not lying in contiguity with dry land, e.g. ships at moorings in the stream of the river and ships at anchorages in roadsteads. This issue came up by the dependents of one Sheikh Raju who was killed in an accident while unloading salt. As a matter of fact, all salt cargoes were unloaded from ships in mid-stream in the river on to floating boats and thousands were employed in the operation. Since a ‘boat’ on which a ship in midstream is unloaded was not considered as a landing place, workers working midstream were not included as ‘workmen’.5 Similarly, workers engaged in the chipping and painting of ships in the dry docks were hardly considered as ‘dock labour’, thus making them ‘invisible’ and ‘unscreened’ categories in the industry.

It was also noted that dock labour in Bombay was one of the occupa-tions that freely employed juveniles.6 Children were hired by hiring agents called ‘mukkadams’ who preferred children to adults because they could easily exploit them by paying comparatively low wages. These children were often required to do ‘chipping’ work, which is the removal of old coat of paint from ships lying in the dry dock. This job was possible only by hang-ing on ropes tied from the dock of the ship. Working from this elevation without proper support is both dangerous and risky. Added to this was the risk of the lead content in the paint that the children were exposed to. These children flocked in the vicinity of the docks and preferred dock work pri-marily because it was casual and there was freedom to choose work as and when one pleased. And whenever there was no work, they hung around the docks with the object of pilfering small articles which could be conveniently smuggled out and sold to junk dealers. Most of them easily came under the influence of anti-social adults who trained them for the purpose of stealing from the docks.

Recruitment of Dock LabourUsually the port authorities maintained a permanent establishment under their direct control, but the bulk of the labour engaged in loading and unloading was casual and employed indirectly through stevedores or other contractors. At Bombay, prior to 1910, all the labour required in the docks was hired by various private European firms like Messrs Hill, Son and Grennan, Messrs Sharp & Co.7 and other Parsee firms like Messrs. Karram-sey Damji & Co., Messrs. Cursetjee Muncherjee & Sons who were among the largest coal stevedores in Bombay.8 These firms did not employ the labourers but entered into subcontracts with some intermediaries known as toliwalas who were then responsible for bringing in the necessary number. From 1911, the Port Trust ended the contract with the firm and took upon itself to supply its own labour but did not abolish the method of giving sub-contracts to the toliwalas and now employed labour directly through them. This gave rise to the ‘Toliwala system’ where apart from a permanent establishment of workers under the Port Trust, labour was recruited and

Regulating WorkShubhankita O

jha

80

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 supplied by toliwalas. The shipping companies or stevedores employed

foremen, known variously as tindals, mukaddams, gang maistries. jama-dars, toliwalas, or sardars. In Calcutta however, most of the dock labour was supplied by one firm of contractors M/s Bird and Co. and not directly employed by the Port Commissioners and this system continued till about decasualisation. The labour supplied by the contractor was recruited chief-ly through an intermediary called sardar. The sardars usually recruited labourers from their own village or from neighbouring villages and there-fore knew each of them personally. A large majority of stevedoring work-ers at the Calcutta port were Muslims from Bihar, particularly from the Darbhanga district while Bombay drew its stevedore workers partly from Muslims in Uttar Pradesh and the North West Frontier Province.9 The Port Trust labour in Calcutta came mostly from north Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and were mostly Hindus while in Bombay they came from various places like Konkan, Kutch district in Gujarat and Satara district in Maharashtra.10 The district of Ratnagiri in the Konkan supplied Bombay with most of its mill-hands and labourers.11 Thus while the Calcutta Port drew its labour from its own hinterland, the Bombay docks attracted workers from areas beyond their hinterland. ‘The undeveloped character of the labour market and the chaotic condition of the economy in general accounted largely for the existence of such middlemen.’12 Also the extreme reluctance of the em-ployers to invest in the creation of a stable labour force and their imperative of having a disposable one to suit the short term needs of the industry gave rise to the phenomenon of jobber.13

As for how these men were selected, the old process of ‘calling-on’ dock workers at the usual open air-stands, and the consequent scramble for work have often been described. Most of the description resembles what Vernon Jensen has to say about the labour recruitment process at docks:

The foreman stood on the raised ledge of a warehouse and eyed the crowd all

over as if it were a herd of cattle. Then very deliberately he beckoned a man

with his finger, and after a considerable interval, a second and a third until he

had taken ten in all. There was an evident enjoyment of a sense of power, un-

derstandable enough as human nature goes, and the whole proceedings were

horribly suggestive of the methods of a slave market. . . . It is during the latter

stages of a heavy call that disturbances are most frequent. The men begin to fid-

get and push; those who are small and weak are shoved aside by the more burly,

and sometimes a struggling mass of men may be seen elbowing and fighting to

get to the front, and to attract the foreman’s attention. . . the foreman distrib-

utes the metal tallies which are the token of engagement. The spectacle of some

scores of men struggling violently is by no means infrequent here.14

Role of the IntermediaryThe labour agent discussed above known variously as the ‘toliwala’ or ‘serang’ or ‘sirdar’, as in many standard Indian examples ‘represented a

81

convergence of three distinct intermediary roles – supervisor in the pro-duction site (the foreman), recruiter or labour contractor, and headman of communities’ and hence was indispensible.15 Payment of wages was made through the toliwalas who acted as small agents with the advantage of hav-ing a personal interest in and some measure of confidence among the men. But there were chances also of the illiterate dockworkers being cheated by the toliwalas who demanded bribes from these workers to procure work. Also workers frequently complained of a part of their salary being withheld by the toliwala in order to ensure that the workers turned up for work regularly. The Port Trust itself was quite aware of the fact that there were frequent complaints from men that they did not receive their full quota of wages but did nothing to remove this evil.16

While the foreman played a major role in the recruitment of labour, we also need to acknowledge their involvement in the social organization of urban neighbourhoods. ‘. . . [T]he jobber’s functions at work drew him into the wider social connections of the working-class neighbourhoods. To lay off workers and recruit them when needed, the jobber had to maintain contacts with potential recruits in the urban neighbourhoods’.17 At the same time in order to seek the loyalty and adherence of his fellow workers, most of the jobbers offered them credit and provided them with housing. According to Cholia, the foreman’s objective in extending credit was to resist the tendency amongst labourers to migrate from one gang muccadam to another when there is a rise in the daily rates of wages due to a sudden rush of work.18 However, this did not always prevent workers from moving away to another jobber or to a totally new industry, when a gang mukadam was unable to provide work at favourable rates. However, the workers were not passive victims of serang dominance. In fact, many resorted to police or law courts to recover unpaid wages19 and even went on occasional strikes as a result of what they alleged to be a reduction in wages and victimisation on the part of the contractors who engaged them.20 ‘Within this institution of recruitment and supervision at work, we need to locate the dialectic of power, which created an interdependence between jobbers and men, pre-venting the total domination of the latter and circumscribing the options of the former’.21

Docks and the Problem of Casual LabourIn India, casual labour was common to a number of industries and their decasualisation began almost at the same time. As Ralph James work on cotton mills22 or Arjan de Haan’s work on jute mills23 would suggest, the urgent need for decasualisation began to be felt around the 1930s, the same time when decasualising port and dock workers was thought of. In the Bombay Textile Industry, a Badli control system in the form of Mill Decasualisation was underway by 1930s. The casual system had profound effects on employment relations in the docks. In casual systems of employ-

Regulating WorkShubhankita O

jha

82

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 ment, the hiring of labour was renewed constantly, over and over again,

and the maintenance of the labour-force required a continual process of constitution and reconstitution. In most cases job tenure was as minimal as possible, by the day or half day or even by the hour, and the ‘package of benefits’ that came with the job was reduced primarily to the wage itself, and nothing else.

‘The coming and going of ships are rendered uncertain by tides and by weather and the irregularity of their movements is reflected in the employ-ment connected with them’.24 Port traffic is subject to wide fluctuations which are not necessarily seasonal or otherwise cyclic, and occur daily de-pending upon the number of ships entering or leaving the Port on any day. Quite obviously then, the volume of demand for dock worker was subject to seasonal fluctuations and this had a bearing on the supply of labour. In such a situation, employers considered it of little gain to maintain a regular and permanent labour force and they adopted the policy of recruiting and dismissing the workers at will. In respect to the Mazagaon Docks in Bom-bay, Raj Chandravarkar talks about the various stratagems employed by the employers to ensure that they had sufficient men at work. The Port Trust attempted to lay off temporarily a proportion of workers by rotation for a specific period of compulsory leave each month, for the duration of which no wages were paid. This was what came to be known as the ‘Pali System’.25 The system of compulsory leave dispensed with the need for employers to dismiss skilled workers and thus neutralised both the risk of losing them to rivals and the expense of retaining them in slack periods.

Added to this seasonal fluctuation was the recruitment process as dis-cussed earlier, which usually was a very indirect engagement of employers with its labour. Since the demand for labour was subject to sudden and ar-bitrary variations, it was a common practice among employers to delegate responsibility for the hiring of workers to intermediaries.

The effect of allowing chance to influence the selection of men for employment, according to Beveridge, is to increase quite unnecessarily the number of individuals among whom any definite total of work is distrib-uted.26 So apart from a certain theoretically determinable number of men fixed by conditions of trade a part of who had the character of partially employed labour due to the irregular variations of work, were men recruit-ed to counter effect any hindrance to the perfect fluidity of labour from centre to centre. And then of course, were the body of men required neither by the fluctuation in the total volume of work nor by the fluctuations of separate business but liable to be attracted and retained by the perpetual chance of work. Hence, most of the labour that was recruited happened to be casual and there happened to be what was known as ‘an unnecessary glut of labour’ at the docks. The large employment of casual labour enabled the employers to maintain flexibility in the employment of labour but also made workers uncertain about their jobs. Casual labour was also preferred

83

as no specialised skills were required for these jobs except youth, strength and considerable powers of endurance.

Decasualising ‘The Casual’According to Sam Davies, ‘The characteristic “distance” between employer and worker and the importance of intermediaries in the hiring process were both important factors limiting employers’ control and knowledge of la-bour.’27 In the absence of an overall organisation of a casual labour market, most of the shipping companies sought to maintain private reserves of men which led to underemployment of these very workers when there was no work since they could not find work elsewhere. Also, degenerate conditions emanating from chronic underemployment, industrial unrest, the deg-radation associated with hiring shape-ups, the widespread corruption by hiring agents in the form of bribery etc, and the organised crime activities at the docks speak for themselves about the intensity of the casual labour problem. This takes added significance because absenteeism is practically impossible to eliminate in circumstances where the worker has strong ties with his village. The technological changes in shipping at the dawn of the twentieth century were significant in the realisation of the need for a smooth working and clearing of the ports. Since all cargo handling opera-tions in the docks are complementary, it was realised that it was crucial to remove causes of friction inherent in the system of employment of casual workers to ensure efficient working at the docks.

Decasualisation was seen to provide a possible solution to the corrup-tion existing in such industries. Most of the port legislations uptil the 1930 dealt with infrastructure building at the ports. Upto 1933, India had noth-ing on the lines of Britain’s dock regulations. This led to a lot of questioning as regulations for workmen compensation and welfare provisions for work-ers at the United Kingdom’s ports were much more elaborate. Legislation would, therefore, be necessary if similar rules for the protection of dock la-bour were to be issued. N.M. Joshi in a question to the legislative assembly raised the issue that Section 79 of the Factory & Workshop’s Act 1901 gave the Secretary of State power to make regulations in the case of dangerous trades. Such regulations had been made in the UK as regards docks. None appeared to be in force in India, nor was there any legislation under which they could be made. The work of labour at docks for loading and unload-ing, mooring and handling goods and coaling ships did not fall within the definition ‘factory’ as given in the definition of the Indian Factories Act and consequently the provisions of the Indian Factories Act did not apply to the employment of labour on such work. The British Factory & Workshop Act 1901, specifically provided (vide section 104) for the application of certain provisions of the Act to the work at docks. But in India, there appeared no powers under any law to regulate the employment of such workers.28 The only Act that seemed to address the workers under question was the Work-

Regulating WorkShubhankita O

jha

84

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 men Compensation Act of 1923. However, it left out a sizeable number of

persons who worked in the vicinity of the ports and docks. In response to the above, a call for decasualisation of port labour was

made by the Royal Commission on Labour in 1930 which found the situa-tion at ports in need for an urgent consideration.29 The Royal Commission on Labour (RCL) found that in all ports, there was usually labour in excess of immediate requirements, and the tendency of the employers was to en-courage larger reserves than necessary in order to provide ample margins against emergencies which resulted in most of the workers not finding work for more than ten to twelve days a month. The Commission recommend-ed the immediate decasualisation and registration of dock workers. The proposal of the RCL in India contemplated, in the first place, a scheme of registration to be supervised and controlled by the Port authorities with the assistance of representatives of ship-owners, stevedores and labourers and, in the second place, a reorganisation of methods of engagement and pooling of labour supply dependent not on the caprice of intermediaries but a system that ensures an equitable distribution of employment among all efficient men.

That a general ambiguity prevailed with regard to the definition of ‘dock labour’ is clear when we look at the Indian Dock Labourers’ Act 1934, an act concerning the protection against accidents of workers employed in loading and unloading ships.30 The Act and Regulations are restrictive in their scope in that they covered only the safety of labour engaged in load-ing and unloading of cargo or fuel into or from a ship and work done on board the ship or alongside it. Thus a considerable section of the workers employed in the docks were not covered by the Regulations. Moreover it also left out a number of men employed not directly in the vicinity of the port rather elsewhere.

As the Labour Investigation Committee 1946 found out for the Cal-cutta dockyards, the percentage of contractors’ men to direct employees of the different concerns remained about seventy-three.31 In 1944, while the total number of direct employees of the Calcutta dockyards was 10,783, the number of those employed by contractors stood at 7,902.32 The situation in Calcutta though was better than other ports. On an average, nearly 95 per cent of the workers directly employed were on permanent basis. This was in clear contrast to the position of Bombay where 95 per cent of direct employees happened to be temporary. However, less than 25 per cent of the direct employees of the Calcutta Port Trust were on permanent basis, and hence there existed no provision for safeguarding the future of the bulk of the employees of the Trust. The absence of a formal institutionalised re-cruitment pattern led to some workers being favoured over others.

As in most of the ports worldwide, it was in the late 1940s that de-casualisation actually took shape in India. The Government of India in the case of stevedore labour took legislative measures for the first time to

85

regulate the employment of dock workers at major ports by enacting the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act 1948 giving powers to the Central Government to frame Schemes for registration of dock workers with a view to secure greater regularity of employment and for reducing the hardships caused to labour due to under-employment and unemploy-ment.33 This Act was on the same lines as the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act of Britain which was passed in 1947. The Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act 1948, was initially intended to be applied to all categories of labour working in the Ports but the decasualisation of Dock Workers’ Scheme which was framed under this Act, was on the representation of the Port Authorities, restricted to the stevedore labour only. Under the provisions of the Act, the governments of Madras, Bom-bay, and Calcutta drew up their respective Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Schemes on the lines of UK Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Scheme 1947. Under each scheme a tripartite body Dock Labour Board was constituted. Thus initially the Dock Labour Boards were a creation of the schemes framed under the Act. In 1962 an amendment was made to the Act and the establishment of Dock Labour Boards came directly under the Act.

With the introduction of the Dock Labour Board, the stevedores had to employ the labour registered by the Board who were booked by the Board at its different Call Stands. The workers were divided into two categories, ‘monthly’ and ‘reserve pool’. The monthly workers were under the direct control of employers, while the Reserve Pool Workers – also called ‘daily workers’ – were under the direct control of the Dock Labour Board. The workers in the reserve pool had to be employed in strict rotation so that all of them got an equal share of employment.

Overall the schemes provided for restriction on employment of unreg-istered workers, determination of wages and allowances for workers and other conditions of service; working of shifts; maintenance of proper ac-counts and registers; and training, welfare health and safety measures. With the expansion of trade it was increasingly being realised that work at port would require labour round the clock. Subsequently by 1955 the work came to be worked in three shifts. Nevertheless basic infrastructural and legisla-tive lapses remained. Though working in shifts ensured that the worker got himself registered for the shift convenient to him, what was not ensured was a proper availability of call stands where such bookings could be done. The very fact that places of engagement were widely scattered contributed to the immobility of workers and thus set a definite limit on the possibility of taking steps to reduce the total pool of labour in closer relation to the normal labour requirements.

Decasualisation in the form of departmentalisation of shore labour took place in 1948. Two registers of shore workers namely the primary and the secondary were maintained. The first kept a record of the ‘A’ category

Regulating WorkShubhankita O

jha

86

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 workers called so in Bombay and Madras and Primary Gangs in Calcutta.

These consisted of persons regularly employed on piece work basis. These were at par with permanent employees and enjoyed benefits like provident fund. The second category, called ‘B’ category in Bombay and Madras and Ticca gangs in Calcutta was intended for workers required in case of extra work; these were also said to receive regular employment and chosen from among the casuals. They would receive some benefits like restricted number of holidays or right to compensation but no provident fund. The peculiarity of the scheme was that it stood not for decasualisation but for ‘recasualisation’. Now instead of a single decasualised category of workers, there came into being four categories of labour employed by the Port Com-missioners for cargo handling ashore.34 One was the departmental labour who were the permanent employees of the Port and enjoyed all benefits and amenities pertaining to permanent employees. In Calcutta, they were utilised for cargo handling only at the Calcutta jetties and the King George’s Docks and could be booked only in the morning and afternoon shifts. The Decasualised Piece Rate Labour Primary Gangs were the next category. They got a piece rated structure of payment with a minimum monthly guarantee along with all other benefits of a permanent worker. The other category that departmentalisation provided for was that of Ticcas or ‘B’ category which were actually casual labourers and there was a further ‘C’ category registered with the Regional Employment Exchange. This category was also called as the extra casuals meaning those workers who were more casual than others. The third shift of work at the Port was almost entirely manned by this labour. None of these categories of Ticcas got the benefits enjoyed by permanent employees. On days they were not booked, they received no payment in the form of attendance allowance. Moreover, the tendency to keep down the strength of the costlier ‘A’ category workers and to increase the strength of the cheaper casual and rank casual workers grew virtually defeating the object of decasualisation of shore workers. Represen-tations by ‘B’ category workers in fact say that a constant grievance of ‘B’ category workman was that there existed a large number of vacancies in the ‘A’ category but despite repeated demand by the workers these vacancies were not filled in.35

The decasualisation schemes with their objectives ‘ensure greater reg-ularity of employment for dock workers and to secure that an adequate number of dock workers is available for the efficient performance of dock work’ brought in a fund of benefits for workers. But something else hap-pened meanwhile. Earlier the workers were selected by contractors through intermediaries. More than often these jobbers drew people from their own villages and hence ensured that a kind of kinship prevailed among his gang members which also in some sense ensured a worker’s living in the expen-sive city. The earlier casual nature of the job fostered a keen appreciation of sticking together to maintain job control. Now with this link gone the em-

87

ployer–employee relationship became more impersonal. While welfare was extended to the permanent employees, there was no attempt on the part of the employer to ensure a dedicated work force in the dock industry. While earlier the gap between the permanent and casual workers was in terms of work availability, now it spilt over to the basic living conditions of the two categories working at the same port. There was a general confusion espe-cially among the stevedore labour about who their employer was. Since the labour now was booked with the Dock Labour Board, his attitude towards the employer was of indifference and they would most of the time resort to shunning work. In such a case, general lack of accountability on the part of the employers also became difficult to question. In addition, one of the measures that needed to be taken to ensure the proper working of any de-casualisation scheme was to regulate the supply of labour in the aggregate. In Calcutta the total labour force consisted of 8,944 men in 1954–55; it was 11,523 in 1957 without a similar corresponding increase in the tonnage of cargo handled at the docks.36 Similarly for Bombay, in 1953, the total number of workers was 4,703 of which 1,998 were in category ‘A’, 265 in category ‘B’ and 2,440 in category ‘C’, whereas in 1957 it was 7,701, that is, an increase of 2,998 men. This increase included an addition to the category of rank casuals to the extent of 2,063 men.37 These figures certainly show an upward trend in the employment of casuals rather than a diminishing one suggesting the inappropriate implementation of the decasualisation schemes.

The National Commission on Labour (1969) also found that decasual-isation had left out a major category that of the Unregistered Workers who practically went unnoticed till about 1957.38 These workers were neither the employees of the Port Trust nor the Dock Labour Board but were recruited by private employers. Nevertheless, they too faced the same problem of a casual work force. The original schemes were amended in certain respects and the Calcutta Unregistered Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Scheme 1957, the Bombay Unregistered Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Scheme 1957, and the Madras Unregistered Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) 1957, were framed for listing of certain addi-tional categories of workers preparatory to their final registration under the Decasualisation Schemes. However, the National Commission suggested an implementation of these schemes since no such listing was done yet.

ConclusionEnacted in response to increasing global demands for regularising work at ports, decasualisation was meant to effect work opportunities as well as ex-tension of welfare benefits to the workers engaged in port and dock indus-tries. However, implementation of the scheme on an employment structure which was inherently ‘casual’ compounded the problem manifold. Instead of creating a work environment which encouraged more and more work-

Regulating WorkShubhankita O

jha

88

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 ers to formally register themselves, decasualisation from the time of its

inception itself became a flawed concept which hardly encouraged any ‘commitment’ either from the employers or the workers. It emphasised the fact that decasualisation did not propose to completely do away with the irregularities of port work, rather it only meant ‘regulating’ them in a way which made employment opportunities and welfare accessible to only a few. So while legal categories were made and fixed, they simultaneously gave rise to illegal categories which went completely unprotected in terms of employment and welfare benefit opportunities and hence seemed to of-fer little respite. Pathetically meagre wages and hopelessly bad working and living conditions caused widespread discontent among the workers and hence ‘the first effervescence of the struggle of the workers centred mainly around two basic demands – shortening of the working hours and increase in wages’.39 The ‘structured casualisation’ that such a regulatory regime brought forward has repercussions on the industrial relations even today.

Notes 1 Broeze, Frank, ‘Introduction: Brides of the Sea’, in Broeze (ed.) Brides of the Sea,

Port Cities of Asia from the 16th to the 20th centuries, Sydney–Honolulu, 1989. 2 Linebaugh, P. & Rediker, M., The Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners

and the hidden history of the Revolutionary Atlantic, Verso, 2000.

3 Sen, Sukomal. Working Class of India: History of Emergence and Movement 1830–1970, K.P. Bagchi & Co., Calcutta, 1977

4 Linebaugh, P & Rediker, M., The Many Headed Hydra. 5 D/o Industries and Labour, Labour Branch, File no. L-1476 (1), 1927, Serial no. 2,

Notification no. L-1476, 18 Novemeber 1926. 6 Times of India, 11 December 1949. 7 Times of India, 15 March 1898, p. 5. 8 Times of India, 26 May 1903, p. 4. 9 Bogaert, Michael van den, Trade Unionism in Indian Ports: A Case Study at Calcutta

and Bombay, Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations, New Delhi, 1970, pp. 9–11. 10 Ibid. 11 Kumar, Ravinder, ‘The Bombay Textile Strike, 1919’, The Indian Economic & Social

History Review (IESHR), Vol. 8, 1971. 12 Sen, Sukomal, Working Class of India: History of Emergence and Movement 1830–

1970, K.P. Bagchi & Co. Calcutta, 1977, p. 33. 13 Upadhyay, Shashi Bhushan, Existence, Identity and Mobilization: The Cotton

Millworkers of Bombay 1890–1919, Manohar, 2004, p. 34. 14 Jensen, Vernon H., Hiring of Dock Workers, Harvard University Press, 1964,

pp.185–86. 15 Roy, Tirthankar. ‘Sardars, Jobbers and Kanganies: The Labour Contractor and

Indian Economic History’, Modern Asian Studies (MAS), Vol. 42, no. 5, 2008, pp. 971–98.

16 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Labour in India, Bombay Presidency, 30th Meeting, Monday, 2 December 1929.

17 Chandravarkar, Raj, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business strategies and the working classes in Bombay, 1900–1940, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 101.

89

18 Cholia,Rasiklal. Dock Labourers in Bombay, Longmans Green and Co. Ltd, p. 59. 19 Times of India, 2 August 1905. 20 Times of India, 14 March 1932, p. 7; Times of India, 19 November 1937, p. 12. 21 Chandravarkar Raj. The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies

and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 107.

22 James, Ralph C., ‘The Casual Labour problem in Indian Manufacturing’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 74, No.1, February 1960.

23 Haan, Arjan de, ‘The Badli system in industrial labour recruitment’, in Contributions to Indian Sociology 1999, Vol. 33, p. 271.

24 Mess, H.A., Casual Labour at the Docks, G. Bell and Sons Ltd., 1916. 25 Chandravarkar, Raj, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India. 26 Beveridge, W.H., Unemployment: A Problem of Industry, Longmans, Green and

Co., 1910, p. 80. 27 Davies, Sam, ‘Employers and dock labour: employment, work and industrial

relations in international perspective’, in Sam Davies (ed.), Dock Workers: International explorations in comparative labour history, 1790–1970, Vol. II, Aldershot, 2000, pp. 604–26.

28 D/o Industries and Labour, Labour Branch, F. no 1414 (156), 1930. 29 Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, London, June 1931. 30 The Indian Dock Labourer’s Act 1934, Act XIX of 1934. 31 Report on an Enquiry into Conditions of Labour in Dockyards in India, Chairman,

Labour Investigation Committee, 1946. 32 Ibid. 33 Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, Act IX of 1948. 34 Calcutta Port Commissioners, Secretary’s Department, File no. 2881/1205 B

General/II, 1957. 35 Calcutta Port Commissioners, Secretary’s Department, File no.2881/1205/6

General/III, 1961. 36 Chaudhuri, P.C., Report of an Enquiry into Demands of Labour, M/o Transport &

Communication, Government of India (GOI),1957, p. 179 37 Ibid. 38 Report of the Study Group for Ports and Docks, National Commission on Labour,

1968. 39 Sen, Sukomal, Working Class of India: History of Emergence and Movement 1830–

1970, K.P. Bagchi & Co. Calcutta, 1977.

Shubhankita Ojha is a Research Scholar, Department of History, Delhi University.

Regulating WorkShubhankita O

jha

90

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014

91

Only five days were left for the New Grand Circus camp to shift from Belgaum, bordering Karnataka and Maharashtra. Small loads were already being sent in trucks to the next camping site. Though a workers’ union had already born by the time, not much happened publicly. It was a secret known only to a few people. But the owner of New Grand Circus, Anif, had his doubts regarding the existence of the union. The labourers from Andhra and Tamil Nadu were always complaining that they were being punished and tormented because of the union membership. They were becoming wrong doers in the eyes of the owner and the management.

And then one day the fateful happened. The ringmaster of the circus, Shivakumar was dismissed by the owner. No particular reason given and obviously the labourers and the ringmaster believed that it was because of the union membership. The ‘union leaders’ J.F. Stephen, V.M. Prabha-karan, A.V. Karim (incidentally, all Malayalis) and J.B. Swami (Srilankan Tamilian) went to meet the owner. Their only request was to take the dis-missed ring master back. But Anif was stubborn.

The leaders were in a tight spot. What should be the next move? It was then that the desperate leaders noticed the labourers who were removing the front tent of the circus animals. With not much hope they approached those workers and explained the situation. The workers agreed to stop their work and stand by the cause. It was a bold assurance and action for a circus tent of the times.

The circus was camped opposite to the Belgaum Central Railway sta-tion. The striking labourers who numbered about twenty went to the rail-way station to seek help from the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) leaders there. Unfortunately they were in some meeting. The next step was to contact the District Collector or the Superintendent of Police (SP). They contacted the railway enquiry as they could have known the whereabouts of the Collector’s bungalow. The railway staff understood that the circus workers were in trouble. Not only did they help with the details of the Collector and the SP, they also informed the police control room that the circus workers were on strike.

None of the strikers had any prior experience of being in a protest or rally. With police escorting them, they walked towards the Collector’s bun-galow. The only marking sound of the rally was the siren from the police jeep. The townsfolk gathered here and there and watched the proceedings.

A Tight Rope Walk: Chronicle of a Circus Trade Union

Nisha P.K.

92

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 By then the news had reached the Collector and he ordered to redirect the

protestors to the SP office.As per the complaint of the strikers the owner of New Grand Circus

was called to the police station. He sent a manager and his nephew instead. This angered the police inspector and he decided to arrest the owner. But the strikers cooled him down and told him that they were willing to meet the owner at his place. They went back to the circus tent with the police. No sooner had the owner seen the police vehicle than he disappeared to the backyard of the tent. The inspector met him there and repeated the demand of the circus workers. But of no avail. Thus it was decided that they would sit at the entrance. The inspector explained the legalities concerning the strike to them: a copy of the strike notice should be provided to the circus owner, the Collector, the SP and the local police station. But none of the strikers knew how to write a strike notice. The young inspector drafted a notice for them on his own letter pad.

As the circus was nearing to an end in the town it had been running houseful for the last two weeks. The striking workers sat in front of the cir-cus. There were no ‘zindabad’ cries or any other slogans. None of them had eaten anything. They had no money either. It was show time and the record started playing at full volume. There was a military cantonment nearby and lots of soldiers were coming to see the circus with their family. The strikers requested them to show solidarity by boycotting. The first show of the day began before an almost vacant house. The only artistes who performed were the company girls. The next two shows were cancelled. By the time the whole city knew that there was a strike in the circus. Local media carried the news. There was an aluminum factory at nearby Soupa and the CITU work-ers from the company arrived at the tent and arranged food for the striking comrades; simple daal and rice. The railway CITU workers also came in solidarity. They threatened the circus owner that if he did not agree to the demands of the labourers, his circus would die in Belgaum. The Belgaum district Collector and the Superintendent of Police also visited the tent.

The CITU lawyer suggested that they list the demands of the strike. But there was no demand apart from that the dismissed had to be taken back. The CITU labourers and the advocate argued that, ‘there was no strike without demands’ and a list of demands was prepared: a The dismissed had to be taken back. b The daily food allowance should be raised from Rs 2 to Rs 5. (The

CITU people were of the opinion that it should be raised to Rs 10 but the circus strikers felt that it would be injustice.)

c The labourers should not be bullied and beaten up. d Leaves and bonus had to be given properly.

The demands were presented to the owner and a settlement was pre-pared. The owner, Anif who was from Andhra, sobbed in Tamil, ‘ennadaa ithukk thaan ni. . .’ (Is it for this that you guys. . .).

93

I have attempted to tell the tale in a proper linear style, with a begin-ning, middle and an end and without annoying ruptures. But this is not the case with the past and present of the Indian Circus Employees Union that emerged from this agitation. The memories of circus artistes and union members from which I have gleaned the above are full of conflicts and complexities. This is interesting because this is not something from a distant past. Still memories are in disarray and other sources scarce. For instance, the precise date of the decisive strike narrated above seems to have faded away from the memory of even the key players. For many it happened ‘some months before the union registration’. Notably the year of formation is also uncertain in ‘official’ memories. While the certificate of registration that hangs on the wall of the union office has 28 April 1979, Stephen1 says the union was formed in 1977 and Raghavan 1976.2 In an earlier interview Raghavan told me that the formation was in 1964. Prabhakaran once said it was around 1980s that it was organised, but in a later interview he told me that it was during 1977 that the Union got registered and was formed two- three months before that.3

In a sense there is nothing strange in such a scenario. If we look at the history of the trade unions in India, we may hardly find a circus workers’ union. We may bear in mind here that Indian circus flourished in Malabar along with Communist movements and trade union movements. Trade unions and Communist parties have been very active and labour strikes ubiquitous in Malabar since the early decades of the twentieth century. The unions celebrate anniversaries of their formations annually with colorful processions, publicising their achievements and praising universal working class. But circus and its workers somehow do not seem to appear in this universal setting. On the other hand, circus is considered a realm of ex-treme labour exploitation and hierarchical in power relations. It has figured in the common sense as a place of extreme exploitation with dangerous working conditions, wretched living conditions, miserable wages, irregular working hours, physical and mental harassments and insecure employment and life. Oddly enough, the circus company owners had formed an organ-isation, All India Circus Association (later Indian Circus Federation), way back in 1953.4 It should be noted that it took more than twenty-five years to set up a workers’ union in circus. A Times of India (27 February 1979) report shows that during this time the Federation was actively holding meetings with Morarji Desai, the then Prime Minister and P.C. Chunder, the Education Minister to appraise the problems and difficulties of Indian circuses.5 What could be the reason for this glaring contradiction?

Circus in India is almost hundred and fifty years old. It is deeply em-bedded with the arrival of the modern, the remaking of caste and gender hierarchies, the transformation of physical cultures, bodies and perfor-mances, the expansion of itinerant entertainment, the emergence of new trans-regional and transnational spaces, the interventions of the colonial

A Tight Rope WalkN

isha P.K.

94

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 and post-colonial states on nature, humans and animals and the develop-

ment of various technologies. But though popular culture, body, perfor-mance and marginal communities have gained prominence in academic research over the past decades. On the other hand circus still remains an unexplored area.

While attempting a history of circus in this part of the world the major challenge one faces is not only the absence of state archival sources but also non-statist sources such as personal histories, memoirs or diaries. It might be interesting to note here that numerous life stories, biographies, historical studies and literary works have been coming out on circuses in Australia, Europe and United States. In India, regions in Kerala and Maharashtra have rich histories that span over a century in circus acrobatics, animal training and entrepreneurship. But books on circus are rare even though Kerala boasts of being one of the most vibrant print cultures supplemented by a hundred per cent literacy rate.

Shahid Amin, eminent historian and one of the founders of Subaltern Studies notes that if subalterns do not figure in the official archives, it could only mean that those archives exist outside.6 When it comes to circus, like many a community that has been outside the purview of the traditional his-tory writing, this other archive is mainly constituted by the memories and memorabilia of the community itself. These memories are always on the move, shifting in places and periods; even if they build it around a location, along with a point in time, they move exploring other sites of memory div-ing in other moments of life. It is not a moment or an experience in history that we capture by researching the lives of circus people, but the lives which are histories in themselves.

Memories vary, obviously. What women remember is often strikingly different from that of their male counterparts. For instance body is a sig-nificant presence in the memories and recounting of women. Same is the case with memorabilia. I have collected approximately two thousand pho-tographs from various artistes, labourers and owners dating from 1920s to the present.7 These images are wonderful visual records of not only perfor-mances of women, children, men and animals but also of ceremonies and celebrations in the tent, like marriages and birthdays. It is as if they have been creating ‘an archive of one’s own’.8

There have been a few attempts to unionise circus artistes and labour-ers, both futile and fruitful, based in Thalassery, North Kerala, a major centre of Indian circus. One would generally expect a certain collective memory at work, but surprisingly not. The only notable exception is that of Akhil Bharath Circus Karmachari Sangh, that came into being with the backing and goodwill from a major political party, the Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1964, which interestingly has been documented well by the circus community itself. In contrast the remembrances regarding the circumstances that led to the formation of Indian Circus Employees Union

95

– the only existing ‘national’ union for circus artistes and labourers – about two decades later is astoundingly fragmentary.9

There had been futile attempts to form a trade union from the 1950s when the enterprise of circus was thriving. Sreedharan, a veteran circus ar-tiste told me in an interview that he had went along with some other work-ers of Kamala circus to meet the eminent communist leader, A.K. Gopalan in New Delhi with the idea of a workers’ union in 1955. He states that their plan was to organise a workers’ union to contend with the Circus Owners’ Federation (Interview with Sreedharan, 20 October 2009). This effort did not pull off further. While Sreedharan Champad (2008), a retired circus artiste who has produced fiction and non-fiction work based on circus mentions in his book Circussinte Lokam (The World of Circus) that a union for circus workers was established at Thalassery in 1956 but closed shop within two weeks (p. 161), Kandambully Balan (1961), a circus manager and writer, notes in an article written during this period that a meeting of circus workers was held at Thalassery and they had organised ‘akhilendia circus thozhilali sangham’ (All India Circus Labourers’ Union). He warns ominously that some company owners are insidiously operating to nip the union in bud (p. 132). Another veteran circus artiste and trainer E. Raveen-dran remembers that there was indeed a short lived union which had been the brain child of M.K. Balan, the son of the renowned circus master M.K. Raman. (Interview with E. Ravindran, 09 September 2011)

By all accounts then the first union proper had been Akhil Bharath Cir-cus Karmachari Sangh. The Union itself brought out a bi-lingual booklet with a Malayalam introduction that frames the principal objectives of the union, the rules and regulations of the organisation and most interesting-ly, the extracts of the heated debate in the Lok Sabha on ‘The Protection of Circus Employees Bill’ presented by K. Ananadhan Nambiar, veteran Communist trade union leader, on 10 March 1964. This publication is strikingly titled as In Memory of Keeleri Kunjikkanan Teacher.10 The news of the Union formation was momentous for many who had been toiling in the tents erected in various towns and villages around the country. Eighty year old Raveendran still keeps the telegram he had received on 16 March 1964 sent from Thalassery by his fellow comrade P. Krishnan announcing the news as tersely as possible: ‘UNION REGISTRATION OVER’.11 Akhil Bharath Circus Karmachari Sangh also had a glorious plan in mind. In the back cover of their publication In Memory of Keeleri Kunjikkanan Teacher this dream venture had been announced: a circus company of the workers. The company was inaugurated on 30 December 1964 by V.R. Krishna Iyer, who had been the minister of Law and Social Welfare in the first commu-nist ministry in Kerala. Having opened the performance at its hometown, Thalassery, the company performed mainly in Kerala and Tamil Nadu for the next two and half years until it closed shop. The same fate gripped the union also. As I pointed out earlier a salient feature of these twin enterpris-

A Tight Rope WalkN

isha P.K.

96

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 es was the urge to ‘historicise’ them properly, as is wanted of any endeavor

with a Left leaning. But the next move to form a trade union for circus labourers and artistes during late seventies, just after the infamous emer-gency is packed with fragmentary narratives.

My attempt here would be to look at the formation of the Indian Cir-cus Employees’ Union – the only major ‘national’ union for circus workers in the working mode – and the conflicting memories regarding it. The ma-jor sources for writing this paper are the memories of the union members and other circus artistes supplemented by materials such as the magazine brought out by the Union Circus Worker and memorandums.12

To cite another instance of significant discrepancy, as in the case of the year of the union formation, narratives of the founding members and office bearers mention different reasons for that crucial strike at the New Grand Circus camp. According to Stephen, a motorcycle jumping artiste, Shiva-kumar’s dismissal was the immediate reason for the strike and that he was dismissed for holding union membership. Prabhakaran told me that imme-diate call for the strike had been the dismissal of Shivan, an animal trainer and some labourers. Though the names and incidents they refer to have some similarity, the occupation they attribute to the person are entirely different.13 Quite in contrast to what these retired circus artistes remember, Raghavan the former president of the union stated that it was the accident of the animal trainer Krishnan, which gave the impetus to the strike.14 A.V. Karim remembers that although Shivakumar, the animal trainer was dismissed from ‘New Grand Circus’, the immediate reason for the strike was the poor quality of food served in the mess of the circus artistes (In-terview with A.V. Karim, 6 February 2011).15 The distinctive contribution of oral history was the shift from ‘grand’ narratives to the silent voices. Paul Thompson (2006) opines how oral history has transformed both the content and the process of history writing, ‘History becomes, to put it simply, more democratic. The chronicle of kings has taken into its concern the life experience of ordinary people’ (p. 26). Though I cannot place my whole project of writing a history of circus in Kerala in oral history alone, it is a significant method I attempt to tell my story/history of circus. In this context I would like to quote what Urvashi Butalia in the introduction of her remarkable book, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (1998) writes on the question of memories,

I am deeply aware of the problems that attach to the method I have chosen.

There has been considerable research to show that memory is not ever ‘pure’ or

‘unmediated’. So much depends on who remembers, when with whom, indeed

to whom, and how. But to me the way people choose to remember an event, a

history, is at least as important as what one might call the ‘facts’ of that history,

for after all, these latter are not self-evident givens; instead, they too are inter-

pretations, as remembered or recorded by one individual or another (p. 8).

97

Women’s StrikeNevertheless, another strike followed in the ‘New Grand Circus’. But un-like the earlier strike where women remained on the margins, this strike was carried out by them. Prabhakaran stated that women were deliberately excluded from the first strike because of the apprehension about the conse-quences of the strike. And besides, getting access to the company girls was a really difficult task. The only male worker who interacted with them was the company tailor. And the tailor at New Grand Circus was none other than J.B. Swami, one of the key players in the first strike. Swami acted as a bridge between the Union and the company girls. About fifteen Malayali girls became union members, but obviously it remained a top secret. The strike happened when the company was camped at Trichinapally, Tamil Nadu. The news that the women artistes had joined the Union somehow leaked and the proper menu of the girl artistes was changed and reduced. The girls quite in tune with the plans of the Union went on hunger strike. The owner was out of station and when he was back his ‘elder wife’ informed him that the girls have joined the Union.16 And the dismissals started.

At the time, in the circus companies unfair dismissals of labourers had not been considered as something to be taken up and challenged. The police and other officials will be usually bribed so that they would overlook matters. Prabhakaran said, ‘Nobody will stand up for you even when you were close with each other. Once you are on the other side, you will be all alone’. He pointed out that the Circus Owners’ Federation came out with support for the management in the dismissals in the New Grand Circus. They even sent a manager to destroy the Union.17

The New Grand Circus then moved to Kerala; Kozhikode and Kannur. The next camp was in Mangalore. On the day of the Mangalore opening loads of police arrived. The owner had filed a complaint at the local police station against the union trouble makers.18 The Union members had been in constant touch with the local Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) offices in every town they camped. The Congress leader in Man-galore whom they contacted was reluctant to help them and so the union members approached the Janata party leader who was a young man and willing to help. He advised them not to go to the police station since he was sure that they would be beaten up. He contacted the Prime Minister’s office – Janata party was at power at the time - and made necessary arrange-ments. At the police station, the camp manager was waiting for the arrest of the union people blissfully unaware that they had managed the support from the highest office in the country. Obviously he was admonished by the police inspector! While at the tent the flying trapeze net was being untied as their colleagues thought they were arrested and jailed.19

It is interesting to note that though INTUC has formed the circus workers’ union, the circus workers actually had to negotiate with political leaders of almost all parties directly. K.V. Raghavan, the INTUC leader and

A Tight Rope WalkN

isha P.K.

98

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 the former president of the union believed that only INTUC could have

formed a circus union because it was a ‘national’ organisation. Karim is of the opinion that though Stephen belonged to the Congress party, he and Prabhakaran believed in Communist ideals.20

Before long Stephen was dismissed from the New Grand Circus for organising the Union though it was not openly stated.21 He was given about Rs 5000 which was the balance amount of his salary. He had to spend the next ten years without a job.22 But definitely the situation changed with the two successive strikes. Things would never be the same. Stephen remem-bers that from then if the labourers did not work properly the owner would approach the Union and complain. Whenever they shifted base the union leaders’ first duty would be to find a labour office because it was sure that there will be problems.

Stephen organised a strike in the Bharat Circus owned by K.S. Menon. The reason again was the unreasonable dismissal of one of the labourers. Stephen ran the strike along with about fifteen supporters of the Congress Party at Palayam Kotta in Tamil Nadu where the company was camping. Stephen was arrested and spent about seven days in the Palayam Kotta jail. None of the political leaders came to help him. He arranged bail with the help of some strangers (who were the local people) whom he paid a large sum of money for standing his surety. He continued with the same strike at Ottappalam in front of the house of K.S. Menon and Bharat Circus went out of business. A similar strike happened in the Great Bombay Circus against the dismissal of some labourers. In the National Circus camped at Gundoor in Karnataka a publicity worker died in an accident, but the man-agement refused to pay compensation. Stephen filed a case in the Court and Rs 70000 was granted as compensation.

ConclusionFor labourers, the foremost advantage of the union formation has been they have certain rights and bargaining power with managements and state bodies. Pension, Provident Fund, Gratuity, Retrenchment Compensation and all other benefits to be provided under the Statutory Act are given to the artistes of a circus company. Salary structure and daily allowances have been raised considerably. For instance the average salary a female artiste receives nowadays is Rs 4000–5000 while it had been a paltry 100, twenty years back. The Kerala Government included the circus workers of the State in the monthly pension scheme for disabled artistes in 1980.23 It was Rs 150 at the time and has been increased recently to Rs 1100. The scheme only includes circus performers (excluding the clowns) and leaves out circus managers, animal trainers and caretakers, ring boys, entrepreneurs, con-tract labourers and tent masters.

99

This paper is dedicated to the memory of late V.M. Prabhakaran, one of the founder leaders of the Indian Circus Employees Union. A trapeze artiste for decades, he lived a healthy and cheerful life and fought for the circus workers’ rights until he breathed his last on the May Day in 2012.

This paper is part of my ongoing doctoral dissertation, ‘A History of Circus and Circus Performances in Twentieth Century Kerala’ in the Department of History, University of Delhi. Earlier versions have been presented in the conferences ‘Labor and Social Change in India’ at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), New Delhi, ‘Cultures of Memory: Mnemocultural Praxis in Southeast and other Asian Countries’ EFLU, Shillong and the Research Students’ Seminar in the Department of History, University of Delhi. I am grateful to all those who listened and commented, especially G. Balachandran, Chitra Joshi, Prabhu Mohapatra, Udayakumar, Mahesh Rangarajan, and Biswamoy Pati. Warmest regards to my husband, S. Sanjeev, and my mother, P.R. Komalam for their constant support and love.

ReferencesPrimary Sources

Interviews

Interview with A.V. Karim, Chirakkara, 6 February 2011.

—, 1 May 2011.

Interview with Dayanandan, Thalassery, 29 March 2012.

Interview with E Ravindran, Kathirur, 9 February 2011.

—-, Alappuzha, 13 December 2012.

Interview with Gemini Shankaran, Kannur, 21 June 2012.

Interview with J.F. Stephen, Pallur, 22 April 2010.

Interview with K.V. Raghavan, Thalassery, 27 August 2008.

—-, 11 February 2009.

—-, 26 August 2009.

—-, 14 March 2010.

Interview with Prabhakaran, Payyoli, 19 April 2010.

—, 15 August 2009.

—, 13 August 2009.

—, 11 April 2010.

—, 5 March 2011.

—, 19 April 2010.

—, 13 June 2009.

—, 21 March 2010.

Interview with Sreedharan, Muzhikkara, 20 October 2009.

News Paper

Times of India, Bombay, Tuesday 27 February 1979.

Magazine

Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly, Vol. 31, No. 48, 14 February 1954, p. 16

A Tight Rope WalkN

isha P.K.

100

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Secondary Sources

Butalia, Urvashi (1998), The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India, New Delhi: Penguin

Champad, Sreedharan (2008), Circusinte Lokam (The World of Circu), Kozhikode: Mathrubhumi.

Balan, Kandambully (1961), Circus, Kottayam: NBS.

Ghosh, Amitav (2008). ‘Of Fanas and Forecastles: the Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail’ Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 25.

Thompson, Paul (2006), ‘Voices of the Past: Oral History’. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, Oral History Reader, Second Edition.,New York: Routledge, second edition.

Notes 1 J.F. Stephen has worked in various circus companies of India as a circus manager

and retired from the job ten years ago. He is also the Secretary of the Union, but he has left (though not legally), after his quarrel with Raghavan, the President. At present, he is staying with his wife at his house in Pallur where I met him on 22 April 2010. He was attracted to the Congress Party while he was a student at the St Joseph’s High School in Thalassery. He was an active member of Kerala Students’ Union (KSU), the students’ wing of Indian National Congress and has participated in its meetings and discussions at various places in Kerala. During that time he was the Secretary and Shanmughadas who later became the Minister was the Joint Secretary of KSU.

2 K.V. Raghavan was the first president of the Indian Circus Employees’ Union. I first met him in 2008 at the Union office located next to the Congress party office near the new bus stand at Thalassery. He was eighty-nine years old then and belonged to a family of Congress Party supporters. He joined the Party at the age of fourteen through the Bala Sangh. In 1942 he became the State Secretary of Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the district administrator in 1946. When I asked him about the context in which he took the charge of the Union, he claimed that during that time he was one of the known Trade Union leaders along with K. Karunakaran. He, who has no other connection with circus industry or entertainment, was the president of a number of trade unions in various sectors such as cashew, timber, plywood industries and head load workers. Raghavan passed away on 2 March 2011.

There had been internal clashes going on for the post of president in the Union after Raghavan’s death. C.C. Ashok Kumar was the acting president of the Union when Raghavan was ill. He was directly appointed as the president with no election as such though the bylaws of the Union clearly states that executive members should be elected. Raghavan’s son wanted to become the president. He threatened one of the members and his mother believed that either she or her son was entitled to have the seat of the Union president. Prabhakaran told me in a telephone conversation that they were thinking of filing a petition against Raghavan’s son. After the clash, they vacated the Union office room which was INTUC’s. These incidents throw some light on the negotiations and power struggles within the union.

3 V.M. Prabhakaran was the Joint Secretary of the Indian Circus Employees’ Union from its early stages. He was from Gopalpetta, Thalassery and joined circus as a young boy of nine years along with his brother, Krishnan. He first got trained in circus acrobatics in the Circus Kalari established by Moosari Raman. He has had about fifty years of experience as a Trapeze artiste in various circus companies and

101

also as an Ustad who taught his juniors. He was staying at Payyoli with his wife, Ramani who was also a circus artiste.

4 The circus owners’ association, ‘All India Circus Association’, was later made ‘Indian Circus Federation’ during 1964 (Interview with Gemini Sankaran, 21 June 2012). Mathrubhumi Illustrated Weekly reports under the title, ‘An All India Association for Circus People’, ‘To organise an association for the circus people in India – among whom the majority are Malayalis – a meeting of owners and representatives was held in Calcutta under the Chairmanship of Murkoth Kunhappa’ (p. 16). The major reason, Ravindran cites, for organising such a group was the ground issue in Calcutta. The wealthy circus contractor at Calcutta called Vijay Babu did not allow any other circus except that of the Bengali owners to do their exhibitions in the Howrah ground. To compete with him, Damodaran of Kamala found a ground in the interiors of the city and made his shows. Ravindran adds that the invitation sent by Kamala Damodaran about the opening of the show to Vijay Babu was a shock to him that he died of heart failure that evening. However, many of the owners of various circus companies joined hands with Damodaran that day evening which actually formed the owners’ federation. The photo from the collection of Gemini Sankaran shows that Damodaran of Kamala, K.M. Kuhikannan of Great Bombay, Subodh Banerjee of International, K.K. Acuthan of Oriental, Kandambulli Balan, Gemini Sankaran, K.S. Menon of Bharath circus and some others during the inauguration of the Circus Owners’ Association with Moorkoth Kunhappa who inaugurated the function (Interview with E. Ravindran, 13 December 2012). The photograph published in Mathrubhumi shows all the above mentioned personals and the caption under the second photograph describes K.K. Balan, the Secretary of the Association delivering the welcome speech (p.16). The Federation was registered under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. It functions now at Shalimar Bagh, New Delhi.

5 A snapshot from the collection of C.M. Ramachandran who has worked as the Secretary and cashier of the Federation, shows the above mentioned luminaries together.

6 ‘Walking In and Out of Archives’, Inaugural address of the workshop ‘Reckoning with the Past: History in the Classroom’ by Shahid Amin, Khalsa College, University of Delhi, 12 November 2010.

7 This collection made possible the photo exhibition on Indian circus I have curated at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi in January 2013.

8 The photograph as the most preferred medium of recording could also be because of the amazing assortment of tongues under a single tent. Amitav Ghosh (2008) in his wonderful paper, ‘Of Fanas and Forecastles: the Indian Ocean and Some Lost Languages of the Age of Sail’ writes about the language of lascars, drawn from such different languages as Malay, Malayalam, Hindustani, English, Chinese and many others spoken aboard. Circus also has its ‘common’ languages, which randomly mix Malayalam, English, Hindi, Urdu and many others.

9 There is one more circus workers’ union called ‘Circus Labour Union’, functioning in Thalassery, registered in 1998. Raghavan told me that Dayanandan, who leads this union, belonged to the Congress (S) party and was the follower of late A.C. Shanmughadas, a former minister. He alleged that Dayanandan collected the details of circus artistes from their office records somehow, sent letters to the artistes, organised meetings independently and formed a separate union splitting the Indian Circus Employees Union (Interview with K.V. Raghavan, 14 March 2010). While C.C. Asok Kumar, the present president of Indian Circus Employees Union snubs ‘Circus Labour Union’ as ‘a co-operative society’ Dayanandan categorically states that it was registered as a trade union and functions as such

A Tight Rope WalkN

isha P.K.

102

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 (Interview with C.C. Asok Kumar, 15 October 2012; Interview with Dayanandan,

29 March 2012). 10 In Memory of Keeleri Kunjikkanan Teacher, Thalassery, Akhil Bharat Circus

Karmachari Sangh, 1964; Keeleri Kunjikkanan Teacher is the legendary circus guru considered as one of the forefathers of Indian circus.

11 Telegram dated 16 March 1964, Personal Collection, E. Ravindran, Thalassery, Kerala. P. Krishnan, a local Communist Party leader was the office secretary of the Union in Thalassery.

12 The Union launched the periodical Circus Worker in 1977. In the beginning it was published in the form of a pamphlet and later as a magazine, but stopped going to print after five years.

13 While Prabhakaran said that he was a Ring Master, Stephen says he is an artiste who performed the motor cycle jumping act. Stephen does not refer to the laborers at all in his story.

14 Raghavan’s account goes on like this: A Ring Master named Krishnan was attacked by a leopard in his charge while he was sleeping near its cage. As a result he lost his leg and was dismissed by the company owner. It should be noted that all narratives agree on one thing. The theatre was New Grand Circus camp in Belgaum.

Stephen told me that this accident happened at Balai, Karnataka. According to Stephen Krishnan was not dismissed and a case was filed against the owner, Anif for not giving him compensation after the accident. The case was filed and its appeal case was going on in the High Court with the help of an advocate who was the grandson of Kagwad, one of the early circus owners of Maharashtra. He further stated that it was in this case that for the first time the words ‘employed in circus’ was used. It was thus that it became, the ‘employees’ union’. Stephen and Prabhakaran said that Krishnan was a Ring Boy, unlike Raghavan who told me that he was a Ring Master. Prabhakaran told me that the accident happened while Krishnan sat on the cage of the tiger with his leg lowered and his legs were caught by the tiger. But the story Raghavan told me was a bit different. He said the Ring Master was sleeping and the tiger caught his leg. Stephen told me that the accident of Krishnan happened even before he joined the ‘New Grant Circus’ and that Krishnan was not dismissed from the company. In Prabhakaran’s opinion, the Ring Boy who assisted the animal trainer in looking after the animals was only twenty years old and his leg had to be cut from the thigh because of the accident. He was given nothing as compensation while Stephen says a case was filed for his compensation and Krishnan was dismissed by the owner for joining the Union in Belgaum.

15 A.V. Karim was the vice-president and J.B. Swami the president of the organisation urgently formed at Belgaum in the ‘New Grant Circus’. Before INTUC took up the charge of the Union it was an association run only by the circus laborers. Swami could not continue in the position when he was terminated from the company and also when the organisation became affiliated to INTUC at Thalassery. According to Prabhakaran, it was Stephen’s association with the Congress party which affiliated the ‘unorganised’ organisation to INTUC. Karim told me that he was a Comic Juggler in the New Grand Circus and that he was very much closer to the owner, Anif. He says that though he has run a strike against the owner, he can never deny that he was a very good human being (Interview with A.V. Karim, 6 February 2011).

16 Prabhakaran told me that Anif had five wives. Prabhakaran sometimes mentioned that the owner was from Andhra and some other times that he was a Tamilian. However, whenever he quoted him, it was in Tamil. (Interview with Prabhakaran, 13 June 2009, 21 March 2010)

103

17 Stephen told me that the owner of the New Grand Circus came to his home at Gopalpetta, Thalassery along with some of his men and promised Stephen that he would get him whatever he wanted, money or job. But the condition was that he should break up with the Union. While leaving, Anif, the owner of the Circus put some money in the hands of his little daughter who was playing in the verandah. But Stephen decided to stay with the Union and work just as his wife had advised him. His wife told me that his decision left her and their children with no means to live, but she did not want him to cheat his fellow workers.

18 Opening of the circus in a place would be a big affair to which all the local bigwigs such as District Collector, Judge, police officials, film artistes, bureaucrats and business people will be invited. The regular shows will only begin the next day. The circus will have its most attractive items and popular artistes scheduled for the event.

19 Flying trapeze is the first show item in all the Indian circuses (Interview with Prabhakaran, 13 August 2009).

20 Interview with Karim, 6 February 2011. But Prabhakaran told me that he did not believe in any political ideologies (Interview with Prabhakaran, 5 March 2011). It would be interesting to note here about my first visit to the Circus Employees’ Union office at Thalassery in 2008. I reached there following the notes provided by one of the circus artistes with its exact location in the town. But when I stepped in I was a little confused that whether I have come to the wrong address. At first sight there was no sign that it was a union for circus workers; no boards or placards. The small worn out notice board contained notices which were quite old and illegible. The wall was filled with the photos and posters of Congress Party leaders including the present chief Sonia Gandhi. And the two persons engaged in verbal fighting with each other were attired in full white khaddar. And then all of a sudden I noticed the small black and white photograph of a little girl performing on horseback in a corner. Even before learning that the president of the Union was a non-circus person one could sense the Party’s upper hand in the matters.

21 Stephen did not tell me what reasoning the owner gave for the dismissal. Prabhakaran said, it was ‘drinking and smoking’. (Interview with Prabhakaran, 19 March 2010)

22 Later he joined ‘Rambo’, the circus company of a friend named Dileep (Interview with J.F. Stephen, 22 April 2010). Prabhakaran pointed out that it was very difficult for a person dismissed from a company to get jobs in other companies. The owner would send the word around that others should not employ him. The owners function as a single unit in such situations. (Interview with Prabhakaran, 15 August 2009)

23 As per the Government Order dated 15 May 1980, M S No. 201/80/G.A.D

Nisha P.R. is a Research Scholar, Department of History, Delhi University.

A Tight Rope WalkN

isha P.K.

104

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014

105

Rattan Lal Hangloo (ed.), Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean: History, Cul-ture and Identity, Primus Books, New Delhi, 2012, 174 pages; Rs 795.

Indian culture, customs and beliefs are important for the migrant communities in a multicultural landscape such as Caribbean colonies. In the hostile host country these ‘Indian Culture’ became the basis of their survival. After abolition of indentured labour, those who settled in the colony tried to adopt Indian culture and custom into their everyday life. In order to do so they reconstructed and reinvented an Indo–Trinidadian culture and identity for themselves. The indentured migrants were not the ‘victim of circumstances’ but they are the creator of a new country with a new notion of nation and identity. This is the central argument of present book. This provides a new lance to peep in the lives of the indentured mi-grants. The contributors of this book focus on the migrants’ religio–cultur-al transformation, identity reconstruction, and political participation in the nation state of Trinidad and Tobacco. While retrieving the forgotten story of mobility and contribution of women, authors has privileged the cultural dimension to study the migrants from the Indian subcontinent focusing on the period of 1845 to 2007, its ramification on the politico-economic devel-opment of Caribbean colonies, and its inter-linkages to the Indo–Trinidad context.

The book starts with a well-packed introduction of a short history of origin of the indentured migration to Caribbean colonies on the basis of secondary literature. The author introduces the causes of the migration, recruitment process, the social and economic origin of the indentured in their country. This also provides information about the caste-religious and gender aspect of migrants as well as social economic and political status of indentured migrants in the colony. It focuses on the hardship of indentured contract with racial discrimination and cultural isolation. The first chapter takes this theme further and shows how ‘cultural slice’ transported from India, transformed and revolved over a period according to the need of the settlers’ society. The emergence of the new English educated middle class had made conscious attempt to propagate ‘Indian’ culture, tradition and custom. The psychological feeling of Indianness forced them to establish Indian organisation, societies, journal and newspapers. The new cultural norms also focused on reconstruction of ‘inner domain’ by preferring to

Book Reviews

106

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 marry ‘Indian’ only and imposing characteristic of ‘mother India’ upon

migrant women such as – maintaining chastity, obeying her laws and fol-lowing glorious Indian past (p. 21). These organisations also worked for the welfare of the weaker section of the Indian section. After independence of the Trinidad, governments tried to establish a cultural tolerance within the various ethnic cultural societies.

Chapter two chooses the religious text Ramcharitmanas as a source not only to highlight the religious, social, cultural and emotional attachment to their motherland but also to contextualise their lives in the colony. The migrants considered the concept of the text – exile and return of Rama, dichotomy of good and evil, as the part of their own livings. The white oppressors or other potentially threatening agents, such as Trinidadians of African descents and post-independence opposition parties in Govern-ment, were referred to as Ravana, the villain of the story. Author argues that Ramcharitmanas provided both positive and negative models for the reconstruction of the family and community networks in the colony (p. 26). Ramayana became the part of the formal education of the community. Rama became the center of everyday life of a Hindu in the colony. The pa-triarchal family system that developed during the post-indentured period held Sita as the highest ideal of womanhood; thus she became a role model for every Hindu woman in the community – chaste, submissive faithful and loyal to her husband. Author argues that Ramayana had always functioned as both the agent and mirror of development and transformation in the lives of Trinidad Indians.

Chapter three and four focused on the two communities of Muslims and Hindus in Caribbean colonies respectively. Both chapters focus on the revivalism of religion in the Caribbean, and how it helped to shape reli-gious transformations and identity construction. The educated class within the Muslim community focuses on the separation from Indian Muslim tradition which they considered as Hinduism while for the Hindu it was the question of more adoption the Hindu culture custom and tradition. Muslim educated community accepted Arabic language over Urdu as the more authentic Muslim language along with other aspects of Muslim cul-ture which were in practice in Arab countries. Authors also focus on the differences within a particular community such as pure/impure, lower/upper, dirty/clean etc. The lower castes adopted ‘personal sanskritiasation’ and ‘temporary sanskritisation’ to attain the position of the upper caste (p. 59). This sanskritisation and westernisation went hand in hand and enabled the lower caste people to gain a respectable position.

Chapter five argues that those who participated in the Revolt of 1857 saw the overseas migration as a great escape from the British vengeance and their oppression; this was the cause of increase in the number of destitute Indians in the colonies (p. 72). The prisoners of Revolt were decided to send to the Caribbean colonies with their family but they were not entitled

107

to return to their land as other migrants. This dimension invites us to deep-en our understanding of the Revolt and its participants who opted for mi-gration and thus open up a new area of research. This chapter also provides a new understanding of revolt and its consequences for Indian context with interesting and useful information about the loot and plunder of Oudh city and its natives. Chapter six focuses on the some aspects of resistance to enslavement on the island during 1802 to 1849. Author has highlighted the everyday resistance and well-planned rebellion by the slaves in Trinidad, before their emancipation and after emancipation in Port-of-Spain for ‘full free’ status. The author has also examined the role of rumors and songs in the rebellion in order to create a terrified effect on the colony. In order to show their agitation slaves burned the whole cane field and attacked the planters or magistrate and on their property. These rebellions played an important role in the emancipation of slaves.

Chapter seven talks about the present political status of migrants and their participation in the politics of Trinidad. Apart from the multicul-tural–ethnic group, the wining criteria in election are a well-knit strategy, cross-racial boundaries approach, support and representation of Indians in a particular party. Indians were also providing other forms of social assistance such as financial assistance, jobs etc. Chapter eight examines the revival of Trinidad’s economic and political condition in the era of Dr Eric Williams. During the period of crises he adopted accommodative politics and a sensitive linguistic, racial, and cultural approach towards various social groups and thus he created one ‘nation’. He adopted a unique educa-tion system that turned social and other identities into a ‘national identity’. (p. 130)

Chapter nine and ten focus on the role of indentured migrant women in socio–economic and cultural development of the colony. The notion of ‘structured’ Indian family was not exported to the colony, but a new Indian village with a traditional Indian concept of ‘family’ in which women had to play a new and different role. The new needs and demand of dominant euro-centric cultural norms and Canadian mission schools forced newly emerged middle class Indian community to send their children including female child to schools. In chapter ten, the author focuses on the role of women from rural ex-indentured Indian community in the development of the colony and their participation in the national and family income. This chapter provides a very interesting detail of day-to-day activities of milk-seller, charcoal-seller, shopkeepers and market producers’ women. This forced them to learn new skills such as – reading, writing, knowing different languages for communication and market policy. The interview based conversations with the participants make this chapter more inter-esting. This chapter produces a good well-satisfied picture of these women as a family member but fail to highlight their hardships or individual gain.

It could have been very helpful for the reader to understand the history

Book ReviewsBook R

eviews

108

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 of Caribbean countries if the sequence of the chapters followed a chrono-

logical order. What makes this work particularly striking is the contribu-tor’s keen interest in fieldwork research, following the sociological method of ‘participation observation’. The contributors of this volume also have the advantage of first-hand knowledge and the experience of being a part of the Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean. This book will be of interest to students of history, social anthropology, political science, sociology and cultural studies, as well as those associated with Diaspora and colonial plantation economy.

Madhwi is a Research Scholar, Department of History, Delhi University.

Charu Gupta, Gendering Colonial India: Reforms, Print, Caste and Commu-nalism, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 2012; viii + 394 pages, Rs 845.

The scope of Charu Gupta’s edited volume entitled Gendering Colonial India Reforms, Print, Caste and Communalism (2012), part of the Critical Thinking in South Asian History series, is historical, interdisciplinary, and multifaceted. The essays in the book are connected to one another both thematically and chronologically. The essays are reworked versions of significant earlier writings by scholars as the book is intended for students to provide them with a ‘patchy’ yet ‘panoptic view of some of the key concerns’ in the field of gendered histories of colonial India in the last two decades (pp. 1–2).

The main aim of the book is an investigation of variegated conceptuali-sations of gender and morality in nineteenth and twentieth century colonial India. It is accomplished through an insightful and critical examination of significant colonial, indigenous, and nationalist discourses as expressed in reformist and popular vernacular literature, memoirs, oral testimonies, theatre, various performances and so on mostly by men and gradually women. It also analyses social and legal normative practices, taboos, and reforms relating to issues like domestic respectability, widow immolation, widow remarriage, education, sexuality, and reproduction, among others. The book is comprised of twelve essays based on in-depth analysis of a wide selection of primary and secondary material, followed by a concluding section entitled ‘Primary Texts’ which consists of three primary documents in Malayalam, Gurumukhi and Hindi, translated and commented on by J. Devika, Anshu Malhotra and Charu Gupta respectively. These documents bring together the main themes discussed throughout the book.

The authors seek to qualify and move beyond prior scholarship on gender which focused predominantly on northern India, and the Hindu, upper caste and/or middle class identity formations. The essays analyse the complex interconnectedness between gender, race, class, caste, regional

109

specificities, and communal identities in official records, the ‘print-public sphere’ (p. 23), popular culture and memory. The essays and select primary documents concentrate on how patriarchy has been context-specifically ‘recast’, as well as ‘challenged’, ‘destabilised’ and ‘subverted’ in colonial and contemporary India (p. 1).

The ‘coercive power’ of modernity and domesticity are dissected and exposed (pp. 8, 19). Gendered stereotypes, especially what are counted as, or countered, ‘national’, ‘ideal’ embodiments of ‘womanhood’ and ‘man-hood’ are problematised while being attentive to regional, racial, linguistic, cultural and religious complexities, among others (pp. 8,13). Also, the per-tinent issue of whether various colonial, reformist and nationalist debates on the ‘women’s question’ considered to ‘check’ – ‘what women want’ (p. 8) and their ‘complex personalities and agency’ (p. 9) alongside the ‘un-intended’ (p. 11) consequences of prescriptions for appropriate conduct of women are explored. The authors engage with a wide historiographical terrain related to South Asia and beyond.

Charu Gupta’s ‘Archives and Sexuality Vignettes from Colonial North India’ as well as her translation and commentary on Shiv Sharma Mahop-deshak’s Stri Shiksha (Women’s Education) deal with questions every his-torian has to grapple with: What constitutes a ‘peripheral or ‘supplemental’ and ‘central’ or ‘constitutive’ archival source (pp. 317, 320)? Why is this question relevant? Why is it necessary to identify subjectivities behind the ‘truth-effect’ of and thereafter go beyond the official archives and en-gage with memory, vernacular popular literature, and oral testimonies as significant historical sources in order to trace voices of the marginalised, especially ‘the colonised, the homosexuals and the lower castes’ (p. 317)? Why is, for instance, the ‘reinvention’ of ‘Dalit viranganas (heroic women)’ historically significant (p. 339)? Who decides what is obscene and respect-able? Who are demonised and romanticised? Why are gender, sexuality, obscenity and respectability ambiguous categories? Why are such categories central to conceptualisations of community identities? What are the com-plexities inherent in censorship of print, especially erotica?

Nonica Datta’s Violence, Martyrdom and Partition: A Daughter’s Testi-mony continues Gupta’s quest on what counts as ‘facts’ by using memory as ‘a historical document and parallel history’ (p. 298) in order to highlight the ‘interplay’ between memory and history (p. 288). She aims to create history of women’s victimisation as well as ‘a historical understanding of the depth of women’s implication in patriarchy, religion, community and the nation.’ (p.300). She uses oral testimony for history-writing while critically engaging with historical scholarship on the subject of whether the ‘small voice of history’ (p. 295, 316) offers a ‘faint promise’ (p. 298) of an alternative history of individuals and the grand narratives on, for instance Partition.

Anshu Malhotra’s ‘Print and Bazaari Literature Jhagrras/Kissas and

Book ReviewsBook R

eviews

110

Social ScientistVo

l. 42

/ N

os. 3

-4 /

Mar

ch-A

pril

2014 Gendered Reform in early-twentieth-century Punjab’ and commentary

and translation on Bhai Sadhu Singh’s work entitled Churrelan: Arthat Manmatnan da Siyapa – verses against wearing of ornaments by women, mourning, fasting, superstitions and other social evils, both highlight the sig-nificance of the ‘kitschy’ or popular, patch-worked, cheap, ‘chapbook style’, one-anna genre of bazaari literature, which were often performed, in early twentieth-century Punjab, called jhagrras or quarrels and kissas or stories as historical documents (pp.159, 163–64, 354). These were a ‘collapsed version’ of an earlier tradition of jhagrras/qissas (pp. 159, 163). These rep-resented multiple voices as well as imageries of the kupatti or dishonourable wife (‘Westernised’ woman) and the pativrata or ‘sensible’, devoted house-wife (‘traditional’ woman) – a mishmash of the supposedly distinct moral/urban/normative/reformist and the hedonistic/rural/local/coarse worlds (pp.182–85). Reformist worldviews were usually inserted as a twist in the story at the end. Malhotra points out the obvious ‘hiatus’ between ‘poetic imagination’ and the ‘real’ world of predominantly ‘suppressed’ female sexuality (p. 171).

Tanika Sarkar’s ‘Wicked Widows Law and Faith in Nineteenth-century Public Sphere Debates’ reinterprets earlier historical explanations of gen-der, caste and class, among others, in relation to Hindu orthodoxy, reviv-alism and reformism through a critical examination of Hindu widowhood and widow remarriage in colonial Bengal. She deploys current historiogra-phy and primary sources like official archival records as well as biographical and literary sources. She asks important questions like why was the Hindu middle class able to produce Hindu revivalists and reformists? What did ‘Hindu common sense find so offensive about widow remarriage?’ (p. 86)

Lata Singh’s ‘Theatre and Gender in Colonial India “Foregrounding Actresses” Question’ outlines ‘ideal’ womanliness, manliness, and their antitheses. She argues that regionally-varied reformist anxieties deliberately dichotomised elite ‘refined’ theatre versus ‘obscene’ folk theatre, ‘moral’ upper caste, and middle class women versus ‘loose’ lower caste women as well as expressed caution regarding homoeroticism in female imperson-ations. These were major components in the construction of middle class respectability, ‘ideal’ domesticity and ‘good women’ as ‘good mothers and wives’ (pp.189–90).

J. Devika’s ‘Re-inscribing ‘Womanliness’: Gendered Spaces and Public Debates in Early Modern Keralam’ and her commentary and translation entitled ‘Sarojini: Womanliness’ also focus on ‘womanliness’, in alignment with Sarkar, Singh, and Gail Minault’s arguments in the book, specifically issues related to women’s education, women’s ‘gentle power’ and ‘wom-an’s space’ to reveal how coercive, patriarchal, pedagogical reforms both restricted and created spaces for women to assert their voices in domestic and public lives (pp. 139, 149).

111

Other essays in the book by Andrea Major, Mrinalini Sinha, Gail Minault, Pradip Kumar Datta, Anupama Rao, and Prem Chowdhry con-centrate on serious, interrelated issues like the problematic discourses, practices and reforms around sati; historiography of masculinity and how ‘perceptions’ and ‘power’ were interrelated in the very construction of masculinity (p. 44); the visibility of Muslim women in the historiography of colonial India, the variegated discourses on purdah as well as the purposes of education and ‘Islamicisation of Muslim women’ especially in late-nine-teenth-century northern India (pp. 10, 18); ‘gendered’ and ‘sexualised’ constructions of Hindu and Muslim community identities as exemplified in the discourses on ‘abductions’ of Hindu women by Muslim men in early twentieth century colonial Bengal, as also in Punjab (p. 34); as well as how caste was reasserted and challenged within and outside the colonial and na-tionalist discursive frameworks in relation to inter-caste marriages in parts of northern and western India.

Overall, this book is praiseworthy in how it revisits and reinterprets gender in colonial India. It puts across the message on the current impera-tiveness of innovative use of different source materials and challenging the ‘tyranny of facts’ (p. 288) in serious historical scholarship. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the historiography of gender in modern Indian history, especially students in history or any other field at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Ranjana Saha is a Research Scholar, Department of History, Delhi Uni-versity.

Book ReviewsBook R

eviews