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The Khandesh Survey Riots of 1852: Government policy and rural society in Western India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The traditional forms of landholding and the government's land policy are two problems in the study of the nature of social change in 19th-century Western India; as the necessary aetiology of agrarian movements they are also linked with the organization and idiom of popular protest on the one hand, and the structure and temper of official institutions on the other. The Khandesh Survey riots are a microcosm of these problems as they existed in a raīyatwārī (peasant-proprietary) area of the Bombay Presidency, five years before the Mutiny. An analysis of the agrarian relations—partly as seen articulated in the movement of the riots—seems to have an undiminished relevance for later periods, and may perhaps qualify an impression of the Bombay raīyatwārī system as one where the government as landlord had a uniformly direct relationship with a standard cultivatortenant.
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References
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36 “The other members, such as the Carpenter, Blacksmith, Barber &c. do not possess equal privileges as similar artizans in the Deccan”: Wingate to Goldsmid, 8th January, 1853, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 375 (printed).
37 Joint Report, § 11–78.
38 Salisbury to Northbrook, 12th March, 1875: I.O.L., Northbrook papers, MSS Eur. C. 144, no. 12, f. 29.
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42 T. Waddington (Assistant Superintendent, Revenue Survey) to Davidson, 27th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 353; table of measurer's proceedings, ibid., f. 355. 30–40 men to each measurer were needed to help with the siting of boundary marks (Davidson to Wingate, 26th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 350).
43 Elphinston to Goldsmid, 16th November, 1852 (V. 15228), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 79.
44 Davidson to Wingate, 14th November, 1852 (Wingate MSS).
45 ibid. His later estimate was 2,000 (to Mansfield, 10th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 375).
46 Davidson to Wingate, 17th November, 1852 (Wingate MSS).
47 ibid. This question had been asked on 13th November. “Their only conjecture was that our work being an obnoxious one we were desirous of getting as far away as possible from the scene of our oppressions” (Davidson to Wingate, 13th November, 1852; Wingate MSS).
48 Davidson to Wingate, 17th November, 1852 (Wingate MSS).
49 Havelock to Elphinston, 19th November, 1852 (V. 15715), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 135.
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54 Petition from the Raīyats of Yawal, Sauda, and Raver, dated 20th, received 24th November, 1852, B. Rev. Procs., 377/82 (February, 1853), no. 687. The Governor in Council only received it on 15th January, 1853, as it had been delayed in the Persian department for translation (from Marathi).
55 Elphinston to Davidson, 23rd November, 1852 (Wingate MSS).
56 A. Malet to Mansfield, 23rd November, 1852 (V. 15235), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 103 (copy to Wingate).
57 Official Inquiry, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 318.
58 Davidson to Mansfield, 11th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 345.
59 Davidson to Mansfield, 11th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 346–48. “No Survey” was presumably a translation from the Marathi, by Davidson.
60 Official Inquiry, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 318.
61 Mansfield to Morris, 1st December, 1852 (V. 15674), f. 168, citing report of the mahālkārī of Raver. Morris added Sirpur, Pimpalner, Burgaon (to Mansfield, 5th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 194).
62 Davidson to Mansfield, 11th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 348.
63 Deposition of Balvantrao Vithal, Brahmin, 45, late māmlatdār of Sauda, 19th January, 1853: “They … pushed us and thumped us. I heard the Mahalkari say I am dead … some of them took my Pugry, coat and gold rings of 4½ tollas weight by force, tore off my waistcoat, a pocket in which [sic] were Government and private papers. … They also beat me with sticks … until I fainted. When I came to my senses I found myself under a mangoe tree.” (B. Judicial Procs., 405/61 (June, 1853), no. 4315.)
64 Wingate, Diary for 1852, f. 68 (Wingate MSS). Tactics remained essentially the same, but since the raīyats had “taken the initiative” it was imperative to apprehend the ringleaders.
65 Mansfield to Goldsmid, 9th December, 1852 (V. 16007), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 211.
66 do., 6th December, 1852 (V. 15841), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 192, cites Morris's view of this force: “The surest method of avoiding bloodshed was to have an overwhelming force to awe all opposition”.
67 The gates were not broken through: Bombay Government to Court of Directors, Revenue Letter, 17th December, 1852 (no. 167), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 1; cf. Chaudhuri, loc. cit.
68 Mansfield to Goldsmid, 12th December, 1852 (V. 16139), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 234.
69 See p. 162 below.
70 Mansfield, ibid.
71 Mansfield to Goldsmid, 11th December, 1852 (V. 16114), f. 219. The correspondence with “foreign powers” was confirmed, but it referred to giving the raīyats asylum and not to a demand for armed assistance. (do., 12th December, 1852 (V. 16139), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 234.)
72 do., 14th December, 1852 (V. 16416), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 235.
73 Mansfield, Proclamation, 8th December, 1852 (V. 16008), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 214–16.
74 Government Proclamation, (14th) December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 17–19.
75 Board's Coll (Khandesh), f. 224.
76 Mansfield to Goldsmid, 18th December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 45.
77 Wingate, Diary for 1852, f. 71 (Wingate MSS).
78 Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 43.
79 Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 45.
80 Mansfield to Goldsmid, 21st December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 49–54.
81 At the 1852 rate of exchange, £3,000–£20,000. See Mansfield, S., 6th 02, 1855, Sauda and Yawal Settlement Report, S.B.R., N.S., XCIII, Bombay, 1865, 52.Google Scholar
82 Davidson, 23rd November, 1854, ibid., 17. They were Kalu Chaudhuri of Faizpur, Govinda Patel of Kumbharkhere, Bhau Patel of Tandulwari, and the representatives of the late Bapu Trimbak Kulkarni of Sankli in Yawal.
83 ibid., 121.
84 B.G., XII, Khandesh (1880), 479.
85 S.B.R., N.S., XCIII, 53.
86 ibid., 17.
87 Wingate, Diary for 1852, f. 25 (Nasirabad) (Wingate MSS).
88 (£500–£1,000.) S.B.R., N.S., XCIII, 52.
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91 Board's Coll., Vol. 2472 (1851–52), 138406, “Measures for the relief of debtors of the agricultural class”, no. 3229 of 1851 (Judicial Department).
92 S.B.R., N.S., XCIII, 53.
93 Wingate, Diary for 1852, f. 73 (Wingate MSS).
94 A. Giberne, Report on Khandesh, 10th November, 1828 (lithographed).
95 Wingate to Goldsmid, 22nd November, 1852 (Wingate MSS).
96 Wingate's term: S.B.R., O.S., I, Khandesh (1852), 9.
97 Official Inquiry, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 305–6.
98 Ballhatchet, op. cit., 213.
99 Goldsmid and Wingate, 21st December, 1850, “Reply to … Thornton”, § 28 (Wingate MSS).
100 Wingate to Goldsmid, 15th January, 1853, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 378.
101 One holder had 6 watans, including the deshmukh and deshpande watans of Savda, and the deshmukhi of Yawal, totalling Rs. 6,981.11.6: S.B.R., N.S., CLXXIV (Hereditary District Officers), Bombay, 1895, 84–99.
102 Wingate, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 378.
103 Elphinston to Goldsmid, 17th November, 1852 (V. 15230), Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 88.
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107 ibid., 16.
108 S.B.R., N.S., XCIII, 56–57.
109 Shanku—dial (the theodolite); mozene, measurement.
110 Davidson to Wingate, 17th November, 1852 (Wingate MSS).
111 Raiyats' Memorandum to Mansfield, 21st December, 1852, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 56–57. A red turban was still a sign of affluence 30 years later, see Papers relating to the working of the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act, Bombay, 1888.
112 Mansfield, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 51 ; cf. deposition of Trimbakrao Narayan, Brahmin, aged about 53, Mahalkari of Raver: “The talk of the Ryots among themselves was that … the application of the Shunkoo would force them to make Shunk (meaning beating their mouths with their own hands in way of lamentation), that their … cattle, grass &c. would be taxed and their women's breasts measured with half coconut shells. I think the Ryots really believed all this and in consequence had a strong dislike to the survey.” (B. Jud. Procs., 405/61 (June, 1853), no. 4315.)
113 Official Inquiry, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), f. 299.
114 S.B.R., N.S., XCIII, passim; R. E. Enthoven, The tribes and castes of Bombay, Bombay, 1921–23, II, 144, 315.
115 Official Inquiry, Board's Coll. (Khandesh), ff. 308, 322.
116 ibid., ff. 298–9.
117 B. Jud. Procs., 405/54 (February, 1853), no. 887.
118 ibid., no. 888.
119 ibid., 405/61, no. 4316.
120 Deccan Riots Commission Report, 3 vols., Bombay, 1876. [Henceforth D.R.C.R.].
121 S.B.R., N.S., CLVIII (Karwar, Kanara), Bombay, 1883; B.G., XV, Pt. 2 (Kanara), Bombay, 1883, 179–81.
122 D.R.C.R., Appendix B, 1–43.
123 Papers relating to the working of the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act (1888), § 3–5.
124 ibid., § 8.
125 ibid., § 9.
126 D.R.C.R., Appendix C.
127 S.B.R., N.S., CLVIII (Karwar), 1883; CLXIII (Kumta, Ankola), 1883, 82–3.
128 Bombay High Court Reports, XII, Appendix, 1–124.