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The Moghia Menace, or the Watch Over Watchmen In British India*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2012

ANASTASIA PILIAVSKY
ANASTASIA PILIAVSKY*
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge Email: apiliavsky@gmail.com
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Abstract

This paper contributes to the history of ‘criminal tribes’, policing and governance in British India. It focuses on one colonial experiment—the policing of Moghias, declared by British authorities to be ‘robbers by hereditary profession’—which was the immediate precursor of the first Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, but which so far altogether has passed under historians’ radar. I argue that at stake in the Moghia operations, as in most other colonial ‘criminal tribe’ initiatives, was neither the control of crime (as colonial officials claimed) nor the management of India's itinerant groups (as most historians argue), but the uprooting of the indigenous policing system. British presence on the subcontinent was punctuated with periodic panics over ‘extraordinary crime’, through which colonial authorities advanced their policing practices and propagated their way of governance. The leading crusader against this ‘crisis’ was the Thuggee and Dacoity Department, which was as instrumental in the ‘discovery’ of the ‘Moghia menace’ and ‘criminal tribes’ in the late nineteenth century as in the earlier suppression of the ‘cult of Thuggee’. As a policing initiative, the Moghia campaign failed consistently for more than two decades. Its failures, however, reveal that behind the façade-anxieties over ‘criminal castes’ and ‘crises of crime’ stood attempts at a systemic change of indigenous governance. The diplomatic slippages of the campaign also expose the fact that the indigenous rule by patronage persisted—and that the consolidation of the colonial state was far from complete—well into the late nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , May 2013 , pp. 751 - 779
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

Work on this paper was funded by the Rhodes Trust, the Oxford Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Wolfson College (Oxford), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and King's College (Cambridge). Unless otherwise noted, all primary sources were consulted at the National Archives of India in New Delhi. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Oxford Seminar in South Asian History and at the meeting of the American Association for Asian Studies in Boston. I am grateful to Paul Dresch, David Gellner, Jonathan Norton, Rosalind O'Hanlon, Kim A. Wagner, and two anonymous MAS reviewers for helpfully commenting on drafts, and to Alice Taylor for all the Breakfasts.

References

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12 This 1820s–1830s ‘criminal crisis’ precipitated the Bhil and Thug campaigns, which were at the heart of the British pacification of Malwa (Central India) in the aftermath of the 1815 defeat of the Marathas (Gordon, S. (1969). Scarf and Sword: Thugs, Marauders and State Formation in Eighteenth Century Malwa, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 6:4, 416–429CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

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18 Gordon, S., ‘Scarf and Sword’, pp. 427–429. The vast ‘military labour market’, from which the politics of raiding and protection drew its force at times embraced, by Dirk Kolff's estimation, as much as ten per cent of the active male population in pre-British India (Kolff, D. H. A. (1990). Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 3)Google Scholar. On the identities and social organization of plundering groups, see Fox, R. G. (1971). Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule: State-hinterland Relations in Preindustrial India, University of California Press, BerkeleyGoogle Scholar; Kolff, D. H. A. (1971). Sannyasi Trader-Soldiers, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 8:2, 213–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kolff, D. H. A., Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy; Gordon, S., ‘Scarf and Sword’; Pinch, W. R. (2006). Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires, Cambridge University Press, New YorkGoogle Scholar.

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20 T. H. Thornton, ‘Report on the Moghias of Mewar’, January 1877, Foreign (Political-A), proceedings 190-4.

21 Ibid.

22 W. J. W. Muir, ‘Report on the Moghias of Hadoti and Tonk’, January 1877. Foreign (Political-A), proceedings 190-4.

23 Sleeman, W. H. (1844). Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, J. Hatchard and Son, London, V. 1, p. 304Google Scholar.

24 In Rajputana 201 of 206 Moghia families, in Indore 90 of 156 families, in Gwalior 52 of 91 families, in Barnagar and Ujjain all 27 families, in Dhra 78 of 139 families, in Piploda most of the 58 families, in Jowra all 58 families, in Rutlam 82 of 98 families, and in Silhana most of the 53 resident families were employed as chaukīdārs (J. R. Fitzgerald to T. Cadell (letter including his ‘Report on the Control of Moghias in Central India and Rajputana’, 25 February 1879). Foreign [Political –A], October 1879, proceedings 36-48).

25 T.H. Thornton, ‘Report on the Moghias of Mewar’, January 1877. Foreign (Political-A), proceedings 190-4.

26 Ibid.

27 Fattori, op. cit., p. 3.

28 For example, Dirks, N. B. (1987). The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGoogle Scholar; Gordon, S. (1993). The Marathas, 1600–1818, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peabody, N. (1991). Ko ṭā Mahājagat, or the Great Universe of Kota: Sovereignty and Territory in 18th Century Rajasthan. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 25:1, 29–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peabody, N. (2003). Hindu Kingship and Polity in Pre-colonial India, Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGoogle Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 37.

30 Dirks, N. B., The Hollow Crown.

31 As Peabody points out, because networks of allegiances ‘extend[ed] well beyond the observable horizon’, dominions were not limited by the territorial boundaries of a village, a jāgīr or a kingdom (‘Koṭā Mahājagat’, p. 29).

32 Citing a series of earlier reports in 1879, Fitzgerald, Superintendent of Moghia Operations, wrote that ‘dacoity on an organized scale has been much less frequent’ and that ‘special measures are not the imperative necessity that they were some few years ago’ (J. R. Fitzgerald to T. Cadell, letter including his ‘Report on the control of Moghias in Central India and Rajputana’, 25 February 1879, Foreign [Political –A], October 1879, proceedings 36-48). The Rajputana Agent agreed that ‘violent crime has of late years diminished’ (E. R. C. Bradford to A. C. Lyall, 31 March 1879. Foreign [Political-A], October 1879, proceedings 36-48).

33 J. C. Brooke to C. U. Aitchison, Foreign (Political-A), 3 January 1961, December 1872, proceedings 528-529.

34 J. C. Brooke to C. U. Aitchison, Foreign (Political-A), 1 August 1870, December 1872, proceedings 528-529. Brooke is responding to a query from the Foreign Department prompted by reports of Moghia depredations submitted by Hutchinson, Political Agent in Mewar. Since this was the first time the ‘Moghia problem’ was brought to its attention, the Foreign Office requested a more detailed description of the alleged perpetrators.

35 Ibid.

36 A. F. Pinhey to First Assistant to the Political Agent in Rajputana, 8 May 1890. Foreign (Internal-A), October 1890, proceedings 118-122.

37 E. R. C. Bradford to A. C. Lyall, 31 March 1879, op. cit.

38 J. R. Fitzgerald to T. Cadell, letter including his ‘Report on the Control of Moghias in Central India and Rajputana’, 25 February 1879. Foreign (Political -A), October 1879, proceedings 36-48.

39 F. Hervey to A. C. Lyall, including the ‘Report on the Repressions of the Bowrees in Marwar. Proposals for the Control of the Moghias’, 21 December 1876. Foreign Department (Political-A), January 1877, proceedings 190-4).

40 F. Hervey to Agents in Rajputana and Central India, 21 December 1876. Foreign (General-A), February 1876, proceedings 137-38.

41 Sleeman, W. H. (1849). Report on Budhuk alias Bagree Decoits and Other Gang Robbers by Hereditary Profession and on the Measures Adopted by the Government of India, for Their Suppression, J. C. Sherriff, Bengal Military Orphan Press, CalcuttaGoogle Scholar.

42 For a history of the Department, see Hervey, C. (1892). Some Records of Crime: Being the Diary of a Year, Official and Particular, of an Officer of the Thuggee and Dacoitie Police, S. Low, Marston, LondonGoogle Scholar.

43 T. Cadell to the First Assistant to the Political Agent in Rajputana, 7 October 1879. Foreign [Political-A], proceedings 36-48; A. C. Lyall to the Foreign Office, 3 June 1879. Foreign (Political-A), October 1879, proceedings 36-48.

44 The same taxonomical techniques can be found in Sleeman's earlier classifications of Thugs. See Singha, R., ‘Providential Circumstances’ on the extension of the ‘thug’ category to an ever growing number of persons and groups and Wagner (Thuggee, Chapter 8) on the articulation of ‘dacoit’ taxonomies in Sleeman's earlier works on Thuggee.

45 Sleeman, W. H., Report on the Budhuk Alias Bagree Decoits, V. 1, p. 268.

46 J. C. Brooke to C. U. Aitchison, 2 September 1865. Foreign (Political-A), December 1872, proceedings 528-529.

47 W. J. W. Muir, ‘Report on the Moghias of Hadoti and Tonk’, January 1877. Foreign (Political-A), proceedings 190-4.

48 Anand Yang has noted that Moghia (or Magahiya) is a sub-caste of the itinerant low-ranking Doms, a group of sweepers and scavengers in Northern India (Yang, A. A., ‘Dangerous Castes and Tribes’). I have argued that such ‘vagrant’ groups historically, and increasingly from the early nineteenth century, have traded in raiding and protection. (Piliavsky, A., ‘Theft, Patronage and Society’, Chapter 2).

49 T. H. Thornton, ‘Report on the Moghias of Mewar’, January 1877. Foreign (Political-A), proceedings 190-4.

50 J. R. Fitzgerald to T. Cadell, letter including his ‘Report on the Control of Moghias in Central India and Rajputana’, 25 February 1879. Foreign (Political -A), October 1879, proceedings 36-48.

51 Ibid.

52 His long list of decorations included Knight Grand Commander, Knight Grand Cross, as well as Companion and Counsellor of the Empress (Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908–1831). Clarendon Press, Oxford, V. 12, p. 389.

53 H. D. Daly to A. C. Lyall, 29 July 1876. Foreign (Political-A). January 1877, proceedings 190-4, pp. 9–10.

54 Jones, M. E. M. (1918). Warren Hastings in Bengal 1772–1774, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 330Google Scholar.

55 Hervey, C., Some Records of Crime.

56 F. Hervey to Agents in Rajputana and Central India, 17 February 1876. Foreign (General-A), February 1876, proceedings 137-38. The Superintendent of Moghia operations wrote that ‘In all the Gwalior districts the practice of heavily fining Moghias is rife and they [Moghias] complain bitterly of the oppression of the native officials’. He further noted that at one point ‘54 men have been arrested, I believe, on no specific charge, nor, they say, has any definite sentence been passed on them. They add, however, that if they could raise Rs. 150 or Rs. 200 apiece, they could obtain their liberty’ (J. R. Fitzgerald to T. Cadell, letter including his ‘Report on the Control of Moghias in Central India and Rajputana’, 25 February 1879. Foreign [Political-A], October 1879, proceedings 36-48).

57 Further complaints about the inefficiency of the Gwalior system exposed its abuse by local authorities. The ineffectiveness of the rules of course did not lie in their prolixity, but rather in the incompatibility of centrally dictated measures with locally controlled systems of governance.

58 H. D. Daly to A. C. Lyall, op. cit.

59 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

60 A. C. Lyall to T. H. Thornton, Foreign (Political-A), 9 August 1876, January 1877, proceeding 190-4.

61 Over the following decade of its implementation, the Moghia Commission became almost exclusively the project of the T&D Department. The first term of Moghia Superintendency fell, upon the recommendation of the T&D Department's new head Bradford, to Fitzgerald, the T&D Superintendent in Hyderabad (T. C. Plowden to A. C. Lyall, Foreign (Political-A), 27 December 1877, December 1877, proceedings 178-81). Although at the end of his term the Foreign Department was thoroughly disappointed with Fitzgerald's intelligence, policing and diplomacy, nevertheless, the consequent five terms of Superintendency continued to be held by T&D Officers.

62 R. H. Keatinge to C. U. Aitchison, Foreign (Political), 29 April 1870, July 1870, proceedings 302-6.

63 Aitchison, C. U. to A. C. Lyall ‘Mogheea Depredations in Neemuch’, 4 July 1871. Foreign (Political-A), December 1872, proceedings 528-9.

64 Dirks, N. B. (1979). The Structure and Meaning of Political Relations in a South Indian Little Kingdom. Contributions to Indian sociology, 13:2, 169–206, especially p. 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 See, for instance, Fox, R. G., Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule; Dirks, N. B., ‘Structure and Meaning’; Stein, B. (1980). Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, Oxford University Press, DelhiGoogle Scholar; Peabody, N., ‘Koṭā Mahājagat’; Peabody, N., Hindu Kingship and Polity. This vision draws on Aidan Southall's idea of a ‘segmentary state’ in the African context (1956). Alur Society: A Study in Processes and Types of Domination, Heffer, W., Cambridge, and Stanley Tambiah's conception of ‘galactic polity’ in Southeast Asia (1977). The Galactic Polity: The Structure of Traditional Kingdoms in Southeast Asia. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 293, 69–97Google Scholar.

66 Dirks, N. B., ‘Structure and Meaning’; Dirks, N. B., The Hollow Crown; Peabody, N., ‘Koṭā Mahājagat’; Peabody, N., Hindu Kingship and Polity.

67 H. D. Daly to A. R. E. Hutchinson, 31 May 1870. Foreign (Political). July 1870, proceedings 302-6.

68 R. H. Keatinge to C. U. Aitchison, op. cit.

69 Ibid.

70 R. H. Keatinge to C. U. Aitchison, op. cit.

71 Ibid.

72 A. C. Lyall to T. H. Thornton, op. cit.

73 R. H. Keatinge to C. U. Aitchison, op. cit.

74 A. R. E. Hutchinson to R. H. Keatinge, op. cit.

75 H. D. Daly to A. C. Lyall, op. cit.

76 Central India Agent Meade wrote that ‘practically, as is well known to all Political Officers of any experience, there is really no reciprocity in these matters [of inter-territorial pursuit of offenders], and this fact adds vastly to the difficulty of effecting any real improvement in the criminal administration of such States’ (R. J. Meade to W. J. W. Muir, Office of the Agent in Central India ‘Stray Printed Correspondence’, 27 April 1866, 1866, file No. 1912).

77 H. D. Daly to A. C. Lyall, op. cit.

78 R. C. Bradford to F. Hervey, Foreign (Political-A), 14 February 1979, January 1879, proceedings 190-4.

79 The Central India Agent wrote ‘that the Central India States would view with suspicion the acts and suggestions of a Rajpootana officer. A Central India State, for instance, is never willing to have a boundary dispute with a Rajpootana State decided by a Rajpootana officer acting alone, and vice versa. None of the Durbars believe in the perfect impartiality of our officers, though they may perhaps admit that there is no conscious bias’ (A. C. Lyall to the Foreign Office, 3 June 1879. Foreign [Political-A], October 1879, proceedings 36-48).

80 E. R. C. Bradford to A. C. Lyall, Foreign (Political-A), 29 September 1880, June 1881, proceedings 83-103

81 E. R. C. Bradford to A. C. Lyall, Foreign (Political-A), 31 March 1879, October 1879, proceedings 36-48.

82 W. Dalrymple to C. K. M. Walter, Foreign (Political-A), 28 January 1881, June 1881, proceedings 83-103.

83 E. R. C. Bradford to A. C. Lyall, 31 March 1879, op. cit. It was agreed that Gwalior, Indore, Mewar, and Tonk would each pay 100 rupees annually and the smaller Central India States would pay the same amount collectively. However, it proved virtually impossible to collect the sums either from Mewar or from the smaller Central Indian States like Bundelkhand and Baghelkand.

84 A. C. Lyall to Secretary to the Foreign Department, 3 June 1881. Foreign (Political-A), January 1882, proceedings 190-4.

85 Ibid.

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88 For an account of policing and administrative practices under Criminal Tribes legislation, see, for instance, Nigam, S. (1990). Disciplining and Policing the ‘Criminals by Birth’, Part 2: The Development of a Disciplinary System, 1871–1900, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 27:30, 257–287CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 Piliavsky, A., ‘A Secret in the Oxford Sense’.