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III. Rural Revolt in the Great Rebellion of 1857 in India: A Study of the Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar Districts1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Eric Stokes
Eric Stokes
Affiliation:
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
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Extract

In most accounts of the rural uprisings of 1857 the moneylender, whether described as ‘sleek mahajan’ or ‘impassive bania’, is cast as the villain of the piece. It is he who is seen as the principal beneficiary of the landed revolution that occurred in the first half-century of British rule in the North-Western Provinces and gave the non-agricultural classes of the towns a mounting share in the control of land. And his ascendancy is attributed directly to the institutional changes effected by British rule, among the most important of which were the transformation of the immediate revenuecollecting right {malguzari) into a transferable private property; the heavy, inelastic cash assessments; and above all, the forced sale of land rights for arrears of revenue or in satisfaction of debt. ‘The public sale of land’, says Professor Chaudhuri, ‘not merely uprooted the ordinary people from their smallholdings but also destroyed the gentry of the country, and both the orders being victims of British civil law were united in the revolutionary epoch of 1857–8 in a common effort to recover what they had lost.’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 606 - 627
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

1 I am indebted to the Nuffield Foundation for a Small Grant to aid in the compilation of the statistics, and to my daughter, Barbara Stokes, for drawing the map.

2 Chaudhuri, S.B., Civil Rebellion in the Indian Mutinies (Calcutta, 1957), p. 21.Google Scholar

3 Chaudhuri, S.B., Theories of the Indian Mutiny (Calcutta, 1965), pp. 135–6.Google Scholar For other similar interpretations, cf. Sen, S.N., Eighteen Fifty Seven (Calcutta, 1957), pp. 32–5;Google ScholarMetcalf, T.R., The Aftermath of Revolt (1965), p. 207Google Scholar passim; Joshi, P.C, ‘1857 in Our History’ in Rebellion 1857: A Symposium, ed. Joshi, P.C. (New Delhi, 1957),Google Scholar pp. 141 ff., 195 ff.

4 Board of Rev. to Govt. N.W.P. 18 Aug, 1871, para. 35; Saharanpur Settlement Report, Allahabad, 1871).Google Scholar

5 R. Spankie to Commissioner, Meerut, 6 March 1858, Saharanpur Collectorate Pre-Mutiny Records, Judicial Letters issued to Commissioner, May 1856–Oct. 1858. (Book 23a Series n 4.) U.P. State Archives, Allahabad.

6 ‘Narrative of Events attending the outbreak of Disturbances and the Restoration of Authority in the District of Saharunpoor in 1857–58.’ R. Spankie to F. Williams, Commissioner, Meerut, 26 September 1857, para. II; in Narrative of Events regarding the Mutiny in India of 1857–58 and the Restoration of Authority (Foreign Dept. Press, Calcutta, 1881), I, 468.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Narrative, para. 20, p. 469. Robertson, H. Dundas, District Duties During the Revolt in the North-West Provinces of India (1859), p. 35.Google Scholar On Kheri Rangars, Atkinson, E.A., Gazetteer of N.W. Provinces, vol. II, Meerut Division, part I (Allahabad, 1875), pp. 198,Google Scholar 261.

8 Narrative, paras. 7–8, pp. 467–8.

9 Gurhow is not given in modern maps, but a point 7 miles east of Saharanpur falls exactly at the junction of the Dehra Dun-Rurki roads just on the eastern bank of the Hindan river where an unnamed hamlet is marked. Kunkuri and Phoraur also do not appear on the I-inch Survey of India sheet.

10 H. Dundas Robertson, District Duties, p. 43. Cf. Robertson to Spankie, n.d., Narrative, pp. 483–4.

11 Robertson, District Duties, p. 45.

12 Spankie, Narrative, para. 15, p. 469.

13 Robertson, District Duties, pp. 134–7. Cf. H. le Poer Wynne, Asst. Settlement Officer to H. D. Robertson, Collector, Saharanpur, 17 May 1867, paras. 226–7.

Saharanpur Settlement Report, (Allahabad 1871), p. 138:Google Scholar ‘At present all such alienations (very numerous they are) fall into the hands of the large money-lenders who congregate in the various towns…he is invariably an absentee, and manages the estate through an Agent. It will be easily imagined how their circumstance tends to keep him dissevered from his tenants, and ignorant of what measures their requirements and his own interests alike demand.’

14 Robertson to Spankie no. 241 para, II, n.d., Narrative, p. 485. Cf. later description by Spankie: ‘It would be difficult to express the utter ruin that has fallen upon the Hindoo Banias and Mahajuns at Nukoor. Large brick houses and some of them highly ornamental are in ruins. The Bazaar was all but destroyed. The villains concerned in the loot do not appear to have been satisfied with ordinary mischief, but systematically pulled down the houses. Not a Mahomedan's house was touched! The whole lot of Goojurs in the neighbourhood was concerned in this affair—and the Hindoos declare now as they did at the time that the Mahomedans suggested the attack.’ R. Spankie, Magistrate, to F. Williams, Commissioner Meerut, 17 March 1858, para 4, U.P. State Archives, Allahabad, Saharanpur Collectorate Pre-Mutiny Records Book 230, Series II, 4, Judicial Letters issued to Commissioner, May 1856–October 1858.

15 Robertson, District Duties, p. 120.

16 Robertson, District Duties, pp. 133–4.

17 Narrative, p. 486.

18 Robertson, District Duties, p. 158. Cf. Robertson to Spankie, 4 Aug. 1857: Narrative, pp. 481–2.

19 Allowing for the fact that the area is in general a level plain, bangar refers to the ‘upland’ and khadir to alluvial river lands, in this case of the Yamuna.

20 Saharanpore Settlement Report (Allahabad, 1871),Google Scholar H. le Poer Wynne to H. D. Robertson, 17 May 1867, para. 92, p. 100.

21 Saharanpore S.R. 1871, op. cit. para. 89, p. 99.

22 Cf. R. Spankie to Commissioner Meerut, 12 March 1858, U.P. State Archives, Allahabad. Book 230, Series II, 4, Saharanpur Collectorate Pre-Mutiny Records, Judicial Letters issued to the Commissioner, May 1856–Oct. 1858. fo. 206. It must be admitted that Robertson mentions that Rampur was at one stage threatened by the rebels during the main rising in Gangoh and Nakur in June 1857; District Duties, p. 133.

23 Wynne, para. 105.

24 Wynne, para. 107: ‘The soil throughout the Katah, as far as the Hindan, is unsurpassed by any that I have seen in the district.’

25 R. Spankie, Magistrate, to Commissioner, Meerut, 11 March 1858, U.P. State Archives, Allahabad. Saharanpur Collectorate Pre-Mutiny Records. Book 230, Series II, 4. Judicial Letters issued to the Commissioner, May 1856–October 1858.

26 List of Persons eminent for disloyalty in Zillah Saharanpore, Mag. No. 100 of 8 April 1858; Ibid.

27 Wynne's Report, paras. 124–6. For identification of villages see Survey of India I-inch sheets 53 G/9, G/10, G/13.

28 Idem, para. 140.

29 Gazetteer, N.W.P., ed. Atkinson, vol. II, pt. I, p. 231.

30 Cited J. Vans Agnew to F. Williams, 28 Jan. 1863, para. 46; Saharanpur S.R. 1871, Appendix, p. II.

31 Cited Gazetteer N.W.P., vol. II, pt. I, p. 227. Wynne, cited p. 233. See table A.

32

33 For Jat acquisitions see tables, Gazetteer N.W.P., vol. III, pt. 2 (1876), pp. 554–5, and pargana notices of Khatauli (p. 700) and Jansath (p. 680). For the low revenue rates imposed by Thornton on Khatauli and Jansath, Cadell, A., Settlement Report of the Ganges Canal Tract of the Muzaffarnagar District (Allahabad, 1878), pp. 42–5.Google Scholar

34 On Jat distribution in the eastern parganas and favourable rates for occupancy tenants, Cadell, Report on Ganges Canal Tract, pp. 12–13.

35 Martin, S.N. in Settlement Report on the District of Moozuffernugger (Allahabad, 1873), p. 157;Google Scholar also p. 70.

36 Cf. Edwards, R.M., Narrative of Events…, cited Gazetteer N.W.P., vol. III (1875), p. 626:Google Scholar ‘The natural result [of the deliberate inactivity of the police] was that violent crimes of all kinds were daily, almost hourly, committed throughout the district…It is needless naming the chief crimes; it is sufficient to remark that here, as in other parts of the country, the Baniyas and Mahajans were, in the majority of cases, the victims, and fearfully have many of them been made to suffer for their previous rapacity and avarice.’

37 The formidable Jat clan organization has been brought out in a modern sociological study, Pradhan, P.C., The Political Organization of the jats of Northern India (O.U.P., Bombay, 1966).Google Scholar For the role of the Baliyan and Gathwala khaps, see pp. 107–9.

38 Cadell, A., Settlement Report on Ganges Canal Tract of Muzaffarnagar District (Allahabad, 1878),Google Scholar para. 59 pp– 53–4.

39 R.M. Edwards to F. Williams, 3 April 1858; U.P. State Archives Allahabad, Commissioner (Meerut), dept. XII special file 34/1858. Also F. Williams to G. Couper, 6 Aug. 1859, Ibid., file 40/1859.

40 J. Vans Agnew to F. Williams, 28 Jan. 1863, paras. 64–70, Saharanpur Settlement Report 1871, Appendix, pp. 17–20.

41 R. Spankie to F. Williams, 26 March 1858, encl. 2; Saharanpur Collectorate Pre-Mutiny Records, Book 230, Judicial Letters issued to Commissioner, May 1856–October 1858, fo. 222.

42 Idem. Also Spankie to Commissioner, 18 Sept. 1857, ibid. fo. 129.

43 Faruqi, Z.H., The Deoband School and the Demand for Pakistan (Bombay, 1963), pp. 20–1.Google ScholarAshraf, K.M. in Joshi, P.C. (ed.), Rebellion 1857 (Delhi, 1957), p. 92.Google ScholarAhmad, Aziz, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan, 1857–1964 (1967), pp. 28,Google Scholar 104 ff.

44 R. M. Edwards, Magistrate, to F. Williams, 3 April 1858; Commissioner (Meerut), dept. XII special file 34/1858. U.P. State Archives, Allahabad. Also Edwards to Williams, I Sept. 1858, ibid., file 32/1858. Also idem, 4 Mar. 1859; ibid., file 50/1859. Idem 21 Oct. 1859; ibid., file 48/1859. On Shamli massacre, R. M. Edwards, Mutiny Diary, entry 16 Sept. [1857], fo. 87; MSS Eur. c. 148/2 India Office Library.

45 Narrative of Events in the Meerut Division by F. Williams, Commissioner, 15 Nov. 1858, para. 113, in Narrative of Events concerning the Mutiny of India and the Restoration of Authority (Calcutta, 1881), I, 244.Google Scholar

46 On the discrepancy between the private and public (forced) sale price of land and the irregularities attending public auctions, Cadell, Report on Ganges Canal Tract, paras. 21–3, pp. 98–9.

47 Edwards, the magistrate, acknowledged the services of Mansur Ali Khan, and his son Muhamed Ali (subsequently appointed tahsildar of Thana Bhawan), who ‘with the other Raeeses of Jalalabad not only refused to join the Thana Bhown revolt but did their utmost to prevent the outbreak, and when they failed they successfully exerted themselves to stop any of their townspeople joining the rebels’; Edwards to Williams, 3 April 1858, Commissioner (Meerut), dept. XII. Another supporter was Saadulla Khan Afridi, half-owner of nearby Lohari, an elderly man of great influence whose nephew, Ahmad Ali Khan, owner of the other half of Lohari, turned rebel; Edwards to Williams, I Sept. 1858, ibid., file 32/1858.

48 Cadell, Report on the Ganges Canal Tract, pp. 11. It would appear, however, that many of their gains were post-1857; idem, p. 54.

49 Cf. Eric Stokes, ‘Nawab Walidad Khan and the 1857 struggle in the Bulandshahr District; Bengal Past and Present, Diamond Jubilee Number, 1967.