 
### The land of the rulers

Feudal land, war and village fort life in the Rajasthan desert

By Son Lal

Copyright 2013 by Son Lal

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This is a work of fiction. The names and characters come from the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Similarly, the locations and incidents in this book, which might resemble real locations and events, are being used fictitiously and are not to be considered as real.

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### The land of the rulers

Feudal land, war and village fort life in the Rajasthan desert

About an age of feudal rule, which ended in the 1950s, but continued to influence village life. The book is based both on Tan Dan's narrations to Son Lal around 1980, and on historical documents, both primary and secondary. The focus is on Tan Dan's home region in western Rajasthan.

#### Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Tan Dan

Chapter 2 The rise of the Rathores of Chelana

Chapter 3 Chelana Rathores in adversities

Chapter 4 The last Chelana war hero

Chapter 5 How the ruler granted land to the feudal elite

Chapter 6 Khalsa or jagir village. Advantages and disadvantages to the tenants

Chapter 7 The Chelana thikana

Chapter 8 Village entertainments at the Chelana Thikana

Chapter 9 The decline of the Thakur family

Chapter 10 Tan Dan about tax collection at feudal Chelana

Chapter 11 Land record work at Chelana, as experienced by Tan Dan

Chapter 12 Land revenue in the feudal age

Chapter 13 Efficient land accounting in mediaeval imperial north India

Chapter 14 Systematic land tax collection in western Rajasthan is much more recent

Conclusion

Endnotes For historical comparisons

A few more details on the subject

Indian words used in this book are explained here

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### Chapter 1 Tan Dan

#### Who is Tan Dan?

Tan Dan Detha was born in a farmer family of the Charan caste in 1943. His native village is Chelana in Jodhpur District of Rajasthan in northwestern India. Tan Dan has lived in the midst of his strongly traditional environment all his life. He is a critical observer rather than a follower of that tradition.

#### Who is Son Lal?

Son Lal is my pen name. I was born in a Scandinavian country of northern Europe in the early 1940s. I have lived in India off and on for fifty years, since I first arrived to the Gateway of India at Bombay by ship in 1963. In the 1970s I met Tan Dan. We soon found we shared many views on the world, and had the same curiosity of village life. I saw a chance to learn how he experienced his rural environment. He did his best to explain, and I am grateful to him for having shared his knowledge and thoughts with me.

#### How this narration was done

Tan Dan told in English and I typed, while we sat together in long sessions. His many photos became a starting point for our discussions. Our knowledge of English was on the same level and we formulated the sentences together. Sentence after sentence, day after day. Most of it we wrote around 1980, but some additions were made in later decades. Afterwards I have edited the material and supplemented several sections with information from elsewhere.

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### Chapter 2 The rise of the Rathores of Chelana

#### Rathores as chaukidars at Chelana

Chelana, a village one hundred kilometres to the east of Jodhpur. On the route from Jodhpur to Chelana is Pipar, nowadays a township with a Thikana, which has become a government office building. During the feudal days Pipar was a large fief covering a dozen villages. From Chelana the ageold route continues to Merta, the Rathore stronghold of eastern Marvar. Rathores of the Mertia clan have been slain in large numbers in ferocious battles with hostile armies on nearby bloodstained fields.

In 1597 A.D. Rathore soldiers of Khod village in Pali District were asked by Brahmins at Chelana 100 km to the north to help in protecting the village from the attacks of the Meena robbers of the Aravalli Hills. Among those who agreed to settle there was Gokul Das, who is considered to be the ancestor of all those living at Chelana nowadays. He had four sons. Like other young Rathores they tried their luck in warfare. As a rule the reward for valient deeds during battles was feudal land rights. Three of the sons got land for themselves in this way, but not Gopinath Singh, the eldest one, as he most of the time was busy helping his father as a village guard.

#### Pratap Singh - the first Rathore Thakur of Chelana

By then Gopinath Singh and his son Pratap Singh had become ashamed of being simple soldiers without feudal rights. Such persons had a low status within their caste. Therefore, also Pratap Singh joined the army eager to show his prowess in battle.

This was in the 17th century, when Aurangzeb had become the Moghul emperor at Delhi. Rajput dynasties loyal to earlier Moghul emperors as vasalls had became estranged by Aurangzeb's Muslim zeal. Also Jasvant Singh, the Marvar maharaja, showed his antipathy at several occasions. Still he considered it to be in his own interest to continue in the service of Aurangzeb, as an outcome of power politics.

Jasvant Singh became one of Aurangzeb's most important generals. He was entrusted to put down rebellions on the Deccan in the 1660s. It could have been during such a campaign, that Pratap Singh of Chelana succeeded so well, that he got his home village in reward by his ruler and master Maharaja Jasvant Singh. Pratap Singh managed to kill an important leader of the enemy army at a critical juncture of the battle. Pratap cut off the head with a stroke of his sword, and then showed the Maharaja the head as a proof.

However, Rathore villagers at Chelana tell that it was at the nearby Merta this battle had taken place. It is said that the Marvaris were so near defeat that the maharaja had fled the field in dispair, and that Pratab Singhs deed decisively contributed to the victory.

Thus Pratab was made the Thakur of Chelana in 1664 A.D.. Pratab would have been given more villages, the villagers believe, if he had not been such a simple soldier.

Within the army Pratap Singh was given important tasks by the Maharaja. He used to move around with the advance force in battles.

#### Did the Brahmins surrender Chelana on their own accord?

Present-day Chelana Brahmins have a somewhat different story to tell about how the Rathores got into power in the village.

Some of them tell that the Brahmin village lord some five hundred years ago handed over the whole Thakurship to the soldiers called to protect them from the Meenas. In their opinion their Brahmin forefathers did not relish the squabbles associated with worldly power and took the opportunity to transfer the leadership of the village to the Rathores.

However, that description seems less plausible. Firstly, all land ultimately rested with the ruler of the state. Hence, how could a village lord transfer his feudal land right to somebody else? Moreover, at this time it is likely the Brahmins already had lost most of their feudal land in Chelana. Otherwise, why are the Brahmins not mentioned in the official village-wise account book of the Marvar State for the period 1658-62? (Marvar ra pargana ri vagat, p.131) Jats and Baniyas are recorded as the main settlers of Chelana, but Brahmins and Rajputs are not mentioned.

In the 1660s as much as five hundred years had passed since the Karesia Brahmins got the land from Raja Shripat of Ujjain. Moreover, their region of western Rajasthan was now in the hands of a new dynasty ruling from a different capital, the Rathores of Jodhpur. The Kerasia Brahmins link to the supreme of the state might therefore by this time have become quite weak.

#### The imperial war against the Afghans

Around 1670 the Great Moghul of Delhi, Emperor Aurangzeb, removed the unreliable Marvar maharaja Jasvant Singh from the Deccan by making him the viceroy of Gujarat. Then there was a new rebellion among the Afghans at Kabul, and Jasvant Singh was appointed the chief commander for the imperial forces that would put it down. It was a very risky enterprise. Having his own fate linked to that of his maharaja, also Pratap Singh participated in the campaign.

Maharaja Jasvant Singh lost all his sons during the years in Afghanistan and eventually also his own life in 1678 A.D.. Having got rid of a dangerous enemy the emperor was much relieved, although he treated Jasvant as his faithful general until the end.

Also Thakur Pratap Singh of Chelana participated in the Afghani campaign. Pratap Singh was killed in 1672 at the Khadpari Ghati near Kabul, and there he was cremated. A cenotaph was built in his honour by Maharaja Jasvant Singh, who still had six more years to live.

Pratap Singh's turban was sent to Chelana, where it was burnt on the funeral pyre together with Pratap Singh's two wives. Such self-immolation at the death of one's husband was common within the warrior caste of feudal Rajasthan. As a Rajput warrior often was slain in battle far from his home, too far for bringing home his body, it had become a rule of convenience that the full funeral ceremony of the deceased could be conducted with his turban.

It is often said that the Rajput wife was burnt to death with a turban in her lap. However, it seems more than one turban would be required, as Rajput war lords mostly had more than one wife. The immolated widows became glorified in myths, and worshipped as sati deities.

A cenotaph of Pratap Singh and the two satis was built at the bank of the village pond, where the cremation had been performed. In the local language such a memorial is called _chatri_ , i.e. umbrella, which describes its general appearance with a vaulted roof on the top of a circle of pillars. The chatri became a part of everyday life for generations of villagers, as the area around the pond is a busy one.

#### His family continued to rule the village

When Pratap Singh Rathore had died at Kabul in the imperial war against the Afghans, his son Sur Singh was granted the Chelana Thakurship by the Marvar maharaja. Sur Singh got eight sons. All Rathore Rajputs living in Chelana nowadays descend from these eight brothers. The most active one was Jait Singh, and he was the one invested as Thakur, when Sur Singh died. Due to Jait Singh's all-round ability Chelana village grew in importance during his reign.

#### Marvar holds its own against the Moghul emperors

Meanwhile several dramatic events had taken place in Marvar politics. At the death of Maharaja Jasvant Singh at Kabul in 1678, it was assumed that all his sons had died, too. However, one of his queens was pregnant, and she bore a son some months later. For many years the infant was hidden by Rathore warriors in far away place such as the jungles around Mount Abu. The reason was that the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb wanted to end the Marvar dynasty and therefore tried to get the young prince killed. That he failed in this, was much due to the resourceful clan chief Durga Das Rathore. He was a valiant, resourceful Rajput, sacrificing his own welfare for that of his protégé, the young prince Ajit Singh. He became a folk hero sung about for generations all over Rajasthan. Ajit Singh did survive his precarious youth and could as an adult ascend the throne at Jodhpur. Then Aurangzeb had died and the imperial hold over western Rajasthan had loosened considerably.

It is a popular belief in Rajasthan that Durga Das was banned from Marvar at the end of his life, and died in exile at Ujjain in western Madhya Pradesh, where his cenotaph was erected. The reason is said to have been intrigues initiated by jealous rivals at the Jodhpur royal court. In a labour song sung at Chelana by teams of agricultural women, Durga Das is said to have been forced to ride day and night to be out of his home land before a prescribed point in time.

There are letters of those days indicating that Durga Das worked in a high position at the neighbouring state of Mewar at the end of his life, and his life there might have been quite good. All the same Durga Das would have deserved a better treatment from his sovereign Ajit Singh, considering all what Durga Das had done for him during Aurangzeb's time.

#### Abhay Singh, the new maharaja of Marvar

Ajit Singh was murdered by his two eldest sons. Hence, what the mighty Moghul emperor Aurangzeb had failed to achieve in spite of great efforts, Ajit Singh's own sons did out of greed for the throne. One of the parricides, Abhay Singh, succeeded his father in 1724 and he ruled up to 1750. During his time Marvar was involved in many wars, several of which added to the wealth and territory of the state.

When Aurangzeb had died in 1707 the Great Moghuls at Delhi were no longer able to keep its hold of the Indian subcontinent. The many uprisings were not put down efficiently by the imperial forces. The numerous Hindu vassals including the Marvar Maharaja dared to be disloyal to the emperor at several occasions. Hence, the Marvar maharaja Abhay Singh had a more independent position than his grandfather Jasvant Singh more than half a century earlier.

#### The Marvar army at war in Gujarat

In 1727 Abhay Singh stayed at the Moghul Court in Delhi when revolts flared up in the Deccan. Muhammed Shah, the Emperor at that time, sent a large army headed by his general Sarbuland Khan to quench the rebellion. After an initial defeat Sarbuland entered into terms with the rebels, however, and agreed to a partition of the country. He declared himself the sovereign king of Gujarat and settled in Ahmadabad. The emperor sent a new army against the traitor to regain the territory. This time he appointed Abhay Singh of Marvar as the commander-in-chief. Abhay Singh was promised the vice-royalties of both Ahmadabad and Ajmer, in case of victory.

Abhay Singh's army mainly consisted of Hindu Rajputs, who had no reason to be more loyal to the Moghul throne at Delhi than the Muslim noble Sarbuland Khan. Hence, Abhay Singh took full advantage of the situation after his victory in 1731, and strengthened his own position rather than that of his emperor.

Several rulers of small states in Gujarat and adjacent regions became his vassals. Among these were the Jhalas, a Rajput clan which had been vanquished by the Sarbuland army, and thus stood in gratitude to Abhay Singh for the subsequent defeat of their common enemy.

#### The Chelana Thakur rises in favour

Following the Moghul tradition from the days of Akbar, also Abhay Singh married into some of his newly acquired vassal dynasties in order to strengthen the bonds and demonstrate supremacy. While the war still was going on he married the daughter of the Jhala ruler at Drangdara, Gujarat.

At the same occasion Jait Singh, the Thakur of Chelana, married the sister of the new queen of Marvar! It shows how the Chelana Thakur had risen in favour with the maharaja. The reason was that Thakur Jait Singh had proved himself an efficient army leader. At some battle he had even saved his sovereign's life.

When the Gujarat war was over in 1731 Jait Singh got his fief extended from one to twelve villages. Chelana became the centre of this large fief.

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### Chapter 3 Chelana Rathores in adversities

#### The death of Thakur Jait Singh

Jait Singh died at Ajmer in 1746. At that time Raja Abhay Singh of Marvar still controlled Ajmer, which had come under his control as a result of the Gujarat war two decades earlier.

Jait Singh is said to have been slain at battle after first having cut off the head of a leader of the enemy army.

Whether that army really was the Moghul one, as the story goes, is open to doubt, because Delhi had been sacked by Nadir Shah of Persia only five years earlier.

Jait Singh's turban was taken home to his native village Chelana with customary honour. The body of Jait Singh had been cremated at Ajmer, but a ritual funeral had to be performed also at Chelana. On that occasion the turban symbolized his body. Both his wives, Jhali and Chavanji, were seated on the funeral pyre together with that turban. They became sati while theire bodies were burnt to ash. It happened at the bank of the village pond, next to the cenatoph of Jait Singh's grandfather, Pratap Singh Rathore.

Jait Singh and the two sati godesses were honoured with another cenatoph at the village pond. It was to be a large memorial. Artisans worked on it for two years. With its twenty pillars and heavy vaulted dome it became the most spectacular _chatri_ at Chelana.

#### Achievements of Jait Singh

Jait Singh was the brightest of all Chelana Thakurs of the Rathore clan. He was a successful army leader, and he had a large fief.

During the war in Gujarat Jait Singh fought successfully in important battles at Sirohi and Ahmedabad. He also showed his prowess at Amber near Jaipur and at Ajmer.

He started an outpost of four horses and ten soldiers at the Gadsuria Pass, a place near Chelana on the caravan route from Jodhpur to Merta. Transit duties was levied at this point by the Marvar State. It was the duty also of succeeding Chelana Thakurs to defend this post.

For the villagers the new constructions at the Thikana might have been the most spectacular achievement. It showed how the Rathore power had grown in the village, as well as the social differences.

Jait Singh also constructed four temples devoted to the Jogmaya godess. One of these is situated four miles southwest of Chelana on a hilltop near Gadsuria village. The second temple is near Pali on a similar hilltop. It is called Poonagir temple. The third temple was built in the Aravalli Hills at Nand village near Pushkar. It is called Nandray ji ka mandir. The fourth temple was built in Drangdara in Gujarat, where Jait Singh got married to Jhali.

#### The next Thakur

Jait Singh had one weakness - he did not get a son. Although fiefs were not private properties which could be inherited, it was common that the eldest son of a deceased chief got a fresh mandate by the maharaja, the ultimate owner of the land.

As many other feudal lords without male children Jait Singh adopted a son. Sayab Singh, a close relative. In this way the clan hoped to be able to retain the fief also after Jait Singh's death.

When Jait Singh died Maharaja Abhay Singh made Sayab Singh the chief of the large fief. As he was an able Rajput warrior like his father, it seemed he would become a powerful Thakur, too.

However, the situation became less favourable to Sayab Singh, when Maharaja Abhay Singh died in 1750, four years after Jait Singh. Then the personal bonds of friendship between the royal court at Jodhpur and the Chelana Thikana disappeared, especially as Jhali and her sister at Jodhpur had expired at the same time due to the sati custom.

The young Thakur was in danger, as there were rivals within the Rajput elite, who looked for a chance to grab the villages of his fief.

#### The struggle between the ruler and his chiefs

After the death of Abhai Singh several pretenders contested for the throne. His nephew Bijai Singh succeeded in 1753. His rivals called in the Mahrattas, the mercenary army with its roots in Shivaji's hindu kingdom in the Deccan, which challenged the Moghul empire in the 17th century. The Mahrattas and their allies defeated Bijai Singh and his Rathores at Merta. Although considerably weakened Bijai Singh continued to rule from Jodhpur. Ajmer was ceded to the Mahrattas, and a fixed triennial tribute had to be paid to them on all lands of Marvar, both feudal and fiscal. With Ajmer in their possesion, the Mahrattas perpetuated their influence over the Rajput princes, as this stronghold was placed in the heartland of Rajasthan.

An era of unrest and insecurity followed in Marvar. Its maharaja Bijai Singh, young and inexperienced, was left without resources; ruinous wars and yet more ruinous negotiations had dissipated the hoards of wealth accumulated by his predecessors. The crown-lands were uncultivated, and the tenantry dispersed. Commerce had diminished, owing to insecurity and the licentious habits of the chiefs, who everywhere established their own imposts, and occasionally despoiled entire caravans. Bijai Singh was compelled to shut his eyes on these inroads upon his proper power, which reduced him to insignificance even in his own palace. (Tod, p.1066)

Normally, there was a rivalry between different factions of the federated vassalage, which the maharaja, if skilful, could balance to his own benefit, but at this juncture Bijai Singh had too little authority for playing that game.

To reduce the dependence on the chiefs, which had become his masters rather than subjects, Maharaja Bijai Singh set up a standing mercenary force, something unknown in Marvar up to that time. These hired bands from Sind were entirely composed of infantry with some knowledge of European tactics, the superiority of which, even over their high-minded cavaliers, the Marvar chiefs had so severely experienced in their encounters with the Mahrattas.

When the Marvari chiefs sensed the threat to their power of the mercenary force under the direct control of Maharaja Bijai Singh, they mobilised for fight and a civil war between the maharaja and his chiefs nearly broke out. Reconciliation was achieved at a high cost for the maharaja. To regain the allegiance of his chiefs the mercenary guards had to be disbanded, and he had to surrender the records of fiefs (pattabahi) to his chiefs. The second condition sapped the very foundation of his rule, by depriving the crown of its dearest prerogative, the power of dispensing favour.

Bijai Singh soon got a chance to take revenge. When the royal priest Atmaram died all the chiefs were summoned to the Jodhpur castle for attending the funeral rites. At this occasion the chiefs were outwitted and trapped by the royal party, and they were all put to death or taken to prison.

The heirs of the slain feudal chiefs tried to execute vengeance, but were foiled. For a time the feudal interests had been restrained, anarchy was allayed, commerce again flourished, and general prospereity revived. The price for restoring the authority of the maharaja was very high, however, as the proud and valiant Rathore clans to whom the slain chiefs belonged had provided the power base of the Rathore ruler since this Rajput community first conquered Marvar several centuries earlier.

According to Tod, Bijai Singh took the best means to secure the fidelity of his chiefs, by finding them occupation. He carried his arms against the desultory hordes of the desert, the Khosas and Sahariyas, which involved him in contests with the nominal sovereign of Sind, and ended in the conquest of Umarkot, the key to the valley of the Indus. It became the most remote possession of Marvar. The Marvar army also manage to win back the rich province of Godvar from Mevar, which had held that province for nearly five centuries.

#### The Chelana Thakur looses his fief

It was during the tumultuous days of Raja Bijai Singh's reign that Jait Singh's adopted son Sayab Singh lost the whole of his twelve villages fief.

The reason was conspiracy at the court at Jodhpur, according to a Bhat geneologist from Ujjain. He told Tan Dan the following story:

In those days a Rajput called Guman Singh had come in favour with the Marvar maharaja. It was resented by other Rajput chiefs, as he was considered to be much less noble than they were. Guman Singh belonged to the Khichi tribe from the desert to the west of Jodhpur, and they were not accepted as social partners by the Rathore chiefs.

As Guman Singh had become important to the Maharaja Bijai Singh, he saw a chance to elevate his social status, by getting his daughter married to some important Rathore chief. Advisers at the court suggested young Sayab Singh, the new Thakur of Chelana. That they did in the hope of creating a rift between him and the Maharaja. Their aim was to get the Chelana fief resumed by the Maharaja. Several influential persons at the court were jealous of Sayab Singh, and felt he was inexperienced enough to be outwitted.

Guman Singh invited Sayab Singh for food. At such meals between caste brethren it is customary to eat from the same thali (dish) as a way of showing closeness and affection. Before starting there is an initial ceremony, during which the guest puts a morsel in the mouth of the host. Then the host reciprocates. The meal starts after this token of acceptance and affinity.

Sayab Singh did not accept the invitation, as he did not want to enter into marital negotiations. No marriage had ever taken place between Khichis and Rathores. The very proposal hurt his self-respect.

To refuse was risky, though. It made not only Guman Singh his enemy but also the Maharaja, who had promised to intervene in case Guman Singh faced difficulties. That he did by sequestering Sayab Singh's fief.

It happened, when there was an intense struggle for power between the sovereign and his feudal chiefs, as described above. More chieftains than Sayab Singh lost their fiefs. Several lost their life. Hence, the bad fortune of the Chelana Thakur might have had more fundamental reasons than marriage problems.

The Khichi Rajput and his origin

Tod, p.1069, tells about a Khichi called Gordhan Singh. It is evidently the same person as Guman Singh: "There was a foreign Rajput, whose valour, fidelity, and conduct had excited the notice and regard of Bakhta Singh, who, in his dying hour, recommended him to the service of his son. To Gordhan Singh the Khichi, a name of no small note in the subsequent history of this reign, did the young Raja apply in order to restrain his chiefs from revolt." Maharaja Bakhta Singh was the father of Bijai Singh.

Maharaja Bijai Singh evidently managed to curb his haughty vassals with the help of Gordhan Singh alias Guman Singh. It is also likely to have been the main reason for his impopularity among the Rathore chiefs.

Hence, the talk about his unworthy Khichi origin might have been backbiting by Rathore chiefs, who disliked him for other reasons.

The Khichis were powerful enough to be dreaded by the Mahrattas, according to Tod, p.163. Khichis were a branch of the Chouhan Rajput dynasty, according to the same source. Their kingdom Kichivara was situated east of Haravati. As Haravati comprised the districts Kotah and Bundi in eastern Rajasthan, it seems Khichivara was situated in present Madhya Pradesh.

The easterly origin might have been a reason for the Rathores to consider the Khichis inferior Rajputs. It is common among castes of western Rajasthan to look down on those with a gotra belonging to an area further to the east.

#### Sayab Singh as a refugee

Sayab Singh fled to Jaipur state, where he had in-laws. His brother-in-law, the Thakur of Dudu, was an important chief at the royal court of Jaipur. He became Sayab Singh's patron. According to the hospitable customs of the Rajputs, Sayab Singh got saran (sanctuary) and land for his maintenance by the Jaipur maharaja, who at this time is likely to have been Isari Singh (1743-60). Sayab Singh was given a jagir worth 70,000 Rupees, which was at par with the twelve village fief he had lost in Marvar. The main village of his fief was Sevana near Dudu south of Sambhar Lake.

At this time the Jaipur had armed struggles with several neighbouring states, especially Bharatpur, where the ruling Jats had become new tough rivals, both to Jaipur and the Moghuls at Delhi. Hence, there were many opportunities for Sayab Singh to show his prowess also in the Jaipur army. He never returned to Marvar.

When he died his son Badan Singh was invested as the Thakur of Sevana by the Jaipur maharaja.

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### Chapter 4 The last Chelana war hero

#### War against the Mahrattas

The Mahrattas continued to extract tributes from the princely states in Rajasthan. Both Jodhpur and Jaipur were sapped of their wealth for decades. In the 1780s Jaipur had got a young energetic ruler called Partap Singh (1778-1803), and he sent an ambassador to Bijai Singh at Jodhpur, proposing a league against the common foe, and volunteering to lead in person their conjoined forces against them. The battle of Tonga ensued, in which Rathore valour shone forth in all its glory, and the Mahrattas were thoroughly defeated. (Tod, 1920)

It is likely that Sayab Singh's son Badan Singh participated in this successful campaign. For a Rathore chief serving the Kachhvaha maharaja of Jaipur, it was a good thing that the two states for once fought as allies.

At Tonga the performance of the Rathore warriors was far superior to that of the Kachhvahas. It was satired upon by a Charan bard, which hurt the pride of the Jaipurians. It was the general opinion in those days that the hurt pride of the Kachhvaha Rajputs caused by an unlucky stanza by the juvenile Charan bard was a major reason for the treacherous behaviour of the Jaipur royal court, when the Mahratta army returned three years later for a new conquest.

The Marvar maharaja Bijai Singh sent his army all the way to the eastern border of Jaipur in order to prevent the Mahrattas from entering Rajasthan. The Marvaris took for granted that the Jaipur army would join them in the defence of Jaipur territory. But they did not. Instead Jaipur made a treaty with the Mahrattas promising not to take part in the forthcoming struggle on the condition that their country would be saved from devastation.

At the ensuing battle of Patan the Mahrattas routed the Rathore army. Then they marched on towards Marvar, threatening this state with renewed subjugation and heavy tributes.

Maharaja Bijai Singh called a council of all his chiefs at which the independent branches of his family, the Rajas of Bikaner, Kishangarh and Rupnagar, assisted, for the cause was a common one. Bijai Singh gave it as his opinion that they would yield to the demands of the invincible Mahrattas, but his chieftains opposed this degrading suggestion, and unanimously recommended that they should again try the chances of war before they signed their humiliation. Their resolution swayed the Maharaja, who issued his summons to every Rathore in his dominions to assemble under their Raja's banner, once more planted on the ensanguined plains of Merta. (Tod, p. 878)

#### Badan Singh returns to Marvar

At that time Badan Singh Rathore attended the royal court of Jaipur. Badan Singh played 'choupar' with the Jaipur Maharaja Partap Singh, when the latter made some bad jokes about current political events. Partab Singh told that the Mahrattas were about to tear off the skirt of Jodhpur. As a Rathore, Badan Singh felt deeply offended by the joke. He left Jaipur immediately to take part in the forthcoming battle.

Also Tod knew about Badan Singh, who according to him had risen to favour at Jaipur at the time when the Mahrattas invaded his bapota, i.e. 'the land of his fathers'. Badan's resentment about the way the Marvar maharaja had treated his family was instantly sacrificed. He put himself at the head of 150 horse, and flew to his sovereign's and his country's defence. Unhappily, the whole Mahratta army interposed between him and his countrymen. To cut their way through all impediments was the instant resolve of Badan and his brave companions. They fell sward in hand upon a multitude; and with the exception of a few, who forced their way, they were cut to pieces. Badan Singh was one of those very few who reached Merta alive. He joined the Jodhpur army and made himself ready for battle.

#### Lost opportunity

On the 10th September 1790 thirty thousand men had assembled for fighting the Mahrattas. The Rathore army was drawn out on the plains of Merta. Meanwhile the Mahratta army advanced from Ajmer to Merta with Mahratta leaders on horse. The brigade of the French general De Boigne with eighty pieces of cannon were still in the rear. That important part of the army got delayed, when De Boigne's guns sunk deep in the sandy bed of the shallow Luni river. A prompt attack could have knocked out the advancing army. The Marvari chiefs demanded a general movement against the Mahrattas, but the representative of the Maharaja wanted them to wait until one more important army leader had arrived from Nagaur. It was an instruction from the first minister at Jodhpur. The chiefs fatally yielded obedience.

Later it was found that this foolish instruction was a deliberate attempt of the first minister at Jodhpur to thwart the success of the Maharaja's presentative at Merta in his military operation. The minister dreaded to be supplanted by that representative, if he returned from Merta crowned with success.

#### The last heroic battle at Merta

While the Rathores at Merta still waited for the leader from Nagaur, general De Boigne extricated his guns from the sands of Alniavas, and joined the main body. About an hour before day-break, De Boigne's brigade attacked, and completely surprised the unguarded Rajputs. They were awoke by showers of grape-shot, which soon broke their position. All was confusion, resistance was feeble.

The alarm reached the more distant quarters of the brothers-in-arms, the chiefs of Awa and Asop. The latter was famed for the immense quantity of opium he consumed; with difficulty could his companion awake him, with the appalling tidings, "The camp has fled, and we are left alone!" "Well, brother, let us to horse." Soon the gallant band of both was ready, and twenty-two chiefs of note drank opium together for the last time. They were joined by the leaders of other clans; and first and foremost the brave Mertias of Rian, of Alniavas, Irva, Chanod, Govindgarh; in all four thousand Rathores. When mounted and formed in one dense mass, the Awa chieftain shortly addressed them: "Where can we fly, brothers? But can there be a Rathore who has ties stronger than shame (laj )? If any one exists who prefers his wife and children to honour, let him retire." Deep silence was the only reply to this heroic appeal; and as the hand of each warrior was raised to his forehead, the Awa chief gave the word "Forward!" They soon came up with De Boigne's brigade, well posted, and defended by eighty pieces of cannon. "Remember Patan!" was the cry, as, regardless of showers of grape, this heroic band charged up to the cannon's mouth, driving everything before them, cutting down the line which defended the guns, and passing on to assault the Mahrattas, who were flying in all directions to avoid their impetuous valour. Had there been a reserve at this moment, the day of Merta would have surpassed that of Tonga. But here the skill of De Boigne, and the discipline of his troops, were an overmatch for valour unsustained by discipline and discretion. The Rathore band had no infantry to secure their victory; the guns were wheeled round, the line was re-formed, and ready to receive them on their return. Fresh showers of shot and grape met their thinned ranks, scarcely one of the four thousand left the field. The chiefs of Asop, Irwa, Chanod, Govindgarh, Alniawas, Morira, and others of lesser note, were among the slain; and upon the heap of wounded, surrounded by his gallant clan, lay the chief of Awa, pierced with seven-and-twenty wounds. He had lain insensible twenty-four hours, when an old servant, during the night, searched for and found him on the field. A heavy shower had fallen, which increased the miseries of the wounded. Blind and faint, the Thakur was dragged out from the bodies of the slain. A little opiate revived him; and they were carrying him off, when they were encountered by Lakwa's harkaras in search of chiefs of note; the wounded Thakur was conveyed to the headquarters at Merta. Lakwa sent a surgeon to sew up his wounds; but he disdained the courtesy, and refused all aid, until the meanest of his wounded vassals was attended to. This brave man, when sufficiently recovered, refused all solicitation from his sympathizing foes that the usual rejoicing might be permitted, and that he would shave and perform the ablutions after sickness, till he could see his sovereign. The Raja advanced from his capital to meet him, and lavished encomiums on his conduct. He now took the bath, preparatory to putting on the honorary dress; but in bathing his wounds opened afresh, and he expired. (Tod, p.879ff.)

#### The last Rathore hero of Chelana

The Rathore chief who had returned from Jaipur, Badan Singh, was among those slain in the heroic charge of the Rathore cavalry. The maharaja showed his gratitude for the gallant deed of this faithful Rathore by restoring Chelana and two other villages of the old fief to his family. Badan Singh's son Gopal Singh became Thakur of Chelana. After some time two of the villages were again resumed, but Chelana itself continued to the be the fief of Gopal Singh's descendants for the remaining 150 years of feudal rule in Rajasthan.

One more cenatoph was erected at the Chelana village pond, the last one of the those that still can be seen on that place. Since then the Rathores did not get any more chance to become war heroes, as peace prevailed in the region from the early 19th century onwards.

#### The scourge of mercenary bands

The Marvar maharaja somehow retained his throne at Jodhpur by making a humiliating treaty with the Mahrattas. The country was again opened for their depredation. For another two decades they scourged the country with their mercenary armies. Among these was that of Amir Khan, 'an apt pupil of the Mahratta school', according to Tod. Many soldiers in his small professional army had left state armies in various stages of dissolution during this chaotic period of Moghul downfall.

Amir Khan managed to exctract large sums of money from rulers and pretenders in various Rajasthani states during the early decades of the 19th century. His gang interfered in feuds within the states, at times settling old disputes by killing the rivals on one side against rewards from the other side. Finally, he became the Nawab of Tonk. Amir Khan became the ruler of that territory against dissolving his dreaded legion force in a bargain with the British.

#### Mir Khan at Chelana

In Chelana he is remembered as Mir Khan, the Muslim dacoit leader who even terrorised maharajas. He came to Chelana, too.

One day the Thakur was informed that a big dacoit gang was heading towards his village. The messenger talked about cannons and more than five hundred horses. Much alarmed the Thakur decided to close the large doors of the elegant gateway of the Thikana. The villagers tell it is the only time the Thikana gate has been closed. As the Thakur felt secure in his own village, where his rule was undisputed, the gate used to be wide open day and night.

The troop halted east of the village pond, where they found a good site for the night camp. A few soldiers were sent to the Thikana where they told the Thakur that Mir Khan had arrived and expected a gift. The Thakur laughed and jokingly replied that many people wanted gifts in his name. The soldiers returned to the camp, telling their leader that the thakur of the village had insulted them. Mir Khan decided to give him a lesson. A cannon was mounted on a mound close to the cenatophs. They aimed at a corner of the large Thikana wall and fired. The wall got a breach near the top. The Chelana Thakur and his men at once realized that their visitor was Mir Khan himself, so they all rushed out in an effort to appease him. Not expecting much from such a plain village, Amir Khan ordered the Thakur to provide their camp with the evening meal.

#### Amir Khan as a free-booter in Marvar

It happened around 1806. At that time there was a war between Marvar and Jaipur which resulted in a siege of Jodhpur. Amir Khan alias Mir Khan and his legion also participated in that siege being enrolled by the Jaipur maharaja Jagat Singh. When Raja Man Singh had defended the Meherangarh Fortress at Jodhpur for half a year his troops still did not show any sign of weakening. On the other side, the large besieging army had run short of fodder and other essential commodities, as the Jodhpur surroundings are dry most of the year.

Amir Khan and his men decided to solve the supply problem by raising contributions for their maintenance from tenants on the fiscal land, i.e. land belonging to the Marvar maharaja and from fiefs of chiefs loyal to him. Large jagirdars at Pali, Pipar, Bilara, with many others, were compelled to accede to Amir Khan's demands. (Tod, p.1086)

As also Chelana is situated in this area east of Jodhpur it is quite possible it was on this dubious mission Amir Khan fired at the Thikana.

Not being too particular, Amir Khan also extracted wealth from fiefs with thakurs supporting the pretender to the Marvar throne. Thus he attacked his own allies. When the Jaipur Maharaja objected to this unprincipled conduct, Amir Khan went over to the enemy camp. When the Jaipurians got to know that Amir Khan had left Marvar and headed towards their own undefended capital several hundred kilometers to the east, they were compelled to lift the siege and rush home.

#### Why did the Rathore loose so many battles?

In the 17th century, during the days of Raja Jasvant Singh, the Rathores were regarded as the best Rajput soldiers in the whole Moghul army.

Therefore it may appear astonishing that the Marvar army could not cope with the mercenary forces which roamed around in Rajasthan a century later. The reason was evidently that the latter had introduced new military techniques, which they had learnt from the Europeans.

Shivaji, the Hindu prince in the Deccan who challanged Aurangzeb, was perhaps the only Hindu prince of his time who got his army well organized. That he did with the help of a French general from Pondicherry, whom he had brought to his state after having seen French and British troops in action. Shivaji realized the importance of artillary.

The Mahrattas scourging Rajasthan in the 18th century inherited the military efficiency of Shivaji's army. Like Shivaji they kept European officers. Amir Khan showed that also a small army could fight successfully with Marvari troops, if the artillary was strong.

The Marvar army, on the other hand, had a weak outdated artillary. The Rathores mainly relied on ferocious attacks from horseback. Although the army leaders had a clear feudal organization with regard to their land rights, their role on the battle field was less clearly defined. The military organization was rather rudimentary, and the army leaders were not officers in a hierarchical military organization with troops at their command. Rather, also among the army leaders it was their individual fighting capacity which was esteemed, rather than their ability to direct coordinated group action.

Therefore, the Marvar army fought in a way similar to the robber bands of the area, although on a bigger scale. To a large extent these bands consisted of outlaws (dacoit) of the Rajput caste.

#### British supremacy

The British superseded the Mahrattas as the supreme power of Rajasthan. The rulers of the princely states were made to sign treaties. Marvar got its treaty in 1815, according to which the tribute paid to Scindia from then onwards should be paid to the British Government. The state should also furnish fifteen hundred horse for the service of the British Government whenever required.

The British thought that the princely rulers of Rajputana had reasons to be satisfied with this change of bondage. Hence, Tod writes in his dedication to the British king of the first volume of his Annals of Rajputana. "The Rajput princes, happily rescued, by the triumph of the British arms, from the yoke of lawless oppression, are now the most remote tributaries to Your Majesty's extensive empire; and their admirer and annalist may, perhaps, be permitted to hope that the sighs of this ancient and interesting race for the restoration of their former independence, which it would suit our wisest policy to grant, may be deemed not undeserving Your Majesty's regard."

In his dedication to the British king of the second volume: "It will not, I trust, be deemed presumptuous in the Annalist of these gallant and long-oppressed races thus to solicit for them a full measure of Your Majesty's gracious patronage; in return for which, the Rajputs, making Your Majesty's enemies their own, would glory in assuming the "saffron robe", emblematic of death or victory, under the banner of that chivalry of which Your Majesty is the head."

However, the advantage of the treaty for Maharaja Man Singh was that he would get British protection not only from external enemies but also from internal ones. He had for a long time been reduced to insignificance by his own chiefs. He trusted his own mercenaries more than the feudal leadership for his safety and maintenance. The Maharaja had got rid of rivals and opponents with the help of Amir Khan who had slain the pretender and his party during a party Amir Khan had arranged in their honour. Many of his enemies and their offspring bided for revenge. According to Rajput code of honour sons was to take revenge on the enemies of their slain fathers.

Due to the British presence in Rajasthan Man Singh's strength increased versus pretenders and revengeful chiefs. According to the Ninth Article of the Treaty, "The Maharaja and his heirs and successors shall remain absolute rulers of their country, and the jurisdiction of the British Government shall not be introduced into that principality." On the other hand, according to the Fifth Article: "The Maharaja and his heirs and successors will not commit aggressions on any one. If by accident disputes arise with any one, they shall be submitted to the arbitration and award of the British Government."

The maharaja did take the opportunity to kill old enemies among his vassals with the treaty as a cover. The vassals felt they could not retaliate without getting punished by the ultimate power, the British, the guarantor of status quo within the region.

With peace in the country the ruler did not need land any more for rewarding war heroes. Therefore he had less reason to resume existing fiefs, and that might have contributed to the fact that the Thakur family of Chelana was undisturbed on its fief up to 1952, when all feudal rights ended in Rajasthan.

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### Chapter 5 How the ruler granted land to the feudal elite

The Maharaja of Jodhpur ruled the Marvar state for centuries through a clannish and feudal organization. Most of the local power was delegated to vassals belonging to the same Rathore dynasty as the Maharaja himself, and the Thakur of Chelana was one of these vassals.

The Maharaja was the supreme judicial, executive and legislative authority within his realm. All government officials held office at his will. But his power was not absolute, as he could not ignore the customary laws and old usages of the land.

The Maharaja was the ultimate owner of practically all land in Marvar State. 15% of it was khalsa throne land, which was directly controlled, and the other 85% was given away as jagir to faithful vassals and others who deserved a reward in the eyes of the ruler. It was only the right to live on land rent which was granted to the feudal lords, not the land itself. Some such land provided a livelihood to members of the royal family. There were also charitable and religious grants.

The land rights were recorded in books kept at the royal court at Jodhpur. In the old days each grant, patta, was inscribed on a copper plate, kept at the court. The Pradhan, one of the highest officials of Jodhpur State, had the right to attest all grants of villages made by the ruler. The feudal estates could not be sold, as they ultimately belonged to the ruler of the state. However, some trade was possible, as Jagir land could be mortgaged for a maximum period of eighty years.

Private land was very rare in Marvar. (Mainly temple land given in donation.)

Through the jagir system it was possible for the Marvar ruler to provide subsistence to the warrior class, so important for a state which for centuries was engaged in an endless number of wars. Jagirs were often so large that they covered one or more villages. Khalsa throne land was like a reserve used when jagirs were granted.

At the royal court, which was called durbar, jagirdars were ranked in three different classes. Each had a different name. The jagirdars of distinction were known as tazimi sirdars.

Jagirdars had to pay a tribute to the Marvar army, and the size of that tribute was related to the income the jagir could generate. It was common that important jagirdars also were army chiefs with the duty to supply a troop to the army that varied with the size of the jagir.

Resumed Jagir land reverted to khalsa throne land. It could later on be offered to some other person, whom the ruler wanted to favour. It made the vassals dependent on the good wishes of the ruler. He could win the support and loyalty of those he wanted to favour, and punish those who did not want to cooperate. That way the Maharaja could balance power factions among his subordinate vassals, so the power of granting and resuming landholding rights was an important leadership tool for a feudal leader.

Although jagir land could be resumed, when the ruler so desired, it was common that jagirs passed from generation to generation within the same clan for many centuries. Formally, however, the jagir was granted for the life time of the holder only. When the jagirdar died the land immediately became khalsa and remained so till a successor was recognized by the ruler. Then it was again conferred and a fresh Patta or lease was issued in his favour. Hence, succession had to be sanctioned by the ruler.

#### Jagir estates as centres for local food distribution

The part of the harvest which the jagirdar took from his tenants as his rental share, hasal, was the base of the economy of the feudal estate, the jagir. The foodgrain stocks that these local power centres thus acquired, the jagirdars used not only for feeding his Rajput clan, but also as a means of payment in the barter economy of the village.

The jagirdar could use his foodgrain for controlling his local subjects in a similar way that the Maharaja used his land for controlling the feudal elite. Each feudal estate had its own circle of dependents to feed. There were servants and labourers carrying out all kinds of menial tasks. Craftsmen delivering commodities and services against foodgrain in a jajman relationship which lasted for generations. They mainly got pearl millet for unleavened bread, bajra roti, the staple food of western Rajasthan.

Through this barter system a large part of the tenant's harvest eventually reached most of the non-agricultural village families. It was important, as they constituted more than half the village population. The shares were uneven, though, as the traditionally weak lowcaste families did not get more than a bare minimum, just like the Jat peasants who produced the grain.

Within the much better-off village elite were the mighty Rajputs, who ruled by swords and lathis. There were also the Baniya merchants, who linked the village to the outside world of trade and money.

#### Rajput jagirdars who were not Rathores

A Thakur was a jagirdar with a feudal estate so large that it covered the major part of one or more villages. However, in many villages there were more jagirdars than the Thakur. At Chelana the jagir land of the Thakur village lord was about two thirds of all arable land of the village, and the remaining one third belonged to medium and small jagirdars. In general, the most productive parts of the arable land belonged to the Rathore Thakur.

At Chelana these minor jagirdars had older feudal rights than the village Thakur. Some were Brahmins, and some were Charans of the Mehru gotra. There were Rajput families in feudal Marvar who held jagirs granted to their forefathers long before the Rathore army conquored the area in the 15th century A.D.. These Rajputs were a potential safety risk to the Rathore dynasty, and were treated with caution. As a rule they were allowed to keep their jagirs without supplying any troop to the Marvar army. Their only obligation to the Jodhpur ruler was to pay a small sum of money each year. Such a feudal grant was called Bhomichara.

#### Jagirdars could also grant jagir rights

Within the Marvar state there was a hierarchy of feudal landholding rights, as jagirdars used to grant a part of their land to subvassals in return for service and loyalty. Such subgrants were common among Rajputs of the Rathore warrior clan that ruled Marvar. Village Thakurs granted a part of the land to those they wanted to favour. Such subvassals were known as guzaredars.

A jagir was inherited through the rule of primogeniture, i.e. it went to the eldest son only. Therefore, a jagirdar sometimes helped his other sons with a sub-grant called jivka. Such a jivka was a part of the jagir the Thakur had received from the Maharaja and was a way of providing a subsistence to junior brothers of the Thakur family.

#### Mafi, the tax-free land right

Some of those who had got land from the Maharaja of Jodhpur, neither had to provide troops to the army nor land revenue to the Government coffers. Unlike the Rathore vassals and subvassals, they were not a part of the large feudal organization, who made up the Marvar army. However, many Rajput and Charan mafidars took part in wars in the old days, although they did not have to. They were called mafidars, because they were excused for not providing any tax or troops. Mafi means excuse. They were allowed to take care of the whole surplus from the land for themselves, after tenants and other producers had been thoroughly rack-rented.

There were several types of mafidar rights with different names, both because the services rendered were so different, and because the mafidars belonged to different castes and social groups.

The Marvar maharaja granted mafidar land called bhom to those of the Rajput caste, who had done a particularly gallant deed at battle. Bhom was also given to Rajputs who carried out certain tasks such as protecting their villages, chasing the tracks of criminals, escorting money and guarding officials while on tour.

There were bhomia Rajputs also at jagir villages ruled by Thakurs such as Chelana. The landholdings of the bhomias were much smaller than that of the Thakur.

When a Jagir was resumed by the ruler, the jagirdar lost both his home and his source of income. A powerful village Thakur could suddenly face a severe economic crisis. Therefore, as a compensation, the Maharaja used to allow the ex-jagirdar to retain a small part of his former jagir for subsistence. Such a rent-free tenure of a former village lord was known as juna jagir. It was a kind of mafidar.

#### The mafidar land of the Charans

The Charans formed a small but influential caste in feudal Marvar. Among the Marvar Rajputs the Charans were considered even more sacred than the Brahmins in the uneasy feudal age of constant warfare which lasted up to the early 19th century. Charan bards of high status at the royal court were given mafidar land called shasan as a reward for their services as highly esteemed bards at the royal court. Distinguished Charan families ruled over whole villages just as Rajput village lords did over villages such as Chelana. The land right of the Charans was called shasan, or shansan, as they said at Chelana. The Charan village lords were more independent than Rathore Thakurs, who had regular jagirdar obligations towards the state and army. Charans with shansan land did not have such formal duties. Still, also Charans fought in the army and participated in the battles they used to sing about as bards.

When wars and martial life declined after 1800 A.D. the status of the Charans weakened at the Jodhpur court.

#### The Dethas as mafidars

Many Charan clans were largescale breeders of cattle and horses by old tradition. Some Charan groups such as the Dethas from Sindh, Tan Dan's forefathers, sold large batches of horses and cattle to the royal courts and armies of the region. It happened that they got large chunks of shansan grazing land in return for the delivered animals. Thus the Dethas did not get arable land for collecting rents from agricultural tenants, unike most of the jagirdars who ruled over the villages in between which the Detha land was situated, far out in the wilderness.

Up to the end of the feudal land system in 1952 the whole Detha clan at Chelana managed their mafidar grazing land of 320 ha as one unit. That they did because of the rule of equal partition among surviving heirs on shansan land.

Neither the Brahmins nor the Mehru Charans at Chelana were mafidars, but held jagir land rights in spite of not being Rajputs. Like other jagirdars they had to get their tenants to pay the bigodi land revenue to the state.

The only ones with mafidar land in the village apart from the Dethas were some temples with in total 200 ha of doli land leased out to agricultural tenants. Such religious land donations called doli usually covered a minor part of a village.

#### Jugti Dan got a jagir subgrant after helping Vijay Singh to become the new Chelana Thakur

Towards the end of the 19th century the Chelana Thakur died without having a son. The successor had to be chosen among the Rathores in the village, who were all closely related in a large clan descending from the first Rathore Thakur, but there was no evident choice. Before the leading clan members had had time to choose a successor, Jugti Dan and a few others interfered. They approached a simple Rathore family with a small jagir on which they worked themselves, and persuaded a son of the family called Vijay Singh to perform the functions necessary for becoming a Thakur. They brought him to the Thikana in great hurry, as they wanted to make him Thakur by carrying out the ceremony in front of the other Rathores before they could muster opposition. Jugti Dan and his friends hoped that the others would accept Vijay Singh as the new thakur, after the customary rituals had been performed.

While walking through the village to the Thikana along with Vijay Singh, they all shouted, "Oh, the Lord of Chelana! Oh, the Lord of Chelana!" (O, Chelana ro dhani! O, Chelana ro dhani!). When entering the Thikana Gate, people of the Rathore mohalla joined the procession. People of all castes gathered on the Chauk, the large open yard inside the Thikana.

The men accompanying Vijay Singh put him on the hathani, the simple throne placed above the main armoury facing the large open courtyard within the Thikana walls. Jugti Dan lent Vijay Singh his sword and some suitable clothes. They put a branch of the neem tree in his turban as a turra. Above him they kept an umbrella of the English type. The installation function for the new Thakur was performed in full, and the rest of the Rathores accepted it. It was accepted also by the royal court at Jodhpur later on, and Vijay Singh ruled as a Thakur for many years. He got a long life.

Jugti Dan was disliked by many Rathores, who thought the Dethas had too much influence in the village, but Vijay Singh was obliged to him and gave him an important favour. He gave Jugti Dan a sub-grant of the Thikana jagir land at the southern tip of the village. Close to the place where the Dethas had settled with their cattle herd. The Thikana issued a patta right, which Jugti Dan paid for. First he bought a piece of one hectare. That he cleared, developed and enlarged, until he eventually had bought the whole eight hectares area, which Jugti Dan built a long stone wall around. In that compound the Dethas kept their cattle herd, and there they started smallscale irrigation farming, after having dug a deep open well.

(Jugti Dan Detha was Tan Dan's grandfather, a largescale cattlebreeder and a Dingal poet with connections at the princely court of Jodhpur.)

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### Chapter 6 Khalsa or jagir village. Advantages and disadvantages to the tenants

About one-sixth of the villages in Marvar state were khalsa. It was easy for peasants to rent land in most of these villages, as virgin arable land was available in plenty all over Marvar up to the end of the feudal rule in the 1950s. There were certain advantages to be a khalsa village tenant. There was no hasal rent to pay, as there were no jagirdars. The supervision was not so close, as the officials dealing with the tenants mostly did not live in the same village unlike a Thakur, and there might have been less forced labour to do than in villages ruled by a Thakur. The ruling Rajput clan of a Thakur village used to harass the Jats and other peasants in a number of ways.

However, the jagir villages also had advantages to the tenants. A village with a Thikana was better protected from external attacks, as the local Rajputs there guarded the area. It was important to the peasants, who felt the threat of criminal gangs. In the Chelana area the large daku robber gangs were a menace to the Jats living in dhanis. That is why many peasant families lived at the village settlement, although inconvenient from the point of view of farming.

In addition to the local daku robber gangs the peasants also feared the small warrior bands which roamed around over larger areas. From their ruthless activities comes the expression gurguri bajti, which means the challenging drum beating. Terrifying warrior bands announced their arrival by that sound. In Tan Dan's part of Rajasthan the villagers used that expression, although military plundering of the villagers more or less ceased, when peaceful conditions were established in Rajasthan in the 19th century.

The biggest and most well-known warrior band was that of Amir Khan and his freebooters. It roomed around in Rajasthan in the late 18th century. Most semi-military bands were smaller, but big enough enough to loot and ruin agricultural tenant families living by themselves at dhani homesteads in the midst of their fields a few kilometres away from the village clusters.

Jodhpur was often at war with other states up to about 1800 A.D. At wartime the Marvar Government was under financial stress. Revenue collection at khalsa villages could then be very severe and the tenants heavily exploited.

Chelana was basically a jagir village ruled by a Thakur, but it happened a few times in the Chelana feudal history that the village was resumed by the Maharaja at Jodhpur. Then Chelana became a khalsa village, and the ex-Thakur family at the Thikana lived in economic difficulties. The village tenants dealt directly with local officials such as the kanvaria of the tehsil office at Jalagarh. Therefore, in khalsa village the village chaudhries of the tenant community had usually a higher status than in Jagir villages.

In the second half of the 18th century A.D. Chelana was a khalsa village for a few decades because Thakur Sayab Singh had lost his favour with the Maharaja. His son Badan Singh got the village back by showing his loyalty and bravery at warfare.

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### Chapter 7 The Chelana thikana

Thikana was the whole village fortress including the pig stie, the stable, the godowns for arms and ammunition, godowns for foodgrain and feed, and the big yard in the middle of the Thikana called the chawk, where the Thakur met the public sitting on his hathani, a sort of throne above the godown, where arms were kept.

There were also two temples, one outside the entrance of the Thikana, with a god worshipped by all Rajputs of Chelana, and another temple in the middle of the Thikana for the family god of the Thakur.

At the Thikana were several residential buildings. The mardana mahal, the palace for menfolk, which most Rajput visitors and close servants could enter, and the ranwas and rawala palace for women, to which only the Thakur and his close male relatives had access, being the most intimate building of the whole Thikana. The ranwas were the private rooms of the ladies, which only the husbands concerned visited, and the rawal was the place where household work was carried out like taking care of children and cooking food.

In the old part of the Chelana village the Thikana is still the biggest housing complex, although its thick defence wall, magnificient gate and its spacious inner yard, do not look as impressive as they did in the feudal age ending in the 1950s.

All village forts in western Rajasthan are called thikana. A big enclosed area with a strong stone wall around. Such walls were built several hundred years ago, when hostile armed groups could harm the village, if not well protected. Moreover, Thikana was the stronghold of those, who ruled over the subjugated groups of the village. The most important of these were the Jat tenants, who produced the grain on which they all lived.

At Chelana the village fort had been built on level ground in the midst of the dry bush jungle with clusters of low simple strawroofed huts huddling outside its walls. Further away in the bushland the dhani homesteads of the agricultural tenants were scattered within a range of several kilometres.

Villagers used to pass in and out of the Thikana gate all day long. Rathore men rode on horses, the Jat tenants came on their camels and by bullock cart. Around 1950 the Thakur had a car parked inside the Thikana gate.

The menfolk of the Thikana lived in the buildings around the big open yard from the gate to the northern corners. The Rajput ladies lived in pardah and were confined to the rear part behind the Thikana temple. It was connected to a three storey building of considerable age. It must have looked very tall and impressive to the villagers in the old days. The other villagers lived in single-storey buildings with low walls and straw roof.

Most menfolk at the Thikana stayed in the two buildings called bangla and mardana mahal. The bangla was more rustic than the mardana mahal, which was for the Thakur and his circle of people. Some men lived at the Thikana gate, the pol. There were rooms on the upper floor and a kind of godown in the basement.

The thikana of an important chieftain was a miniature representation of his sovereign's court, as James Tod observed around 1810. The Thakur and his men at the Thikana tried their best to live up to that image, although their means were quite modest compared to that of the ruler at Jodhpur.

#### The Bangla of the Rathore bhaipa

Men of the Rathore kinship group at Chelana, the bhaipa, used to get together at the Bangla of the Thikana. It was situated in the northeastern corner of the village fortress.

One part of that building looked like a low tower. In the old days it was used as a centre for the Thikana administration.

There were some rooms on the ground floor of the bangla and an angan enclosure in front of it. Also ordinary village homesteads had such a separate dwelling place for menfolk, although small and simple in comparison. They called it hathai.

People of the Thakur's bhaipa (kinship group) used to meet at the bangla, idling away the days, chatting and smoking. Some of them were opium-addicted, taking daily doses. It was like a social club for the Rathores.

In 1995 I was told by some Rathore school boys living at the Thikana that there was a room below the tower, which was used as a small jail. There, offenders were kept. People believed that the prisoners sometimes had to stay in the room together with dangerous animals such as scorpions and snakes. True or not, the rumour must have helped in frightening the villagers to obedience.

In front of the bangla there was a raised platform on which the Thakur used to sit when he received the public. The Thakur sat on his hathani, a kind of simple throne. At such meetings the big chawk in front of the bangala used to be full of people.

Below the platform there was a room without windows. It was a store room for weapons and ammunition, old people have told Tan Dan.

#### The Mardana Mahal building of the Thikana - the residence of the men of the Thakur family

Important guests and personal friends of the Thakur used to stay at a building called Mardana Mahal, which means 'the palace for menfolk'. It was a more sophisticated part of the Thikana than the Bangala building. The Thakur always spent a part of the day at the Mardana Mahal, attended by his close servants. Here he went through his morning routine, latrine and bath, and here he had a nap in the afternoon. Then he used to talk to guests of importance and personal friends.

#### Those who managed the Thakur's jagir

The Thakur ruled his jagir with the help of the kamdar, a kind of manager at the Thikana. The Kamdar was assisted by kanvaria, field inspectors who supervised various construction work on the Thikana estate. The tenants of the jagir were forced to participate in such tasks, especially in the agricultural off-season. They were sent for by messengers, whenever wanted.

The land of the jagir was leased out to tenant farmers, most of them of the Jat caste. The Thakur and his people at the Thikana seldom showed any interest in agriculture, although they were particular in extracting the stipulated share of the crop for land revenue at harvest time.

Toiling farm life was considered beneath the dignity of Rathore jagirdars. The Jat tenants were kept in subjugation and shown contempt. Their homesteads and fields were spread out in the bushy wilderness several kilometers from the village settlement. There, the farmers had to fend for themselves.

Neither cattle nor ox carts were kept at the Thikana. Tenants had to provide them whenever required. No compensation was given for such borrowing.

For pomp and show the Thakur family kept a rath. It was an old-fashioned heavy warrior cart drawn by horses. Royal in style it was used at certain functions, but it was too clumsy for real transport.

#### The pigsty enclosure

At the Thikana there was a big pigsty for captured wild boars. It was a walled enclosure at the rear part of the fortress near the bangla. Adjacent to the outer part of the thick defence wall.

Hunting boars was a pastime much enjoyed by the Thikana menfolk and wild boars was a favourite dish of the Rajputs at feasts.

#### The stable

The stable was situated along the northern wall of the Thikana in between the mardana mahal and the bangala buildings.

The horse was the most important animal of the Thikana in the feudal days and the sound of hoofs must have echoed between the walls quite often, as the Thakur and his people moved around on horse back, wherever they went.

A certain number of horsemen were always at the disposal of the Marvar army. Not only the Thakur but also other Chelana Rajputs with jagir land had to provide horsemen. When the Jodhpur maharaja summoned his chiefs for warfare, the Thakur had to show up together with his band. In the battlefield the Rajput warriors fought from horseback with sword in hand.

How many horsemen the Chelana Thakur had to bring varied with the historical period and the size of the fief under the control of the Chelana Thakur.

When the Chelana Thakur was in charge of 12 villages in the middle of the 18th century, the troop provided must have been quite big. Most of the time, though, the fief consisted of one or two villages only.

After 1818 the Marvar army mainly had a ceremonial function, apart from some campaigns abroad during the world wars. The Thakur might have had the strength of about 25 horsemen in the 19th century.

The importance of the stable at the Thikana is thus easy to understand, as well as the stores for arms and ammunition. The life at the Thikana also depended on well filled stocks of foodgrain and feed obtained from the Jat tenants.

Some fodder was kept in the pigsty enclosure outside the Thikana wall. No stacks of straw was kept at the Thikana, however. In the old days enemies could put the Thikana on fire with the help of such combustible material. Large stacks of hay and stovers were therefore stored at the bhagar, a barnyard situated at a safe distance.

Foodgrain was stored at the basement of the pol building at the entrance of the Thikana.

#### The chawk

The chawk, the large Thikana courtyard inside the gate, was a place where villagers of all castes used to assemble for entertainment at special occasions. Here the villagers danced the merry Holi dance at spring time together with their Thakur, all of them forming one big circle. This was also the place for public entertainments attended by the whole village. Acrobats of the Nat caste showed their tricks in front of large crowds.

#### The tall Thikana building called Nauchaukia

Nauchaukiya, the three storey building in the middle of the Thikana was older than the Mardana Mahal. It was the only Thikana building with three floors. Up to the early 20th century even two storey buildings were rare in the village, so the Nauchaukiya must have looked really tall, when it was new.

In those days there were some stone lattice windows facing the big Thikana yard called the chauk, and behind these the Rajput ladies could sit and watch what was going on below without being seen themselves.

The nauchaukia appears to have been an important building in those days both for men and women. The big rooms might have been used more for functions and ceremonies than as a living quarter. There was only one big room on each floor and a steep staircase on the backside.

Tan Dan was not sure about the original function of this building. It might have been a residential quarter long ago, but not for several generations.

#### Temples

The Thikana temple was situated in between the tall nauchakia building in the middle of the fortress and the houses of the Thikana ladies in the southwestern corner of the fortress compound. In the feudal time there were bridges and gangways in between the roofs of the three places so that ladies could walk high above the ground all the way to the nauchaukia building.

The temple was devoted to godess Charbhuja. Charbhuja means four arms, a common way of depicting deities. She was the godess of the Mertia clan. All Rathore Rajputs at Chelana belonged to that clan. The temple was built in the 18th century by the powerful Thakur Jait Singh at the same time as the Thikana gate building, and was probably beautiful, when it was new. It still has an artistic aura.

It was the only temple inside the Thikana, but there were small shrines in several of the Thikana buildings. Only Rajputs were allowed to visit the Charbhuja temple.

In 1981 the temple priest at the Thikana was called Bhinvji. He worshipped at the temple at fixed hours. He started at four o'clock in the morning, then a few hours later, at seven. In the evening he worshipped at six, then he did so again at nine o'clock in the night. Each time a lot of noise was created by ringing the bell and beating the drum of the temple. It was the only way of knowing the time for most villagers, as few of them had watches.

All Rajputs thought it was a pious act to pay Bhinvji a handful of grain each day, and often money too. Bhinvji was well-off, especially as he had no family to look after, being a bachelor.

At the end of the open space outside the Thikana gate there was a temple devoted to Sat Narayan. It was also managed by Bhinvi. The Sat Narayan temple was a part of the Rathore mohalla, and accessible to savarn Hindus of the village.

Nearby there were two Krishna temples. All over the village there were temples and shrines to a wide range of gods.

#### The lady department of the Thikana

The house for the ladies was the most secluded one at the Thikana. Only the Thakur and his close relatives could enter. There were two sections, the Ranvas and the Ravala.

At the Ranvas each lady had a private room, where only her husband was allowed. At the Ravala joint household activities were carried out. There the food was cooked.

The women of the Thikana lived in pardah, i.e. out of sight for others. Their faces were veiled on the many occasions required by custom. As high caste Rajput women they were confined to their homes.

#### The concubines of the Thakur

It was common that a Thakur had more than one wife. Jait Singh had two. Most feudal lords also had concubines. These women of low caste were often a part of the dowry gift at marriages. They and their offspring formed a servant class at the Thikana, the Darogas. Not accepted as Rajputs, although having Rajput fathers, they eventually formed a distinct Daroga caste in western Rajasthan and employed their own geneologists.

Darogas have formed a distinctive caste community all over the area of former Rajput states in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. There were two kinds of concubine:

One was given by the bride's party along with the bride to her in-laws, a kind of slave system in which the daughters of the servants of the Thikanas of Marvar Rajputs were given as personal assistants to the Rajput bride. Often these concubines were more goodlooking than the bride herself, with the result that she was treated as an attractive sexual object in her new Thikana. Sometimes she could get a better hold over the Thakur than the bride, with the result that the concubine became more influential than the bride, whose life could become difficult, if the concubine started demanding things from the Thakur.

The second kind of concubines were those which had been selected for their beauty, and then were kept by the Thakur without proper marriage, as they were of a non-Rajput caste. It was especially this second category of concubines that was successful in getting a hold over the Thakur. They could sit idle or buzz around at leisure, although such bliss often only lasted a few years, while she was in her full blossom. When the Thakur found some other girl he liked for her beauty, then the former one would become neglected, and might get a difficult life without support.

#### When the Thikana got a gate of royal style

When the Rathore clan now living at Chelana settled in the village around 1600 A.D., they were simple soldiers rather than village rulers. At that time a Brahmin Thakur ruled the village, and his Thikana was in the middle of the Brahmin mohalla further to the west within the settlement area. The Rajput mohalla was a simple one and so was the family of the first Rathore Thakur, Pratap Singh. The Thikana of the Rathore Thakur family continued to be a simple one up to the first half of the 18th century when Jait Singh became village Thakur. Then Chelana became the centre of a fief of twelve villages, and its Thikana became a locally important centre of feudal administration. Jait Singh married a Gujarati princess of the Jhala clan, probably in 1731. The villagers therefore remember her under the name of Jhali. When she started to live at Chelana she seems to have felt that Chelana and its Thikana was a much too simple and poor place for her.

She sent a message to her sister at Jodhpur: "You live in a palace and I live in a straw hut." Her sister lived at Meharangarh Fort at Jodhpur, the Marvar capital, as she was married to the ruler of the state, Maharajah Abhay Singh.

Then the impressive gate of the Thikana was constructed, and a few other buildings of a sophisticated design such as the buildings around the Thikana temple next to the janana vibhag, i.e. the female section of the Thikana.

The princely court at Jodhpur helped Jait Singh in financing the new Thikana buildings. Money was available, as the state had replenished its coffers as a result of the successful war in Gujarat. The construction work started in 1732 A.D.

The Chelana Thikana got a gate building of almost royal grandeur. Part of the front is of marble and there are some elegant carvings. The pointed gate (pol) was so tall that a camel or an elephant could enter with a rider. In the old days the pol must have looked overpowering to the ordinary villagers living in humble straw-roofed huts.

Jait Singh was Chelana's most powerful Thakur. At his death he got the biggest cenatoph of any Chelana Thakur. Some decades after Jait Singh's death Chelana again became a small modest fief. That is why the inner parts of the Thikana never became as impressive as the magnificient entrance building set in the stout defence wall.

As told in Chapter 4, the gate used to be kept open. The village was not attacked by foreign armies. The villagers only talk about one occasion, when the doors of the gate were closed. It happened towards the end of the 18th century, when the infamous Muslim dacoit leader Mir Khan roamed around with his gang of five hundred horsemen, most of them from wrecked armies such as the Maratha army of Shivaji. Mir Khan told rich lords of areas they passed through to hand over wealth, if they wanted to live in peace, and the local leaders mostly obeyed. Mir Khan terrorised even Maharajas.

#### Thikana as the guard of the feudal social order in the village

Centuries of warfare in western Rajasthan ended in 1818 A.D., when the British got the control of the region through treaties with the local rulers. (Tod, 1920) A period of peace started. As a result Rathore families of the village no longer lost their men in warfare. On the other hand, Rajput men were warriors by profession, and they took pride in showing their courage in the battle field. As soldiers without wars they felt lost. They had to live on the memories of martial deeds of their forefathers rather than their own. Rajput men at Chelana idled away their time at the bangala of the Thikana. The work on their jagirs was carried out by their severely exploited tenants and other dependents.

The Thikana continued to be a power centre of the village. There, those who tried to revolt against the feudal customs got their punishment. Among them Harji, the Bhambi who let his hair grow. The feudal subjects got a very harsh treatment up to the end of the village rule in 1952. Rajputs and other savarn Hindus continued to be strict to the low caste villagers for many years, but they lost the control over the Jat peasants, as they had become landowners.

The story about Harji is narrated in "A voice from the Indian desert" by Son Lal at Smashwords.

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### Chapter 8 Village entertainments at the Chelana Thikana

#### Chhogji, the professional acrobat

Sometimes the villagers assembled at the Thikana under more pleasant circumstances than when Harji was punished. Traditional entertainers came to the village now and then. Those who performed for the villagers as a whole used to do so at the Thikana. People of all castes could come and watch, and the crowd of spectators was often large. Nat acrobats were popular. Nat was a caste with acrobatics as their traditional profession.

Tan Dan especially remembers Chhogji and his group. They showed their amazing tricks at the open yard immediately inside the main gate of the Thikana. That place was called chawk. Tan Dan saw them perform some seven eight times at the Thikana in the 1950s and 1960s. There were ten to fifteen persons in Chhogji's group, and they did many tricks, one after the other, as at circus. They did very daring and awe-striking tricks. People expressed their admiration loudly, but clapping of hands was not the custom.

#### Two tricks Tan Dan saw:

In the middle of a big crowd standing in a wide circle, a wooden ladder was put on the ground. It served as a stretcher. Two men from the audience were asked to lie down on it, one upon the other. Then the Nats tied ropes at each of the four corners of the stretcher. If no volunteers wanted to lie on the stretcher the Nats would put two big stone slabs on it instead.

Chhogji and one of his relatives stood at each end of the ladder. The relative tied his long moustaches to the ropes at his side. Chhogji tied the ropes at the other side to his long hair. Then they slowly started to lift the two men on the stretcher and swung them very gently from one side to the other very gently. The crowd looked on struck with awe, feeling the pain and strain of the actors almost unbearable to witness. The Nats managed to make three or four swings before somebody suddenly would shout ghano, ghano, i.e. stop it, enough of it!

Another member of the group did a very risky number. He lay flat on the ground and lifted a bamboo pole, which was as high as the opening of the Thikana gate, i.e. about six metres. On the top of the pole he had mounted three big knives, churi, each with a length of about 40 cm. They were tied together to a tripod, which rested on the top of the bambu stick, which was quite heavy due to its height. With a sudden jerk the tripod of long knives fell down over the man lying on the ground. One knife landed between his legs and the two others at each side of his stomach.

The crowd draw a long breath of relief, when the tripod of knives stood firmly on the ground without having harmed the man lying in between. Their fascination was due to the fact that the margin between life and death was so small.

These two tricks are also told about in "Many untouchable castes" by Son Lal at Smashwords.

Very skilled Nat artists performed at the princely court at Jodhpur, and successful ones sometimes got a feudal landholding from the Maharaja himself as a reward.

That is why the Nats and other village entertainers since very old times by habit and custom had been careful to show respect to village Thakurs and other powerful persons able to shower gifts on them.

In the beginning of the 20th century Chhogji's father got some land as a feudal donation from the Chelana Thakur after a performance, which had pleased the Thakur so much that he decided to give the family a grant from his own jagir. That is why they moved to Chelana, where they have lived since then. Earlier they lived at Durthal, a neighbouring village a few kilometres to the northwest of Chelana. The family had a female relative at Durthal known as Bhopi. In the 1970s she became famous in the area for having divine power. The villagers thought she had got that power from her ardent devotion of the Bayansa, the seven godess sisters, who are worshipped all over western Rajasthan.

Chhogji's Nat family had not only been acrobats from many generations. They had also for a long time been bards for the Bhambis in the area. Chhogji and his relatives mixed freely with Bhambis at Chelana. As the low ranked Bhambis were considered untouchables in the village, and Nats like Chhogji had a jajman, i.e. patronage relationship to them, it is obvious that the Nats were still lower on the caste scale in spite of being feudal landholders.

Chogji and his family did not give any performance in the village after 1970. The reason is probably that employment opportunities improved at Chelana. Labour jobs with a higher and more regular income than acrobatics, and the risk was much lower. Besides, alternative entertainment opportunities increased as a result of improved communications.

#### How Holi was celebrated in Tan Dan's childhood

The most hilarious festival at Chelana is Holi. It is celebrated each year during the lovely spring month of Phagun. The chilliness of the winter nights has gone, and the hot summer has not yet started. Phagun is the last month of the year in the Vikram calender, the main calender among Rajasthani Hindus. The month lasts from 20 February to 21 March with some variation. The celebrations reach a maximum on the last day of Phagun, the day of Holi, which is also the last day of the Vikram year.

The day of Holi is always on the full moon day close to the equinox. As the weather is clear in India during this time of the year, the celebrations in the night can be enjoyed in bright moonshine. It was important before the present age of artifical light.

Most Chelana villagers celebrated Holi festivities during Phagun at the Thikana. Practically every evening during the whole month villagers gathered there to dance, sing and rejoice on the chawk, i.e. the big yard inside the Thikana wall close to the magnificent gate from the age of Thakur Jait Singh. People of all castes participated including those of untouchable castes.

In Tan Dan's childhood around 1950 the dance at the Thikana went on each evening for at least fifteen days. Although the feudal power of the Thikana and the Thakur disappeared in the 1950s, most villagers joined the Holi dance at the Thikana up to the 1960s. It was danced also in later years, but not with the same feudal grandeur and not for so many night.

The Holi dance started in the evening when everybody had eaten the evening meal, often around nine o'clock.

Men and boys danced in a large circle in the chawk within the Thikana gate. It was a merry dance, which all enjoyed.

No women or girls danced. They all sat or stood in groups at the periphery. From there they watched the dance and kept singing their songs.

Along with the others also the Thakur danced as well as his kamdar, both of them dressed in their best feudal dresses. The Thakur was very keen on this dance. He and his two sons danced very well and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Five or six men of the Dholi caste played on various instruments. One of them played on the big drum called nagara, the hollow beats of which echoed between the walls of the village fortress, and another one played on the small drum nagari. Flutes and a harmonium completed the band of musicians.

They were professional musicians, the traditional occupation of the Dholi caste.

Chhogji, the circus artist of the last section, used to play flute. He stood in the middle of the big dancing circle together with the other musicians, although he was a Nat, not a Dholi.

The musicians used to show extra respect to the Thakur, while he was dancing. That they did by playing close to him, and following him, when he moved around in the dance.

The whole ring of several hundred dancers slowly revolved. It moved back and forth a little on the large Thikana yard. The ring was called Holi ri ger. Each dancer kept turning around on his own spot in the midst of all the other dancers. He held a stick in his hand. Some kept one stick in each hand. These sticks were not necessarily lathis of bamboo, but could be sticks of any wood with a length of about one to one and a half metre. While dancing the dancers hit the sticks of those dancing next to him. It was done by the whole crowd of dancers at the same time at regular intervals, and that coordinated action produced a rythmic clapping sound, which became a part of the music.

These nights all danced together without any caste order. The whole big circle was more or less mixed. As the dancers did not hold each others hands untouchability was not a problem.

Rather than such differences the big circle had different sections for dancers on different levels of proficiency.

Elderly men of distinguished families of the village danced around the Thakur, who in the 1950s had become fairly old himself.

Another distinct group was that of very skilled and active dancers swinging their sticks with great vigour. They were young energetic men who could do the difficult deep sitting between each leap.

A large group which also was clearly distinguishable most of the time consisted of normal middleaged men dancing in a plain and innocent way. Many of them were family fathers of ordinary families.

Finally, there was an unshapely group of children and fairly unskilled beginners, who moved here and there in their own way. They tried to imitate all the grown-ups and were happy for getting a chance to particape. Just to be a part of the large Holi circle of dancers gave them a thrill.

The circle was divided into these four sections without anybody telling that it should be so, as far as Tan Dan could see.

At the Holi in 1957 Tan Dan was thirteen years and he danced in children's group. Chhogji played on his flute as usual. He and the other musicians played around the village Thakur, as they used to do. Times were changing, though, and the Thakur had lost most of his land due to the abolition of the feudal land system in Rajasthan. Thus he was no longer the real leader of the village. Ravi Dan, Tan Dan's elder brother had been chosen village sarpanch in the panchayat election previous year. In his position as chairman of the village council he had become the new village leader. Therefore the musicians were somewhat confused as to whom they should honour with their presence during the Holi dance. On one occasion Tan Dan saw, how they suddenly left the Thakur and started to play around Ravi Dan instead. Ravi Dan got embarassed, and he tried to bring them back to the Thakur again. He thought that such a clear demonstration of allegience to power would hurt the feelings of the Thakur. Especially as almost all villagers were present. If the musicians shifted their servile attention to Ravi Dan too rapidly, Rajputs could be annoyed, and the most hot-headed ones might become violent. Ravi Dan had already many enemies among the Rajputs in village politics.

#### The Holi night at full moon

The Holi celebrations culminated on the Holi night, when the moon was full and the Vikram year was about to end. The villagers assembled at the Thikana, as they had done in all previous evenings during Phagun, but this evening the whole crowd of villagers left the Thikana. In order to celebrate the burning of the Holi tree on the open ground called Holi chauk. It is near the village tank at the outskirts of the village settlement.

The Holi tree is a khejri tree, selected and cut in the beginning of the month of Phagun. It was put close to the big baniyan tree on the north-eastern edge of the village tank, which at this time of the year, about six months after the end of the monsoon rains, had shrunk considerably in size. That place had been declared Holi ground every year since Tan Dan's childhood and probably for many generations.

During the day before the Holi night, children and grownups came to this ground in their festive dresses, bringing garlands of small hard cowdung balls hardened in the hot sun and thread on strings. These garlands were hung on the Holi tree as decorations.

They also brought earheads cut from maturing rabi foodgrain crops, mostly wheat and gram (the pulse Cicer arietinum). After the decorated Holi tree had been burnt in the evening, the villagers used to bring home some of the roasted earheads to eat.

The Holi tree was burnt at an auspicious moment after sunset fixed by a priest belonging to the Brahmin caste community of Chelana. The exact time varied from year to year.

In good time before that occasion the large dance procession arrived to the site of Holi tree at the pond, after having passed though the lanes of the village at the beats and tunes of the musicians, who were playing all the time.

At the talab the large crowd of men formed the Holi ri ger ring dance again . They danced while the Holi tree was burning, and they continued to dance all night in the same way they had done at the Thikana in previous nights. This night they did not stop until about four o'clock. When they went home, tired and sleepy, no sign of dawn was yet visible on the star-studded sky, but the moon had set.

#### The Holika story

Burning the Holi tree is an old custom that is followed in many parts of India. It might originate in a godess cult. The legend associated with the ritual is about a woman called Holika and a boy called Prahlad. At Chelana simple uneducated villagers were familiar with the following somewhat corrupted version of the legend:

A boy called Prelad was such a strong devotee of God that his father thought he went too far in worshipping, neglecting his other duties like a mad person, so he wanted to get rid of his son. The ruler of their kingdom was called Hirna Kashyap, who impressed on his subjects that nobody in the world was superior to him. People believed that the king's sister Holika had supernatural power. She agreed to kill Prelad by keeping him in her lap, while sitting in the holy fire of her worshipping rituals. That way the boy would get burnt to death but not Holika, who knew how to save herself by her rituals. The evil scheme failed completely. Holika was burnt to ash, but the boy came out from the fire unharmed due to his devotion to God.

Burning the Holika or Holi tree was thus a away of celebrating the ultimate triumph of good over evil through the power of God. Burning the Holi tree was like burning an effigy of Holika, it seems.

Interestingly, the name of this feast was Holi, not Prahlad, and many worshipped Holika rather than Prahlad, as they thought that Holika was a powerful and potentially dangerous godess, who had to be kept in a good mood. That attitude towards godesses was common among ordinary lowcaste folks.

Some splash water close to the Holi fire with the argument they want to cool down the Holi mata godess, who is very hot. She is hot because she is full of anger, and by cooling her down the risk is reduced that she will harm people.

The widespread Hindu custom of throwing water on each others and smearing each others with coloured powder, as a part of the Holi merriments, could have its origin in Holi mata worship, judging from some of the rituals around the Holi tree.

#### Splashing coloured water

On the day after the Holi night, people splash coloured water on each other, on friends and also on strangers. That is the Holi day, which is celebrated in cities as an official holiday. On the fifth day after Holi there is another festival day at which people are playing with coloured water, splashing on each others all over the village.

That is how Holi was celebrated at Chelana up to the 1960s. With full vigour every year, and Tan Dan was one of the most active boys. From 1980 onwards it became more irregular, Tan Dan thinks. The village was no longer as compact and well integrated as in the feudal days, and the Thikana grandeur had gone. In the 1980s only about half the grown-ups of the village participated fully in the Holi festivities, although children and youth were still quite active. The Holi ri ger dance was played at the Holi chauk near the village pond for a few nights only, not a whole month. The village had grown so much, and many lived in houses far away from that place. It had grown into a service centre of the area getting more and more functions of an urban type.

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### Chapter 9 The decline of the Thakur family

After the land reform in the 1950s the Rajputs lost their total dominance in the western Rajasthani villages. Many of the former tenants became well-off landowners. The Jat caste became a politically powerful group in state politics.

Even so, there were villages with strong Rajput landlord families, who managed to keep their former feudal dependents in a firm grip for several decades also after the land reform.

The post-feudal prosperity of the ex-Thakur families varied from village to village. The alert ones knew how to maintain their social superiority by entering new prestigious activities. There were ex-Thakurs who became prominent politicians, even ministers.

Some failed completely. The Chelana Thakur family, for example, got into financial difficulties soon after the major part of its large jagir had been resumed.

The Thakur family faced the most dramatic social downfall in the whole village due to its inability to adjust to new circumstances.

When the ex-Thakur died in the 1960s his eldest son Dharam Singh became the head of the family. The villagers called also him Thakur, although he never became a village lord in the feudal sense. They did so out of respect, although he had no power in the village. Even among the Rajputs his position was weaker than that of most other ex-jagirdars due to his financial difficulties.

#### Dharam Singh at school

Dharam Singh was a teenager, when the jagir land was resumed in 1952. He studied at the Mayo College at Ajmer, an old imperial public school firmly rooted in British India traditions and with ambitions to implant into the Indian upper class a pro-British attitude. Many young princes of various Rajput states in north and central India studied there.

For the Chelana Thakur family Mayo College was an almost unknown world. Dharam Singh's father was practically illiterate. Clerical work of the Thikana was carried out by the kamdar and his assistants. Hence, Dharam Singh was not used to books.

The studies were not so hard, though. Learning British manners and to be social was equally important. Fellow students could be useful contacts later in life, for example when working as administrative officers in various government departments.

Unfortunately Dharam Singh got in contact with alcohol early. Many Rajputana princes and jagirdars drank heavily in great style. Some kept large collections of empty bottles in their palaces as a kind of exhibition. They took pride in displaying large varieties of liquor. Different brands of wine, brandy, whisky, as well as the best local types. Surrounded by people with such habits, it is not surprising that the Chelana Thakur early got into the habit of drinking.

Although a Senior Cambridge (a little more than matriculation) from the Mayo College, Dharam Singh never thought of seeking employment.

For many decades he did not do any work at all, in spite of his family's financial difficulties.

#### The bride from Ahmedabad

Dharam Singh married in the middle of the 1950s after having finished his studies at Ajmer. He was a good match at the matrimonial market, a graduate from the prestigious Mayo College and the son of a village Thakur. Although the feudal era had ended, the Thakur family was still highly respected. Casual observers might think the family was rich, which it was not. Their economic difficulties had not started yet, though.

The bride belonged to an educated Rajput family at Ahmedabad, who was as much impressed by the gallant records of Dharam Singh's forefathers, the Mertia warriors, as they were of the Thikana and the present Thakur family.

The bride was called Kamla. She had a very good education unlike most Rajput girls in western Rajasthan. She was still a teenager. Dharam Singh was a few years older.

Soon it was clear that Kamla did not want to put up with the inferior treatment the upper caste Hindus of Chelana used to give their daughters-in-laws. They had their first quarrel already at the time of the wedding. The in-laws had showed their bride to all the wedding guests in a great style. They had decked her body with all kinds of beautiful ornaments, telling they were her marriage gifts. Later on they asked her to return the ornaments. They had only been given to her for the sake of show, and they could not afford to let her keep it.

She got surprised and angry, and asked them why they had put up such a hypocratic show. The dispute developed into a clash of values, as she was an urban girl influenced by modern non-feudal ideas.

After a year Kamla and Dharam Singh got a daughter. Some time later she left her in-laws at Chelana, as she could not stand to live at the Thikana. She was a teenager but with a strong and independent mind. She started to live in a flat at Jodhpur, out of reach for her in-laws. She kept her husband as her guest in the flat, but she did not allow anybody else of his relatives to enter. There the young family stayed for a few months.

During these months at Jodhpur Kamla suggested to Dharam Singh that they should both seek employment and live on their salaries. They should become independant of their relatives. But he did not follow her suggestion, and they separated. Dharam Singh's first marriage thus ended in a divorce, something most unusual among high caste Rajasthani families.

Kamla went to Ahmedabad, where she lived with her relatives. She took a salaried job, just as she had told Dharam Singh. She managed to bring up their daughter quite well.

Dharam Singh married again. With his second wife he got a son, Mohan Singh, and several daughters.

#### The easy-going life style of the Thakur family

The Thakur family tried to stick to a life of splendour, also after they had lost their jagir. They showed off a traditional Thakur life, inviting friends for feasts. They lived far beyond their means, as the Thakur and his relatives had no interest in managing their property on their own. It was done by foremen and labourers, while the ex-Thakur family idled away its time in the same way as before the land reform. Formally, though, the land was cultivated by the Thakur himself. In patvari records it was recorded as khudkasht, i.e. self-cultivated land.

Since old time it was the kamdar who arranged all practical work at the Thikana. He took care of property supervision and production management, while the Thakur family lived leisurely in the spatious buildings of the Thikana. That passive life was now and then interrupted by hunting or by a family function.

Basically, the Rajputs at the Thikana had a warrior tradition. To be soldiers was their caste profession, which was considered superior to that of the farmers.

Landlords who managed to keep production at an acceptable level, could become rich in post-feudal Chelana irrigation agriculture, with the help of underpaid labourers. The Chelana Thakur also paid a trifling amount to the labourers, but he could not earn money from his property in spite of that due to ignorance and negligance.

Although the family had been allowed to keep as much as 400 hectares also after the land reform, it did not help them, as their consumption level was high. They owned three wells in the 1950s, and they could have developed profitable irrigation agriculture, in the same way as the Dethas did at that time, but the Rajput ex-Thakur family did not bother. To them farming was a low work.

#### They lived on selling their property

From the 1960s onwards Dharam Singh's family started to sell off its land. They sold parts of it whenever they were without cash. Little by little their land property melted away.

Most of the ex-Thakur's land was irrigated from the three deep open wells the Thakur owned himself. Wells with plenty of water. After some time they started to sell out also their wells, one after the other. Those who bought these wells from the Thakur, did develop these wells to their full potential.

One of the Thakur's wells was at Chelani, the site of the old vanished village south of the present setttlement area. Nearby was a tank which had become the Thakur's private property at the land reform in the 1950s. Earlier it was a part of his jagir. In the 1960s the Thakur sold a big chunk of good heavy soil in the middle of the tank area.

Near the well at Chelani there was a big tree, which had been planted by a village lord long ago. In the 1970s it was still there, although with just a few green twigs left on the dying branches. It looked like a reminder of the fate of the Thakur.

#### The landless Thakur

At the end of 1977 the family had sold its last piece of land. It had already sold many expensive belongings of the Thikana. The villagers kept talking about the Thakur's cash problems more than usual those days. Would the Thakur find out some way to save his family from the approaching poverty? How would he manage to marry off his many daughters from his second marriage?

In western Rajasthani villages it was common that families kept gold ornaments and other jewellery in case of emergency. The Thakur's family had owned a lot of it in the old days, but now there was not much left. They could not pull through long by selling off such valuables.

The family had also borrowed money from village Baniyas. They did not borrow anything from Rajput moneylenders, though, as these had very tough terms.

Rajputs and Charans were by tradition more enterprising than most other village communities. Rich villagers of these castes as a rule invested their money in their own enterprises and homes rather than lent their money to the Baniyas, as they preferred to make the profits themselves. Several Rajput landlords at Chelana were experienced moneylenders.

Rajput moneylenders at Chelana mostly lent to farmers who could produce a surplus, and to poor villagers of low castes. Labourers who were in their clutches completely. They meekly agreed to anything their moneylenders demanded.

To recover loans from the Thakur family was a more delicate matter, as he was still the head of the Rathore clan in the village, at least in an emotional sense.

#### Selling off parts of the Thikana

Although devoid of power and wealth, Dharam Singh's family still lived in their inherited village fortress, the Thikana, and there was plenty of space for building new residential compartments.

Two Rajput landlords, who had lent money to the Thakur family many years earlier, got the idea that the Thakur should sell off parts of the Thikana fortress. The intention was to give the Thakur some cash so that he could pay back his loans. The Thakur agreed to this arrangement and four Rajput families started to live there in 1977, after having put up some extra walls towards the large Thikana yard called the chauk. Two carpenter families of the Sutar caste also moved in after having done a few improvements.

#### The desire to live among people of one's own kind

However, people in western Rajasthani villages lived castewise in separate mohallas, and few Chelana non-Rajputs liked to live in the Rajput mohalla, at the edge of which the Thikana was situated.

In front of the Thikana various castes lived, such as Baniya, Sad, and Daroga. Behind the Thikana was the Rajput mohalla, spreading further to the west in the village. In addition there is an independent eastern Rajput mohalla at Chelana.

Most villagers, and also those in the kasba townships, found it important to be surrounded by their own people. It was a matter of safety. They called their relatives apna khun, i.e. of one's own blood, a most emotional expression.

In case a fuss or quarrel would start with some neighbours, even their life could be in danger, if they lived in the midst of people from another caste, who took the side of their enemy.

A Baniya family head with daughters to be married would think twice. Who knows, she might develop a love affair with a Rajput boy. A gang of Rajput boys might attack her, molest her and even rape her, without any consideration for her feelings or those of her family. Other Rajputs were likely to take the side of the boys who had raped her, feeling the need of standing by their own blood relations in a situation of fuss.

#### The next generation

There was another way of getting money. That of getting dowries from rich Rajput families who wanted to marry their daugthers with Dharam Singh's sons. Some non-Rathore Rajput family from elsewhere might get attracted by the past glory of the ex-Thakur family.

Thakur Dharam Singh's eldest son, Mohan, studied at a Rajput school at Udaipur in 1979 and the Thakur had some hopes that Mohan would get into Government service, somehow. It would have been a safe way of earning money for the whole family.

Mohan left the school but nothing happened, except that he enjoyed a life in youthful leisure at his home at Chelana. Eventually after several years of rest and sleep Mohan went to the army. He got recruited as a private at the Indian grenadiers. For a youth of a family with a long martial tradition it was natural to become a soldier. Mohan earned very little, as he was just a newly recruited private. Several Chelana Bhambi boys worked in the army, too, and some of them had both a higher salary and a higher rank. Dharam Singh and his family did not mind very much, though.

#### Three social classes of Rajputs in post-feudal Chelana

Most Rajputs at Chelana belonged to the proud Mertia clan of the Rathores. They were a part of the widely spread Rathore dynasty, who ruled the area in the feudal days. As descendents of the same clan of warriors, they lived in a feeling of brotherhood. All the same, the Rajput families of the village lived under very different economic and social conditions. In broad terms there were three categories of Rajput families with regard to wealth and economic independence, and the life of these categories will be discussed below.

In the 1970s, two decades after the feudal rule of the village had ended, several ex-jagirdar Rajput families at Chelana lived quite well also without their jagirs. About 25 Rajput families were very well off compared to the villagers in general. They had always belonged to the influential and powerful section of the village. At least ten of these families belonged to the new village elite with relatives in government offices and with many other connections.

The middle group of Rajput families, about fifty, carried on without facing poverty. They did not have to work as labourers, as they still had land which had not yet become divided to such an extent that it had lost its economic importance. However, those with many sons risked a future fragmentation of their land. Too small landholdings reduced the utility of the land in many ways. Digging tubewells would be unprofitable. On minute landholdings even buying water from others could be difficult.

Most Rajputs with very little land, or no land at all, were as poor as the other landless Chelana villagers. Their high caste status did not help them much. There were some seventy to one hundred families in that situation. They had to work as labourers living on wages, although they would be the last ones to do so, if it could have been avoided.

The Thakur family at Chelana had in the second half of the 20th century slid down from the small group of powerful Rajput families. Those who managed to remain rich landlords even after their jagirs were gone. Well-off influential families with several government officers as their relatives.

The Thakur family had then slipped down to the bottom of the second group. That is, the group who somehow managed to pull on without becoming wage earning labourers.

The family had almost reached the third category of Rajputs, those who were labourers. They did their best to avoid that humiliation, though.

Left to the Thakur family was the memory of a past glory and the pride of belonging to a lineage of former local rulers.

Even the poorest of Rajputs felt pride in belonging to a caste who had ruled the area for a long time, although its feudal power had disappeared.

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### Chapter 10 Tan Dan about tax collection at feudal Chelana

Tenants at jagir holdings had to pay rent both to the state and the jagirdar. Towards the end of jagir rule around 1950 the state had started to charge a fixed amount of money, bigodi, from each peasant. It was based on elaborate land settlements, a system copied from the imperial powers further to the east in India. The share of the jagirdar was called hasal. It was not a fixed rent, at least not at Chelana. It was rather a sharecropping right of the jagirdar. In the first place the tenants had to pay bigodi to the state officials. Even in years with too poor crops to allow any hasal to the Thakur.

#### Other ways to charge the villagers

In addition to the hasal rent from the peasants the Thikana had some more ways to collect money from the villagers. Non-agriculturists had to pay kharda, a kind of house tax. From livestock herders ghasmari, a grazing tax, was realized. Many of these were shepherds of the Rebari caste, also called Raykas.

Those who sold commodities to outsiders had to pay a sale tax to the Thikana. That tax was called mapa. It was paid by Baniya businessmen.

#### How land revenue was collected from the Chelana tenants

The Thakur and his people as a rule did not take much interest in the agricultural routines of their tenants, although they got active at the time of harvest. The kanvaria of the Thikana bossed around with the tenants, forcing them to participate in compulsory labour of various kind, especially in the agricultural off-seasons, when the tenants had leisure time. The kanvaria was a kind of foreman who took orders from the kamdar, the secretary of the Thikana. The kamdar managed the routines of the small office of the Thikana on the behalf of the Thakur, who had the ultimate say in all matters.

It was the duty of the jagirdars to collect land revenue for the Government from their tenants. The money was handed over to the havaldar, the local land revenue collector who visited Chelana once a year. He was one of several havaldars of the Government office at Jalagarh. Each of them had the duty to collect revenue in a few specified villages.

At his annual visit for revenue collection the havaldar stayed at the Thikana for a few days. It was the natural lodging place for all visitors with some status. Normally, the havaldar got the full assistence of the Thakur, his kamdar, as well as the other jagirdars of the village, in the task of collected the stipulated money from the agricultural tenants. It was done by force, if necessary.

At the time of collecting taxes at Chelana, the havaldar also updated the land records, which he kept at his office at Jalagarh. The havaldar got much of his information from the kamdar's records about the tenants of the Thikana.

For detailed information on crops in each field the revenue collectors used to consult some well informed Jat tenants called chaudhry. Large jagir areas such as that of the Thakur were divided into blocks, and their was one chaudhry for each block. There were chaudhries not only in Rajasthan but also in other parts of northern India such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In Gujarat farmers engaged in this work were called patel.

In villages with no jagirdars, the chaudhries of the peasant community became even more important for the revenue collecting Government officers.

Chaudhry and Patel became became honorific titles for any respectable Jat farmer in these states. This part-time job became hereditary within certain Jat families.

The quality of the land records improved with the help of the chaudhries. However, it was common that the havaldar was more concerned about the opinion of the Thakur than what was written in the records.

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### Chapter 11 Land record work at Chelana, as experienced by Tan Dan

In north India the patvari was an important government official for keeping records of farm land, but there were no patvaris in feudal Marwar. At Chelana a patvari started to work in the 1950s after the jagir land system had been abolished.

#### How the patvari was equipped for his field surveys

The items kept by the patvari at Chelana have names of Urdu-Persian origin such as jarib, khasra and jinsvara. The reason is that the basic features of the land accounting system used by the patvaris in the Marvar state originates from the Muslim administration of Mogul and Afghan Emperors who ruled northern India in the 16th century.

Each field of the village was recorded by the patvari in a book called khasra. The fields were given identity numbers. Information of ownership rights was recorded. The fields could be identified in the landscape with the help of a detailed cloth map. They were measured by a special chain called jarib. There was also a cropwise record for all fields. That register was called jinsvara, and was made on an annual basis, which meant a lot of field work for the patvari in the cropping seasons. At that time he walked around with his village cloth map, khasra and jinsvara records and his jarib chain in the company of his assistants.

#### The Patvari's measuring chain

From the reign of Akbar up to the present age, the patvaris have measured the agricultural fields in their records with a special chain of standard size. The chain was called jarib, and its use was important for accuracy and precision in the land records.

It had a length of 40 metres and was meant for measuring land in bigha units. A bigha in Marvar was 0.16 hectare. It was smaller, probably, than the bigha unit of the large states further to the east, from where this way of areal measurement originated.

#### The patvari recorded the standing crops

The kharif crops were generally inspected after the second substantial spell of monsoon rains, which mostly occurred in August. Then the crops had become clearly recognizable, although the plants were still young. Their age was generally from one to two months at the time of recording.

On his crop inspection tour round the village the patvari did not contact every farmer in his records. It would not have been feasible, perhaps.

Instead he took the help of a reliable and experienced farmer in each locality, who volunteered to help in identifying the crops in the fields of his neighbours. Rather than going close to every field, they looked at many of them from a distance, feeling experienced enough to be able to recognize standing crops that way.

#### The confusion about Shri Sarkar

In the official records of the 1970s the government was still the landowner and the farmer were tenants, although with all the rights of a landowner. That is what Tan Dan found out in the following way:

Increased bank credit became available to the farmers in the early 1970s after Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party Government in Delhi had nationalized 14 major commercial banks in 1969. These banks were ordered to devote themselves to the task of financing agriculture in Indian villages.

As a consequence, the Central Bank of India opened a branch office at Chelana. Also Tan Dan, his relatives and many other landowning farmers borrowed money there.

Tan Dan and many other Chelana villagers landed in a mess as a result of the bank loans granted to them in the early 1970s. In one of his attempts to get some order in his bank affairs, Tan Dan even had to go to the head office of the Central Bank of India in Rajasthan. It was situated in Jaipur, the state capital about 200 kms to the northeast of Chelana.

During one of these visits he happened to listen to a few bank officers from Bombay, who scrutinized loan applications from Rajasthani farmers. They had a loud discussion about Shri Sarkar, a landowner who had submitted thousands of loan applications. How could anybody own so much land, they asked themselves and Tan Dan. After all, there was a maximum limit for how much land a farmer could own!

In the application form there was a space for writing the name of the land owner. There the farmers had written Shri Sarkar instead of their own names. The farmers still considered themselves as tenants, which was formally correct, according to the Parvari records, but did not satisfy the bank staff. The bank wanted the name of the farmer, rather than Shri Sarkar, which in the patvari record was a respectful way of writing the Rajasthan Government.

#### This is how Shri Sarkar entered the records:

At the time of redistribution of land in the 1950s the Government officials had changed the names on the khasra book of the patvari. However, as the law had given the tenant all the rights over the land associated with ownership, it was simpler to keep their names in the tenant column of the khasra account book. Instead names in the column stating the jagirdar of each field were replaced by the word Shri Sarkar, as the Rajasthan Government had resumed all land from the jagirdars.

The Patvari records served as the basic legal document for land rights, and as such it was important, when applying for bank loans.

By writing Shri Sarkar in the land ownership column for all fields in every village, the land records became uniform, although the way of handling the two columns was based on convenience rather than logic.

Formally, the farmers were still tenants of Shri Sarkar. Formally, the government was the ultimate owner of all land, just as it had been in feudal Rajasthan. But the Shri Sarkar had become a most invisible landowner unlike the earlier Maharajas, for whom it was as natural to think that "the State, it is I", as it was for a certain king of France.

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### Chapter 12 Land revenue in the feudal age

#### The level of land revenue

In Indian history a land revenue in the order of half the harvested crop has been fairly common. The tenants were used to that much rent both within the Indian empires and within smaller state of the Indian subcontinent. The well organized administration under the Moghul Emperor Akbar levied one third of the harvest, and that was considered a moderate rent. (Cf. Randhawa, 1982, and Spear, 1973.)

Tenants in western Rajasthan were as a rule rackrented by the jagirdars. They had to pay between 25 to 75 per cent, according to Jodha.

For the tenants in and around Chelana general scarcity and intermittent starvation periods was a part of life. Jats have told me, that their forefathers were often left with only about thirty percent of the harvest after official tax collectors and jagirdars had taken their shares. Also Baniya moneylenders had to be satisfied.

#### The many kinds of agricultural rents in the Chelana region

Tenants had to pay rent either in cash or in kind. When paid in cash the harvested crops had to be sold to businessmen. Either those at Chelana or those at the Merta wholesale market thirty kilometres to the north. The tenants went there by ox cart.

The Government officials wanted money, but the jagirdar generally took their hasal rent as a share of the crop.

I have seen old revenue records showing that tenants at Chelana paid cash to the Government also in the 17th century. A sum was fixed as a target for the whole village, but the actual amount given by the tenants varied very much from year to year as a result of the vagary of the monsoon.

In villages with land revenue settlements, the cash rent collected from the tenants was called bighori. It was determined by the Government.

According to sources from the early 20th century quoted by Sehgal, the bighori in jagir villages was calculated on the basis of the number of ploughs owned by the tenant. It was estimated that one ox plough could cultivate about 0.3-0.4 hectare per day.

When the feudal agrarian system was abolished in the 1950s, the tenants became landowners, and the land revenue that this new politically powerful class had to pay to the Government fell to insignificant sums of money. In spite of that the cumbersome bureaucracy for land revenue collection continued at various levels within Jodhpur District. With many government officers of various designations.

#### The administrative set-up for land revenue collection in Marvar

Marvar state was divided into districts called pargana. The head of each pargana was an official called hakim. He combined in himself the duties of a revenue officer, magistrate and judicial officer. The parganas were subdivided into tahsils. The official head in each tahsil was called thanedar who combined the duties of a police and a revenue officer under the hakim. The thanedar supervised havaldars, who were in charge of the actual revenue collection out in the villages. Each havaldar worked in a small number of villages. At the pargana and tahsil offices there were also kanungos, officers who kept the revenue records in order.

Most of these titles and administrative names do not have a Marvari origin. They were borrowed from the terminology used at the imperial centres of north India, which had a more advanced administration than that of the fairly small and isolated Marvar state. The influence grew from the 16th century onwards, as the Jodhpur Maharaja became a vassal first of the Moghuls and then of the British.

The chief official of the Marvar administration was called Divan. The Divan headed the Shri Huzur Daftar, which was a kind of secretariat. One of the Divan's duties was to supervise the administration on the district level all around the state.

The feudal lord of Jalagarh served as the Divan of the Marvar State in the 1920s, and he was a good friend of Jugti Dan Detha, Tan Dan's grandfather.

The tehsil office at Jalagarh was headed by the thanadar who visited Chelana in the 1920s to investigate a murder case. The havaldar who collected revenue at Chelana each year belonged to the same government office at Jalagarh.

(The story about the murder case is narrated in "A voice from the Indian desert" by Son Lal at Smashwords.)

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### Chapter 13 Efficient land accounting in mediaeval imperial north India

In periods of war and weak governments, it was common that the peasants in mediaeval north India suffered from looting and plunder. Whenever the state of law and order improved in north India, land revenue collection increased in importance. That tax was also a heavy burden on the peasants, especially as land revenue was collected with the help of intermediaries, the jagirdars, who often appropriated an extra large share for themselves to the detriment of both the farmers and the central government. Therefore, powerful empire builders in north India spent considerable efforts on running disciplined and well organized land revenue administrations.

During the 16th century A.D. the efficiency in land revenue collection increased in north India, as a new collection system was introduced by the imperial power. The role of the feudal vassals in land tax collection became less important. That way the emperors managed to circumvent the financial drain caused by these feudal intermediaries.

#### The tax officials established a direct link to the agriculturists

The first one who started to work on a direct administrative system was Sher Shah (1540-1545). During his short reign the custom of measuring land for land revenue assessment started. A few decades later the system was implemented in an even more refined way under the direction of Todar Mal, the finance minister under the reign of Akbar. Todar Mal had earlier worked in Sher Shah's administration, from where he got the basic ideas, the most important of which was that all fields should be measured as accurately as possible.

That system enabled the ruler to have a direct and detailed control and knowledge down to the level of the individual farmer, a remarkable precision for the Medieaval Age of Akbar's reign.

#### The increased importance of the land accountants

For an efficient land revenue collection system, an accurate and detailed land accounting was necessary. Since long that work had been carried out by grass root level officials called patvaris.

The patvari became a key person for the smooth functioning of the system in the village where he worked. The Government wanted to know on which field a tenant cultivates what crop. Also the land utilisation rights were stated.

The revenue payable to the state by the tenants was determined on the basis of data recording for measured field plots. These records were managed by the patvari, the village accountant employed by the Government. The system aimed at collecting revenue directly from the agricultural tenants without the help of intermediate feudal lords.

When the British started to rule in India, they allowed the already established land revenue administration to continue without any important alterations. Hence, the established routines of the Moghul land record system continued right up to independence, especially on the low levels such as that of the patvari.

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### Chapter 14 Systematic land tax collection in western Rajasthan is much more recent

The land recording system used by the large imperial administrations in northern India for centuries did not reach Marvar in full until the end of the 19th century. Then the first land revenue settlements were made there.

Land settlement first started in the 1890s in khalsa villages (throne land). At jagirdar villages the system did not start until the 1940s.

The land settlements were based on the Ryotwari system, i.e. the system of direct administration of the agricultural landholders in the provinces under direct British rule in British India.

Ryot is the same as raiyat, which means subject, tenant, according to the dictionary. That old word was used for agricultural tenants even before Akbar.

Another word for tenant cultivators was mal gujar. The land revenue that the tenants paid directly to the state was called mal gujari, according to Tan Dan. In feudal Marvar that was done by the tenants on khalsa land (throne land). There the land revenue procedure used to be called mal gujari rather than ryotwari.

In the mal gujari system the State dealt directly with the cultivators. During the settlement operations, fields were surveyed, village maps and record of rights were prepared, soils were classified and assessment rates were based on the available data extending over twenty years. For determining yields also crop trials were made.

The area was divided into two groups. One comprised secure land, or comparatively so. It covered irrigated lands. The other one contained insecure land solely fed by rains, where there was no certainty as to the annual yield. In the case of secure lands the assessment was fixed, but in the latter it fluctuated in accordance with the actual out-turn. (I.e. a share of the crop.) These two groups were sub-divided into circles on the basis of similar conditions of soil and climate and the available facilities for irrigation, marketing and manure. Later on there were revisions of the settlements at intervals of a few decades.

In villages ruled by feudal lords, thakurs, these were responsible for revenue collection. In such villages the old way of land revenue collection continued. There land tenure and production were largely based on oral information and the fairly crude land records were less important.

The jagir or the non-Khalsa areas of the Jodhpur State were taken up for settlement operations for the first time in 1943 and the operations were completed in some parts of the State, by 1946-47.

The work of attestation and soil classification continued up to the 1950s when the rates were finalized and the operations closed.

#### The state of land records in feudal Rajasthan

Land revenue administration varied considerably between the different states of feudal Rajputana. Some of the more advanced states such as Jaipur and Jodhpur had fairly good land revenue systems, patterned after the system of the British India provinces of the Punjab or U.P.. The conditions in the minor princely states were much less satisfactory. In some of the latter, as also in many jagirdari areas of even the advanced states, there were virtually no land records and the tenants were at the mercy of the prince or the jagirdar and their functionaries.

Hence, to make the land reform for Rajasthan complete it was necessary to replace the old land revenue system with a new one. It was done in 1956 when the Rajasthan Land Revenue Act was passed. It established the structure of revenue administration in post-feudal Rajasthan.

#### Why such a big farm land information bureaucracy in post-feudal Rajasthan?

In the middle of the 1950s, after the land reform in Rajasthan had been concluded, the post of amin was scrapped.

The State Government modified its organisation for land revenue collection, the Land Revenue Board. The administration for land accounting was improved in all those jagirdari villages of western Rajasthan where land records had been fairly haphazard during the period of jagirdari rule. Patvaris got in charge of the land records in all villages. In many cases the patvaris were in charge of only one village each. A group of patvaris formed a Patvari Circle headed by a Revenue Inspector. Over them was the Kanungo who was in charge of the whole land accounting office on the tehsil level. The Kanungo office for Chelana was situated in Jalagarh.

#### The patvari worked at the grass root level

The work of the patvari, the village land accountant, aimed at ensuring accurate and minute record of each farmer's holding and liabilities. The patvari was the local record keeper stationed in the villages. He was employed by the Government for maintaining the land records required for assessment and collection of land revenue.

The patvari of Chelana was supervised by the tehsil office at Jalagarh. The tasks of that Government office was

• collection of land revenue

• preparation and maintenance of annual registers (Jamabandi)

• inspection of crops.

There were five tehsil offices in the Jodhpur district including the one at Jalagarh.

The district head quarter at Jodhpur was headed by a Sardar Kanungo. He was the chief land records inspector of the district, and he supervised the work of the tehsil offices. At each tehsil office there was a Kanungo officer and assistant office Kanungos. On average each tehsil employed 45 patvaris and four inspectors (girdawars).

Tehsil, kanungo, patvari etc were old names borrowed from the erstwhile Moghul empire many centuries ago. Both the patvari and kanungo posts had existed in the Marvar administration during the feudal period.

#### The purpose of keeping patvaris

The patvari had been an important officer for centuries in various imperial administrations of north India. After independence and the abolishment of Jagir land the patvari had got a new role. The main purpose was no longer land revenue collection. The amount of tax collected that way had become insignificant. There were other purposes, though. Especially, the documentation of land rights and the collection of agricultural statistics. Could the preservation of old-fashioned heavy bureaucracy meant for revenue collection really be justified that way? There might be less expensive ways with less staff idling away time at the expense of taxpayers. There are taxpayers who pay more than farmers.

#### The low tax on agricultural income in post-feudal Rajasthan

Land revenue declined considerably in post-feudal India. In Rajasthan only about one percent of the income originating in the agricultural sector around 1970 was taxed. (Bhargawa, 1976, p.14, 16) Under the Indian Constitution, Union Government was prohibited from taxing agricultural land or income. Thus only the State Governments were empowered to tax the agricultural sector. In Rajasthan the land revenue declined in importance, but the State Government continued to keep a large staff for its collection.

An agricultural income tax was introduced in 1953 but abolished already after seven years with the motivation that the resumptions of jagirs and fixation of landholdings was expected to reduce to number of farmers with large income to such a small number that the benefit from the tax to the Government would be meagre. (Bhargava, 1976, p.33)

On the contrary, Bhargava and many other authors argued that the agricultural sector had been undertaxed after India had achieved political independence in 1947. Especially the large landholders.

The reason for low land revenue in Rajasthan and elsewhere in India was evidently the strong representation of farmer-supported politicians in the democratically elected legislative assembly at Jaipur, as Rajasthan was largely an agrarian state.

#### The effect of crop failure on the accuracy of land records

In some fields it happened that the recorded crop died after the Patvari had made his crop survey. The field might be resown with a crop species of shorter maturity. The possibility of crop failure was considerable in western Rajasthan, especially in villages where most of the crops were rainfed. In addition to droughts there were other hazards such as devastating desert rains storms and locust attacks. During the winter, rabi crops were sometimes damaged by frost or by hail storms. After the introduction of mechanized irrigation, frequent electricity cuts could also cause crop failures.

Hence, in several fields the crops recorded were only partially harvested or not at all. This discrepancy might have been difficult to catch in the official statistics.

Crop yield figures in Government of India statistics were based on crop harvest samples done by various government institutions, mainly statistical departments and department of agriculture. Hence, official crop yield statistics were not based on patvari records, only that of crop area. Aggregated crop production figures for statistical purpose were obtained by multiplying crop area and yield.

Whether the patvari records with regard to crops were right or wrong, there was no procedure to check. It did not matter much to the farmers, as the land tax was very low, not much more than a symbolic amount in Rajasthan and other states.

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### Conclusion

When the masses were heavily taxed during the feudal age, the money collected was used for warfare and the benefit of the ruling class. Very little was used for the welfare of the public. After the feudal land right system had been abolished in western Rajasthan, land tax collection continued by a government based on general election. Then the amount collected became so small, that land tax hardly contributed any money to the welfare of the general public. Hence the paradox: when the government had money from land tax collection, it was misused from a welfare point of view, and when the new government started ambitious plans for welfare policy, there was no money available for it from land taxation, as the Rajasthan government did not dare to tax the farmers more than symbolic amounts. It was afraid of loosing the next election, if it emphasized the duties of the farmers to participate in building up welfare funds to be used by all, including the farmers themselves. Big landowners benefited from this cowardness, all others were loosers.

Unfortunately, slackness in the bureaucratic setup, resulting in corruption, might make a mess of any welfare scheme based on government taxes.

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### Endnotes for historical comparisons

Important persons and events in the history of the Rathores of Chelana:

Around 1600, around 1670, in the 1730s, and around 1790 A.D.

1. Period:

2. Paramount power:

3. Ruler of Marvar state:

4. Feudal lord of Chelana village:

1. Around 1600

2. Jahangir powerful Moghul emperor

3. Sur Singh Rathore

4. Brahmin jagirdars. Rathore soldiers serve as village guards against Mina robbers.

1. Around 1670

2. His grandson Aurangzeb, an equally strong Moghul emperor.

3. Maharaja Jasvant Singh Rathore, one of the most important of the Moghul vassals.

4. Pratap Singh, the first Rathore to become Thakur of Chelana.

1. 1730s

2. His son Muhammed Shah, ruling over a disintegrating Moghul empire.

3. His grandson Abhay Singh, a powerful Marvar maharaja, getting de facto independence from Moghul rule.

4. His grandson Jait Singh Rathore, the most powerful Rathore Thakur of Chelana ever.

1. Around 1790

2. The British and the Mahrattas superseding the feeble Moghul dynasty.

3. Maharaja Bijai Singh Rathore lost the regional hegemony to the Mahrattas.

4. The Chelana Rathores got back its resumed fief after heroic performance of Badan Singh Rathore at the Merta battle against the Mahrattas.

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### A few more details on the subject

#### Wars between in-laws

Hindu caste marriages are exogamous as for gotras. As the ruling Rajput gotra in each state outnumbered the other Rajput gotras, it was common that Rathores of Marwar sought their marriage partners among ruling gotras in neighbouring states. Not only royal dynasties, but also ordinary Rajput families. Hence, Rajputs waging wars with each others were in-laws in many cases. Jaipur and Marwar waged many wars. A Rajput woman would become a widow, if her husband had been killed in the battle field by her own brother.

#### Ways of nominating a feudal village lord

In Marvar state the law of primogeniture was observed for jagirs. If there was no son to succeed, a successor was appointed by adoption conforming to certain rules, otherwise the jagir was returned to the State. The person adopted was nominated either by the jagirdar during his lifetime or by his widow within twelve days of his death or, if both had died without having made a selection, by the leading members of the family. (Agarwal, 1979, p. 308-9)

*

The custom of granting Mafi land for service might have arisen due to want of cash in the royal coffers. It was a way to pay persons of various non-Rajput castes for service.

#### The amount of agricultural rent taken from tenants in the late feudal era

The rent taken from the tenant varied from one-fifth to one-half in case of dry crops and from one-sixth to one-third in that of wet crops, according to Agarwal, 1979. According to Sehgal (1976) most jagirdars in Marvar took 15 to 20 per cent in rent. At some places the rent was one half. (Gazetteer information.)

#### The decline in agricultural taxation after the feudal age

Jodha, 1980, has given the following figures from a cluster of villages in Nagaur District. He thinks it could apply to other areas, too, with minor differences.

On better crop land a farmer paid around Rs. 83 per hectare as kind rate (expressed in 1976-77 prices) prior to land reforms. After land reforms he paid only Rs. 6 per hectare. On the sub-marginal lands, the corresponding amounts are Rs 16 and Rs 1.5 per hectare. The livestock related expenditure of land use (excluding grazing fee) was Rs 47 per household prior to land reforms, which became zero after the land reforms. Grazing land charge also came down to zero from Rs. 1.25 per animal earlier. The wool and milk prices, on the other hand, increased many folds during the same period, largely due to widened markets and better means of transport.

#### Land accounting

Jhinsvari means commoditywise classification. Jins means commodity i.e. agricultural produce and var means wise, thus the word jinsvar means commodity-wise, which has become the name of the record.

*

The map was usually tied around the books of the Patvari when stored, according to what I saw in a Kanungo office in a tehsil in Haryana. The map was of sheet cloth on which the Patvari drew the lines and wrote the text with an ink pen. It was the same in the Chelana area.

*

The chain of the patvari had a length of forty metres. 40x40 = 1600 square metres is equal to one bigha and 0.4 acres and 0.16 hectares. (Sehgal, 1976, p.279)

In the Moghul Empire of Akbar's days the chain was longer and the bigha larger. (Randhawa, 1982, p.203)

*

In the khasra book there was a column for the name of the land owner, _nam bhumi malik_ , and another column headed by _nam_ _kashtkar_ , i.e. cultivator. In patvari records of western Rajasthani village cultivators were called _kashtkar_. In the literature the word _khatedar_ is used.

*

During the feudal period patvaris of khalsa throne land villages probably used to write _Maharaja dhiraj Jodhpur_ for each field in the _nam bhum malik_ column. To write _Shri Sarkar_ for the government might be a more recent way of writing.

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### Meaning of Marwari and Hindi words

Begar. Compulsory work by tenants for Thakurs and other Jagirdars.

Chaudhry. Tenant farmer acting as a representative for a group of farmers in the contacts between farmers, feudal landlords and government.

Dacoit. Daku. Robbers with their own code of ethics.

Daroga. A caste which served in the Thikana. Daughters of this caste were often given in dowry along with the bride in weddings of feudal lords.

Dhani. Farmer homestead out in the fields.

Gotra. A group within a caste. They have kinship feelings and only marry other gotras, not their own.

Holi ri ger. Circle of male dancers with sticks at the Holi festival in the month of Phagun.

Jajman. Customer in traditional client relationships between families over generations, often in a barter economy with payment in foodgrain.

Kamdar. He was the secretary and manager of the Thikana. The kamdar was also called Thikanadar.

Lathi. Long bambu sticks of hard wood. Always with a length from the ground to the lower part of the ear of the owner, when used for fighting.

Pardah. Keeping women out of sight from menfolk. Face cover, usually a part of the head garment or some other cloth is used.

Raj ro marg. The cleanshaven strip on the top of the head is called "raj ro marg" i.e. the royal path. Compulsory for Bhambi men in the feudal age as a way of showing submission to the ruler.

Savarn Hindu. A person belonging to high ranked caste groups, especially the brahmin, baniya and kshatriya type of castes.

Shudra Hindu. A person belonging to a caste ranked below the castes of the savarn Hindus.

Talab. Village pond.

Thakur. The feudal village lord.

Thikana. The fortress and residence of the village lord.

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### Reference

Agarwal, 1979, Rajasthan District Gazetteers.

Gupta, B.L. 1993. Trade and commerce in Rajasthan. Jaipur. 274 pp.

Hutton, J.H. 1963. Castes in India. 4th edition. London. 297 pp.

Joshi, R. 1994. Charans: the contextual dynamics of caste in the Rajput system (14th to 16th century) Third International Seminar on Rajasthan. Jaipur, 14-18 December 1994.

Khan, D.S. 1994. Sacrifice, martyrdom and samadhi in the religious tradition of the Meghwal of Rajasthan. Third International Seminar on Rajasthan. Jaipur, 14-18 December 1994.

Maloo, K. 1987. The history of famines in Rajputana. (1858-1900 A.D.) Udaipur. 296 pp.

Reu, M.P.B.N. 1948. Rathod Durgadas (A well-known hero of Marwar.) Archeological Department. Jodhpur. 63 pp.

Singh, M.H. 1990. The castes of Marwar. (Reprint from 1896 based on Census Report of 1891) Jodhpur. 234 pp.

Tod, J., Crooke, W. 1920. Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan or the central and western Rajput states of India. 1,834 pp.

Ujwal, K.S. 1985. Bhagvati Shri Karniji Maharaj. A biography. 151 pp. 2nd Edition. Ujlan.

### Cover image

Photo: Tan Dan Detha. Patvari and his assistents with land records and cloth map out in a crop field of a western Rajasthan village around 1980.

***

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My e-mail adress is sonlal41@hotmail.com

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