Gujarát and the Gujarátis/En Route to Ahmedabad

by Behramji Malabari

EN ROUTE TO AHMEDABAD.

On the 1st of April 1878 we left for Ahmedabad. The poor famine-stricken people came to us in crowds wherever the train stopped, looking more like apparitions than beings in flesh and blood. About Dákore, Umreth, and other adjoining places, the distress seems to have been very severe and general. Still the prospect that lay before the eye was pleasanter than we had hitherto seen.

In the carriage we occupied were a Vakil and a philosophic Shrawak. The Vakil had an opera-glass, which he seemed to mistake for a telescope. He said he espied Ahmedabad through it at the distance of about 60 miles. This the Shrawak said he could not see. Whilst these two were wrangling, the train stopped at an intermediate station, and in came a Hindu gentleman, a Bania, big, great, and eminently ugly. He had his little son with him,—his "only son," thank goodness. He was the very image of his father,—big, bloated, pock-marked face, without any visible eyes, and excessively nosey. The train stopped at a certain station again, and the Bania prepared to alight. He first handed over his kit to the porter, then that ugly boy of his, so very leisurely, that before he found time to drag his own carcass out, the engine gave the whistle. The Bania's wife, who had just issued from one of the third-class carriages, gave a shriek on seeing her lord's danger. The man turned pale and yellow by turns. Meantime half a dozen Parsi officials rushed to his assistance. "Come to my arms," said one ugly fat fellow to the Bania. But the Bania would not accept the loving invitation. "Stop the train," he cried "hoarsely. At last they got the motion considerably slackened, and that Parsi again said,"Come to my arms." The Bania replied, "Stop it altogether." And stopped it was. The Bania stepped out, and we started. That Bania is a Sowkár^[1]; I afterwards ascertained that he was a Desái,^[2] and was on a visit to Ahmedabad. He came from Billimorá.

Locust-Desais.

This Desái, or the family of the Desáis rather, are petty officials under the Guicowár, and possess holdings in Nowsári, Gandevi, and Billimorá. The revenue and other exactions of former Guicowárs were hard enough to bear for the poorer people of these parts; but the Desáis, taking advantage of the misrule of later days, seem to have added their own taxes and imposts to those already existing. And these iniquitous exactions have, it is said, been levied until now when the unhappy peasantry and traders are absolutely unable to bear them.

It is curious to see how these Desáis' imposts were first brought into existence. The Desái, for instance, had, in a prosperous year, a superfluity of grain. He left a few maunds^[3] at the house of each of the villagers, and after a short interval billed them for the grain—at fancy rates. This was sharp practice enough. But that was only the beginning. Next year the Desái forgot to leave the grain for the family, but a sum similar to that paid the year before, when the grain had been left, had to be paid over again! And thus came the grain-imposts into existence. This practice seems as infamous as the robbing of the people by the Turkish village tyrants. As is the case with grain, so with everything else of which the Desái had once a superfluity. The superfluity could not often recur; but the imposition of Rs. 500 to Rs. 600 was made first annual, then, I suppose, eternal.

After a good deal of clamouring on the part of the more intelligent of the townsmen, the Dewán of Baroda seems to have deputed a Náyeb Subhá to investigate the nature of the discontent which had become general throughout the three towns above referred to. This Náyeb Subhá, the Gujarát Mitra informs us, made himself and family the guests of the Desái, and it was at the Desái's place and in his presence, where he could smile or frown at will, that the Subhá held his court of inquiry. If this be so, nothing could be more reprehensible even in the Guicowár territory. But getting over all these cruel hindrances, the writer in the Gujarát Mitra has been able to record the following disclosures made in the course of inquiry. The facts may convey some idea of the desperation into which the poor people have been driven:—Parsi shopkeepers of Gandevi deposed that the Desái has been, for years, exacting from each Rs. 51 a year. Parsi boat-builders of the same place have been paying the Desái Rs. 5 on every craft prepared, besides fuel, timber, &c. Those who pleaded inability were deprived of their tools, and thus left without the means of earning a livelihood. Some Hindus, whose business it is to weigh loads of fuel or other things, were taxed Rs. 40 a year, and are now taxed Rs. 260 a year! On one bale of tobacco the Desái exacts Rs. 21. From the Mussalman weavers he takes fifty yards of the cloth they weave. Some years ago the Desái had a nautch ^[4] party, and he wanted cloth for a pavilion. That grant of cloth has been made perpetual! Besides, the poor fellows have to pay something in cash too. Hindu weavers have to supply sixty yards of cloth. The butcher, too, has to contribute Rs. 25 a year towards the Desai's maintenance, as also the dyer in a similar sum. The Vánjarás^[5] have to pay a certain sum per bag of grain. All these taxes are alleged to be the Desái's own, over and above the Guicowár's. The Guicowár Sirkár has its house tax; the Desái has a corollary to it, named the choolá tax, or tax on cooking-fire, of Rs. 2-8 a house. Then comes the Márwári, who has to pay the jájam or carpet tax; also the ghee tax. That is, these Shylocks of the village had to present to the Desái so much carpet and so much ghee a year. But when the Desái had too much of carpet and ghee, he asks for their equivalent in money. "We paid some years," depose the epigrammatic Márwári. "We don't do so now: "our will." That is sturdy common sense, and once in a way we sympathise with the obscene miser.^[6] The Dheds had to pay hide tax, that is a substitute in coin for the hides of animals they skin from time to time. They now plead inability. The fishermen, too, are not left out of the list, poor miserable creatures, barely able to eke out a "bellyful" of seeds, fish, or anything that comes handy! They, too, are utterly unable to oblige the Desái.

Billimorá.

I have seen Billimorá and the adjoining parts, and am assured by respectable informants that the account I give above of the Desáis' exactions is substantially correct. My trip to Billimorá was not quite uneventful.

Railway Speed, etc.

I left for bunder Billimorá by mail train. The train went at high speed, I am told, which, on ascertaining it, I find to be about twenty miles an hour. Compared with bullock hackeries, Mr. Duxbury's^[7] dragweight is much faster, to be sure. But it is nothing, speaking absolutely; because I am told that the strain of any greater speed would be too much for the yielding soil. It is, however, to be noted that what is wanted in speed is made up for by the noise. The carriages hobble along with ominous squeaks that indicate chronic rheumatism. The engine seems to be suffering from constipation, and the faint and sickly sobs it now and then gives are heartrending indeed. Then the dust, the clouds of dust that assail one on the line. Let the authorities take hold of the fattest and the rosiest of the station-masters and rip him open. Thus dissected, the creature will emit such overwhelming volumes of dust as would cover a hundred Duxburys with shame and remorse. Insomnia and dysentery are said to be inseparable from railway service. And what wonder?

Public Roads and Personal Experience.

Immediately on alighting I entered the town of Billimora. It was a moonlit night, and I preferred walking. In the mofussil I generally walk, as, in driving, there is a chance of dislodging the liver. Billimorá dust is no way inferior to that of Broach—it is subtle, light, and knee-deep. The road leading into the town is said to be a made road; it may have been so before it was recently unmade. There is a romance about the road. A few years ago His Excellency the Rájá, Minister of the State, was driving on it at night, when, by some mishap, the ghari ^[8] upturned and deposited His Excellency's whole weight in the dust. That was a great fall. The noise awakened the housewives. The Rájá-Dewán, at his time of life, was not able to pick himself up. So when the women came up to the scene of the fall, they saw a well-dressed old beau grovelling in the dust, with sowars and sepoys chattering and bowing at a distance, as is their wont. Then said a spinster old, approaching the figure in the dust. "Brother, what are ye about?" And he replied, "Sister, go thy way; the night is dark, and I am the Dewán Rájá. Think not I have fallen; I am merely trying, by personal experience, to see if the road requires repair." Then asked a maid of twenty-three, looking archly at the fallen figure, "Old man, art thou satisfied?" "Yes, my child," replied the pious Rájá, picking himself up by main effort. Before entering the palki^[9] the Dewan turned round and said, "Good people, do not bother me with a petition; I know you need a good road, and will give you one."

Such is personal experience. How much I wish that a Legislative Councillor had now and then a fall, a Town Councillor now and then a shower of "dirty Jupiter" in the streets, a Police Commissioner set upon by rabid dogs!

How Roads are Made.

This road was first made by H. H.Khunderow. Mad Mulhár Rao, on coming to the gádi, paid a visit of state to Billimorá. Now, Mulhár Rao, as we all know, is a man of honour. So he refused to enter the town by the road made by his brother. He ordered a special road to be made for him in a few hours. The officers mowed down fields, telling the owners that His Highness the Guicowár was to sanctify the soil by driving through it. Mulhár Rao drove through the road thus improvised, and paid Rs. 25,000, which went into the officials' pockets, the owners of the fields making the best of the half-destroyed harvest. On this wise are Public Works conducted in native states.

Billimorá Proper.

Billimorá belongs mostly to Parsis, who have a Tower of Silence there, and other religious and social institutions. The Dustoor^[10] cannot live there, and so far Billimorá is blessed. The Parsis here are respectable people, very fat and very prayerful. There are Hindus and Mahomedans too. But the bulk of the population consists of the fisher people, low-class Hindus, dark, thick-skinned, and very poor. I stood on the main road for about two hours one evening to feast mine eyes on the beauties of nature: then I retired to bed, and dreamt vividly of Dante's Inferno. Billimorá does not boast of rural beauties—pariah dogs cannot pass under that title. But fish is cheap, and plentiful, and good. Now and then you can get a pull at the oddy^[11] flagon. But the liquid is too sweet to be the genuine article.

Billimorá is under a magistrate, a very good man, a relative of the Subá (Chief Commissioner). This magistrate is said to be a very strict man, and as he fines people right and left, he might look to be a Subá very shortly. He is a reformed Hindu, I am glad to say. Under the magistrate there is a Parsi Foujdár,^[12] an energetic and obliging sort of man, with about fifty policemen and 500 street dogs. This latter force may pass under the name of Sir Mádav Row's Canine Cavalry. I am told Sir Mádav Row offered this cavalry, as well as the gold guns of the Guicowár, to Lord Lytton when the Afghan war was at its height; and though the Dewan is said to have been in earnest, Lord Lytton took it for a joke. Sir T. M. has ever since been in disgrace. Thus goes the story which Sir Mádav alone can verify or contradict.

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1. Money-lender.
2. Small hereditary dignitaries.
3. A Bombay maund is about 28 lbs. avoirdupois.
4. Performance by hired dancing-girls.
5. Or Brinjaris, itinerant grain-carriers.
6. The Márwári—sordid money-lenders.
7. The energetic Traffic Manager of the B.B. and C. I. Railway.
8. Carriage.
9. Palanquin.
10. Parsi Levite.
11. The palm juice.
12. Police inspector.