3. Chāran Ranjārans employed with the Mughal armies.
The Chāran Banjāras, Mr. Cumberlege states,[17] first came to the Deccan with Asaf Khān in the campaign which closed with the annexation by the Emperor Shāh Jahān of Ahmadnagar and Berār about 1630. Their leaders or Nāiks were Bhangi and Jhangi of the Rāthor[18] and Bhagwān Dās of the Jādon clan. Bhangi and Jhangi had 180,000 pack-bullocks, and Bhagwān Dās 52,000. It was naturally an object with Asaf Khān to keep his commissariat well up with his force, and as Bhangi and Jhangi made difficulties about the supply of grass and water to their cattle, he gave them an order engraved on copper in letters of gold to the following effect:
Ranjan kā pāni
Chhappar kā ghās
Din ke tīn khūn muāf;
Aur jahān Asaf Jāh ke ghore
Wahān Bhangi Jhangi ke bail,
which may be rendered as follows: “If you can find no water elsewhere you may even take it from the pots of my followers; grass you may take from the roofs of their huts; and I will pardon you up to three murders a day, provided that wherever I find my cavalry, Bhangi and Jhangi’s bullocks shall be with them.” This grant is still in the possession of Bhangi Nāik’s descendant who lives at Musi, near Hingoli. He is recognised by the Hyderābād Court as the head Nāik of the Banjāra caste, and on his death his successor receives a khillat or dress-of-honour from His Highness the Nizām. After Asaf Khān’s campaign and settlement in the Deccan, a quarrel broke out between the Rāthor clan, headed by Bhangi and Jhangi, and the Jādons under Bhagwān Dās, owing to the fact that Asaf Khān had refused to give Bhagwān Dās a grant like that quoted above. Both Bhangi and Bhagwān Dās were slain in the feud and the Jādons captured the standard, consisting of eight thāns (lengths) of cloth, which was annually presented by the Nizām to Bhangi’s descendants. When Mr. Cumberlege wrote (1869), this standard was in the possession of Hatti Nāik, a descendant of Bhagwān Dās, who had an estate near Muchli Bunder, in the Madras Presidency. Colonel Mackenzie states[19] that the leaders of the Rāthor clan became so distinguished not only in their particular line but as men of war that the Emperors recognised their carrying distinctive standards, which were known as dhal by the Rāthors themselves. Jhangi’s family was also represented in the person of Rāmu Nāik, the patel or headman of the village of Yaoli in the Yeotmāl District. In 1791–92 the Banjāras were employed to supply grain to the British army under the Marquis of Cornwallis during the siege of Seringapatam,[20] and the Duke of Wellington in his Indian campaigns regularly engaged them as part of the commissariat staff of his army. On one occasion he said of them: “The Banjāras I look upon in the light of servants of the public, of whose grain I have a right to regulate the sale, always taking care that they have a proportionate advantage.”[21]