The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 3

by R. V. Russell

3. The rise of the Kāyasths under foreign rulers.

It appears then a legitimate conclusion from the evidence that the claim of the Kāyasths to be Kshatriyas is comparatively recent, and that a century ago they occupied a very much lower social position than they do now. We do not find them playing any prominent part in the early or mediæval Hindu kingdoms. There is considerable reason for supposing that their rise to importance took place under the foreign or non-Hindu governments in India. Thus a prominent Kāyasth gentleman says of his own caste:[11] “The people of this caste were the first to learn Persian, the language of the Muhammadan invaders of India, and to obtain the posts of accountants and revenue collectors under Muhammadan kings. Their chief occupation is Government service, and if one of the caste adopts any other profession he is degraded in the estimation of his caste-fellows.” Malcolm states:[12] “When the Muhammadans invaded Hindustān and conquered its Rājpūt princes, we may conclude that the Brāhmans of that country who possessed knowledge or distinction fled from their intolerance and violence; but the conquerors found in the Kāyastha or Kaith tribe more pliable and better instruments for the conduct of the details of their new Government. This tribe had few religious scruples, as they stand low in the scale of Hindus. They were, according to their own records, which there is no reason to question, qualified by their previous employment in all affairs of state; and to render themselves completely useful had only to add the language of their new masters to those with which they were already acquainted. The Muhammadans carried these Hindus into their southern conquests, and they spread over the countries of Central India and the Deccan; and some families who are Kānungos[13] of districts and patwāris of villages trace their settlement in this country from the earliest Muhammadan conquest.” Similarly the Bombay Gazetteer states that under the arrangements made by the Emperor Akbar, the work of collecting the revenues of the twenty-eight Districts subordinate to Surat was entrusted to Kāyasths.[14] And the Māthur Kāyasths of Gujarāt came from Mathura in the train of the Mughal viceroys as their clerks and interpreters.[15] Under the Muhammadans and for some time after the introduction of English rule, a knowledge of Persian was required in a Government clerk, and in this language most of the Kāyasths were proficient, and some were excellent clerks.[16] Kāyasths attained very high positions under the Muhammadan kings of Bengal and were in charge of the revenue department under the Nawābs of Murshīdābād; while Rai Durlao Rām, prime minister of Ali Verdi Khān, was a Kāyasth. The governors of Bihār in the period between the battle of Plassey and the removal of the exchequer to Calcutta were also Kāyasths.[17] The Bhatnāgar Kāyasths, it is said, came to Bengal at the time of the Muhammadan conquest.[18] Under the Muhammadan kings of Oudh, too, numerous Kāyasths occupied posts of high trust.[19] Similarly the Kāyasths entered the service of the Gond kings of the Central Provinces. It is said that when the Gond ruler Bakht Buland of Deogarh in Chhindwāra went to Delhi, he brought a number of Kāyasths back with him and introduced them into the administration. One of these was appointed Bakshi or paymaster to the army of Bakht Buland. His descendant is a leading landholder in the Seoni District with an estate of eighty-four villages. Another Kāyasth landholder of Jubbulpore and Mandla occupied some similar position in the service of the Gond kings of Garha-Mandla.

Finally in the English administration the Kāyasths at first monopolised the ministerial service. In the United Provinces, Bengal and Bihār, it is stated that the number of Kāyasths may perhaps even now exceed that of all other castes taken together.[20] And in Gujarāt the Kāyasths have lost in recent years the monopoly they once enjoyed as Government clerks.[21] The Mathura Kāyasths of Gujarāt are said to be declining in prosperity on account of the present keen competition for Government service,[22] of which it would thus appear they formerly had as large a share as they desired. The Prabhus, the writer-caste of western India corresponding to the Kāyasths, were from the time of the earliest European settlements much trusted by English merchants, and when the British first became supreme in Gujarāt they had almost a monopoly of the Government service as English writers. To such an extent was this the case that the word Prabhu or Purvu was the general term for a clerk who could write English, whether he was a Brāhman, Sunār, Prabhu, Portuguese or of English descent.[23] Similarly the word Cranny was a name applied to a clerk writing English, and thence vulgarly applied in general to the East Indians or half-caste class from among whom English copyists were afterwards chiefly recruited. The original is the Hindi karāni, kirāni, which Wilson derives from the Sanskrit karan, a doer. Karana is also the name of the Orissa writer-caste, who are writers and accountants. It is probable that the name is derived from this caste, that is the Uriya Kāyasths, who may have been chiefly employed as clerks before any considerable Eurasian community had come into existence. Writers’ Buildings at Calcutta were recently still known to the natives as Karāni ki Barīk, and this supports the derivation from the Karans or Uriya Kāyasths, the case thus being an exact parallel to that of the Prabhus in Bombay.[24]