12. Other occupations and criminal practices
A body of Pārdhis are sometimes employed by all the cultivators of a village jointly for the purpose of watching the spring crops during the day and keeping black-buck out of them. They do this perhaps for two or three months and receive a fixed quantity of grain. The Tākankars are regularly employed as village servants in Berār and travel about roughening the stones of the household grinding-mills when their surfaces have worn smooth. For this they receive an annual contribution of grain from each household. The caste generally have criminal tendencies and Mr. Sewell states, that “The Langoti Pārdhis and Tākankars are the worst offenders. Ordinarily when committing dacoity they are armed with sticks and stones only. In digging through a wall they generally leave a thin strip at which the leader carefully listens before finally bursting through. Then when the hole has been made large enough, he strikes a match and holding it in front of him so that his features are shielded has a good survey of the room before entering.... As a rule, they do not divide the property on or near the scene of the crime, but take it home. Generally it is carried by one of the gang well behind the rest so as to enable it to be hidden if the party is challenged.” In Bombay they openly rob the standing crops, and the landlords stand in such awe of them that they secure their goodwill by submitting to a regular system of blackmail.[11]
[1] This article is partly compiled from papers by Mr. Adurām Chaudhri and Pandit Pyāre Lāl Misra of the Gazetteer Office, and extracts from Mr. Kitts’ Berār Census Report (1881), and Mr. Sewell’s note on the caste quoted in Mr. Gayer’s Lectures on the Criminal Tribes of the Central Provinces.
[2] Lectures on Criminal Tribes of the C.P., p. 19.
[3] Berār Census Report (1881), p. 135.
[4] Bombay Ethnographic Survey, art. Pārdhi.
[5] Jungle Life in India, pp. 586–587.
[6] Peasant Life in Bihār, p. 80.
[7] See Jerdon’s Mammals of India, p, 97. The account there given is quoted in the Chhindwāra District Gazetteer, pp. 16–17.
[8] Private Life of an Eastern King, p. 75.
[9] Private Life of an Eastern King, pp. 69, 71.
[10] Private Life of an Eastern King, pp. 39–40.
[11] Bombay Ethnographic Survey, ibidem.