The Sepoy

by Edmund Candler

The Subadar told me that the books of the Meena bards had been confiscated. They are locked up in the fort at Ranatbawar, and no one may enter. If any one reads them, the Rajput dynasty will pass away, and the Meena will be restored; therefore the Rajputs would like to destroy them, but there is some ancient inhibition. The chronicles are put away in an iron chest under the ground; yet, as the Subadar explained, the record is indestructible. It has lived in men's memories and hearts, new epics have been written, and the story is handed down from father to son. Another Meena told me the story is written "in the Political Agent's Book at Jaipur." This, I think, was by way of reference rather than confirmation, for it could never have entered any of their heads that one could doubt the genuineness or authenticity of the tale. When the usurper was crowned a Meena was called in from afar to put the tilak, or caste mark, on the king's forehead. And here the fairy story comes in again, for the tilak was imprinted on the king's brow by the Meena's toe. This is still the custom, the Subadar assured me, and he explained that it was a humiliation imposed upon the king by the priests as an atonement for his bad faith. The priest persuaded the king that the only way that he could hope to keep his throne was by receiving the tilak from the toe of the Meena, and he appeased his vanity by pretending that the Meena, by raising his toe, signified submission, just as the Yankee talks about turning up his toe to the daisies.

Here the Subadar was becoming too subtle for me, and I felt that I was getting out of my depth. But there was another point which was quite clear and simple. It bore out his theory of an hereditary obligation which the Rajput owes the Meena by way of restitution. In Jaipur and Alwar the Ujla Meenas are the custodians of the State treasure. I used to think that they were appointed on the same principle as the Chaukidar who would be a thief if he were not a guardian of the property under his trust. But in this I wronged the Meena. The Ujlas are honourable office-holders. When the Maharaja of Jaipur comes to the gadi he has to take an oath that he will not diminish his inheritance, and he is responsible to the Ujlas that anything that he may take away in times of famine or other emergency shall be restored. The old Subadar took this as a matter of pride. He was quite content with his ancestry--if indeed he bothered his head about the status of the Meena at all. The legend of the regicide rissaldar was well found. You could tell by the way he told the story that he was pleased with it. One hears yarns of the kind, comforting tales of legendary wrong, all over the world, in Hottentot wigwams and Bloomsbury lodging-houses. The difference is only in degree. They contribute mildly to self-respect; the humble are rehabilitated in garments of pride; and very few of those who inherit the myth look for the miracle of reversion.

The Meenas are as contented a people as you could find, a cheery, simple, frugal, hardy race. The old Subadar boasted that his men never fell out. "Even when the mules fall out," he told me, "they go on." They are very brave in the jungle, and will stand up to a wounded leopard or tiger. The Meena is a good shot, and a fine shikari. He will find his way anywhere in the dark, and he never loses himself. He ought to be useful in a night raid. He is a trifle hot-headed, I gathered. In the divisional manœuvres near Nasiriyeh the cavalry were coming down on a line of them in open country, when they fixed bayonets and charged. "They are a perfectly splendid crowd," one of the officers told me, "I should dearly love to see them go into action, and take twenty-five per cent. casualties. It would be the making of them." But his Meenas had no luck. No doubt, if they had been given a chance, they would have fought as well as the best. It was their misfortune that they came too late, and that they were sent up the wrong river. In the meanwhile, at Deoli, recruits are pouring in. Every village contains a number of old pensioners who, like my friend the Subadar, love to talk of their own deeds, the prowess of their Sahibs, and how they marched with the regiment towards Kabul. The young men stand round and listen, and are fired with emulation, and there is no doubt that if the Sircar wants them the contingent of Meenas will increase. They are not a very numerous class, but they are steadfast and loyal. The love of honour and adventure will spread as wide a net among them as conscription, and there will be no jiwans seen in the villages who are not home on leave.

THE JHARWAS
(BY AN OFFICER WHO HAS COMMANDED THEM)

There are not many aboriginals in the Indian Army--a few Brahuis from the borders of Beluchistan, the Mers and Merats and Meenas from the hills and jungles of Rajputana, and the Jharwas of Assam. The word "Jharwa" is the Assamese term for a "jungle-man," and how it came to be generally applied to the enlisted man from Assam and Cachar is lost in the obscurity of years. It is now the usual term for any sepoy who hails from these parts, with the exception of the Manipuri.

THE JHARWA.

When the Sylhet local battalion, afterwards the 44th Sylhet Light Infantry, now the 1/8th Gurkha Rifles, was raised on February 19th, 1824, it was composed of Sylhetis, Manipuris, and the surrounding tribes of Cachar, which province took its name from the Cacharis, who settled there at the beginning of the seventeenth century, having been driven out of the Assam valley by the Ahoms, or Assamese, and Muhammadans. The plainsmen of Assam were very warlike till the Muhammadan invasion in the sixteenth century, when they were so thoroughly overcome they fell an easy prey to the Burmese, who were finally driven out of Assam and Cachar by the British in 1824-26, since when the Assamese have settled down peacefully.

The principal races, now enlisted under the name of Jharwa, are the Mech, the Kachari, and the Rawa. The Mech mostly came from the region of Jalpaiguri, and spread eastwards. The Kachari were the original inhabitants of Assam; they are also found in Cachar, and are of the Koch stock, from whom Coochbehar takes its name; they generally call themselves Rajbansi, "of princely race." The Rawa (Ahoms) are also original Assamese. There are, besides, the Garos, who come from the Goalpara district. All the three former are Hindu converts, and show much more caste prejudice than the Gurkha does, though he, in turn, is not impressed with their Hindu claims. He raises no objection, however, to living under the same barrack-roof with them, but will not eat their food. In the old days, the Jharwa proved his value as a soldier in all the fighting in the valleys of Assam and Cachar, and surrounding hills. He rid the low country of the Khasias, who were the terror of the plains, as can be seen from the "The Lives of the Lindsays" and a recent publication "The Records of Old Sylhet," compiled by Archdeacon Firminger. The first troops engaged in the subjugation of the Khasias and Jaintias in their hills were Jharwas of the Sylhet battalion; the campaign began in 1829, and was continued at intervals until 1863, when the Jaintia rebellion was finally stamped out. Two companies of Gurkhas were brought into this regiment in 1832, and by degrees the Jharwa ceased to be enlisted in the regular army, till at last, in 1891, it was ordered that no more were to be taken. This was the time of the Magar and Gurung boom; in fact, except as regards the Khas, it was not considered the thing to enlist any other Gurkha races in the army. The fact that the Gurkha regiments up country earned their name with a large admixture of Garhwalis in their ranks, in the same way as the Assam regiments earned theirs with the help of many Jharwas, seemed largely to be lost sight of, and though the Jharwa had continued to do yeoman service in the ranks of the Assam Military Police, it was not till 1915 that it was thought worth while to try him in the regular army again. After the war, a regular Jharwa Regiment raised and stationed in Assam should be a most efficient unit, and a most valuable asset on that somewhat peculiar frontier.