A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II

by Sir W. H. Sleeman

The Nazim has charge of the districts of Sultanpoor, Haldeemow, Pertabghur, Jugdeespoor, and that part of Fyzabad which is not included in the estate of Bukhtawar Sing, yielding, altogether, about ten and a half lacs of rupees to Government. He exercises entire fiscal, judicial, magisterial and police authority over all these districts. To aid him in all these duties, he has four deputies—one in each district—upon salaries of one hundred and fifty rupees each a-month, with certain fees and perquisites. To inquire into particular cases, over all these districts, he employs a special deputy, paid out of his own salary. All the accountants and other writers, employed under him, are appointed by the deputies and favourites of the minister; and, considering themselves as their creatures, they pay little regard to their immediate master, the Nazim. But over and above these men, from whom he does get some service, he has to pay a good many, from whom he can get none. He is, before he enters upon his charge, obliged to insert, in his list of civil functionaries, to be paid monthly, out of the revenues, a number of writers and officers, of all descriptions, recommended to him by these deputies and other influential persons at Court. Of these men he never sees or knows anything. They are the children, servants, creatures, or dependents of the persons who recommend them, and draw their pay. These are called civil sufarishies, and cost the State much more than the military sufarishies, already mentioned—perhaps not less than six thousand rupees a-month in this division alone.

The Nazim is permitted to levy for incidental expenses, only ten per cent. over and above the Government demand; and required to send one-half of this sum to Court, for distribution. He is ostensibly required to limit himself to this sum, and to abstain from taking the gratuities, usually exacted by the revenue contractors, for distribution among ministers and other influential persons at Court. Were he to do so, they would all be so strongly opposed to the amanee, or trust system of management, and have it in their power so much to thwart him, in all his measures and arrangements, that he could never possibly get on with his duties; and the disputes between them generally results in a compromise. He takes, in gratuities, something less than his contracting predecessors took, and shares, what he takes, liberally, with those whose assistance he requires at Court. These gratuities, or nuzuranas, never appeared, in the public accounts; and were a governor, under the amanee system, to demand the full rates paid to contractors, the more powerful landholders would refer him to these public accounts, and refuse to pay till he could assure them of the same equivalents in nanker and other things, which they were in the habit of receiving from contractors. These, as a mere trust manager, he may not be able to give; and he consents to take something less. The landholders know that where the object is to exact the means to gratify influential persons about Court, the Nazim would be likely to get good military support, if driven to extremity, and consent to pay the greater part of what is demanded. When the trust manager, by his liberal remittances to Court patrons, gets all the troops he requires, he exacts the full gratuities, and still higher and more numerous if strong enough. The corps under Captains Magness, Bunbury, Barlow, and Subha Sing, are called komukee, or auxiliary regiments; and they are every season, and sometimes often in the same season, sold to the highest bidder as a perquisite by the minister. The services of Captain Magness and Captain Bunbury's corps were purchased in this way for 1850 and 1851, by Aga Allee, the Nazim of Sultanpoor, and he has made the most of them. No contractor ever exacted higher nazuranas or gratuities than he has, by their aid, this season, though he still holds the district as a trust manager. Ten, twenty, or thirty thousand rupees are paid for the use of one of these regiments, according to the exigency of the occasion, or the time for which it may be required.

The system of government under which Oude suffers during the reign of the best king is a fearful one; and what must it be under a sovereign, so indifferent as the present is, to the sufferings of his people, to his own permanent interests, and to the duties and responsibilities of his high station? Seeing that our Government attached much importance to the change, from the contract to the trust system of management, the present minister is putting a large portion of the country under that system in the hope of blinding us. But there is virtually little or no change in the administration of such districts; the person who has the charge of a district under it is obliged to pay the same gratuities to public officers and court favourites, and he exacts the same, or nearly the same from the landholders; he is under no more check than the contractor, and the officers and troops under him, abuse their authority in the same manner, and commit the same outrages upon the suffering people. Security to life and property is disregarded in the same manner; he confines himself as exclusively to the duties of collecting revenue, and is as regardless of security to life and property, and of fidelity to his engagements, as the landholders in his jurisdiction. The trust management of a district differs from that of the contractors, only as the wusoolee kubaz differs from the lakulamee; though he does not enter into a formal contract to pay a certain sum, he is always expected to pay such a sum, and if he does not, he is obliged to wipe off the balance in the same way, and is kept in gaol till he does so, in the same way. Indeed, I believe, the people would commonly rather be under a contractor, than a trust manager under the Oude Government; and this was the opinion of Colonel Low, who, of all my predecessors, certainly knew most about the real state of Oude.

The Nazim of Sultanpoor has authority to entertain such Tehseeldars and Jumogdars as he may require, for the collection of the revenue. Of these he has, generally, from fifty to sixty employed, on salaries varying from fifteen to thirty rupees a-month each. The Tehseeldar is employed here, as elsewhere, in the collection of the land revenue, in the usual way; but the Jumogdar is an officer unknown in our territories. Some are appointed direct from Court, and some by the Nazims and Amils of districts. When a landholder has to pay his revenue direct to Government (as all do, who are included in what is called the Hozoor Tehseel), and he neglects to do so punctually, a Jumogdar is appointed. The landholder assembles his tenants, and they enter into pledges to pay direct to the Jumogdar the rents due by them to the landholder, under existing engagements, up to a certain time. This may be the whole, or less than the whole, amount due to Government by the landholder. If any of them fail to pay what they promise to the Jumogdar, the landholder is bound to make good the deficiency at the end of the year. He also binds himself to pay to Government whatever may be due over and above what the tenants pledge themselves to pay to the Jumogdar. This transfer of responsibility, from the landholder to his tenants, is called "Jumog Lagana," or transfer of the jumma. The assembly of the tenants, for the purpose of such-adjustment, is called zunjeer bundee, or linking together. The adjustment thus made is called the bilabundee. The salary of the Jumogdar is paid by the landholder, who distributes the burthen of the payment upon his tenants, at a per centage rate. The Jumogdar takes written engagements from the tenants; and they are bound not to pay anything to the landholder till they have paid him (the Jumogdar) all that they are, by these engagements, bound to pay him. He does all he can to make them pay punctually; but he is not, properly, held responsible for any defalcation. Such responsibility rests with the landlords. Where much difficulty is expected from the refractory character of the landholder, the officer commanding the whole, or some part of the troops in the district, is often appointed the Jumogdar; and the amount which the tenants pledge themselves to pay to him is debited to him, in the pay of the troops, under his command.

The Jumogdars, who are appointed by the Nazims and Amils, act in the same manner with regard to the landlords and tenants, to whom they are accredited, and are paid in the same manner. There may be one, or there may be one hundred, Jumogdars in a district, according to the necessity for their employment, in the collection of the revenue. They are generally men of character, influence, and resolution; and often useful to both, or all three parties; but when they are officers commanding troops, they are often very burthensome to landlords and tenants. The Jumogdar has only to receive the sums due, according to existing engagements between the parties, and to see that no portion of them is paid to any other person. He has nothing to do with apportioning the demand, or making the engagements between tenants and landlords, or landlords and Government officers.

The Canoongoes and Chowdheries in Oude are commonly called Seghadars, and their duties are the same here as everywhere else in India.

December 28, 1849.—Twelve miles to Hundore, over a country more undulating and better cultivated than any we have seen since we recrossed the Goomtee river at Sultanpoor. It all belongs to the Rajah of Pertabghur, Shumshere Babadur, a Somebunsee, who resides at Dewlee, some six miles from Pertabghur. His family is one of the oldest and most respectable in Oude; but his capital of Pertabghur, where he used to reside till lately, is one of the most beggarly. He seems to have concentrated there all the beggars in the country, and there is not a house of any respectable to be seen. The soil, all the way, has been what they call the doomut, or doomuteea, which is well adapted to all kinds of tillage, but naturally less strong than muteear or argillaceous earth, and yields scanty crops, where it is not well watered and manured.

The Rajah came to my camp in the afternoon, and attended me on his elephant in the evening when I went round the town, and to his old mud fort, now in ruins, within which is the old residence of the family. He does not pay his revenue punctually, nor is he often prepared to attend the viceroy when required; and it was thought that he would not come to me. Finding that the Korwar and other Rajahs and large landholders, who had been long on similar terms with the local authorities, had come in, paid their respects, and been left free, he also ventured to my camp. For the last thirty years the mutual confidence which once subsisted between the Government authorities and the great landholders of these districts has been declining, and it ceased altogether under the last viceroy, Wajid Allee Khan, who appears to have been a man without any feeling of humanity or sense of honour. No man ever knew what he would be called upon to pay to Government in the districts under him; and almost all the respectable landholders prepared to defend what they had by force of arms; deserted their homes, and took to the jungles with as many followers as they could collect and subsist, as soon as he entered on his charge. The atrocities charged against him, and upon the best possible evidence, are numerous and great.

The country we have passed through to-day is well studded with fine trees, among which the mhowa abounds more than usual. The parasite plant, called the bandha, or Indian mistletoe, ornaments the finest mhowa and mango trees. It is said to be a disease, which appears as the tree grows old, and destroys it if not cut away. The people, who feel much regard for their trees, cut these parasite plants away; and there is no prejudice against removing them among Hindoos, though they dare not cut away a peepul-tree which is destroying their wells, houses, temples, or tombs; nor do they, with some exceptions, dare to destroy a wolf, though he may have eaten their own children, or actually have one of them in his mouth. In all parts of India, Hindoos have a notion that the family of a man who kills a wolf, or even wounds it, goes soon to utter ruin; and so also the village within the boundaries of which a wolf has been killed or wounded. They have no objection to their being killed by other people away from the villages; on the contrary, are very glad to have them so destroyed, as long as their blood does not drop on their premises. Some Rajpoot families in Oude, where so many children are devoured by wolves, are getting over this prejudice. The bandha is very ornamental to the fine mhowa and mango trees, to the branches of which it hangs suspended in graceful festoons, with a great variety of colours and tints, from deep scarlet and green to light-red and yellow.

Wolves are numerous in the neighbourhood of Sultanpoor, and, indeed, all along the banks of the Goomtee river, among the ravines that intersect them; and a great many children are carried off by them from towns, villages, and camps. It is exceedingly difficult to catch them, and hardly any of the Hindoo population, save those of the very lowest class who live a vagrant life, and bivouac in the jungles, or in the suburbs of towns and villages, will attempt to catch or kill them. All other Hindoos have a superstitious dread of destroying or even injuring them; and a village community within the boundary of whose lands a drop of wolf's blood has fallen believes itself doomed to destruction. The class of little vagrant communities above mentioned, who have no superstitious dread of destroying any living thing, eat jackalls and all kinds of reptiles, and catch all kinds of animals, either to feed upon themselves, or to sell them to those who wish to keep or hunt them.