While the Pawārs were ravaging the Jhānsī state with their bhūmiāwat, a merchant of Sāgar had a large convoy of valuable cloths, to the amount, I think, of forty thousand rupees,[9] intercepted by them on its way from Mirzāpur[10] to Rājputāna. I was then at Sāgar, and wrote off to the insurgents to say that they had mistaken one of our subjects for one of the Jhānsī chiefs, and must release the convoy. They did so, and not a piece of the cloth was lost. This bhūmiāwat is supposed to have cost the Jhānsī chief above twenty lākhs of rupees,[11] and his subjects double that sum.
Gopāl Singh, a Bundēla, who had been in the service of the chief of Pannā,[12] took to bhūmiāwat in 1809, and kept a large British force employed in pursuit through Bundēlkhand and the Sāgar territories for three years, till he was invited back by our Government in the year 1812, by the gift of a fine estate on the banks of the Dasān river, yielding twenty thousand rupees[13] a year, which his son now enjoys, and which is to descend to his posterity, many of whom will, no doubt, animated by their fortunate ancestor's example, take to the same trade. He had been a man of no note till he took to this trade, but by his predatory exploits he soon became celebrated throughout India; and, when I came to the country, no other man's chivalry was so much talked of.
A Bundēla, or other landholder of the Hindoo military class, does not think himself, nor is he indeed thought by others, in the slightest degree less respectable for having waged this indiscriminate war upon the innocent and unoffending, provided he has any cause of dissatisfaction with his liege lord; that is, provided he cannot get his land or his appointment in his service upon his own terms, because all others of the same class and clan feel more or less interested in his success.
They feel that their tenure of land, or of office, is improved by the mischief he does; because every peasant he murders, and every field he throws out of tillage, affects their liege lord in his most tender point, his treasury; and indisposes him to interfere with their salaries, their privileges, or their rents. He who wages this war goes on marrying his sisters or his daughters to the other barons or landholders of the same clan, and receiving theirs in marriage during the whole of his bhūmiāwat,[14] as if nothing at all extraordinary had happened, and thereby strengthening his hand at the game he is playing.
Umrāo Singh of Jaklōn in Chandērī, a district of Gwālior bordering upon Sāgar,[15] has been at this game for more than fifteen years out of twenty, but his alliances among the baronial families around have not been in the slightest degree affected by it. His sons and his grandsons have, perhaps, made better matches than they might, had the old man been at peace with all the world, during the time that he has been desolating one district by his atrocities, and demoralizing all those around it by his example, and by inviting the youth to join him occasionally in his murderous enterprises. Neither age nor sex is respected in their attacks upon towns or villages; and no Muhammadan can take more pride and pleasure in defacing idols—the most monstrous idol—than a 'bhūmiāwatī' takes in maiming an innocent peasant, who presumes to drive his plough in lands that he chooses to put under the ban.
In the kingdom of Oudh, this bhūmiāwat is a kind of nursery for our native army; for the sons of Rājpūt yeomen who have been trained in it are all exceedingly anxious to enlist in our native infantry regiments, having no dislike to their drill or their uniform. The same class of men in Bundēlkhand and the Gwālior State have a great horror of the drill and uniform of our regular infantry, and nothing can induce them to enlist in our ranks. Both are equally brave, and equally faithful to their salt—that is, to the person who employs them; but the Oudh Rājpūt is a much more tameable animal than the Bundēla. In Oudh this class of people have all inherited from their fathers a respect for our rule and a love for our service. In Bundēlkhand they have not yet become reconciled to our service, and they still look upon our rule as interfering a good deal too much with their sporting propensities.[16]
Notes:
1. Since the author's time conditions have much changed. Then, and for long afterwards, up to the Mutiny, every village throughout the country was fall of arms, and almost every man was armed. Consequently, in those tracts where the Mutiny of the native army was accompanied by popular insurrection, the flame of rebellion burned fiercely, and was subdued with difficulty. The painful experience of 1857 and 1858 proved the necessity of general disarmament, and nearly the whole of British India has been disarmed under the provisions of a series of Acts. Licences to have and carry ordinary arms and ammunition are granted by the magistrates of districts. Licences to possess artillery are granted only by the Governor-General in Council. The improved organization of the police and of the executive power generally renders possible the strict enforcement of the law. Some arms are concealed, but very few of these are serviceable. With rare exceptions, arms are now carried only for display, and knowledge of the use of weapons has died out in most classes of the population. The village forts have been everywhere dismantled. Robbery by armed gangs still occurs in certain districts (see ante, Chapter 23, note 14), but is much less frequent than it used to be in the author's days.
2. Many towns and villages bear the name of Mau (auglicè, Mhow), which may be, as Mr. Growse suggests, a form of the Sanskrit mahi, 'land' or 'ground'. The town referred to in the text is the principal town of the Jhānsī district, distinguished from its homonyms as Mau- Rānīpur, situated about east-south-east from Jhānsī, at a distance of forty miles from that city. Its special export used to be the 'kharwā' cloth, dyed with 'ai' (see ante., Chapter 31, note 4).
3. This insurrection continued into the year 1833. 'The inhabitants were reduced to the greatest distress, and have, even to the present day, scarcely recovered the losses they then sustained' (N.W.P. Gazetteer, vol. i (1870), p. 296).