colonial beginnings and the indian response: the … beginnings and the indian response: the revolt...

Colonial Beginnings and the Indian Response: The Revolt of 1857-58 in Madhya PradeshAuthor(s): David BakerSource: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Jul., 1991), pp. 511-543Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312615 .

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Moder Asian Studies 25, 3 ( 99I), pp. 511-543. Printed in Great Britain.

Colonial Beginnings and the Indian Response: The Revolt of I857-58 in Madhya Pradesh

DAVID BAKER

St Stephen's College, Delhi

The Narmada valley and adjoining districts of Madhya Pradesh' came under British administration following the defeat of Sagar and

Nagpur in I818. Known from I820 as the Saugor and Nerbudda

(Sagar and Narmada) Territories (map i), the area was

administered, variously, as an agency of the governor general or as a commissioner's division of the North Western Provinces. As officials made the area part of the British imperial and capitalist system, they met with increasing resistance from notables, smaller chiefs and

malguzars.2 A first round of protests occurred between 1818 and 1826, though these proved no match for the new administration or the

troops still in central India. A more determined agitation took place in

I842-43, to meet the same fate.3 In i857-58 the traditional landowners launched a third and more coordinated revolt against British

rule, but were again unable to dislodge it from the region. This essay explores the origins and nature of that revolt and it does so against the

background of colonial beginnings in Madhya Pradesh.

I

The revolt of I857-58 was partly a response to administrative changes seeking to promote capitalist development in the Sagar and Narmada

1 Historians today are more familiar with the term Madhya Pradesh than with its older form, the Central Provinces. The use of the current term is also to suggest a continuous history. The region referred to here comprised in the main the area covered by modern Sagar, Damoh, Jabalpur, Mandla, Seoni, Narsimhapur, Hoshangabad and Betul.

2 Malguzars or patels were responsible for paying the land revenue of an individual mahal or village.

3 This article is a companion to a similar study of the revolt of 1842-43, in preparation for inclusion in a volume to commemorate the late Professor R. M. Sinha of Jabalpur.

oo26-749X/9I $5.oo + .oo ? 1991 Cambridge University Press

5II



DAVID BAKER

Map i. Saugor and Nerbudda territories in 1857-58. Roads and main towns. With acknowledgement: The History of Freedom Movement in Madhya Pradesh.

Territories. This purpose remained uppermost, whether the administration was centred in the governor general or in the government of the North Western Provinces. Changes in government itself

began in the aftermath of the I842 revolt. In I843 the governor general, Lord Ellenborough, excised the territories from the North Western Provinces, and formed them once more into an agency of the central government under General Sleeman, well known in the region as director of operations against thagi. Ellenborough was convinced that unsympathetic administration was one of the 'real causes' of the revolt, and he urged Sleeman to effect

a total change in the whole spirit of the administration.... Adopting severity when unavoidable, but always preferring clemency, placing great examples for merited punishment by the side of high rewards for good conduct and the oblivion of pardonable offences.4

In the spirit of this injunction and its quest for development the government brought administration closer to the people. After the revolt it reconstituted the suppressed districts of Damoh, Seoni, Nar-

4 Hoshangabad District Office Records (DOR), 25-I91, R. N. C. Hamilton to W. H. Sleeman, 24 May I843.

512



THE REVOLT OF I857-58 IN MADHYA PRADESH

simhapur and Betul, and from I852 formed Mandla into a separate district for the first time, though its district officer remained subordinate to Jabalpur. The government also changed some tahsil and district boundaries and made a clean sweep of all district officers, now termed deputy commissioners, conferring upon them the revenue and criminal powers of collectors in the older provinces. And though at first Damoh, Mandla, Seoni and Betul were subordinate in revenue and criminal matters to Sagar, Jabalpur, Narsimhapur and

Hoshangabad, respectively, in I854 the Government of India declared the four 'junior' districts independent except in accounts, placing all districts except Mandla on a more even footing.5

Complex administrative changes interlocked the agency with the

government of the North Western Provinces, which had administered the region from 1831 to 1842. As agent Sleeman supervised the region, together with Gwalior, Jhansi, Bundelkhand and Rewa, for the governor general. Yet as agent he was also subordinate to the provincial Board of Revenue in revenue matters. All districts likewise remained subordinate to the Sadar Board of Revenue and Court in revenue and criminal matters, respectively. To streamline the judicial system the

governor general appointed a civil and sessions judge with no function in the revenue administration. In civil matters his jurisdiction was final subject only to the agent, but in criminal matters he was, like the

deputy commissioners, subject to the Sadar Court.

Expectedly, in i852 the Government of India placed the region once more under the Government of the North Western Provinces. It did so to simplify an over-complex system, and to bring the area under the closer supervision of the northern province. From I853 the

agent became commissioner ofJabalpur, thereafter a revenue division of the North Western Provinces. As such he became subordinate only to the Sadar Board of Revenue. The civil and sessions judge was likewise subordinate to the provincial government alone.

But whether as an agency of the governor general or a division of the North Western Provinces, the administration of the eight districts

sought to re-order the countryside more determinedly in the interests of capitalist development. The changing government remained com- mitted to encouraging capital, promoting trade and removing tradi-

5 Mandla DOR, io, G. A. Bushby to E. Clerk, 8 Aug. I853; Betul DOR, 147, W. C. Erskine to W. C. Western, 25 May I854. The new deputy commissioner, Clerk was to 'do all in ... [his] power to attract labour and capital to the spot by a liberal and judicious public administration'. The eight districts had been reduced to three in Bird's reform of I834.

5I3



tional barriers to the use of land for profit and to the growth of revenue. They did so as sections of the old landed community continued to decline, as evident in levels of debt, the surrender of land, and the transfer of malguzari leases.

In the North Western Provinces as in the agency officials continued to regard the notables as a barrier to the region's progress, and foreshadowed further changes among them. In 1853 officials alleged that Raja Bikramjit of Ramgarh in Mandla was oppressive and using his influence for 'bad purposes'.6 Several years later the administration condemned the chiefs of Mandla for their incompetence, and dismissed some as 'minors and idiots'.7 W. C. Erskine, commissioner from I856, left little doubt as to the government's intentions when he stated that

many of these chiefs own very large estates, either rent free or from which they pay a quit rent to government, and nearly all of which are neglected or grievously mismanaged. The chiefs are illiterate, some of them debauched ... and are so deeply involved in debt that many of them cannot honestly maintain themselves, families and numerous other adherents, nor satisfy their creditors, or their followers, and the latter . . . greatly plunder their ... neighbours. ... The chiefs are of many different castes ... and are ignorant in the extreme.8

In keeping with such views, the provincial government dealt more

severely with the debts of notables. As a preliminary it withdrew the order exempting heirs of talukdars from the jurisdiction of the civil courts in I849.9 In I851 the government cancelled the exemption of the thakur of Lakhnadon in Seoni, showing that it was prepared to extend the same treatment to others. The administration took the Gaindah estate in Jabalpur under management for debt in 1853, but as it still entailed a loss officers proposed to put a 'solvent and respect- able' malguzar in charge.10 The bankrupt estate of Kedarpur in Seoni seemed destined for direct management, also. However, the chiefs of the region remained as heavily indebted as ever, and in i856 the axe fell. In the interests of a more efficient countryside the government promulgated rules, whereby All the Chiefs who are known ... to be involved or whose debts give trouble

6 Mandla DOR, I2, Commr to Sec. NWP Govt, 21 Dec. i853. 7 Allahabad Post-Mutiny Records (APMR), Saugor and Nerbudda Territories

(SNT), Mandla, 1858, File I, Commr to W. Muir, 29 Sept. i858. 8 Jubbulpore Division Records, Supplementary JDRS), Pol. Dept, 26, 1856,

W. C. Erskine to C. B. Thornhill, 6 June I856. 9 Jubbulpore DOR, 490, G. A. Bushby to M. Smith, 2 Mar. I849. 10 JDRS, Rev. Dept, 27, I855, A. C. Gordon toJ. Thomason, 17 Aug. I855.

DAVID BAKER 5I4




... owing to their being exempted from the operations of the ordinary Civil Courts ... shall be called on for a schedule of their liabilities, and to make immediate arrangements ... for the settlement of their debts, and if they fail in doing so, the creditors shall also be called on to come forward and register their claims within 60 days ... The Chiefs . . . shall be invited to place their estates under the management of the District Officer ... Should the Chief not agree ... the same shall be reported to the Commissioner, who will either direct the estate to be taken in trust, or place the Chief at once under the ordinary Civil Courts. When an estate is taken in trust, the chiefs management will cease. The District Officer will then nominate a paid manager.... The District Officer shall after paying the Government Demand put aside a fair sum for the maintenance of the Chief and his followers. If the Chief should become again involved, ... he will be at once declared liable to the Ordinary Civil Courts. ... The District Officer may lease out the villages of an estate, if he thinks proper."

To maximize revenues the government continued to investigate muafi cases and to encroach more explicitly on traditional lands.12 Earlier confusion over the interpretation of rules on resumption per- sisted into the fifties, slowing down this process somewhat. In I854 the Government of the North Western Provinces hastened the investi-

gations by detailing officials to deal with larger estates, leaving settlement officers to decide small cases in the settlement recently announced. These instructions seem to have speeded up the resumption of the smaller plots, though in I856 the government reduced any lingering confusion by clarifying that incumbents at cession were to hold for life, but their heirs would hold for the term of the settlement in progress.'3 Otherwise the state was to resume all muafi grants. By 1861 the government had in fact resumed such grants, a great deal of land changing hands in the process. Further, it notified that detached

pieces of land that had escaped assessment would be included in the

forthcoming settlement. The provincial government was more hestitant to deal with the

larger ubari estates, though by I856 these were also under threat.14 Officials regarded these holdings as barriers to rural progress, too,

" Betul DOR, I74, W. C. Erskine to W. C. Western, 1 July I856. 12 Muafi lands were revenue-free grants generally in return for service to the state. 13

JDRS, Rev. Dept, 14, I856, Extract from Despatch from the Hon'ble the Court of Directors, I i June I856.

14 E. Whitcombe, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India, vol. i. The United Provinces under British Rule, i86o-9goo (New Delhi, I971), p. 303, describes ubari right as peculiar to Bundelkhand, 'whereby a subordinate chieftain was required to pay the difference (as ubari) between an amount arbitrarily fixed by his raja and the collec- tions of the estate assigned to him by his raja, in the case of the latter exceeding the former'.

515



DAVID BAKER

and they had begun investigating the tenure as far back as I834. The revolt of I842 interrupted the process, and though investigations resumed subsequently, the work was slow as large plots of land were involved and the status of those affected was considerable. Ubaridars themselves opposed the investigations, and this may have hampered progress as well. Up to I855 the government generally renewed ubari grants on the death of their holders, though enhancing the previous demand for the lifetime of the incoming ubaridar.'5 As the settlement enquiries got under way, some in the Board of Revenue urged the break-up of the old ubari estates and the admission of immigrants who would hasten progress and development.16 However, in i856 the Government of the North Western Provinces excluded the villages held in ubari from the enquiry into proprietary rights in order not to arouse 'excitement and discontent'.17 But it allowed the surveys of ubari estates in Mandla to proceed, and officials were to enquire into claims to land whenever an 'obaree tenure becomes open to settlement'.18

If official policies after I842 threatened notables, they also impinged further on malguzars. This was so, owing to the continued high level of land revenue which many malguzars found impossible to pay. Districts in Jabalpur division especially faced difficulties with their assessments, whereas in Narsimhapur, Hoshangabad and Betul the assessments were moderate, and officials generally collected the revenue without much difficulty. Problems with the settlement compelled the government to revise the assessments in Sagar, Damoh and Jabalpur; to bring hundreds of villages in Mandla under management; and to abandon the progressive enhancement in Seoni. Even in Hoshangabad officials reduced the assessment in I846.

Details of revenue balances, coercive measures and bad seasons reflected the difficulties malguzars faced in realizing the land revenue. In individual years in the forties all five northern districts showed balances that generally increased in the following decade.19 Even in

15 Mandla DOR, unindexed, 42, H. W. Hammond to W. Muir, 30 Nov. I855. 16 APMR, SNT, Mandla 7, 1861, Note by E. A. Reade, 15 Mar. i856;JDRS, Rev. Dept, 17, 1856, Note by E. A. Reade, 2 May 1856.

17 Mandla DOR, unindexed, 48, I831-57, W. Muir to H. W. Hammond, I4 Jan. 1856; Secretariat Records in Bundle Correspondence Files (SRBCF), General, 35, I863, CC's Memorandum, 30 July 1863.

18 Mandla DOR, unindexed, 48, I831-57, W. Muir to H. W. Hammond, 30 July I863.

19 For balances see Sadar Board of Revenue (SBR), 5 Oct. I847, 206, W. H. Sleeman to SBR, 12 Jan. I846; JDRS, Rev. Dept, 32, 1848, G. W. Hamilton to W. H.

516




the Narmada valley the government experienced increasing difficulty in realizing the revenue over two decades, confirmed by the riging incidence of coercive processes.20 These processes included the use of dastaks or notices of revenue due, distraint of property, and imprison- ment for default. Officials used coercion in the northern districts of

Sagar, Damoh and Seoni in the forties, but applied greater force in all districts in the following decade. Even so, coercion fell more severely on the five northern districts than on the Narmada valley, where the

people were better able to pay.21 Poor seasons aggravated the difficulties of high assessments and coercion. Seoni was badly affected in the forties, experiencing drought from 1840 to 1845. Drought occurred in Betul and districts in the northern part of the region between 1844 and 1846. Most districts experienced seasonal crises in the fifties.

The combination of high assessments, coercion and failing seasons forced many malguzars deeper into debt, alienating them further from the government. The levels of agricultural debt were high in all districts. In Sagar 'the greater part of the Malgoozars had become or were fast becoming insolvent' as early as I845.22 And from then until I86I the records of the district were 'full of the ruin of Malgoozars'. For Damoh, Sleeman complained by I847 that

Too much has been exacted by the Government, and ... the Malgoozars in consequence are more impoverished and involved in Debt than in any other part of the Saugor Territories, always excepting the jungly tract ... They have no capital and but little credit.23

By I856 officials described them as being 'completely ruined', as were malguzars in Jabalpur who were also deeply in debt.24 Malguzars in the jungly districts of Mandla and Seoni enjoyed the reputation of being the most heavily indebted in the region, even in the forties.25 In

prosperous Narsimhapur officials were horrified to observe by 1855 that no malguzar was free of debt; and in Hoshangabad where the

Sleeman, 25 Nov. 1848; SBR, 27 Feb. I852, 142, G. Chisholm to Commrs, 27 Feb. 1852; SBR, 12 Nov. I852, 133, G. Christian to G. A. Bushby, 12 Nov. 1852; Mandla DOR, 32, W. Lowe to C. B. Thornhill, 23 Sept. 1856; Report on the Land Revenue Settlement (RLRS) Seoni, 1916-20, p. 29.

20 For details of coercion see SBR files, I847-57, DOR and Central Provinces District Gazetteers (CPDG) for individual districts.

21 SBR, 9 Jan. I846, 30, W. H. Sleeman to SBR, 28 Nov. I845. 22 RLRS Saugor, i867, p. 45.

23 SBR, 28 Mar. 1848, 19. W. H. Sleeman to SBR, 12 Nov. i847. 24 JDRS, Rev Dept, 44, I856, W. C. Erskine to SBR, i Sept. i856; JDRS, Pol.

Dept., 46, i856, C. B. Thornhill to W. H. Lowe, 24 Oct. i856. 25

SBR, 28 Mar. 1848, i9, W. H. Sleeman to SBR, 12 Nov. I847.

517



chiefs were 'involved', malguzars could not have been less so.26 Many malguzars were 'more or less in debt and difficulties' in Betul, though officials claimed that its assessment was moderate.27

High and continuing indebtedness expressed itself in the constant transfer of malguzari leases in all districts.28 From I844 the Sadar Board permitted malguzars in the region to transfer malguzari, muafi and ubari leases, and in I854 revised the rules for bringing land cases before the courts. This led creditors to storm the courts to enforce

payment of their bonds. Successful suitors even had their debtors

imprisoned, or resorted to other 'exactions and extremities' which the courts had no power to restrain.29 As a result numerous transfers occurred in Sagar and, where malguzars deserted, the government farmed out the villages. In Damoh, where malguzars vainly tried to

pay the demand, many resigned, 'absconded, or were ejected as insolvent'. Numerous transfers took place for revenue default in

Jabalpur, such that by I856 land was 'rapidly changing hands'. In Mandla the government had assumed management of upwards of 300 villages by I847 after their malguzars had resigned. By then the number of transfers was beginning to mount in Seoni as well.

Malguzars in the Narmada valley also transferred estates as they were unable to pay the revenue, 71 of IIoo villages being transferred in

Narsimhapur in 1853-54 alone. In Betul, where officials claimed that

malguzars paid their revenues in full, 20% of villages had changed hands by I866. In the region as a whole 25% of all villages changed hands for indebtedness between I834 and I863.30

Those benefiting from these transfers were moneylenders, whether resident malguzars or moneylenders from the towns, who took over leases as an investment. As the original malguzars of 1834 transferred their mahals to new men, their community was transformed. 'Capital- ists' took advantage of impoverished malguzars in Sagar.31 In Damoh

26Narsinghpur DOR, I, i855, A. H. Ternan to W. C. Erskine, ii Jan. 1855; Hoshangabad DOR, 41-20, DC to W. C. Erskine, 27 May 1856; RLRS Hoshangabad, 1865, p. 141.

27 RLRS Betul, i866, p. 93. 28 For details of transfers in the districts, see RLRS Saugor, 1867, p. 94; JDRS, Rev.

Dept, 32, I848, G. W. Hamilton to W. H. Sleeman, 25 Nov. I848;JDRS, Pol. Dept, 46, I856, C. B. Thornhill to W. H. Lowe, 24 Oct. I856; RLRS Mandla, i869, p. 25; Mandla DOR, 32, W. Lowe to C. B. Thornhill, 23 Sept. I856; JDRS, Rev. Dept, 35, I855, J. C. Wood to W. C. Erskine, 15 Aug. i855; RLRS Betul, i894-99, p. 60.

29 JDRS, Judicial Dept, 24, I850, G. A. Bushby to W. H. Elliott, 15 Aug. i850. 30 Papers of Sir G. M. Chitnavis, 1917-23, File 20, p. 5, quoting H. Crosthwaite.

3' JDRS, Rev. Dept, 20, 1852, A. Skene to G. A. Bushby, 20 Sept. 1852.

5i8 DAVID BAKER



THE REVOLT OF 1857-58 IN MADHYA PRADESH

mere farmers ... who had taken up farming leases only a few years before the close of the twenty years settlement, which ended in 1855 . . . were mere speculators, and many of them the village Mahajans, who suddenly stopped the tuccavee advances ... the old Malgoozars, broken down from the previous over-assessment, and utterly crushed by the total failure of the spring crops of I855-56 ... and then stepped forward to take the farming lease of the village. . . . They were generally successful, as the revenue authorities were nothing loath to get rid of a bankrupt Malgoozar for a substantial farmer.32

Reports from Jabalpur in I856 described the mass of landholders as

'Mahajun-ridden' as old malguzars transferred their leases to 'the

Mahajuns and others of the money making classes'.33 By I860 'a few

wealthy men' controlled large numbers of villages in Jabalpur. Moneylenders were also becoming malguzars in Mandla; and in Seoni malguzars without capital surrendered their villages to 'richer men', some of whom were Kullars and mahajans.34 In Narsimhapur 'wily muhajuns' duped 'great and small' alike by playing on their

ignorance; while capitalists pressed their claims to leases in Betul.35 In these somewhat desperate conditions the clarifications of the

Board of Revenue on sub-letting and inheritance had little effect.36 In

I843 the Board explained that its earlier strictures against sub-letting and the heirs of dead malguzars referred only to government farms.

They thus ordered the authorities to put the heirs of a patel into

possession of a lease if his father died, whereas in a government farm an heir could succeed his father only if the commissioner approved. In

I849 the Board again acknowledged the hereditary principle in suc- cession to a malguzari lease, and affirmed that where joint malguzars held estates their heirs could divide the estate into separate shares, a

practice it had earlier forbidden. Indebtedness marked the peasant community as well, indicating

the deep impact of the new agricultural policies. For the first time government records dealt extensively with peasants, as officials blamed over-assessment and rack renting for their dependence on

32 RLRS Damoh, i866, pp. 74-5. 33 JDRS, Pol. Dept, 46, 1856, C. B. Thornhill to W. H. Lowe, 24 Oct. i856;

Resolution on the Revenue Administration of CP (LRA Resn), i889-go, Annexure A, p. 3. 34 JDRS, Rev. Dept, 24, I856, B. Hawes to W. C. Erskine, 29 May 1856; APMR, SNT, Mandla, 5, I853-60, G. F. S. Browne to A. H. Cocks, 4 May 1859. 35 Betul DOR, I21, W. H. Sleeman to J. K. Spence, 18 June I846; Narsinghpur DOR, 6, 1848, A. H. Ternan to G. A. Bushby, 3 Aug. I859. 36 The material in this paragraph is drawn from SBR, 31 Jan. I845, 5, W. H. Elliott to SBR, I8 April I843, and W. H. Sleeman to Major Macadam, I May 1843; SBR, 13 July I849, 8I, W. Muir to G. A. Bushby, i3 July I849.

519



moneylenders. Powers available to malguzars after 842 provide some evidence of the financial difficulties of their tenants. By I845 malguzars in some districts were suing tenants for not paying their rents. In 1852 the government issued rules relating to summary and regular suits for arrears of rent and the ejection of tenants who did not pay their rents. Two years later the Board of Revenue permitted malguzars to distrain property for non-payment of rents. Peasants

frequently deserted, too, when unable to pay the rent or meet increas-

ing debts. Reports from most districts underlined the difficulties faced by cultivators, but nowhere was their fate worse than in Mandla, where

It is a common practice for the Malgoozars to break faith with the Gond ryots to lure them to cultivate by low terms, and then carry off the crop. The ryot has no redress, for the nearest revenue officer is at Seonee ... eighty miles from the town of Mundla. In order to supply the liquor they cannot live without and to carry on cultivation, the Gonds are obliged to take advances. ... The interest runs high.... The advance and repayment are both in kind. Fifty to a hundred percent is a common rate of interest, and much more is made by many malgozars as lenders than as landlords. Villages are generally taken to give the malgozar a hold on his debtor ryut, and the juma is not so much a portion of the rent as a fine for a license [sic] to carry on loan business.37

Reports of declining yields and soil fertility accompanied the over- assessment and debt evident at all levels of rural society.38 Only the best land in Sagar and Damoh grew wheat, but by I848 part of this was 'exhausted or lying fallow'. In Mandla cultivation had receded by i856, partly due to official neglect, and partly because, as in

neighbouring Seoni, hill soil was 'poor and unproductive'. In the fifties officials believed that land in Narsimhapur was gradually deteriorating, though 'at a decreasing rate'. Twenty years before, regular cultivation was exhausting soils in Hoshangabad and yields were falling.

37 JDRS, Rev. Dept, 24, Minute by F. H. R. Robinson, Mandla, 21 Mar. i848. For the poverty and debt of cultivators in other districts, see JDRS, Rev. Dept, 34, B. Hawes to W. C. Erskine, 9 Jan. i853; and A. Skene to W. C. Erskine, 7 Mar. 1844; Selections from Correspondence Relating to the Revenues of the Land Revenue Settlements in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, i85-62, W. C. Erskine to SBR, 7 July 856.

38 This paragraph is taken from JDRS, Agric. Dept, 26, I848, G. W. Hamilton, Report on Wheat in the districts of Saugor and Damoh, 28 June I848; APMR, SNT, Mandla, 7, I86I, Note on Mandla by E. A. Reade, 15 March i856; SBR, I8 Sept. I840, I30, C. Fraser to SBR, 28 Aug. I840; CPDG, Narsinghpur, p. 89; RLRS Iloshangabad, 1865, pp. 92-3.

DAVID BAKER 520




II

Changes in the economic and commercial life of the region went hand in hand with changes in society and the patterns of agriculture result-

ing from official policies. Commercial change in particular stimulated the growth of a merchant community which, as we have seen, was

extending its activities to agriculture. Another commercial change with social implications was the government's claim to the forests. This claim disputed the assumption by chiefs that the forests were their preserve, and threatened the shifting mode of cultivation tribal

peasants employed there. British claims to the forests took shape after the revolt of 1842. The

forests of Gondwana covered a vast area, which early civil servants 'never dreamt of penetrating'.39 Even by 1853 the jungles remained

largely unexplored. Until I845 district officers permitted cutters to fell valuable timber more or less indiscriminately. In that year Sleeman forbade the cutting of such timber without a permit on the grounds that all land belonged to the government.40 Several years later the authorities sought to bring forests in Sagar, Seoni and other districts under closer supervision in order to exploit their resources more

effectively. A clearer policy on forests emerged when the region rejoined the

North Western Provinces in I852. In I850 C. A. Bushby, then agent, forbade fellers to extract timber on the grounds that the government owned the land. Two years later as commissioner he appointed the

region's first conservator of woods and forests, while excluding forest land from the ensuing settlement. In 1854 the Government of the North Western Provinces formally proclaimed that

the Government reserves to itself the right to all large forests, where valuable timber exists .... Where large tracts of lands either forests or cultivated exist, the Government also reserves a right to dispose of such as it may think proper.41

In keeping with this announcement, Erskine ordered officials in forest districts such as Mandla to stop issuing permits for cutting and to hand over the teak and other forests to the officer appointed. Similarly

31 J. Forsyth, The Highlands of Central India (London, 1871), p. 16.

40 APMR, SNT, Jubbulpore, 67, 1859-60, Sec Rev. Bd to Sec. Govt NWP, 24 Feb. i860.

41 Ibid. The conservator was Lieut. Lord, the 'superintendent of the Great Deccan Road'.

52I



the deputy commissioner ofJabalpur ruled that no one was to cut teak in his district without permission. From I854 the provincial government was ready to demarcate and reserve areas of forest, preparatory to utilizing their resources for its own profit.

The declaration in I854 that the Government of the North Western Provinces proposed to give malguzars proprietary rights to the soil foreshadowed even greater changes in the region's economy and

society. In I834 the administration had gone some way to accom- modate the interests of malguzars, and Sleeman when agent advo- cated the grant of proprietary rights to secure the reinvestment of

capital in the soil.42 The announcement of I854 made this a reality for

malguzars in possession of any mahal in I 840. As with official policies relating to debt, muafi lands and forests, the main object of the

proposal was to put capital into rural areas. The government reasoned that rights to property would encourage malguzars to invest in agriculture, and that progress and the development of the region would automatically follow. This vision of capitalist ownership based on profits contrasted markedly with the traditional order where

hereditary owners were unconcerned with development and profit. To

encourage capital further, in I855 the government staked its claim to half the net assets of the village instead of two-thirds as before.

Before announcing the bestowal of proprietary rights, the provincial government declared that it intended to revise the land revenue settlement. From the outset the government realized the need for accurate records:

In districts like those of Saugor and Jubbulpore, of which no correct data exist for settlement purposes for lengthened periods, it becomes of infinite importance to have some faithful guide to trust in forming a standard of assessment, or to regulate contemplated improvements for the extension of cultivation, and these can only be obtained and depended upon by a rigid observance and record of every feature of the country, conducted by officers whose experience affords unimpeachable guarantees for accuracy of details and uniformity of results.43

The work of instructing patwaris in the methods of survey began in I853. Two years later as the surveys proceeded the government founded the Department of Survey. Surveys commenced in Sagar, Damoh and Jabalpur from 1853, in Betul in I855, in Hoshangabad

42 C. Bates, 'Land Tenure and Tenurial Reform in Central India', unpublished seminar paper, Nov. I98I, p. 6.

43 Nagpur Secretariat and Residency Records (NRSR), Rev. io, 1855, Dept. Surveyor General to W. H. Muir, 3 Nov. 1854.

DAVID BAKER 522



THE REVOLT OF I857-58 IN MADHYA PRADESH 523

shortly after, and in Narsimhapur in I856. The Board of Revenue

opposed making a proprietary settlement in Mandla, and made separate arrangements there. However, the surveys ran into difficulties in some districts owing to bad seasons, cattle epidemics and the 'strenuous dislike of the Putwarees'.44 Moreover, as the revolt devel-

oped, officials everywhere abandoned proceedings. The announcement of the malguzari settlement in I854 coincided

with an encouraging growth of trade in agricultural produce. Markets were a necessary preliminary to the establishment of rights to property, for without the sale of agricultural produce investment in agriculture had little meaning. But communications were necessary before trade could grow, as Sleeman knew in I848 when he blamed the lack of communications for the region's inability to export wheat to England.45 Yet at the time there was little official interest in or finance for improving the region's road system. Robberies, forests and wild animals posed additional hazards to freer movement.

But the government gradually realised that, to exploit the region's resources, it needed to improve communications. Towards the mid- fifties engineers completed a survey of the region's road systems and selected certain roads for upgrading. In 1854 they began constructing a modern road between Nagpur and Mirzapur, the region's most

important artery. The following year the Government of India sanc- tioned money for the project, which it described as a 'permanently metalled and bridged route(s) for postal and general communica- tion'.46 In 1855 central and provincial public works departments replaced military boards in the construction of roads for commercial

purposes. By then, also, the government had abolished transit duties to encourage a freer flow of produce in the region.

By 1857 the most important commercial development was the growing trade in wheat. By then the area under cultivation had expanded and land values were rising, and officials saw that a more stable trade in wheat was replacing the uncertainty farmers once faced in selling surplus grain. The most significant development was the shift in the destination of wheat exports from Mirzapur and the north to larger and more stable markets in Malwa, Nagpur and Berar. In I864 the principal assistant at Nargaon in Bundelkhand explained the reason for this shift:

Whereas formerly grain had come up through the district from Saugor, 44 RLRS Hoshangabad, i865, p. 144. 45 Narsinghpur DOR, 5, I848, W. H. Sleeman to H. M. Elliott, 29 Aug. 1848. 46 Jubbulpore DOR, 552, W. E. Baker to W. H. Muir, 13 Feb. I855.



DAVID BAKER

Jubbulpore and Narbada, and had passed on to the British districts to the north, the traffic now came down ... through Bundelkhand to the south.... Stratton explained that better markets for the grain of Saugor and Narbada were now to be found in the south rather than the north; response to these new attractions had led to Bundelkhand's having to draw some of its grain supplies of late from the Doab. He suggested a number of reasons for the rise of better markets to the south: recent deficiencies in the harvests of 'various southern districts'; extensive cultivation of cotton in the Deccan taking up former grain land; a similar situation in Malwa, owing to the increase in opium cultivation; and extensive public works in the Deccan. 'All these events combining either to diminish production, or enhance the price, or both, they have raised prices in Malwa and the Daccan, and thus attracted Narbada grain to those marts'.47

The growing trade in wheat challenged the place of cotton as the

region's main export. Narsimhapur produced most cotton in the

region, followed by Hoshangabad. Jabalpur and Damoh produced smaller quantities. Most cotton exports went to Mirzapur, though some went to Bombay, while poorer quality cotton found its way to local markets. The acreage under cotton rose after 1834 and again in the fifties, stimulated by the Crimean War. Nonetheless, although agriculturists in the Sagar and Narmada Territories were producing large quantities of cotton in 1853, exports grew 'irregularly and rather

slowly' and, as the decade progressed, it appeared that wheat was

bidding to overtake cotton as the prime export of the region.48 Other produce moved in and out of the region as economic life

developed after 1842. This flow was quite substantial, as the following report from Jabalpur indicates:

Before the ... railway the trade of the district was carried on by Banjaras and others by means of pack bullocks, while country carts were also used for carrying the produce of the District to Mirzapur. The other roads were impassable for carts. The local grain is regarded to have been of fair quality; gur and hemp were good; while cotton had a good reputation in ... Mirzapur ... Ghi and hides are also said to have been largely exported towards the north. The import trade consisted principally of salt . . . sugar, spices, brass and copper utensils and English cloth and woollen manufac-

47 Whitcombe, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India, p. 182. The principal assistant at Nargaon was J. P. Stratton.

48 Jubbulpore DOR, 552, G. V. Winscom, Report on the Saugor-Jubbulpore and

other Roads, 23 Sept. I853; W. G. Wake, 'The Relations between Transportation Improvements and Agricultural Changes in Madhya Pradesh, India, I854-1954,' unpublished PhD thesis, UCLA 1961, pp. 15, I60; P. F. McEldowney, 'Colonial Administration and Social Developments in Middle India, the Central Provinces, 186I-1921', unpublished PhD thesis, University of Virginia, 1980, p. 398.

524




tures from the north, some rice from the south and jungle produce from the east beyond the border.49

Part of this was due to the remaking of the Great Northern Road, which also led Seoni to export iron, cloth, leather, and forest produce north towards the Ganges and south to Nagpur. Lac from the central forests went north through Mirzapur to the Calcutta market. Mer- chants in Seoni-Malwa in Hoshangabad exported ghee and dyes to Indore. The Narmada valley also enjoyed a considerable export trade in iron and other metals.

A substantial merchant community in the towns handled the

region's growing export and import trade. As earlier, merchants plied their business in important towns such as Damoh, Jabalpur, Seoni, Gadarwara, Seoni-Malwa and others. Towns such as Seoni became more important because of the growing trade along the northern road. Others like Gadarwara and Seoni-Malwa acted as centres for collect-

ing grain, ghee and dyes, which local merchants exported in large quantities. In tahsil places such as Shahpur in Sagar, merchants maintained agents. Itinerant traders would have been a common

sight in more remote areas, selling grain at times of dearth, or buying up surplus crops for sale in neighbouring Bundelkhand or the Nagpur State.

Rising prices after I842 indicated the growing importance of the market in the economy of the Sagar and Narmada Territories.

Initially prices remained low, reflecting either the lack of communications or an unstable market. Low prices, in turn, gave way to a period when prices fluctuated, depending on the quality of local harvests. But as communications improved and demand for agricultural produce increased, prices began a pronounced and sustained upward trend. Occasionally, too, moneylenders combined to hold prices high, as the district officer of Damoh reported in I855.50

Continued efforts to replace local currencies with Company coins

highlighted the gathering pace of change in central India. Earlier

attempts to do this had failed, and in 185I Nagpur rupees circulating in Narsimhapur had 'nearly superseded' English currency.5' The position was much the same in Jabalpur and Hoshangabad. Indeed the circulation of Company currency was sufficient only in Sagar and Damoh, but even they reported a good deal of 'mixed currency' on

49 CPDG, Jubbulpore, p. 233. 50 JDRS, Agric. Dept, i6, 1855, A. C. Gordon to W. C. Erskine, 28 Mar. 1855. 51 SBR, 31 Oct. 1851, 55, A. H. Ternan to C. Grant, 8 June i850.

525



their borders.52 Though the government refused to accept Nagpur rupees in payment of dues, this seems to have had little effect in

forcing people to use British currency. Consequently, in I853 the Government of the North Western Provinces proscribed the Nagpur rupee, though merchants continued to use it, particularly inJabalpur and Narsimhapur.

With the escheat of the Nagpur State in I854 the prospects for

Company currency improved. That year the government declared that it would make all payments from the Nagpur treasury, including salaries, in Company rupees, though maintaining an official exchange rate between the currencies.53 However, as minting of the old rupee ceased, its value in the market rose. To strengthen the Company's money further, the government announced that officials would fix the assessments of the forthcoming settlement in Company rupees and

that, besides Company money, malguzars could only pay the revenue in specified coins emanating from the old Nagpur mint.54 This policy seems to have succeeded somewhat. Towards the end of the fifties the circulation of English rupees in the Narmada valley rose, though both old and new currencies were virtually unknown in the hills where cultivators used cowrie shells or made payments in kind.

On the eve of the great revolt, then, central India stood poised on the currents of change. These changes generally preceded British rule, but the policies of British administrators accelerated them consider-

ably. In I857 traditional chiefs were more under threat than at any previous time: they were highly indebted, and their estates had decreased or were settled with lessees. In some cases the government had taken over their management. Officials had dealt with most muafi

grants, permitting only a few to continue on a permanent basis. Ubari

grants were under scrutiny with a view to their ultimate resettlement, though few estates had entered this process. Debt was removing large numbers of malguzars; and newcomers, many of them moneylenders, had made deep inroads into village management. Communications were beginning to improve, and prices were responding to the

improved demand for agricultural exports. Crop patterns were changing. Imported British cloth had made its appearance, and a standard

Company rupee was becoming common. In every district of the

region preparations for giving malguzars proprietary rights were in

progress. As a modern commentator observed:

52 FP, 115, 20 June 1851, A. G. Bushby to Sir H. Elliott, 13 May I851. 53 SRBCF, Financial, I, 1863, W. Biss to Sec. CC, 7 July 1863. The exchange rate in I855 was ioo Company rupees to i 17 Nagpur rupees.

54 SRBCF, Financial, 2, 1857, C. B. Thornhill to W. H. Lowe, nd, May I857.

526 DAVID BAKER




In short, every aspect of agriculture and agricultural life was either in process of change or at the point of incipient change ... far more rapidly in the lowlands than in the hills, and in the Cotton and Wheat Zones than in the Rice Zone.55

III

At this point of insistent change the traditional leaders of the

countryside rose to defend a world that was passing. The result was the revolt of 1857. In some ways the revolt was similar to that of 1842. Bundela Rajput, Lodhi, Gond and other notables again dominated the agitation and largely in the same areas. But important differences existed between the two movements. The patriotism of I857 was far more explicit than that of I842; resistance to British rule was more intense in I857, and involved elements of the British Indian Army. The revolt of I857 occurred on a much wider scale than in 1842, such

that the authorities temporarily lost control of three districts and parts of others. Malguzars participated more prominently in 1857, and were joined in some cases by their peasants. Moreover, the revolt of

1857 in the Sagar and Narmada Territories was part of the

countrywide protest against British rule, whereas the disturbances of I842 were confined to those territories alone.

Let us first explore the social nature of the revolt. Though civilians

played a key role, units of the Indian Army spearheaded the agitation. The reported issue of cartridges greased with pigs' fat and official interference with traditional religion disturbed elements of the army in central as in other parts of India.56 Soldiers in Jabalpur heard with tension the reactions of their compatriots in Delhi and Meerut by 17 May, though by then troops in Sagar and probably Jabalpur also had refused to use any fresh cartridges that might be handed out. In the

following weeks tension mounted, and in mid-June all Europeans in

Jabalpur collected in the Residency. Soldiers began treating their officers with 'familiarity', but declared that they would revolt only if

European regiments came to disarm them.57 Erskine as commissioner refused to trust the regiments' loyalty, and throughout July kept the

52nd Bengal Infantry busy quelling disturbances in various parts of the district. He perhaps feared that troops from Sagar already in

55 Wake, pp. 103-4. 56 For events of the revolt see D. P. Mishra et al., The History of Freedom Movement in

Madhya Pradesh (Nagpur, 1956); and Madhya Pradesh District Gazatteers (MPDG) and CPDG for individual districts.

57 CPDG, Jubbulpore, p. 66.

527



DAVID BAKER

revolt might march toJabalpur; and certainly feared that chiefs would join the army in opposing the government. On 2 August a column of troops from Kamptee near Nagpur arrived to keep order in Jabalpur and in Sagar and Damoh, where disturbances had already broken out.

The arrival of troops from outside seems to have aggravated the situation. Reports indicated that thakurs and malguzars in Jabalpur were merely awaiting a signal from the army to join them. The sepoys for their part sought a leader of stature to give patriotic point to their agitation. They found him in Raja Shankar Shah, a descendant of the Gond Kings of Garha-Mandla. Sepoys visited the raja frequently to discuss the reports of revolt from other parts of India, and in sympathy with these risings allegedly planned to attack the cantonment on the night of Mohurrum, 18 September I857. They planned to do so, so the government believed, with the support of the notables and other landholders of the district. The British authorities seized the initiative by arresting Shankar Shah and his son, and on 18 September blew both men from cannon in the town. That night the 52nd Infantry left Jabalpur for Delhi, troops from Patan and Slee- manabad joining them along the road to Sagar. A Madras column defeated the force at Katangi, but the remnant went on to plunder Damoh and join chiefs from Sagar and Damoh in seizing the fortified town of Garhakota in Sagar district.

By then troops from Sagar had joined the revolt as reports of army disturbances filtered in from other parts of India. From June troops began to hold nightly meetings, supposedly discussing the 'destruction of all Europeans'.58 But little of note occurred until 13 June, when loyal soldiers of the 42nd Regiment set off to lift the siege of Lalitpur and protect the northern border of Sagar. Although army authorities seized and tried any who sought to prevent their movement, the Raja of Banpur sealed the passes north of Malthone and kept the troops from proceeding further. Towards the end of June European officers and residents moved into the fort in Sagar, taking with them light arms, artillery and the district treasury. On I July members of the 42nd Regiment, the 3rd Cavalry unit, and the 3Ist regiment plundered and seized control of the cantonment. And when some men of the 3 Ist opposed these moves, rebel troops left the town for Damoh where, failing to capture the treasury, they looted the surrounding countryside. Troops from Sagar invaded Narsimhapur and plundered

58 Foreign, 559-73, 30 Oct. 1857, Secret A, end. W. C. Western to Commr, 5July

1857.

528




Tendukhera in August; and in October they again attacked Damoh before joining other insurgents under the Raja of Shahgarh at Garhakota in Sagar. By then the remnant of the 52nd Infantry had

joined the raja also. Numbers of civilians from well defined clans or communities made

common cause with the army in its revolt against the government. To these civilians the initiative passed after the first wave of rebellion by the army. Prominent among them were the Gond rajas and thakurs of

Jabalpur, Mandla, Narsimhapur and Hoshangabad. The Raja of Garha-Mandla's sympathy for the revolt and his subsequent annihila- tion fired the patriotism of many Gond leaders and drew them into the

agitation. But in joining the revolt they were also protesting against the administration's attitude to the tribal community in general. Offi- cials condemned tribal agriculture and criticized tribals as lazy, ignorant, wild and drunken.59 Moreover, after showing little concern with the wilderness, the government had suddenly asserted its claim to the forests where tribals had roamed for centuries. From 1842, too, Hindu settlement encroached further on tribal farming land, while Hindu landlords continued to rack rent the Gond peasantry where

they occupied common territory.60 Gond notables also rose in final protest against an administration

that threatened their lands and status. The indebtedness of some led creditors to bring them to the courts and attach their property in satisfaction of debt. Others like the Raja of Kanauj-Bhutgaon, an ubaridar in Jabalpur, suffered at the hands of officials. He had held estates 'rent free from the Gond Government'. The Government of

Nagpur converted the jagir into an ubari holding, a decision confirmed by the British administration, though at an increased revenue.61 Officials subsequently increased the revenues again, and

by 1857 the raja was in arrears and indebted, and a prospective defendant in the courts. Behind this raja and many like him lay the

59 JDRS, Rev. Dept, 29, I847, W. H. Sleeman to SBR, 27 Nov. I847; Mandla DOR, 28, H. F. Waddington to Commr, 19 June 1856.

60 C. Bates, 'Anthropologists, Administrators and the Irrationality of Tribal Society in the Former Central Provinces of India', unpublished seminar paper, Cam- bridge, 198I, pp. I9-20; JDRS, Rev. Dept, 24, I856, Minute by F. H. Robinson, 2I Mar. 1848.

61 NRSR, Rev. 20, I864,J. K. Spence to H. MacKenzie, 4 April I864. The Nagpur government had taken as revenue Rs 1,700 in Nagpur currency. In I819-20 the

Company administration raised this to Rs 2,825, also in Nagpur currency. From I826-29 the revenue rose to Rs 4,ooo. Between 1830-39 the administration switched to Company currency, levying a revenue of Rs 3,400. By 1850 this had been raised to Rs 4,700.

529



DAVID BAKER

official determination to cut the 'tall poppies' and 'protect' the villages of notables by a direct settlement.62 Thus, like many others, the Raja of Kanauj-Bhutgaon 'assembled his Clansmen around him' and plundered the tahsili of Sleemanabad to express his anger at the

government that had ruined him and reduced his order. But whether from concern for their lands or loyalty to Garha-

Mandla, Gond chiefs revolted against the government on a wide scale. In Jabalpur many Gond talukdars and thakurs joined forces with units of the army; and Gonds under a Lodhi thakur captured the

Bargi area. Rebels from Jabalpur allegedly stirred Gond thakurs to revolt in neighbouring Mandla. Bukroo, Gond malguzar of Mandla

pargana,

one of the most energetic and desperate leaders of the Ramgurh rebels, ... plundered a great number of villages, [and] assisted in driving in the Thaneh of Bicheea. An old offender; he has been in Jail already.63

In Seoni only the personal intervention of the deputy commissioner restrained the Gond thakur of Dhuma from revolt. South of the Narmada in Narsimhapur and Hoshangabad the Gonds were less active. In Narsimhapur the Gond thakurs of Madanpur and Dhilwar, still smarting from defeat in 1842, again joined battle. Most landholders, however, remained neutral and watched events, keeping armed men ready should circumstances require their use. Gond rajas in Hoshangabad sympathized with insurgents from Bhopal who invaded the district in 1859, though by then the main revolt was over. One Korku, the Raja of Harrakot in the Mahadev Hills, joined the insurgents.

Lodhi rajas and thakurs from different districts also participated in the revolt on a large scale. The main centres of Lodhi revolt were Damoh, Mandla and Narsimhapur, with additional outbreaks in

Sagar, Jabalpur and Seoni. In all districts they joined Gond, Bundela and other rebels in defying British rule and its efforts to reshape the countryside. Lodhi resistance to British rule was most evident in Mandla where the Lodhi thakurs of Shahpur and Ramgarh dominated the agitation. British officials had begun to survey the ubari

holdings of these thakurs as a prelude to settlement at some future date. The thakurs thus felt under sufficient threat to revolt, taking their Gond peasants with them as they did so. Bijay Singh, the Lodhi thakur who held Shahpur in ubari from the Raja of Ramgarh and was

62 NRSR, Rev. 50, I864, II (1857), End. inJ. H. Morris to Sec. CC, 4 Aug. i864. 63 Mandla DOR, 65, H. F. Waddington to Commr, 3 Aug. i858.

530




related to him, drove the police out of Shahpur and marched on the district headquarters. In Ramgarh the royal family also opposed the

government for refusing to recognize the heir to the throne and

appointing a tahsildar to administer the state instead. Damoh district was another centre of Lodhi revolt. In a spectacular

show of unity nearly every petty chief there abandoned ties with the British Crown to join the Rajas of Banpur and Shahgarh who led the insurrection in the district.64 Lodhis in Damoh had every reason to

oppose foreign rule. Since 1818 the district had had an unenviable record in the administration of land revenue, which still pressed landholders in I857. Investigations into muafi and ubari grants also threatened the lands of many, while officials reduced the property of other landholders to settle debts. Once again the major centres of revolt were those where landholders refused to accept defeat by Com-

pany troops 15 years beforehand. In Damoh 'hundreds of malguzars', some Lodhis among them, aided the insurgents with men and

provisions.65 In other districts Lodhis played a smaller part in the revolt, reflect-

ing the less important place they held in local society. The Lodhi thakur of Bahrol in northern Sagar, Malkhan Singh, imprisoned for his part in the 1842 movement, left jail as the revolt began and, joined by his son, 'assumed a commanding position in the hierarchy of rebel leaders' in Sagar and Damoh alike. A Lodhi, Shiv Baksh, led the Gonds of Bargi in Jabalpur, while many Lodhi talukdars and their followers supported the revolt elsewhere in the district. Among them was the holder of the Singori Chukka estate, Latkunju, who revolted because

Major Erskine approved of the resumption of the Oobaree right, but recommended that the villages constituting the Talook should be settled with the old Zemeendars if such parties were forthcoming, Lutkunjoo to receive a Malikhanah of Io or 15 percent.... The Board ... most forcibly laid down that the percentage grant to Lutkunjoo was to be a simple pension, liable to reconsideration at the recipient's death. . . . The Estate was attached to prevent Lutkunjoo appropriating the assets thereof.... The rebellion broke out, in which Lutkunjoo joined body and soul, and ... forfeited all claim to the provision . . . from the Estate. The Family from first to last were a set of

64 W. C. Erskine, Narrative of Events attending the Outbreak of Disturbances and the Restoration of Authority in the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories in i857-i858, W. C. Erskine to W. Muir, io Aug. 1858. Lodhi chiefs supporting the revolt in Damoh, included Raja Gangadhar of Bangarh, Raja Devi Singh of Singrampur, Raja Tej Singh of Abhana and Thakur Kishore Singh of Hindoria.

65 MPFM, p. 75.

53I



DAVID BAKER

marauding scoundrels, and this Lutkunjoo is no better than his ancestors. ... The District will be well rid of the family.66

Only one Lodhi landowner of north Seoni joined rebels fromJabalpur and Narsimhapur when they plundered and burnt villages from their post on the hills overlooking the Jabalpur road. In Narsimhapur Meherban Singh, son of a Lodhi father and the Rani of Hirapur, threatened the district headquarters in revenge for the hanging of his relatives in I843 and the dissolution of the Hirapur estate.

The Bundela Rajputs played a dominant part in the 1857 revolt, as well. Their main area of operation was Sagar district, and the main leadership came from the chiefs of Bundelkhand, who were seeking to regain their lost estates. One such chief was Mardan Singh, the Raja of Banpur, who fought to retrieve his estate of Chanderi and the areas dependent on it, which British administrators had annexed to Gwalior. Early in the revolt Mardan Singh seized Lalitpur and invaded Sagar, garrisoning the fort of Khurai and levying revenue from villages nearby. Another chief from Bundelkhand to head the revolt in Sagar was Bakht Bali, the Raja of Shahgarh, with ancestral claims to Garhakota in Sagar district. British troops had ejected his family from the fort in 1818, and officials rejected subsequent claims to the estate.67 In July-August 1857 the Rajas of Banpur and Shahgarh sent emissaries to 'petty chiefs'.throughout the Sagar and Narmada Territories, inciting them to resist the government.68

The response among Bundelas in Sagar to the rajas' call to arms was overwhelming. Daulat Singh, brother of the Raja of Shahgarh, described as the 'rebel Raja of Rahatgarh', earned the reputation of being 'one of the most famous of Sagar rebels'.69 Balbhadra Singh of Singpur attacked Tendukhera in Narsimhapur with Delhan Shah, the Gond Thakur of Madanpur. Jawahar Singh of Chandrapur and the Bundela pensioner Mukund Singh joined the Raja of Banpur in action at Nariaoli in July. In July, too, one of the thakurs of Narhat refused to attend the deputy commissioner when asked to do so. Indeed in that district the government claimed that the 'whole of the Thakoors acted more or less against us'.70

66 NRSR, Rev. 17, 1859, F. A. Fenton to A. H. Cocks, 3 Dec. I859.

67 Foreign Political (FP), Foreign Consultation (FC), 3 Jan. 1832, 68, F. C. Smith

to Sec. Pol. Dept GOI, 14 Dec. I831. 68 CPDG, Saugor, p. 28. 69 S. B. Chaudhuri, Civil Rebellion in the Indian Mutinies, 1857-i859, Calcutta, 1957,

p. 227; MPDG, Sagar, p. 70. 70 APMR, SNT,Jubbulpore 24, 1860-63, encl. in A. H. Cocks to W. Lowe, 7 Jan.

I860.

532




Though Bundelas were less important in Damoh than in Sagar, they also joined the revolt. Behari, the Bundela ubaridar of Shazad-

pur, attacked the thana of Batiagarh at the direction of the Raja of

Shahgarh in July I857. Zalim Singh, a Bundela resident of Nar-

singhgarh pargana in Damoh took service with the Shahgarh raja, and became a 'noted rebel in his own pargana'.71 Pareechat Singh, a Bundela relative of the malguzar of the Durrie estate (then managing the property), was also deeply involved in the rebellion, twice resist-

ing processes of the civil courts. Noted Baghel Rajputs joined their Bundela clansmen in opposing

British rule. The Raja of Vijayaragogarh inJabalpur joined the revolt

following the death of Shankar Shah, the government having placed his estate with the Court of Wards as he was under age. In retaliation he established control over the road to Mirzapur which ran through his territory. In Mandla the four Baghel thakurs of Sohagpur also took up arms against the government as it prepared to deal with their estates.

IV

The revolt of 1857 in the Sagar and Narmada Territories had other features besides its civil and military nature. Patriotism formed a

strong element in the revolt. The revolt of the army itself was an act of

hostility to the British state and the administration of the East India

Company. Army regiments in Jabalpur and Sagar shared with fellow soldiers elsewhere their opposition to government interference with

religious and social customs. A wider patriotism was evident among troops, too, as news of army movements from other parts of the

country 'agitated' them, making them 'indignant against the foreign rulers'.72 In many places rebel troops formed close connections with civil leaders in a union that sought to remove foreign rule and restore an Indian government to the region. Thus Shankar Shah became a focus of loyalty for troops and civil rebels alike, as did the Rajas of Banpur and Shahgarh. A letter written by Erskine to W. H. Muir of the Board of Revenue clearly indicated the basis of the 52nd Regi- ment's (Bengal Infantry) connection with Banpur:

Major Gaussen apprehended a messenger of the Banpore Rajah's with a letter addressed to the Detachment, telling them that the Boondelahs (of

71 MPFM, p. 104.

533

72 Ibid. p. 76.



which tribe of Rajpoots the Rajah is head) were their friends, that the sepoys had acted well in resisting our interference with their religion, and that as Government had treated the Thakoors very badly, they would assist the sepoys.73

Indian soldiers displayed other evidence of their patriotic attach- ments during the revolt. As the 42nd Infantry unit in Sagar broke into revolt on I July, they went to the mosque and sharpened their swords; while the senior subhedar of the unit raised the Muslim flag before

plundering the cantonment. When the police revolted in Harda, they, too, tried to 'raise the Muhammadan standard'.74 Strong patriotic overtones surrounded the seizure of Neemawar pargana in

Hoshangabad, where Ram Kisan, a 'self styled agent of the Gwalior durbar', drove out the police and hoisted the Maratha flag in what was once part of Gwalior State.75 Moreover, the soldiers sent to arrest Shankar Shah found a prayer invoking his deity's aid in destroying all

Europeans, to overturn the foreign government, and to re-establish his former rule in Garha-Mandla.

Rural notables similarly performed acts of patriotism as the revolt

gathered speed. Attachment to their ancestral soil was an elementary form of patriotism that fired all traditional landowners. In individual cases, the malguzar of Jabera in Damoh declared that he was 'an enemy of the Government', seized the thana, and called on other

malguzars to join him as 'English rule is at an end'.76 During the

agitation rebel leaders frequently urged chiefs and malguzars to withhold revenue, and in some places they did so. This was an attack on the government, as the deputy commissioner of Jabalpur wrote to Erskine in July I857: For long rents were paid up pretty regularly, but there is now a perceptible change. I have however warned the Thakoors and Malgoozars that hesi- tation in the performance of their duties now, will be considered the true interpretation of their disposition towards Government, and will not be overlooked hereafter.77

In 1858 Erskine warned the Lodhi Raja of Mangarh, whose relatives

plundered villages in Damoh, that to withhold revenue was an act of rebellion against the government.78

73 Erskine, W. C. Erskine to W. H. Muir, io Aug. 1856, p. io. 74 MPDG, Hoshangabad, p. 65. 75 Chaudhuri, Civil Rebellion, p. 227. 76 R. M. Sinha, Eighteen Fifty-Seven inJabalpur District (Jabalpur, 1957), quoting E.

Clerk to W. C. Erskine, 17 July 1857. 77 For Dept, 559-73, 30 Oct. i857, Secret A, E. Clerk to W. C. Erskine, I7 July 1857. 78 Damoh DOR, 15-76, W. C. Erskine to W. C. Hamilton, 19 Aug. 1858.

534 DAVID BAKER




There were notable instances of patriotism during the revolt in

Sagar. Civil rebels reportedly carried before their troops the 'effigy of the head of a decapitated European female' to symbolize their hatred of foreign rule.79 Later when the tide of revolt was beginning to turn

against Indian forces, the Raja of Banpur attacked Company troops cannonading the outer ramparts of Rahatgarh, his 'standards flying and his men singing their national hymns'.80 Also when the Raja of

Shahgarh captured Khurai tahsil, he placed his officers in different towns, garrisoned the Khurai fort, and levied revenue on villages in the area. In neighbouring Damoh Thakur Kishore Singh of Hindorea held the Koomareethana and its villages for four and a half months.

Patriotic gestures were a feature of the revolt in Mandla as well. One of the talukdars of Sohagpur declined to pay revenue, and

instigated others to withhold payments from 'the English'.81 The same talukdar burnt the thana and kacheri in Sohagpur as symbols of

foreign rule. Two of the talukdars agreed to head subahs to be formed

subsequently, one in Jabalpur and the other in Raipur. The malguzar of pargana Mandla plundered large numbers of villages besides

destroying the thana at Bichchia. An official of Ramgarh raised the state flag over the destroyed thana at Narayanganj, and proclaimed the rejected heir's right to the throne. In Ramgarh, too, the rani refused to meet the deputy commissioner when ordered, fortified the town, and prepared for war. And when the ensuing battle went

against her, she suicided rather than 'surrender to foreign forces'. In

Shahpur the thakur burned the thana, kacheri and deputy commissioner's bungalow, removing all traces of British administration from the town. During the revolt the Baghel Lachsman Singh, Talukdar of

Nigwanee, wrote letters calling on a neighbouring thakur

to watch the passes and to let him know if anyone endeavoured to ascend them; that the latest news from Rewa was that from Calcutta to Huzareebaugh not an Englishman remained, and thatJubbulpoor had been taken by the Boondelas, and that they should take care that the English should not force the passes.82

The revolt of 1857 enjoyed wide support in the countryside north of the Narmada. In addition to the chiefs leading the movement, large numbers of malguzars, agriculturists, and even labourers took part.

7 K. L. Srivastava, The Revolt of i857 in Central India (Bombay, 1966), p. 91. 80

MPDG, Sagar, p. 71. 81 Mandla DOR, 65, H. F. Waddington to Commr, 3 Aug. i858. The material in

this paragraph is largely drawn from this source. 82 Ibid.

535



DAVID BAKER

This was mainly because Bundela, Lodhi and Gond leaders comman- ded support among their respective clans and communities. After the revolt British courts in Damoh sentenced cultivators, patwaris, sons of cultivators, artisans and coolies for serving rebel leaders or accompanying rebels when they collected rents or plundered.83 The adherents of the Raja of Ramgarh were also said to comprise 'so many coolies'.84 Duryao Singh, a relative of the Raja of Shahgarh, had a band of 50 soldiers who plundered at night and returned to their villages by day. Holders ofjagirs also incited their men to arms, and when the chiefs of Mandla joined the revolt they did so with their 'Gond retainers'.85 In Jabalpur Gond and Lodhi thakurs took their followers with them; and in Sagar and Damoh where many malguzars were in league with the rebels, some were so for reasons of clan loyalty.

In terms of areas controlled by rebels the revolt of 1857 was extremely effective, at least in the short term. The greater part of Sagar district was in rebel hands at one time or another, isolating the town and fort from the outside. Rebels seized most of Damoh district, police there and in Sagar deserting their thanas or joining the revolt. Rebels in Damoh also compelled British officials to abandon the district headquarters, and though the Maharaja of Panna occupied it subsequently, Lodhis from Hindoria and elsewhere defeated his troops, sacked the town, destroyed public buildings, and burnt records. InJabalpur rebels took over the Bargi region, while the thakur of Vijayaragogarh joined the revolt. Rebels also snatched most of Mandla from British control, and in November the deputy commissioner, Waddington, quit Mandla town for Seoni, not regaining control until mid-January. Ramgarh taluka remained in Indian hands until the end of March i858.

In other districts the revolt was not so intense. Little occurred to disturb British rule in Seoni and Betul, and in Narsimhapur and Hoshangabad the revolt was on a small scale. The fertile talukas of Chawarpatha and Tendukhera in Narsimhapur were the objects of repeated Indian attack, both slipping from British hands by October I857. However, the rebels were mostly from other districts, the local Gond Rajas of Chichli and Dilheri with others withholding their forces from action. In Narsimhapur south of the Narmada and Hoshangabad most Gond chiefs preserved an armed neutrality, and

83 Damoh DOR, 15-4I, Weekly Sentences, I2 June I858. 84 Mandla DOR, 46, Captain von Meyern to G. Plowden, 6 Jan. I858. 85 J. N. Sil, History of the CP and Berar (Calcutta, I917), p. 138.

536



THE REVOLT OF I857-58 IN MADHYA PRADESH 537

some agreed to official requests to suppress dacoities. Agitations by police in Hoshangabad earlier in the revolt came to nothing, though Neemawar pargana in the district fell briefly to supporters of the Gwalior State.

We have already noticed the role outside elements played in the revolt in Sagar and Damoh. This was a feature of the disturbance, and marked its closing rounds as well as its earlier phase. Nawab Adil Mohammed Khan of Garh Ambapani in Bhopal caused a flurry among Gond notables when he invaded Hoshangabad in I859. He had participated in the revolt earlier on the grounds that Rahatgarh in Sagar once belonged to his family, plundering in Sagar and Nar-

simhapur on several occasions. In 1859 he entered Hoshangabad. The

Rajas of Fatehpur and Sobhapur secretly aided him, and the Korku

Bhuboot Singh .. ., Jagheerdar of Hurrakot, in the Mahadeo hills, is said to have assisted and sympathised with him. He is supposed to have nursed a spirit of disaffection for some time, and at last he was driven into open rebellion in July 1859 by the oppression of a Thannahdar, who demanded from him a fowl or fowls, without any suggestion of payment. ... He gave some trouble, partly through the mysterious dread of the hills which all the residents of the valley entertain, and partly through the help of the Fut- tehpore Raja and Sobhapore Raja, who are believed to have befriended him. ... On severe pressure being put on the Rajas, who were removed from Futtehpore and refused interviews, they bestirred themselves, and easily caught Bhuboot Singh and his chief subordinate, Hollie Bhoi, in January I860.86

Another notable outsider to enter the region in the closing stages of the revolt was Tatia Tope, who was associated with the patriotic cause of Jhansi State. Tope was a friend and general of Nana Saheb

Peshwa, and had tried vainly to relieve Jhansi from siege in I857. After British forces dispersed his troops, he sought to rally support against British rule, though pursued by government forces. In October 1858 Tope with about 2,500 men crossed the Narmada near

Fatehpur, some 72 kilometres above Hoshangabad, where the raja sheltered him before setting him on his way into the hills. The fugitive tried to incite Marathas in Multai and other places in Betul to revolt, but receiving no support he passed through Atner and Bhainsdehi to Nimar, evading troops in the plains below. At Khandwa Tope crossed the Tapti, reaching Khargone by 19 November. Many of his followers deserted him as, his cause lost, he pushed on towards Baroda and then back into Rajasthan. Deserted, betrayed and finally captured, Tatia Tope was hanged on i8 April 1859.

86 RLRS Hoshangabad, i865, pp. 54-6.



DAVID BAKER

V

Despite the scale and intensity of the revolt, British military forces put an end to the agitation as they had done with other movements of

protest. From August 1857 the moveable column from Nagpur engaged the rebels in Jabalpur, Sagar and Damoh. In October troops reopened communications between Sagar and Narsimhapur. In some districts such as Narsimhapur local officers cleared areas of rebels in November I857, preparing the ground for the British Indian Army to enter the region in December. In January I858 the end of the revolt was near, when Sir Hugh Rose marched from Bhopal into Sagar district to attack Rahatgarh. On 3 February he entered Sagar town

itself, after which rebels yielded up Khurai and most of north Sagar, including the strongholds of Malthone and Nariaoli. Rose also recaptured Garhakota, and drove the Rajas of Banpur and Shahgarh into Bundelkhand. In January other troops took possession of Vijayarago- garh in Jabalpur, and Whitlock terminated resistance in the district before recovering Damoh in March. For some weeks sporadic burning and looting of police posts took place, but by the time the troops marched out of Sagar on 27 March the revolt was almost over. In

Mandla, Waddington recovered the district headquarters in mid-

January after helping quell disturbances in Seoni. Ramgarh fell to British forces in April, and in June troops aided by detachments from

Raipur and Rewa recaptured Sohagpur. Renewed attacks on several towns in Damoh in June and July I858 caused a mild panic, but by August additional troops had suppressed the disturbances.

The British authorities acted with severity against the insurgents of

I857. This was partly because Sleeman's moderating influence no

longer prevailed; but more because after three rounds of agitation the

government's will had to prevail if it wished to fix the region within the imperial system and utilize its resources. In conciliatory mood the Government of India issued an amnesty in May I858, and some

responded to the invitation to surrender. Following the surrender of the Rajas of Banpur and Shahgarh, the government consigned them to Lahore as state prisoners. In Hoshangabad the district authorities declined to meet the Rajas of Fatehpur and Sobhapur for aiding Tatia

Tope. The amnesty, however, excluded those who had killed European

citizens, and the authorities refused to pardon those who did not

538




surrender. Death thus awaited many who participated in the revolt. Early in the outbreak the army blew the Raja of Garha and his son from a cannon. In January 1858 the government confiscated the estates of Madanpur and Dhilwar, and captured and hanged Delhan Shah, the former Dewan of Madanpur, in May. Troops also seized Ram Kisan, the leader of the revolt in'Neemawar, executing him and his accomplices. Rebels from the lower rungs of society such as cultivators, revenue chapprassis, and servants were hanged as well. A resident of Sagar, who failed to appear before the deputy commissioner on a charge of supplying boots to rebellious sepoys, was executed 'by being nailed to a tree'.87

Under cover of punishing rebels, the British authorities made

sweeping changes in the countryside, destroying the remaining barriers to progress, as they conceived it. At one stroke the authorities removed from the land those who had been at odds with them for decades. Everywhere retribution was swift and wide-ranging: All deputy commissioners [were] to prepare [a] list of families in the district which had been thought to be guilty of revolt. Every village was thus surveyed, and names of persons recorded whose guilt or innocence was never carefully scrutinised. ... In this manner district after district was combed and the property of suspected persons was confiscated.88

The Government of India annexed the Shahgarh pargana and divided it between Sagar, Damoh and Chanderi. Officials in Damoh confiscated the Hindoria estate (though later restored it to its owner who came in under the amnesty) and the estates of the Raja of Mangarh. They reclassified as malguzari land the jagir of Ramnagar, whose ruler had supported Shahgarh, and introduced a 'stranger element ... [letting] the family ... sink into merited security'.89 The administration also seized the property of Zalim Singh in Nar- singhgarh, and transferred the Durrie estate from Pareechat to his nephew. Officials confiscated many jagirs and properties near Jabalpur town, besides annexing the Vijayaragogarh pargana to Jabalpur district as Murwara tahsil. They tried the former thakur, Surju Prasad for murder and sentenced him to transportation, whereupon he suicided. In Mandla the government ousted the Taluk- dar of Ghughri for opposition, and settled the estate in malguzari lease on Lachsman Prasad, who had aided Waddington during the revolt. The thakur families of Madanpur and Dhilwar in Nar-

87 MPFM, p. I97- 88 Ibid., p. 96. 89 NRSR, Rev. 23, i86o, G. Couper to W. H. Lowe, 9 July I859.

539



simhapur forfeited their estates, and in Hoshangabad the Talukdar of Harrakot lost his estate for rebellion. Officials also confiscated many malguzari leases, disarming the countryside at the same time.

The government's confiscation of muafi estates similarly enforced the new writ in the countryside. After the revolt died away the commissioner requested deputy commissioners to resume the muafi lands of'doubtful people', unless they were able to 'prove their innocence'.90 In Sagar and Damoh deputy commissioners recommended that the government confiscate the land of rebellious muafidars. Such recom- mendations were numerous in Damoh, where all large holders of rent- free land joined the rebels.91 However, many escaped confiscation by coming in under the amnesty, and the government finally confiscated only one large estate and some villages. In Betul, too, the deputy commissioner recommended the confiscation of muafi plots, though muafidars there 'behaved well' on the whole and officials left them undisturbed.92 But the confiscations in the region must have been substantial, as Erskine later reported that the increased revenue from forfeited taluks and patches of land inJabalpur division ran into lakhs of rupees.93 Some pensioners of doubtful loyalty also fell under the government's axe.

The administration dealt harshly with rebel ubaridars, severely reducing the tenure. The ubaridars of Sagar did not assist the government when requested in i857, but took the rebels' side instead. Among them were the ubaridars of Sindwaha in Khimlassa pargana, who plundered extensively, and then came in under the amnesty and so remained undisturbed. But when they refused to pay their revenues, officials confiscated their estates for default.94 Officials also confiscated the Ummae taluk, and transferred part of the ubari estate of Shahgarh to Sagar, re-assessing it at between one-third and one- half the assets for 20 years. As we have seen in Damoh, where all great ubaridars joined the revolt, the Rajas of Mangarh and Ramnagar forfeited their estates, together with the ubaridar of Shahzadapura.95

90 Betul DOR, I94, W. C. Erskine to Supts of all districts, 13 Jan. 1858. 91 APMR, SNT, Jubbulpore 24, 186o-63, W. C. Hamilton to A. H. Cocks, 31 May

I859. 92

APMR, SNT, Jubbulpore 24, I860-3, F. A. Fenton to A. H. Cocks, 13 July I863.

93 MPFM, fn, p. 103.

94 APMR, SNT, Saugor io, I859-6i, G. F. S. Browne to A. H. Cocks, i8 Dec. 1859?

95 APMR, SNT, Jubbulpore 24, 1860-63, W. C. Hamilton to A. H. Cocks, 31 May

1859.

540 DAVID BAKER




Officials in Jabalpur confiscated some estates such as that of Singori Chukka. In Mandla the government seized the ubari estates of Ram- garh and Shahpur, settling them with malguzars who paid a malikana to the former rulers. The Government of India transferred the Sohag- pur estate to Rewa in return for the maharaja's assistance during the revolt. Officials saw these transfers as removing barriers to Mandla's progress: The talookdars who owe most to Government have taken part in it, and we must begin again ... The system of allowing persons neither capable nor desirous of improvement to cling to the notion that many hundred square miles of waste and forest dotted here and there with a few hamlets are to be retained in their possession must if continued be an insuperable obstacle to material progress.96

By the same token the government rewarded its supporters and informers with liberal grants of land. In Sagar such men received titles and lands in the confiscated estate of Shahgarh. Others were given remissions of revenue for their loyalty. The government also rewarded loyalists in Damoh, among them Muslims, for their support during the revolt. In Jabalpur officials bestowed villages and taluks for life on those who had rendered 'good services'.97 The Singapura estate of 41 villages in Mandla went to the adventurer who stood by the deputy commissioner when pressed by rebels, while the Maharaja of Rewa obtained Sohagpur for his loyalty. The administration bestowed estates, partly revenue free, on the loyal Gond rajas of Narsimhapur, and gave the forfeited estates of Madanpur and Dhilwar to its helpers at half jama for two generations. In some districts officials gave loyalists purwanas, money grants, and even malguzari rights at the ensuing settlement.

Officials found it more difficult to restore the agricultural economy than punish the guilty or reward the 'innocent'. The prospects were especially bleak in Sagar, where heavy fighting had devastated the landscape. Apart from the destruction caused by fighting, the camp followers of both sides roamed about the countryside and helped themselves to anything that came their way, by force and violence, if necessary. The villagers had to flee in terror, and when they dared to come back, some time later, they found their homes destroyed and their property looted. This happened time and again in many places.98

Plunder and desertion caused special havoc in Banda, Khurai, 96

APMR, SNT, Mandla, 1858-6I, File I, Commr to W. Muir, 29 Sept. 1858. NRSR, Rev., 89, 1863, W. Nembhard to R. F. Snow, 29 Sept. 1863. 98 MPFM, p. 90o.

541



DAVID BAKER

NORTH WEST PROVINCES

Map 2. Central Provinces i86i. With acknowledgement: The History of Freedom Movement in Madhya Pradesh.

Benaika and other tahsils, the two former areas suffering especially as

they were adjacent to the border with Shahgarh and Banpur. As late as May I858 many villages in the district were without patels, and officials found it difficult to get anyone to take the leases. In addition, peasants had abandoned land over wide areas, patwaris had fled, and

remaining patels were too poor to hire replacements. The same was true of areas in Damoh, and wherever else looting and fighting had taken place.

Slowly, however, the administration tried to get the region back onto its feet. The settlement administration was in pieces, and arrears of rent and revenue were large and widespread. In some districts rebels destroyed records in token of their opposition to the settlement. The government ordered officials to begin a field survey in all dis-

tricts, with some delay in the case of Sagar and Damoh. This work

began, and the mammoth task of resettling the region slowly got under way once more. In Sagar and elsewhere officials took over

542




partly deserted villages and villages without patels. But even as peasants drifted back to their villages, a virulent fever of plague-like proportions and other diseases checked recovery, and thick belts of kansa grass on long disused land prevented cultivation.

With the defeat of the traditional landholders in I858 the Sagar and Narmada Territories fully entered the imperial economy. In 1861 the region joined the new Central Provinces (map 2), with a local administration under the authority of the governor general. To tap the area's resources the administration completed the malguzari settlement begun in the previous decade, and established further control over its forests. It also developed road and rail communications to market wheat, other cash crops and timber in Indian and foreign markets.

At first it seemed that the events of I857-58 fulfilled the official aims of progress and development. In the seventies merchants sent the first wheat shipments to Britain and Europe, and these continued until the early nineties. The region also supplied the home market with wheat. Under the impact of this demand cultivation extended and prices rose, and the administration asserted that a wheat boom was bringing prosperity and progress to the region. In fact, wheat became the mainstay of the economy of Madhya Pradesh, and the region's revenues a key element in its finances.

Yet the reality was quite different. Official policies laid the basis for a multiple crisis from 1891 to I90g that wrecked the wheat economy and exposed Madhya Pradesh to bankruptcy. This outcome would suggest that the events of the nineteenth century, including the suppression of revolt in I858, had been fruitless.

543



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