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    The Land Of The Rulers
    The Land Of The Rulers
    The Land Of The Rulers
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    The Land Of The Rulers

    By Son Lal

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    Feudal land, war and village fort life in the Rajasthan desert.
    A Rathore clan ruled Chelana village for a few centuries up to the end of feudal rule in 1952. Their ups and downs are narrated by Tan Dan and other sources. How the clan fought at the battle fields and how it lived at home. How the Marwar ruler granted land to the feudal elite, and the way the Chelana village lord did the same at his own village. Up to the early 19th century warfare was a major occupation of the Rathores of the Marwar state. The fate of the Rajput village clan of Chelana was closely linked to that of the ruler at Jodhpur. The feudal attitudes meant that victory and defeat both could render glory to fighting warriors. Charan bards were important in forming attitudes. The patriarchic social system paid little heed to the welfare of women living as widows and concubines. People of untouchable castes carried out forced labour under semi-slavelike conditions. The feudal land was cultivated by tenants of agricultural castes. The surplus produced was collected by the employees of the feudal elite. It was distributed to the top of the society at Jodhpur, as well as to all the feudal dependants in the village itself. The land revenue system of the Government was the base for operating the state and waging wars.
    The feudal land management system in the Chelana area is described.
    An elaborate administrative system with a land record accountant in every village was introduced towards the end of the feudal rule. It was borrowed from a mediaeval but efficient imperial administration at Delhi. After 1952 the land tax collected through that system was insufficient, as the Rajasthan government did not want to trouble the increasingly rich and powerful landholding farmers.
    Life at the village fort was insecure, as long as the wars were frequent and Rajput warriors died at the battle fields. The men of the Rajput caste were like firefighters, sitting idle most of the time, but ready for action, if summoned. When the wars stopped after 1818 A.D., the feudal aristocrats of Chelana continued to idle away their time, living on the hard work of their tenants and forced labourers. The walled village fort was the centre of the village. There the village lord and his kinsmen ruled, and at that place all villagers gathered at big functions. There the whole village celebrated Holi. When the feudal age ended in 1952, the closely knit village life started to disintegrate. The future of the former feudal land right holders varied. Rajput landlords with no interest in agriculture did not take advantage of the irrigation farming opportunity occurring at that time. The life of the village lord family became a drama with an uncertain end.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSon Lal
    Release dateFeb 1, 2015
    ISBN9781310520976
    The Land Of The Rulers
    Author

    Son Lal

    Son Lal is my pen name. I was born in a Scandinavian country of northern Europe in the early 1940s. I have lived in India off and on for fifty years, since I first arrived to the Gateway of India at Bombay by ship in 1963.

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      Book preview

      The Land Of The Rulers - Son Lal

      The land of the rulers

      Feudal land, war and village fort life in the Rajasthan desert

      By Son Lal

      Copyright 2013 by Son Lal

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. World Rights Reserved.

      If you liked this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com. Thank you for your support.

      This is a work of fiction. The names and characters come from the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Similarly, the locations and incidents in this book, which might resemble real locations and events, are being used fictitiously and are not to be considered as real.

      *****

      The land of the rulers

      Feudal land, war and village fort life in the Rajasthan desert

      About an age of feudal rule, which ended in the 1950s, but continued to influence village life. The book is based both on Tan Dan's narrations to Son Lal around 1980, and on historical documents, both primary and secondary. The focus is on Tan Dan's home region in western Rajasthan.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1 Tan Dan

      Chapter 2 The rise of the Rathores of Chelana

      Chapter 3 Chelana Rathores in adversities

      Chapter 4 The last Chelana war hero

      Chapter 5 How the ruler granted land to the feudal elite

      Chapter 6 Khalsa or jagir village. Advantages and disadvantages to the tenants

      Chapter 7 The Chelana thikana

      Chapter 8 Village entertainments at the Chelana Thikana

      Chapter 9 The decline of the Thakur family

      Chapter 10 Tan Dan about tax collection at feudal Chelana

      Chapter 11 Land record work at Chelana, as experienced by Tan Dan

      Chapter 12 Land revenue in the feudal age

      Chapter 13 Efficient land accounting in mediaeval imperial north India

      Chapter 14 Systematic land tax collection in western Rajasthan is much more recent

      Conclusion

      Endnotes For historical comparisons

      A few more details on the subject

      Indian words used in this book are explained here

      back to top

      Chapter 1 Tan Dan

      Who is Tan Dan?

      Tan Dan Detha was born in a farmer family of the Charan caste in 1943. His native village is Chelana in Jodhpur District of Rajasthan in northwestern India. Tan Dan has lived in the midst of his strongly traditional environment all his life. He is a critical observer rather than a follower of that tradition.

      Who is Son Lal?

      Son Lal is my pen name. I was born in a Scandinavian country of northern Europe in the early 1940s. I have lived in India off and on for fifty years, since I first arrived to the Gateway of India at Bombay by ship in 1963. In the 1970s I met Tan Dan. We soon found we shared many views on the world, and had the same curiosity of village life. I saw a chance to learn how he experienced his rural environment. He did his best to explain, and I am grateful to him for having shared his knowledge and thoughts with me.

      How this narration was done

      Tan Dan told in English and I typed, while we sat together in long sessions. His many photos became a starting point for our discussions. Our knowledge of English was on the same level and we formulated the sentences together. Sentence after sentence, day after day. Most of it we wrote around 1980, but some additions were made in later decades. Afterwards I have edited the material and supplemented several sections with information from elsewhere.

      back to top

      Chapter 2 The rise of the Rathores of Chelana

      Rathores as chaukidars at Chelana

      Chelana, a village one hundred kilometres to the east of Jodhpur. On the route from Jodhpur to Chelana is Pipar, nowadays a township with a Thikana, which has become a government office building. During the feudal days Pipar was a large fief covering a dozen villages. From Chelana the ageold route continues to Merta, the Rathore stronghold of eastern Marvar. Rathores of the Mertia clan have been slain in large numbers in ferocious battles with hostile armies on nearby bloodstained fields.

      In 1597 A.D. Rathore soldiers of Khod village in Pali District were asked by Brahmins at Chelana 100 km to the north to help in protecting the village from the attacks of the Meena robbers of the Aravalli Hills. Among those who agreed to settle there was Gokul Das, who is considered to be the ancestor of all those living at Chelana nowadays. He had four sons. Like other young Rathores they tried their luck in warfare. As a rule the reward for valient deeds during battles was feudal land rights. Three of the sons got land for themselves in this way, but not Gopinath Singh, the eldest one, as he most of the time was busy helping his father as a village guard.

      Pratap Singh - the first Rathore Thakur of Chelana

      By then Gopinath Singh and his son Pratap Singh had become ashamed of being simple soldiers without feudal rights. Such persons had a low status within their caste. Therefore, also Pratap Singh joined the army eager to show his prowess in battle.

      This was in the 17th century, when Aurangzeb had become the Moghul emperor at Delhi. Rajput dynasties loyal to earlier Moghul emperors as vasalls had became estranged by Aurangzeb's Muslim zeal. Also Jasvant Singh, the Marvar maharaja, showed his antipathy at several occasions. Still he considered it to be in his own interest to continue in the service of Aurangzeb, as an outcome of power politics.

      Jasvant Singh became one of Aurangzeb's most important generals. He was entrusted to put down rebellions on the Deccan in the 1660s. It could have been during such a campaign, that Pratap Singh of Chelana succeeded so well, that he got his home village in reward by his ruler and master Maharaja Jasvant Singh. Pratap Singh managed to kill an important leader of the enemy army at a critical juncture of the battle. Pratap cut off the head with a stroke of his sword, and then showed the Maharaja the head as a proof.

      However, Rathore villagers at Chelana tell that it was at the nearby Merta this battle had taken place. It is said that the Marvaris were so near defeat that the maharaja had fled the field in dispair, and that Pratab Singhs deed decisively contributed to the victory.

      Thus Pratab was made the Thakur of Chelana in 1664 A.D.. Pratab would have been given more villages, the villagers believe, if he had not been such a simple soldier.

      Within the army Pratap Singh was given important tasks by the Maharaja. He used to move around with the advance force in battles.

      Did the Brahmins surrender Chelana on their own accord?

      Present-day Chelana Brahmins have a somewhat different story to tell about how the Rathores got into power in the village.

      Some of them tell that the Brahmin village lord some five hundred years ago handed over the whole Thakurship to the soldiers called to protect them from the Meenas. In their opinion their Brahmin forefathers did not relish the squabbles associated with worldly power and took the opportunity to transfer the leadership of the village to the Rathores.

      However, that description seems less plausible. Firstly, all land ultimately rested with the ruler of the state. Hence, how could a village lord transfer his feudal land right to somebody else? Moreover, at this time it is likely the Brahmins already had lost most of their feudal

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