tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52270134325377196722024-02-08T11:26:56.932-08:00British Raj in IndiaSudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-1027881237224167632016-10-06T06:46:00.001-07:002016-10-06T06:46:11.505-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Trams in Patna<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Trams made their appearance in India in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. Predictably the Presidency towns of Calcutta,
Madras and Bombay were the first to get them. It all began with trams running as street cars
on iron tracks embedded in the ground, literally on horse power. These had one
or more coaches and were pulled by as many well groomed horses. Calcutta’s experiment with horse drawn trams
in 1873 had to be abandoned within a few months for lack of ridership. It was
revived in 1881 and was wound up only when trams propelled by electricity
started operating there in 1902. Bombay (now Mumbai) ran a robust horse-drawn
tram service from 1874 and was discontinued in 1907 when replaced by electric
one. Madras (now Chennai) never went in for steed power but was the first to
launch electric tram service in 1895.
Delhi and Cawnpore (now Kanpur) too ran a tram service for a few years.
With public buses and private cars becoming the preferred mode of commuting the
trams were taken off the streets by and by. Today Calcutta (now Kolkata) is the
only city to boast a tram service but more for its heritage tag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My first hint of tram cars plying in Patna towards the close of the nineteenth
century came from an order issued by the Superintendent of Police on the occasion of the visit of the
Viceroy to Patna: ‘This road will be closed to traffic at 4 p.m., <i>tram cars </i>will cease running at this
hour.’ (District Order No. 360 dated 30 June 1895 of the Superintendent of
Police, Patna). Similar arrangements were made during the Viceroy’s visit to
Patna In January 1903. This tiny bit of information spurred me to further
research. (See my book Raj<i> to Swaraj: Changing
Contours of Police</i>, Lancer, Delhi, 1995).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Patna tram was not electrically powered but
drawn by horses. It comprised of two coaches and operated between Chowk in
Patna City (eastern fringe of Patna) to down town Bankipur; the western
terminus was the open space in front of the St. Joseph’s Convent School. The distance covered was about nine kilometers
through narrow, congested areas along what is today known as Ashok Rajpath,
Patna’s longest thoroughfare. From all accounts tram travel never became
popular. The poor preferred to walk the distance and the affluent rode horses
or buggies; Patna did not have a middle class then. The service was withdrawn
in 1903 soon after the Viceroy’s visit. It had a life span of barely ten years.
Being in the backwaters of the Bengal Presidency Patna never got an electric
tram, then or later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sudhir Kumar Jha<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">20.8.2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "roboto","serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A horse drawn tram running on tracks. (Taken
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Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-85486208956042251312016-10-06T06:19:00.002-07:002016-10-06T06:19:41.883-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I MISS MY POSTMAN<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I
had bouts of nostalgia during my recent visit to Thailand to see postmen in
uniform delivering letters. Letter boxes, located at convenient intervals, were
serviced regularly. It was a scene reminiscent of my growing up years right
into my fifties. The British gave us the Police and Posts with their reach to
the remotest villages<span style="color: #3b3a39;">. Both wore khaki but while a
postman was always welcome a policeman was not. My village got a post office in
early fifties. Until then </span>the postman came to my village from seven
kilometers twice a week to deliver our letters and parcels. He also carried
some stamps and postcards to sell to those in need. And like in Bollywood
movies he would read out the contents of the letter to the illiterate and take
down the dictated reply. A telegram he brought occasionally (until recently
post and telegraph were a composite department commonly referred to as P&T)
gave the family some tense moments imagining the worst. They held their breath
and heaved a sigh of relief or anguish only after the postman had deciphered
the contents for them. His visit was most looked forward to when he was
expected to bring money order. While in boarding school I used to receive a
monthly stipend of rupees five per month from a charitable trust. Only four
rupees and twelve annas (equivalent to today’s seventyfive paise) came into my
hands as the sender had deducted two annas as money order commission and the
postman took his own cut of like amount.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A
postman also carried love letters. When courting my wife-to-be as a young albeit
high ranking officer my ears would strain to catch the sound of the approaching
footsteps of the postman in the hope that hidden in the pile of <i><u>sarkari dak</u></i> there could be an
epistle of love from my sweetheart. Today, decades later, I take my hat off to
the postman and his department for carrying and delivering our correspondence without
fail or falter. The address on the envelope or postcard was often written
illegibly but by some miracle it managed to reach the correct destination. In
mid sixties I was posted with my battalion at Ziro, the district headquarters
of Subansiri Division in NEFA, now called Arunachal Pradesh. My men were all
Gurkhas. Ours was a non-family station and
we always hungered for information from back home. The letters took three weeks
but they reached all right. The address
on the envelope was often semi-legible and spelt not in alphabet but in
numerical; Ziro became O.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">A
post office catered to a sizeable area and population. To make things easier
for the public letter boxes painted red were strewn all over. These have since
disappeared and can now be seen only outside a post office. One could write a
letter, stamp it and put it inside the letter box. The postman opened the
letter box at fixed timings and carried the contents to the post office for
onward movement. Even the unstamped envelopes were carried but the recipient at
the delivery point could have it only on payment of a token penalty which went
not into the postman’s pocket but into government coffers. A postman was not
transferred frequently allowing him to know the by lanes and households of his
area. He was GPS in himself. He was courteously met and it was two-way traffic.
It was the personal touch which marked him out from other government functionaries.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
letters the postman brought carried some interesting stamps from India and
abroad. Persons of all age groups, chiefly youngsters, were avid stamp
collectors and philately developed as a distinct activity of Indian Post. These
stamps were little pockets of history and we are going to miss these along with
the postman who brought them to us. The government occasionally brings out
commemorative stamps but these mostly go unnoticed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">As
the internet and mobile phone made writing and mailing letters redundant our
interaction with the postman became minimal and limited to delivery of speed
post which is the old registered post in faster mode. The government has
decided to say good bye to the postal system of yore. To be in with the times it
is <span style="color: #3b3a39;">slotting itself in cyberspace through the ePost
Office, The idea is to gradually run the post office on the lines of a
commercial bank. One totally unconnected and new line of new business for the
postal department is to lift Gangajal, the holy water, from Hrishikesh and
further upstream and sell it in containers through the post offices.</span><span style="background: white; color: #333333;">
The doorstep delivery will be through the postman who will be attired in
a new garb complete with an all purpose smart phone. For old timers like us it
will not be the same. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">My
millennium grand children living in metros have never seen a postman and cannot
relate to my childhood experiences. And I am so full of them. They are familiar
with courier who is not my favourite. He turns up at odd hours. While I would
like him to make the delivery in the forenoon he will wait till my post-lunch
siesta. As I am halfway through my forty winks he will ring up on my mobile to
seek directions to my abode, not once but twice, even thrice. Then follows the
trill of the door bell leaving me no option but to go out and face him. But he
does not make it that simple. He insists on my PAN number and lately Aadhaar
details. By the time I have searched them out and shown to him I am fully awake
and thoroughly cheesed off. My postman would never have bothered me like that.<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"> I will continue to miss him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Sudhir Kumar Jha<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">6 October, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">(The author is a retired Director General of
Police, Bihar. He is a free-lance researcher and writer. He can be contacted at
sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com) . </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-33931093696728599912014-07-22T07:05:00.000-07:002014-08-21T06:30:38.099-07:00CHARLES TEGART OF CALCUTTA POLICE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <b>CHARLES
TEGART : HERO OR VILLAIN?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (Published in The Statesman on 13 August 2014 under title "Relevance of Tegart") </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I
grew up on stories my father told me about the legendary Calcutta Police
Commissioner Charles Tegart’s exploits as a policeman and detective. I thought
about Tegart off and on in course of nearly forty years with the Indian Police
Service. He had a sixth sense for unearthing plots, criminal or political A
look at Tegart’s memorabilia in the Calcutta Police Museum rekindled my
interest in him. If Tegart could develop a network of informers among the
Bengal revolutionaries why have our police and intelligence agencies not been
able to penetrate the Maoist den? As I researched Tegart’s profile I wondered
if there is a message for those involved in containing the spreading footfalls
of left extremism in our country.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Sir Charles Augustus Tegart (1881-1946) was
born and brought up in Ireland. He competed into the Indian Police (1901-1931)
and joined the Bengal cadre which then included what is now Bihar, Jharkhand
and Orissa.. After serving as SDPO of Patna City, in which capacity he was this
author’s grand predecessor removed sixty years, he was promoted as Acting
Deputy Commissioner of Calcutta Police.</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> He
became closely involved in the suppression of Bengal revolutionaries dedicated
to overthrowing British rule; he was hailed as a hero by the European community
but reviled as a villain by the Indians. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The 1905 partition of the province was viewed
as a national insult by Bengalis who began to see armed resistance as necessary
to secure Indian self-government. Bengal revolutionaries travelled to Paris to
learn bomb-making techniques from Russian anarchists, (Where did the Indian Maoists
learn making bombs and laying land mines?).</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <b>In 1913 Tegart was appointed to the newly-established Intelligence Branch
of the Bengal CID, where he was tasked to gather information, call it
intelligence, about the main players of the revolutionary movement which was
then raging in the province. His Irish origin gave him a better understanding
of the problem. The majority of Tegarts’s Indian subordinates were Bengali <i>bhadralok </i>and thus from the same
background as the revolutionaries themselves. For Tegart to motivate them to
act against their own people is a lesson in leadership. He was fair and
supportive and they in turn were fiercely loyal to him.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Tegart quite enjoyed his job and proved highly
resourceful and innovative. H also made good use of the Defence of India Act
which was then in force. Such was his enthusiasm that he often joined or led
the raiding party acting on his own information. One of the most famous
examples occurred as a sequel to the well known uprising by Bengal
revolutionaries, the Chittagong Armoury Raid, in April 1930. When the Calcutta
police received information that a number of raiders had taken refuge in the
French enclave of Chandernagore to the north of Calcutta, Tegart organised a
group of heavily-armed British police officers to capture them. He gained the
permission of the French authorities to carry out an illegal attack in the
middle of the night, and, after a short gun battle, most of the suspected
revolutionaries were captured. He superannuated a few months later.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Hero
or villain, Tegart had proverbial cat’s nine lives from the way he survived
several attempts on his life. He had a dare-devil approach to fighting terror
and preferred to lead from the front even in penetrating the revolutionary
cells. The sight of Tegart driving through the streets of Calcutta in an open
car with his faithful dog perched on the hood behind him did more than anything
else to keep up the morale of his team. He devised his own techniques of
interrogation which did not rule out the use of third degree. A</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">nnie
Besant, of the Indian National Congress, accused him of punching suspects and
threatening one with a gun; Tegart was not bothered while the government winked
at the allegation. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">He
was obviously not above the circumvention of law and procedure to achieve
results; but then he did not have to bother about the Writ of Habeas Corpus,
Human Rights Commission</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> or the Civil Liberty groups. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In
spite of his lack of resemblance to a Bengali Tegart did not shy away from
using disguise as a tool for intelligence work; he liked to take his chance. He
is believed to have once visited the Sonagachi red-light district of Calcutta
in the disguise of a Bengali gentleman talking with pimps and prostitutes. At
night, wearing a beard and puggaree, he could comfortably pass as a Sikh
taxi-driver, and even in the daytime he could go unnoticed as a Kabuli or
Pathan.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Tegart
had an uncanny knack of spotting potential informers and recruiting them. But that
was always on one to one basis. He would much rather kill an information than
risk revealing a source. The identity of many informers was known only to
Tegart himself, who met them always at night, in some lonely place previously
agreed on, and rarely took notes but committed the whole of what he was told to
memory. David Petrie, former Director of the Intelligence Bureau of the
Government of India, and later head of the British MI5, regarded Tegart as one
of the best officers at recruiting informants, cross-checking their
information, and keeping the confidences of his agents. One should not dismiss
all this as stories from a bygone era but look for lessons in how to infiltrate
the Maoist network. If a foreigner could develop a network of informers and
undercover agents why can’t we?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Like
most Inidan Police officers Tegart too volunteered to fight for his county in
the First World War. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Refused permission to enlist Tegart remained
in India, monitoring plots to import armaments from Germany, Britains’s enemy
and thus a friend of the Indian revolutionaries. Here again is a lesson from
Tegart for our police and intelligence agencies how to monitor and choke the
channels through which the Maoists receive their supply of arsenal.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">After the war was over Tegart’s services were
used by the British government for odd jobs connected with intelligence and
protection. In a hush- hush posting in </span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">France and England he is believed to have
rendered valuable service in the counter-espionage work against the Bolsheviks.
From July to November 1920, Tegart served as an intelligence officer in Ireland
during the Anglo-Irish War, when he was one of several Indian police officers
imported to bolster flagging British intelligence networks. He was regarded as
an expert on both Irish and Bengali ‘terrorism’. In 1923 Tegart was appointed Police
Commissioner of Calcutta.</span></b><b><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">After his retirement in 1931 he served for
six years on the Council of India, the first member of the Indian Police to be
so honoured. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">After
the War the Ottoman Empire had been dismembered and the Jewish settlement in Palestine
had been placed under British Mandate. In 1937 Tegart was offered the post of Inspector
General of the Palestine Police based on his experience in India. He declined
the post but accepted a mission to reorganise the police force to combat Arab
terror there. </span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <span style="background: #FFF9EE;">Tegart
recommended building a series of police forts across the country, to serve as
well-defended positions and bases for suppressing revolt, and to prevent the
infiltration of armed Arab guerrillas from Syria and Lebanon. The forts were
also to be used as government offices in areas that were regarded as unsafe.</span>
A 2- metre high barbed-wire fence ran all along the frontier with Lebanon and
Syria. Giving Tegart full credit for this initiative these were colloquially
referred to as Tegart’s Forts and Tegart’s Wall. He also had some fifty
fortified police stations built to preempt surprise attacks. Looks like these
can be tried, with suitable modifications, in our Maoist-affected areas too.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Tegart, more than anyone else, was
responsible for crushing the revolutionary terrorism in Bengal in the first two
decades of the twentieth century. As a patriotic Indian one may hate him but
cannot detract from his effectiveness as a police officer. Tegart had a
charismatic personality but the purpose here is not to glorify him but to see
if his strategy of tackling the Bengal revolutionaries could be selectively
adopted by our police and intelligence agencies in dealing with the Maoist
menace. Tactics will have to be modified considering the time gap of a century;
our Constitution and laws do not give us the leeway which Tegart had. Of particular interest will be his building up
a network of informers within the revolutionary groups, pitting <i>bhadralok</i> against <i>bhadralok. </i>Not all so-called Maoists<i> </i>are committed and hard core and attempt can be made, and surely
must have been made, to win some of them over. For that mutual trust has to be
built up over a period of time. Although the area to be covered is very large
Tegaart’s Forts and Tegart’s Wall can be tried on an experimental basis.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Dr Sudhir Kumar Jha<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(The author is a former Director General of
Police, Bihar)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-18851387849574008742014-07-01T00:01:00.003-07:002014-07-22T07:15:35.607-07:00BANKIPORE CLUB, PATNA<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> BANKIPORE CLUB: BEATING COLONIAL ISOLATION<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Famously
fictionalised as Chandrapore Club by E.M. Forster in his novel <i>A Passage to India</i> Bankipore Club was
meant for the elite among the Europeans residing at the civil station of Patna
or visiting here from the mufassil. In the novel when <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Dr. Aziz escorts Mrs. Moore back to the club it is thus far
and no further for him; he tells her
that Indians are not allowed into the Chandrapore Club, even as guests. </span>But
Bankipore Club was no more racist than other such clubs under the British Raj
and there was one at every civil station. <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> George Orwell echoes the
sentiment in his novel <i>Burmese Days</i>:’it
was the proud boast of Kyauktada Club that, almost alone of Clubs in Burma, it
had never admitted an Oriental to membership’. </span>While entry to Bankipore
Club was barred for “Indians and dogs”, poor Europeans at the station - railway
workers, British Other Ranks, and, as in <i>A Passage to India</i>,
missionaries, were also kept out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In
1858 Victoria assumed direct control of administration from the East India
Company and assumed the title of Queen Empress. The number of government officers
went up sharply at Bankipur as new departments became functional. Patna till
then referred to what we now call Patna City.
The area along the Ashok Rajpath from Patna Science College to Golghar
was known as Bankipur, which the British preferred to spell Bankipore, with
offices dotting the flanks. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Patna did not extend further west until it became the capital in 1912.
What is now Gandhi Maidan was then known as the Oval and later as the Lawn. The
British civilian officers mostly had their bungalows around this vast expanse
of greenery where Polo was played. It also served as the turf for horse racing.
Nothing stood between the Club and the Maidan. For many decades the club remained a landmark along with St.
Joseph’s Convent school and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Catholic Church, the Protestant
Church and the Golghar.. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Here and there and along the Fraser Road
were spread the compounds of the indigo planters and businessmen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Outside the working hours the Gora Sahebs had
a pretty lonely existence. Most were either bachelors or had left their
families behind. A club, a western concept, was replicated in India to
compensate for this loneliness. Bankipore
Club was thus born in 1865 as an oasis amidst the desert of colonial isolation.
Members would gather here every evening for games and gossip, much as the Mess
in Danapur cantonment provided an exclusive venue for Army officers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Europeans
could not have selected a better site for their club; it was high ground overlooking
</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">River Ganga. The river
then flowed in full glory and its water lapped against the ramparts of the
club. Steam ships and barges plying on the river presented a familiar and
fascinating sight. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">One wonders why the British did not acquire
all the land between the club and the Maidan; today’s congested access to the
club would then have been avoided. Of course, it was not possible to get more
space to the east because of the Antaghat
Nala nor to the west because of
the existing Dutch opium godown, today’s collectorate complex. The members did
not have enough open space for outdoor sports but they could take a long walk
in the Maidan, ride there or play polo. Though a social club rank and hierarchy
mattered even inside the club with Commissioner and Opium Agent being shown due
deference.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Opening of Suez Canal in 1869 made sailing between
Home (England) and India smoother and faster. As a result Mem Sahebs and Missi Sahebs
in search of husbands started descending on India in droves. As Patna got its
share of them so did Bankipore club. Evenings at the club became livelier.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">
Though extra-marital affairs were a taboo, mild flirtation was not frowned upon.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">There
were several eligible bachelors, young civil and military officers, who were a
prize catch. Some of them met their future wives on the wooden dance floors of
this club. Senior ladies too loved to play match makers and often succeeded. The newly-weds were feted at the club amidst
much fanfare. The </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Civil
& Military Store run by an Anglo-Indian catered to most needs of the
members for indigenous and imported stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Things changed for the club when Patna became
the provincial capital in 1912. As the New Capital area came to life polo and
other sports activities shifted west. Bankipore Club gained in membership and
stature as all the big wigs of government flocked here in the evenings with
their spouses. The club was incorporated as a public limited company in 1915. Young
barristers educated and trained in England lay a claim to membership of the
club which embarrassed the government. As a compromise was born the New Patna
Club in 1918 to accommodate Europeanised
Indians. Bankipore Club thus became to
New Patna Club what Bengal Club was to Calcutta Club. But Bankipore Club could
not retain its European exclusiveness for long. Once the Imperial Services,
namely the ICS and IP, were opened to Indians in the early twenties their entry
into this snootiest of clubs could not be resisted. Since their number
initially was not sizeable they merely aped their white colleagues. Equations
started changing from late thirties with independence looming large on the
horizon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">When independence finally came in 1947 there
was a last ditch attempt by the departing British members to wind up the club
and liquidate its assets. Their game plan was frustrated by the now emboldened
Indians. After initial hiccups the club settled down nicely to business under
Indian <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">management. The membership of the club
comprised mostly of senior government officers with a sprinkling of doctors but
very few lawyers and businessmen.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Membership of the
Bankipore Club in those days was a status symbol, much as the Patna Golf Club
emerged the favourite in the 1980s. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> Today businessmen dominate and
manage the club. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In
the nineteen fifties and early sixties the Companywallas were the crème de la crème of
Patna’s westernized elite. MNCs such as Bata, ITC, Burma Shell and Dunlop became
corporate members. Their branch managers and other executives posted at Patna
wee invariably Indians. They were an intimate social group living in a world of
their own. At the Christmas and New Year
Ball at the Bankipore Club, while they danced to the tunes of Moosa Band, the
uninitiated government servants and their spouses, too shy to shake a leg,
watched and lamented. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">In
March 1970 the East Zone Davis Cup Tournament between India and Pakistan was played
for three days at the New Patna Club. The teams and guests were feted lavishly
and the festivities concluded with a gala evening at the Bankipore Club with
dinner and ball room dancing. Pakistan’s high Commissioner to India was so
overwhelmed that tears came to his eyes.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The character of the club has changed over the
decades as it was bound to.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> Successive management committees have brought improvements. While
modernization is welcome care should be taken not to disturb the heritage look
and character of the club. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> Unlike most clubs <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">there is no Chairman or President in this
club. The Honorary Secretary, elected by members of the Executive Committee, is
the Chief Executive Officer of the club. </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It is a long chain of succession from
Founder Secretary J. P.W. Johnston to the present incumbent,
spanning one hundred and fifty years. This makes Bankipore Club one of the
oldest in India. The sesquicentenary of the club is due next year. Planning
must start now to make the celebration befitting the dignity of this venerable
old man that is our club.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com85tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-89385144335230119592013-09-24T23:22:00.000-07:002013-09-24T23:25:59.507-07:00ROMANCING THE RAJ<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">ROMANCING THE RAJ <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">It is difficult to define romance. It is a highly
subjective feeling. Many find romance in the jungle lore of Rudyard Kipling and
Jim Corbett while some others in the heroic feats of Rani of Jhansi. However, as
commonly understood romance is an emotive love affair surfeit with fantasy,
with or without heroism and adventure thrown in. In a broader sense, therefore,
nearly two hundred years of British rule in India, commonly referred to as the era
of the Raj or simply the Raj, was one continuing romance. Notwithstanding Kipling’s
‘twain’ theory, for the British as well as the Indians the east-west encounter
worked as an attraction of the opposites. Fact and fiction fanned this romance.
</span><span class="apple-style-span">Plenty </span><span style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;">but not enough ‘romancing’
of the Raj has been attempted in the literature of the time and films made on
them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: white; margin-left: -13.5pt; mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-table-layout-alt: fixed; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 101%px;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="padding: 0in 0in 7.5pt 0in; width: 513.0pt;" width="684"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Stories about the opulence of the Mughal
court and the life style of its nobility had reached Britain in bits and
pieces. Added</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;">
to this was the popular notion that India was a quaint land of naked <i>sadhus, </i>snake charmers, beggars and elephants.
Adventure and opportunity beckoned triggering flights of fantasy.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Romance was in the air before the ships of
the East India Company set sail. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Having
joined the service in India in their teens, these </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Company civilians</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> succumbed to the spell of India right away.
Their </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">‘unattached male’ existence
accentuated their sense of isolation. They sought comfort in the arms of
native women whom they took as mistresses and concubines and rarely as
legally wedded wives. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Among the signs of their ‘Indianization’
were adopting Indian dress and customs and the wearing of immense whiskers
and beards. Several took to smoking hubble-bubble and developed a liking for
local cuisine. They behaved like
little ‘nabobs’; William Dalrymple in his magnum opus <i>The White Mughals</i> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">calls
them ‘white Mughals’. They were enjoying the romance that was India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The idyll was shattered in 1857 by the events
of the Sepoy Mutiny. There were by now a sizable number of white women in
India. In a crisis situation there invariably was a knight, white or brown, to
come to the rescue of damsels in distress. For all its violence and mayhem
the Mutiny spawned some captivating fiction which was an amalgam of chivalry
and romance<i>. Love Besieged: a Romance
of the Defence of Lucknow</i></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">by Charles E. Pearce</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> is a mix of romance and military adventure within
the walls of the besieged city of Lucknow.<b> </b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Katharine Gordon</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> in <i>Emerald
Peacock</i> narrates the story of love between an Indian prince and a young Irish
woman during the Mutiny.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">These writings are merely illustrative.
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">A lot of things
changed with the British government assuming direct control of administration
in India. Both civil and military officers now looked forward to a more
settled life style. Wives braved a month long grueling voyage to join their husbands.
Bachelors sought and found romance where and when they could, with
Anglo-Indian girls and native maids, but it meant tight rope walking in small
places in full public glare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="plff2" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
The opening of the
Suez Canal cut the travel time short.
Larger steam ships made the journey more bearable. The onset of
India’s cold weather saw hordes of young English women sail out for India on
their husband-hunting mission regardless of the inconveniences and hazards of
tropical living. They came with such regularity that they were teasingly
dubbed the ‘fishing fleet’. The prize catch would be a member of the ‘heaven
born’ Indian Civil Service but even lesser ones would do. Those who returned
home unwed were unfeelingly referred to as ‘returning empties’.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 200%;">This
was a subject dealt with by Mrs. F.E. Penny in her novel <i>The Happy Hunting Ground</i>, and savagely satirized by E. M. Forster
in <i>A Passage to India.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Often a man went home on leave and got
engaged. The girl joined him a year or two later in India where the wedding
took place. But strange are the ways of Cupid. Shipboard romance was a
predictable feature of every voyage. A few days under a full moon could lead
to a shift in commitment. Imagine the beau waiting at the pier of Bombay (as
it was then called) or Karachi (now in Pakistan) dock to find that his
fiancée had already left with someone she had met on the voyage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> As
wives of junior officers these brides had to set up their first homes often
far up-country after a journey involving trekking and pony ride. Physical
inconveniences were more than made up by the ambience most suited for a
honeymoon romance. The luckier ones landed in more civilized stations. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Having an army of servants to pamper them
felt very nice in the beginning but left the ‘powder puff memsahebs’ with all
the free time. Sheer idleness and the stifling heat of the Indian summer made
them vulnerable to depression and they found escape in different ways.</span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Olivia, a beautiful, spoiled, bored English colonial wife
in the 1920s, the heroine of Ruth Jhabwala’s <i>Heat and Dust,</i> is drawn inexorably into the spell of the local
Nawab and elopes with him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">That
such scandals were few and far between was because action shifted from the
plains to the hills. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The retreat to the Hills in
summer provided a brief escape from the heat of the plains. Field officers
could not leave their station but their wives could.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Women who did migrate to the cooler climes
of the hills found a freedom they could not enjoy in small places. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> Both
circumstances and surroundings were highly conducive to romance and. a lot of
people were lonely.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Flirtations were inevitable. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Discreet dalliances were not scorned. Be it
Darjeeling, Simla or Ooty extra-marital affairs between married women and men
on leave was an open secret and connived at. Men </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">were ‘fairly broadminded and wouldn’t really
expect their wives to go up and live in monastic seclusion.’ </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">To even the score the husband left behind
would have an occasional fling with one of the young household maids.</span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Spirits lifted as the weather got cooler. There
was romance in the air in anticipation of the arrival of the fishing fleet. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Life for the young women became a whirl, ‘a
tea dance or a dance or a ball or a dinner party’, something or the other
every day. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Winter tours and life in
camps were something to be looked forward to. Women accompanied husbands on
portions of these tours. For the couple it became a kind of honeymoon and
also took care of the seven years’ itch in men. These </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">tours allowed two widely separated cultures
to meet in friendship and affection. Being a part of India’s rural landscape
was romance in itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Notwithstanding Curzon and his ilk frowning
on miscegenation, inter-racial romance and mixed marriages happened with
increasing frequency though these did not always have a fairytale ending. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 200%;"> The love stories in the Anglo-Indian romance
novels written during the later phase of the Raj were symptomatic of British
fantasies of colonial India and served as a forum to explore interracial
relations as well as experimenting with the femininity of the New Woman. </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Far-Pavilions-M-Kaye/dp/031215125X/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">The
Far Pavilions</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">by M.
M. Kaye</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> is an epic
saga set in 1850s India. An Englishman brought up as a Hindu in India is torn
between loyalty to the Raj, and love for an Indian princess. <span style="background: #F5F9FC;"> <i>In Caste and Creed F.E</i>. Penny tells us
the story of a fair-skinned Eurasian girl just arrived from England. A
romance ensues between her and a British District Collector who does not
initially realize she is half Indian. Prejudice, discrimination,
marriage and relocation follow. On the other hand in</span></span><em><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Lilamani</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: #f5f9fc; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Maud </span></span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Diver spins a happy
alliance between a British male and an Indian female of matching aristocratic
lineage. </span><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Bhowani Junction</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">,</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> a novel</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">by</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Masters" title="John Masters"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-themecolor: text1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">John
Masters</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">,</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">portrays the Anglo-Indian protagonist,
Victoria Jones, as tugged in different directions by three suitors each
representing a different ethnic community.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The empire may have been a playground
for British men to experiment with a variety of sexual experiences they could
not indulge in back home. But it was a two-way traffic.<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"> </span>After the Mutiny, Indian princes had been
cultivated as close allies of the British. During the princes' visits to
Britain, their aristocratic status was given full recognition, and they were
admitted to the most exclusive of social circles. The accusation from jealous
English men that certain Indian princes enjoyed the sexual favours of white
women of all classes is understandable. The smartest peeresses were only too
ready to make a fuss with Bikaner and other Indian chiefs. If status and
wealth worked like magnet, so did dark skin. When Indian contingents went to
England for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria the great difficulty of the
officers was in keeping the white women away from the dark-skinned ‘native’
soldiers.. Victorian morality be damned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">(Sudhir Kumar Jha)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar
and a free-lance researcher.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333; line-height: 200%;">I</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-71945828162774093602012-07-16T00:40:00.000-07:002012-07-16T00:40:38.940-07:00English Place Names, published as cover story in the Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi under the title NAME GAME on he<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody>
<tr> <td bgcolor="#cccccc" valign="top" width="150"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody>
<tr> <td height="12"><img height="12" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/Articles/-Name%20Game_files/menu.curv.gif" width="150" /></td></tr>
<tr> <td><b><span style="color: #4d321d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">News</span></b></td></tr>
<tr> <td bgcolor="#666666" height="1"><img height="1" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/Articles/-Name%20Game_files/trans.gif" /></td></tr>
<tr> <td><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?usrsess=1&clid=1">Page one</a></span></td></tr>
<tr> <td bgcolor="#666666" height="1"><img height="1" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/Articles/-Name%20Game_files/trans.gif" /></td></tr>
<tr> <td><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?usrsess=1&clid=2">India</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr> <td><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?usrsess=1&clid=8">World</a></span></td></tr>
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<b><span class="headline_INSIDE">Cover Story: NAME GAME</span></b></div>
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<span class="story_text">How the English christened places in India might evoke memories of the Raj, but the circumstances have, nevertheless, become historical legacy that cannot be wished away, says Sudhir Kumar Jha<br /><br />REMEMBER the faux pas in a recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary? It said Bangalore — not even Bengaluru — got its name as the locals were Bengalis and spoke Bangla. This was the height of untruth and ignorance, a gaffe not expected from Oxford, but it does explain the myth and confusion prevailing in respect of place names. Places get their names by design or sheer accident. These can be plain, catchy or hilarious, obvious or intriguing, but never without some link to the past. Delving into the genesis of the English names of places in India has been an interesting but challenging exercise. For the sake of euphony, the terms “English” and “British” have been used indiscriminately. These place names evoke memories of the British Raj and, notwithstanding the ongoing attempts at renaming them, the circumstances of their naming have become historical legacy which cannot be wished away.<br />It is sad that no definitive compilation of these names is available. At the beginning of the last century, two Calcutta-based scholars, KN Dhur of the Imperial Library followed by Lt-Col DG Crawford of the Indian Medical Service, made an attempt to list places named after the British. They consulted the survey maps of districts and also went through Newman’s Indian Bradshaw, Smith’s Students’ Geography of India published in 1882 and Keith Johnston’s Atlas of India published in 1894. Periodicals such as Bengal Past & Present and Saturday Journal also yielded some names. To the information so gathered, the two added their own knowledge based on folklore and hearsay. Their total came to a sizeable number, well over 150, but was far from being exhaustive. These came from the whole of British India which covered not only what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh but also Burma and the Malay Peninsula for most of the 19th century. Were they to include the localities or muhallas of towns, roads and streets, public and private institutions, monuments, gardens and parks, et al, so named, their list would have run into thousands. Bangalore Cantonment would have provided over 100 and Kolkata at least 20.<br />The Andaman and Nicobar Islands provide over 40 such names. These islands were formally annexed in 1858 and converted into a convict settlement to confine the great number of life-prisoners left after the Sepoy Mutiny. The British gave the numerous names of their Mutiny heroes and members of the Andamans Commission to places in these islands. Several places in the Sunderbans falling in West Bengal and Bangladesh were named after officers of the Indian Navy, Royal Indian Marine, or Bengal Pilot Service. Amitava Ghosh mentions a few in his captivating book, The Hungry Tide.<br />The one class of Britishers to have left the strongest imprint on the naming of places were the civil servants from the Provincial Civil Service and, later, from the Indian Civil Service, as District Collectors, and some as Lieutenant-Governors. In the days of the East India Company, military officers carried the flag into uncharted territories and laid the foundations of civil administration. New civil stations established by them carried their names, for example Daltonganj and Hunterganj in Jharkhand and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. There are railway stations that were named after the British, be it a railway engineer, priest or civil servant, because there was no village of any importance in the neighbourhood after which these could be named — for example Palmerganj between Gaya and Dehri-on-Sone and Twiningganj between Ara and Buxar. Places were also named after ranks in the British army. We have Captainganj and Colonelganj in Uttar Pradesh and Majorganj in Bihar. Brigade Maidan and Barrackpore in Kolkata and Brigade Road in Bangalore, too, have a British army connection.<br />While many names famous in Indian history are commemorated in place names, many more of the first importance are not thus distinguished. There does not appear to be any place named after Robert Clive or Warren Hastings, the real founders of the British Empire in India.<br />It is notable that most English names were given to places in the first 100 years of British rule in India, very few in the second half of the 19th century and hardly any in the 20th. Significantly, though the missionaries carried their work deep into the hills and jungles and made healthcare and education available to tribal settlements, not many places are named after them; they apparently did not try to impose their own or any other foreign names. Nor did the British try to change the names of villages already in existence.<br />It is not that places were named only after Europeans, though exceptions are few and far between. For example, Achipur near Kolkata, on the banks of the Hooghly river, is named after Yong Atchew, the first Chinese settler in India in modern times. He came to Kolkata around 1780 and enjoyed the patronage of the East India Company as a cultivator of sugarcane.<br />Exceptions apart, these exotic place names are in two parts. The prefix is English while the suffix is vernacular, invariably Persian-Urdu. By far the commonest, in northern India, is ganj, which means a market. Also common are abad and pur, meaning town. Whereas the Hindi garh has been used at least once, as in Georgegarh, nagar does not appear to have been used at all. In southern India, the suffix used is pet, again denoting a town or market; it has also been used in Marathi as Malcolmpet in Mumbai.<br />Places were not always consciously baptised with English names. They just evolved as a corruption of vernacular names. Take the case of Bangalore. The British, after defeating Tipoo Sultan and restoring the Raja of Mysore in 1799, obtained the right to station their own troops in the state. They built their cantonment on ceded village land just east of the ancient town and fortress of Bengaluru, which was soon anglicised to Bangalore. English Bazar in West Bengal’s Malda district was originally the Rangreza Bazar, the dyers’ quarter. The first letter was dropped along the way and it became Angreza Bazar, and hence English Bazar. Kidderpur in Kolkata is not named after Colonel Kyd but derives from an older local name, Khettarpur.<br />Some names got Anglicised, in pronunciation and in spelling, because the British could not pronounce these the local way. Kanpur became Cawnpore and Munger became Monghyr and Danapur Cantonment in Bihar became Dinapore. Likewise, Waris-ali-ganj in Bihar’s Gaya district began to be called Worsleyganj. Grierson market in Madhubani, Bihar, was named after the eponymous linguist, Sir George Abraham Grierson, ICS, who set up the market while he was posted as the SDO of that area. It has been known as Gilesan Market for generations. Bhendi Bazar in Mumbai is a phonetic caricature of “behind the bazaar”.<br />Given below, by way of illustration, is the etymology of some place names from Bihar and Jharkhand:<br />Goldinganj: This is a small village on the Chapra-Sonepur road about 12 km east of Chapra, an old district town in north Bihar. The only claim to fame of this otherwise nondescript place is a ring of mystery surrounding its name. It has a railway station catering to the North Eastern Railway and a post office with the postal index No. 841211. The station is spelt “Goldinganj” while the postmark reads “Gultenganj”. Old records reveal there was in fact one Edward Golding after whom the place was in all probability named. He was appointed the Company’s Commercial Agent at Bettiah in 1766 after the local Raja had capitulated to the East India Company’s forces. In 1769, Golding was promoted as the Supervisor (precursor of Collector) of Saran Parganas. His bailiwick covered what are today Chapra, Siwan, Gopalganj, Motihari and Bettiah districts.<br />Lesliganj: This is an outgrown village, more of a kasba, in Palamu district of what is now Jharkhand. Located about 15 km east of Daltonganj, the district headquarters, on the road to Manatu, it has the usual appurtenances of an administrative outpost — a dak bungalow, a police station and a block development office. It has nothing much to offer except its exotic name. It was founded by, and is named after, Matthew Leslie, Collector of the Ramgarh Hill Tract in the 1780s. As with other East India Company officials of the 18th century, Leslie’s biographical details are extremely difficult to get. His revenue jurisdiction included the whole of what later became Palamu and Hazaribag districts and part of Gaya up to Sherghati. The Cheros had been the rulers of Palamu but their internal feuds afforded the British the opportunity to intervene and eventually assume control. As Leslie had to continually camp in Chero territory, he chose a hamlet that soon became known as Lesliganj, dropping an “e” from his name. It appears that Leslie’s good work as Collector of Ramgarh was taken note of and he was transferred as the Collector and Magistrate of Rungpore district in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), a more prestigious charge. <br />Daltonganj: Situated on the Koil river, this is the headquarters of Palamu district, now in Jharkhand. It has the usual components of a civil station but nothing else and has been a poor and neglected cousin of the other towns in Chhotanagpur. Though connected by rail and road to the rest of the country, its back-of-beyond location is responsible for its relative isolation. The town is named after Colonel Edward Tuite Dalton who, as the Commissioner of Chhotanagpur, founded a settlement here in 1861 on government land where the headquarters of Palamu subdivision was shifted from Lesliganj the following year. When Palamu was made into a separate district 20 years later, Daltonganj was the obvious choice as the headquarters of the new district.<br />Dalton was the commissioner of Chhotanagpur during the Sepoy Mutiny and for many years thereafter. He initiated several administrative measures. In 1862, he ordered an outright substitution of Hindi written in the Devnagri or Kaithi script for Urdu in the Persian character as the medium of instruction and for court work throughout his commissionerate. In September 1870, Dalton laid the foundation of a permanent church at Ranchi in the presence of a large and assorted gathering. He is best remembered for his magnum opus, The Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, published in 1872.<br />Forbesganj: This is today a subdivisional town of Purnea division in northeastern Bihar. It borders Nepal and is not very far from the Bangladesh border. The checkposts of various government departments notwithstanding, its busy market caters to buyers from both India and Nepal. The main business today is in grains and timber, jute having lost ground to plastic. How did Forbesganj acquire its exotic sounding name? It is named after Alexander J Forbes, an indigo planter and zamindar in Purnea district. His biographical details are not available except that he came out to India in the early part of the 19th century and spent the greater part of his life in Purnea, where he amassed a large fortune, mostly from indigo. One of Forbes’ indigo factories was at Forbesabad, which name was presumably changed to Forbesganj as the place developed into a township with a flourishing market. While on a trip to Calcutta, he died in 1890 at the age of 84, and lies buried at Purnea.<br />Sandys’ Compound: In the heart of Bhagalpur civil station, there is a large tract of land that is locally referred to as Sandys’ Compound. At one time this whole area formed the compound of the residence of Teignmouth Sandys, who was the Judge of Bhagalpur around the middle of the 19th century. He belonged to the Indian Civil Service, though the nomenclature had not been fashioned till then. He was recruited as a Writer, like many others before and after him. William Tayler of Patna fame was his contemporary. Educated and promising youngsters from England were appointed as Writers, something like probationary Assistant Collectors and Magistrates, and rose to become Supervisors/Collectors if entrusted with revenue functions or as Judges if utilised for judicial work. Sandys belonged to the first batch of Writers nominated in 1826 for the qualifying examination in 1827.<br />Revelganj: This is an inconspicuous town in Saran district in north Bihar. Situated 12 km west of the district headquarters town of Chapra, it is served by road and rail. Unlike some other places with European names, it is well known that Revelganj was named after Henry Revel. The East India Company posted Revel as the Collector of Customs at Chapra. It may be recalled that at that time, in the absence of satisfactory road and rail transportation, the East India Company carried on the bulk of trade and commerce by the river route. Revel realised the value of having a proper Custom House to earn revenue for the company so he set up one at Godna in 1788. A market grew around it and in no time the place developed as an important river mart. Revel appears to have been resourceful as well as kind-hearted and became a legend in his lifetime for his humanitarian and charitable acts. His memory was held in such repute that his grave was considered a shrine and his name invoked on occasions of calamity and adversity. It stands in front of the Eden bazaar alongside the Chapra-Guthni road. Tarapada Mukherjee, a local zamindar and lawyer, gave the place a facelift and was also instrumental in establishing a municipality in 1876 by combining the twin revenue villages of Godna and Semaria and, as it’s first vice-chairman, had the new township named Revelganj after Henry Revel.<br />Bakarganj: Not to be confused with Bakerganj in Bangladesh, this lies in the heart of Patna and is named after Robert Barker, an officer in the East India Company’s army. The grant of Diwani to the East India Company in 1765 made the British the virtual rulers of what later became the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. A reorganisation of the East India Company’s army followed. Barker had long served the Company’s Artillery and distinguished himself during the siege of Madras. In the reorganisation, he was to have been made Colonel of the Artillery but had to contend with the place originally slotted for Major Knox of Patna fame. Of the three refashioned brigades, the first was located at Monghyr, the second at Allahabad and the third at Bankipore (Patna) under Barker. The 21st battalion raised by Barker at Bankipur became known as Barker-ki-Paltan just as the 20th battalion raised at Lucknow was called Hussaini-ki-Paltan for having been raised on the day of Muharram. Ironically, Barker-ki-Paltan, after several changes of nomenclature, mutinied at Azamgarh in 1857. Barker rose to become a general and Army Chief and was also knighted. He spent three years at Bankipur (Patna) roughly from 1765 to 1768, that is, until the cantonment was shifted to Danapur. The area around his residence developed as a military bazaar or mandi on the eastern side of Gandhi Maidan and was named Bakarganj after him. It is today an extremely congested commercial-cum-residential locality.<br />Hunterganj: Contrary to popular thinking, Hunterganj in Chatra district, now in Jharkhand, is not named after the famous educationist and indologist WW Hunter. It derives its name from William Hunter who was the Collector of Ramgarh (spelt Ramghur) Hill Tract in 1794. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William had appointed him and other Collectors of the Bengal Presidency Justices of Peace. Hunter’s jurisdiction extended right up to Sherghati in today’s Gaya district. A patch of jungle was cleared to set up his camp during his visits to Sherghati and human habitation slowly grew around it. Soon it was being referred to as Hunterganj and developed as an administrative centre.<br />McCluskieganj: McCluskieganj is a sad saga of aspirations gone awry. The Anglo-Indians were, generally speaking, a town-bred community without knowledge of agriculture or experience of village life. They were doled out petty appointments in the Railways and Telegraphs departments while their women worked as teachers in convent schools and as stenos in multinational companies. It was becoming difficult to find employment, whether in government departments or in commercial concerns, for the increasing number of Anglo-Indian youth. Having observed their conditions first-hand, the Indian Statutory Commission made a suggestion, with the concurrence of the government of India, that an attempt be made to bring the Eurasians, chiefly the Anglo-Indians, to the land and open up a wider range of self-employment for them. The Anglo-Indians seized upon the idea and was thus born in 1933 The Colonization Society of India Limited, registered as a limited company. On behalf of the company, ET McCluskie, a Calcutta-based Anglo-Indian real estate agent and member of the Bengal Legislative Council, discovered a beautiful spot in the Chhotanagpur forests, 60 km from the district headquarters town of Ranchi. The Society bought 10,000 acres of forest land from the local Maharaja in 1932. Plots were allotted as per the layout plan prepared by McCluskie. In a creditable display of grit and determination to conquer the natural difficulties, they made the clearings, dug wells and planted orchards. It was not long before a large number of sprawling bungalows and cottages situated in the midst of several acres of land came up in these sylvan surroundings. The new colony became home to nearly 300 Anglo-Indian and domiciled European families. McCluskie died soon after and, as a fitting tribute to this pioneer, the new settlers named the place McCluskieganj, the putative Tel-Aviv of their homeland. Come Independence and, feeling deprived and insecure, there was a mad rush to migrate to Australia, the USA, Canada and the UK. The Society went into liquidation around 1955. Today there is nothing much to see here but a place gone to seed. One can take long walks through the forest, do some bird watching and listen to their chirping. Not more than 35 Anglo-Indian families now live here and fewer are descendents of the original allottees.<br />There is no dearth of English place names. One only has to be inquisitive. There has been a trend in favour of demolishing English names originally given to a place. We cannot turn the clock back by renaming such places. Naming Calcutta Kolkata has not made the traffic less congested. People still prefer VT to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and refer to Connaught Place as CP and not by its new official appellation. Whether we like it or not, these mysterious place names have become a part of our heritage. Dhur and Crawford could not trace the etymology of each and every name they catalogued, leaving enough scope for future probe. Before the trail gets colder, all such names should be collected, collated and a funded research undertaken to record for posterity the circumstances of their naming.<br /><br />(The author can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)</span></div>
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</div>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-75811021719647829022012-07-16T00:37:00.003-07:002012-07-16T00:37:39.198-07:00A TALE OF TWO JUBILEES<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>A TALE OF TWO JUBILEES<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br />
As the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region>
celebrates the Diamond Jubilee of their monarch (Queen Elizabeth II came to the
throne in 1952 though her Coronation took place a year later) comparisons from
history readily come to mind. The three longest reigning British monarchs – two
Elizabeths and one Victoria - have all been remarkable women, <st1:city w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:city>’s 45-year rule (1558-1603) is
considered one of the most glorious in British history. A secure Church of
England was established. The arts flourished. The Queen is said to have attended
the first performance of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. She launched the overseas imperial project,
notably the East India Company, which laid the foundation of the vast empire
over which Queen Victoria was later to preside. For all that excellence she
could not make it to her Golden Jubilee.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
Queen Elizabeth
II had her Silver Jubilee in 1977 and her Golden Jubilee in 2002. However this
one is that bit more special as she is only the second British Monarch to
celebrate a Diamond Jubilee, the first being her great great grandmother Queen
Victoria in 1897. <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state>
remains the longest serving British Monarch in history and to beat
her reign Queen Elizabeth II needs to remain on the throne for almost four
more years. The queen’s mother lived to be 101. Hopefully, the daughter will
live longer and beat <st1:place w:st="on">Victoria</st1:place>’s
record.</div>
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Compared to the
prolonged pageantry of <st1:place w:st="on">Victoria</st1:place>’s
Diamond Jubilee celebrations this June weekend party for Elizabeth II may appear
a subdued affair and understandably so. Whereas the former was Her Imperial
Majesty the latter is plain and simple Her Majesty. As well as being the Queen
of <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Wales</st1:country-region>, <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state>
was also the first monarch to use the title Empress of <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/India" title="India"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">India</span></a>.
Her reign (1837-1901) was marked by a great expansion of the <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/British_Empire" title="British Empire"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">British Empire</span></a> where the sun never set. These were
hugely eventful years, from the abolition of slavery to the Boer War. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> was rid of the spectre of
Napoleon and the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Her colonies supplied
the raw material and absorbed the finished products making the country rich and
prosperous. Her period witnessed significant social and economic change at home.
Her strict moral code made her an iconic figure. The term Victorian morality is
often used to describe the ethos of the period.</div>
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As per <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state>’s
wish the Jubilee was celebrated as a festival of the <st1:place w:st="on">British
Empire</st1:place>. The procession in which the queen participated included
troops from each British colony and dependency, together with soldiers sent by
Indian princes and chiefs (who were subordinate to <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state> as the Empress of India). The
Diamond Jubilee celebration was an occasion marked by great outpourings of
affection for the septuagenarian queen, who was by then confined to a
wheelchair. Festivities were replicated in all her colonies, titles were
bestowed and several existing and new magnificent monuments carried her name.
Queen <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state> remains the most commemorated
British monarch in history, with statues to her erected throughout the <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/British_Empire" title="British Empire"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">British Empire</span></a> and several places and
magnificent monuments named after her. They are one too many. <st1:placename w:st="on">Victoria</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Province</st1:placename>
in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region>, Lake Victoria
in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place> and Victoria Terminal railway station
in Mumbai are by way of illustration. <st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place> celebrated the Jubilee with
full gusto and several institutions and magnificent structures were created
bearing her name; most of them still survive.</div>
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In the case of Elizabeth II the pull of
history has been the other way highlighting the demise of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> as a
great global power. If <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state> had an Empire
Elizabeth is the ceremonial head of a democratic <st1:place w:st="on">Commonwealth
of Nations</st1:place>. The 1956 <st1:city w:st="on">Suez</st1:city> crisis
revealed, with humiliating clarity, the limited postwar geopolitical capacity
of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region>.
As decolonisation ground on, culminating in the 1997 handover of <st1:place w:st="on">Hong Kong</st1:place>, the tides of empire came back to these shores.
All is not lost though. She continues to be the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy" title="Constitutional monarchy"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">constitutional monarch</span></a> of 16 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state" title="Sovereign state"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">sovereign
states</span></a> (known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_realm" title="Commonwealth realm"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Commonwealth realms</span></a>) as well as head of the 54-member <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations" title="Commonwealth of Nations"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Commonwealth of Nations</span></a>. She is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Governor_of_the_Church_of_England" title="Supreme Governor of the Church of England"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Supreme Governor of the Church of
England</span></a> and, in some of her realms, carries the title <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidei_defensor" title="Fidei defensor"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Defender of
the Faith</span></a> as part of her full title.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
The queen seems
to have more than made up for the loss of her territory by enjoying enormous
goodwill of her subjects. After a rocky period including the death of Princess
Diana in 1997 and Prince Charles’ dalliance with a much older woman, today's
royals are resurgent in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>.
A recent poll shows that 80 per cent of Britons want the country to remain a
monarchy. No wonder therefore that at all her programmes during the official
Jubilee Weekend. people turned out in large numbers despite foul weather and
cheered her all the way. The four-day national jubilee holiday from 2<sup>nd</sup>
to 5th June (not at the Queen’s express wish, unlike Victoria) began on Sunday with
the Queen indulging in her love of horse racing at the famed Epsom Derby horse
race, where she was greeted by enthusiastic, flag-waving crowds. Later the same
day she joined a spectacular flotilla of 1,000 boats for a dazzling display of
British pageantry on <st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place>'s
River Thames. Music ranging from the national anthem and chiming bells to
Bollywood tunes and the famous James Bond theme blared from boats Thousands of
people lined the river in an atmosphere, in spite of heavy rain, of enjoyment
and excitement. On the long ceremonial sail down the <st1:place w:st="on">Thames</st1:place>
on board the magnificently decorated barge Spirit of Chartwell stood the
86-year old monarch throughout, waving in response... On Monday evening, again,
thousands of people stood in the Mall, in front of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Buckingham</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Palace</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
to listen to the concert in honour of Her Majesty. Such pageantry in the face
of groaning economy was lapped up by her subjects rubbishing cynical comments
by anti-monarchists and doom-sayers. And this was only the start of a series of
national events this summer which have got British pride swelling up to
tremendous proportions. Wait for the <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>
Olympics. Did the government decide to host the event with the Diamond Jubilee
in mind?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
Several nations
around the world, for example <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:country-region> and the <st1:place w:st="on">Caribbean</st1:place>
countries are celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of their constitutional monarch. The
celebrations include parades, concerts, and community get-together’s on all
scales, from small community picnics to enormous events for thousands of
people. In <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region>
a new commemorative medal has been created to mark the 60th anniversary of
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne as Queen of Canada.
During the year of celebrations, 60 000 deserving Canadians will be recognized.
In <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region>
the Perth Mint has released 60 one-kilogram gold coins in honour of Queen
Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. The mint is also releasing 600 silver coins.
The coins will be Australian legal tender. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
Unlike the first
Elizabethans the people who exemplify the age of the current monarch may not be
defined as poets and adventurers. The modern Elizabethan era will however be
remembered for the ethnic, racial and religious transformation of <st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place>.
Elizabeth II has seen <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state>’s
empire transformed into Commonwealth and her country remade into a more modern
kind of world power, in finance and the arts, democracy and diplomacy. The
House of Lords may soon become an elected body. Despite the transformation of
culture and class, the erosion of her economy, the end of deference and a
distinctive sense of Britishness, the country has maintained a strong sense of
national pride and self-belief in which the queen herself is bound up. If the
proposal to rename the historic Big Ben in <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>
as the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Tower</st1:placename></st1:place> goes through, it will be well
deserved. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
Dr. Sudhir Kumar
Jha</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
(The author is a
former Director General of Police, <st1:place w:st="on">Bihar</st1:place> and a
freelance writer.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-9879675010549137872012-07-16T00:29:00.001-07:002012-09-15T07:03:23.297-07:00THE OTHER JIM CORBETT<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Published in the Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi on 15 July 2012<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.1in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="apple-style-span"> <b>THE OTHER JIM CORBETT <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.1in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
Jim Corbett had a lot in common
with Verrier Elwin, one of the greatest champions of <st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place>’s tribal people, and Sálim
Ali, the celebrated ornithologist. <span class="apple-style-span">They all loved wilderness. The triumvirate championed c</span>onserving natural habitats and
wildlife, protecting forest communities, reducing human-animal conflict and
promoting eco-friendly practices decades before these issues entered the public
domain. <span class="apple-style-span">The first
wildlife reserve of India, extending over an area of more than 500 sq km in the
Himalayan foothills, in the state of Uttaranchal, was rechristened Jim Corbett
National Park in 1956 in honour of the legendary hunter-turned-
conservationist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.1in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-style-span">Jim Corbett's stories of his
hunt of man-eaters, mostly self narrated, are established classics and have
thrilled generations of young and old. His <i>Man-eaters
of Kumaon</i> has undergone several reprints. For his daring and hunting skills he became a
legend in his life time. But to typecast him as a man with a hunting rifle does
not do justice to his persona which was far more encompassing. His compassion
and charitable disposition, his close bond with nature and his philosophy
behind </span>killing<span class="apple-style-span"> the carnivores need to be understood and highlighted. His
bread and butter did not come from hunting but from a totally unrelated activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Style2" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.1in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Born a Postmaster’s son
at Nainital Jim Corbett </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">(25 July 1875–19 April 1955) spent his growing up summers at Gurni House
in the lower reaches of Nainital and winters at Kaladhungi in the tarai jungles
of Kumaon. This made him passionate about the flora and fauna around him. With
his older brother Tom as his teacher he became adept at training a gun at his target
quite early on. For many years hunting to him remained a mere sport. Years
later, a shikar party led by him downed hundreds of water fowls in a lake. The sight
of this mindless carnage shocked him. The revulsion he felt resulted in a
change of heart, not unlike Ashoka after the Kalinga war. Thereafter<span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt; line-height: 200%;"> he developed a
philosophical attitude to hunting.</span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;"> He realized that the <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">tiger, or leopard for that matter, </span>was
lord of the jungle and must have its dues. The villagers could not <span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt;">plead their losses in cattle and goats.</span></span></span><span class="CharacterStyle2"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.75pt; line-height: 200%;"> The carnivore </span></span><span class="CharacterStyle2"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.55pt; line-height: 200%;">at </span></span><span class="CharacterStyle2"><span style="line-height: 200%;">all events was immune, unless it was
killing human beings<span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">,</span></span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.05pt; line-height: 200%;"> not</span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.1pt; line-height: 200%;"> by chance or </span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;">in anger but
because it sought them as food.</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt;"> </span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;">Only when it
turned into a Man-eater would Corbett agree to kill it. </span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.6pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;">These marauders had become such a terror
in Kumaon and Garhwal region and so many human lives had been lost to them that
he could not shirk his obligation to eliminate them. Shooting had to be
effective so that the animal did not suffer needless agony. Corbett shot
several man-eaters and people looked upon him as their savior.</span></span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="Style2" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.1in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Jim
Corbett was born into a large but not a rich family. He went straight from school
to take up a job</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: 0.15pt; line-height: 200%;"> as </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">a Fuel Inspector with the railway.<span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;"> For a year and a half he </span></span>lived
in the forest cutting <span style="letter-spacing: 0.25pt;">five hundred thousand
cubic feet of timber, to be used as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">fuel
in locomotives. After the trees had been felled and </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">billeted, each billet not more and not less than
thirty-six </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.45pt;">inches long, the fuel was
carted ten miles (sixteen kilometers) to the nearest </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.35pt;">point of the railway, where it was stacked and
measured </span>and then loaded into fuel trains and taken to the stations
where it was needed. Suddenly he found that his services would no longer be
required, <span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="line-height: 200%;">for the locomotives had been
converted to <span style="letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">coal-burning and no more wood
fuel would be needed.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
Feeling dejected he proceeded to Samastipur in <st1:place w:st="on">North Bihar</st1:place> to render account to the Head of the
Department he had been working for. The journey lasted for thirty-six hours
with the train stopping for breakfast, <span style="letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">lunch,
and dinner. He had all but given up hope when out of the blue came orders
posting him </span><span class="CharacterStyle1">to
Mokameh Ghat in <st1:place w:st="on">Bihar</st1:place> as Trans-shipment
Inspector on enhanced pay. That he was also to</span><span class="CharacterStyle1"> take </span><span class="CharacterStyle1">over the labour contract for handling goods came as a
bonus.</span><span style="letter-spacing: 1.35pt;"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">More than half a
million tons of traffic were ferried across river Ganges every year, and had to
be transshipped from one gauge of rails to another, meter gauge north of the
Ganges and broad gauge to the south. Now of course there is a long bridge
spanning the river and it is broad gauge all the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span class="apple-style-span">Back then the conditions of
work were exceptionally arduous, and that Corbett carried it on for over twenty
years was due not only to his power of physical endurance, but to his friendly
personal contacts with the large force of Indian labour which he employed as
contractor. </span>They gave an unmistakable proof of their own feelings
for him during the First World War when he had taken the Kumaon Labour Corps to
<st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">France</st1:country>.
It was then that his Indian subordinates at Mokameh Ghat arranged with the
labourers that they would together carry on the work on his behalf throughout
his absence which was until the end of the war. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify;">
<span class="description">Once
when labourers could not be paid on time and were facing starvation Corbett too
missed his meal or subsisted on a single chapati. The story of Lalajee has made
it into school text books. Lalajee was once a prosperous grain merchant who
became penniless after being cheated by his partner. Without any hope in life,
he took the train, got off at Mokameh Ghat </span>stricken<span class="description"> with cholera, went to the bank of
the <st1:place w:st="on">Ganges</st1:place> waiting to die. Corbett carried him
to his bungalow and nursed him back to health. He later sent Lalajee away with a pep talk and
four hundred and fifty rupees, which in 1898 was Corbett’s salary for 3 months,
to start a new life of hope. Budhu’s story is not much different. He was forced
to work as a slave by a greedy landowner, because his grandfather had borrowed
one rupee from him. The amount with interest had now climbed to several
hundred, and with the help of a lawyer, Corbett paid the landowner, and
released Budhu. He called Budhu in his office, gave the papers of his release.
He took out a match and asked Budhu to hold the paper while he set it on fire.
’’Don’t burn these papers sahib’’ Budhu pleaded ’’I am your slave now’’.
Corbett told him that he was nobody’s slave, but a free man.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="description">Corbett’s
ambivalence towards Sultana Daku, <st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country>’s notorious bandit who
operated in and around Kumaon, was typical of the man. Initially he helped the
U.P. police officer Freddy Young in trailing the dacoit. When he found out that
Sultana was not a mere bandit but a Robin Hood who robbed the rich to help the
poor, he developed a soft corner for him. He felt sorry when Sultana was
eventually captured and condemned the authorities who publicly humiliated him
before being hanged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"> His book <i>My
Story</i>, which is more in the nature of autobiography, informs us about his
life at Mokameh Ghat, as also before and after. The reader cannot remain
unimpressed by his saint like benevolence and genuine concern for Indians he
befriended without any reservation. Whether it was ridding Kumaon villagers of
man-eaters or providing elementary medical care he was always there for them,
even rushing from his work place at Mokameh Ghat on receipt of an urgent
telegram.</span><span class="description"> He bought vast stretches of land, built houses and gave
them to the poor, paid taxes on them, helped them to create orchards in the
property and making it a model village.</span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-color: white; color: #707070; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">Today the entire area is known as Corbett
Walk and is a tourist attraction. It begins on the Ayarpatta hill which is
where almost all the houses Jim Corbett owned are located and on the Deopatta,
where most buildings identified with Corbett still exist. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="Style1" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.1in; margin-top: .15in; text-indent: 0in;">
<span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Age was catching up with him and he was not
keeping too well.</span></span> <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">He
resigned and left Mokameh Ghat in 1920. For the next twenty-four years he
served as an elected member of the Nainital Municipal Board.</span> <span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> He canalized his fascination for jungle life
to the study of flora and fauna. Camera replaced the rifle.</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 1.05pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: 1.05pt; line-height: 200%;">H</span><span class="CharacterStyle1"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">e relocated to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">Kenya</st1:country></st1:place> in 1947. It could not have
been an easy decision for him to make. He loved Kumaon as much as people adored
him. But <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country -region="-region" w:st="on">Kenya</st1:country></st1:place>
could at all events minister to his passion for photographing wild life, and he
was able to indulge it to the full until his death. He left behind armloads of
rare photographs some of which had been taken at grave personal risk.</span></span>
<span class="description"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: -.1in; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span class="apple-style-span">Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">(The author is a former Director General of Police, <st1:place w:st="on">Bihar</st1:place> and a freelance writer.)</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><br />
<span class="description"> </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-71591761819721334262011-09-06T07:24:00.000-07:002011-09-06T07:34:53.683-07:00WAKE UP CALL FOR BRITISH POLICEWAKE UP CALL FOR BRITISH POLICE<br /><br />The Tottenham riots (early August) took the British police by surprise. They fumbled initially for apparent lack of contingency plans. They lost more face when the trouble engulfed not only the city of London but much of the British urban landscape (surprising why these. did not spread to Scotland, Wales and North Ireland) exposing lack of coordination among the different city police forces. The London Bobby has long been viewed as a role model for police forces the world over and the Scotland Yard as icon among the detective agencies. Post-riots tongues started wagging that foreign police agencies might think twice before turning to London for advice on public order. There was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that Prime Minister David Cameron might be calling in experts from New York and Los Angeles police on tackling gangs.<br />Whatever might have been felt and said in the heat of the moment one should not be too harsh in judging the police. The Metropolitan Police had been headless for some time denying the police the benefit of a centralised command. Not having been exposed to a serious riot since the <a title="Wikipedia: Broadwater Farm riot" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadwater_Farm_riot">Broadwater Farm riots</a> 26 years ago they seem to have forgotten their riot drill. They were grossly under equipped and under strength They rose to the occasion like one man once the reinforcements came with sufficient riot gear. The London cops, with their strength gone up from 6000 to 16000, effected 1700 arrests; of the 700 charged two-thirds were remanded to custody. Within hours they were tried and those found guilty were sentenced. (Contrast this with India where there is virtually no conviction following a major riot.) Going by a media poll, despite the initial setback the public (at least the majority of the whites) continue to view their police as professionally competent, fair and impartial. In their view the riots were the outcome of the skewed policies of the government over a period of time.<br />Britain has been a divided society for the last few decades and the hiatus is only growing. The country has had a problem with its youth, a generation that is functionally illiterate, unemployable, demotivated and criminalised from early childhood, stuck in a vicious cycle of generational poverty. They have no jobs, no prospects, and no future except living on dole in dwellings built out of public money. Hate and anger had been building up over a period of time. The super rich bankers in the Square Mile and the rioters next door in Hackney may be next door neighbours but there is little in common between them besides their fondness for the same gizmos. Walking down the trashed streets one found the items looted were electronics, designer clothes, phones, perfumes, cosmetics and jewellery. It is therefore being said that the riots were a consumerist uprising of the have-nots against the haves.<br />The native white population has reason to feel threatened by the size and relative prosperity of the non-white immigrant communities. Police will have to remain on guard against the rise of right (white) extremism of the kind that was responsible for the Norway carnage last month. According to his own admission the suspect in the Norwegian attacks, Anders Behring Breivik was only trying to draw attention to the imminent danger of ‘black’ immigrants engulfing the whites if the tide was not arrested.<br />Leave aside the government police too failed to read the writing on the wall. When the society was static the beat constable knew his charge by name and face. He bore on his person nothing more than a truncheon, more as a symbol of authority than as a weapon of assault. If police was unarmed, so was the criminal and so the cycle went. Law and order problems were few and far between. Lately police have largely abandoned visits to racially sensitive areas. Any law enforcement in these areas is treated with a simmering resentment which quickly erupts into violence. The easy option for the police has been to designate them as "no-go areas", effectively abandoning the silent majority to a life of misery under the threat of violence and crime. Cuts to policing are evident in the mere fact that visible, proactive patrols don't exist any more.<br />It is time for police to introspect and to answer a few questions. Was there enough provocation to open fire at Tottenham? It looks like not having had to handle anything so serious for a long time police had become complacent. Fire power was used where other methods such as parleying, baton charge, water cannon and tear smoke might have done the job. Police have to answer the charge of intelligence failure and not having a contingency plan ready. Why did they not activate their ‘sleeper cells’? The deteriorating socio-economic scenario and the near total alienation of the youth were bound to result in an outburst sooner than later. Police failed to feel their pulse. Once the trouble started there was obvious lack of coordination between the police forces of different cities. Why could the conflagration not be prevented from spreading to other cities? If the looters could coordinate their actions through Facebook, Tweeter and other social network sites the police could also have responded in kind and intercepted or jammed them? Perhaps they could not under the law. After all, United Kingdom prides herself on being a free, liberal society.<br />What complicated matter for police was that the victim in Tottenham was an Asian immigrant. Police, nearly all white, have not been able to shake off allegations of racial prejudice. Considering the large immigrant segment of British population a fresh dose of sensitization is called for. The United States is trying to deal with this problem by inducting a sizeable number of Afro-Americans in their police force.<br />Having lambasted the autocratic regimes in the Arab world all these years for human rights violation spy glasses are constantly turned on UK for any signs of similar transgression. With the sword of human rights violation hanging over their head British police law enforcement has become lax. In coming years law enforcement without compromising on human rights is going to pose a challenge for them.<br />The British police are still one of the best in the world. Let them treat the riots as a wake up call, fine tune their strategy and tactics, and take stock of what they have and what they need. Equally or more so, government must take note of the changed environment. With latent hostility at home and international terrorism staring country in the face days of the unarmed beat constable have to end. Police need latest equipment and gadgetry, mobility and, most of all, manifold increase in numbers. Policing, proactive as well as reactive, is going to cost the exchequer a packet, budget cut or no budget cut, and there is no running away from it.<br /><br />(Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha)<br />(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar)Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-53570730376721434722011-08-16T07:48:00.000-07:002011-08-16T07:54:29.688-07:00RAJ ERA CEMETERIES IN PERIL“He being dead yet speaketh”
<br />RAJ ERA CEMETERIES IN PERIL
<br />Showing respect to the dead is common to societies all over the world. ‘Speak not ill of the dead’, is what we are taught from our childhood. ‘Let them rest in peace’ comes instantly to mind as we pass a grave. Encroaching and vandalising their final resting place can therefore be viewed as sacrilege. Shakespeare sounded a grim warning in the epitaph inscribed in his gravestone at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon in England:
<br />"Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones,And cursed be he that moves my bones."Shakespeare supposedly wrote it himself because in his time old bodies were dug up and burned to make room for new burials. Many British men and women of the Raj era would have aspired to borrow from Shakespeare's epitaph and wished their final resting places to remain untouched by the encroaching, marauding hand.
<br />There are few well kept graveyards, such as the Bhowanipore Cemetery in Kolkata, Viceroy Lord Elgin's memorial at McLeodgunj in Himachal Pradesh, the Nuns' cemetery near St Bedes College for Women in Simla, and the War cemeteries at Kohima, Delhi, Pune and Comilla in Bangladesh. Most, however, have fallen prey to encroachment, vandalism and pilferage. Some have disappeared due to the vagaries of nature or to the greed for land. It is the same story from Peshawar to Chittagong, Baramula to Trivandrum. Peshawar’s Gora Qabristan, witness to the Afghan Wars, and the cantonment cemetery in Meerut, where the Indian Uprising of 1857 began, are typical of the decay now facing old British graves. As a result, it is nearly impossible to put an exact number, far less to decipher the inscriptions on them. Criminals take away headstones making it difficult to identify the tombs.
<br />Non-British cemeteries have fared no better. The Jewish cemetery, located off Lloyd's Road in Madras, now Chennai, is adjacent to the Chinese cemetery and both cemeteries have clusters of vendors and squatters with vegetables displayed on the road itself at the entrances. Portuguese, Spanish and French tombs have all but disappeared from the Indian soil.
<br />Whereas most of the inscriptions on the grave stones speak of the survivor’s grief and loss, some speak of the vanity of their occupants ignoring Thomas Gray’s famous Elegy “… The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” In most cases, the tombstones are not of Viceroys and other high and mighty of the British Raj but of the countless British civil servants, soldiers, merchants, missionaries, townspeople and teachers, their spouses and children most of whom succumbed not to sword but to summer heat and tropical diseases. They are all part of India’s past. If some headstones contain doggerels we also come across some fine quotes and original compositions. At least some of the tombs can claim to be fair representatives of Indo-European architecture. Much has been lost but not all. If properly maintained these cemeteries can become virtual 'al-fresco museums'.
<br />The care of these graves has become no body’s baby. Lack of interest and resources lie behind this callous neglect. But it is more a question of mindset. Local sensitivities have of course to be taken care of. The Indian public and their representatives in parliament and government have to be sensitised to the fact that conservation of the Raj era cemeteries is not meant to glorify and perpetuate British imperial history but to give us a valuable perspective on India’s heritage. We have to look at these graveyards as ‘little pockets of history’, a who’s who of the British Raj. However much we may resent the British rule in India we cannot wish it away.
<br />The conservation of these tombs and cemeteries is simply beyond the capacity of local church committees. A concerted effort is called for lest this valuable source of history is lost for ever. Sadly, in India the Central and State Minority Commissions and the nominated Anglo-Indian members of state assemblies have been indifferent. The least they can do is to pressurise the government to have pucca boundary walls erected to prevent further encroachment as the hunger for land can drive people to any length. The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA), a London-based charity, has done a great job in listing out a large number of graves and even pays for the upkeep of some. Lately, Lt. Col. Lake has launched a trust in UK with an ambitious target to raise £700,000 a year from corporate donors such as HSBC, Rothschild, Lloyds and other major foundations so that these places can be maintained in perpetuity throughout the erstwhile British empire. India-based NGOs and public authorities may also pitch in and play a coordinating role.
<br />An estimated two million graves of the Raj era, lying in isolation or in clusters in designated cemeteries, dot the Indian sub continent. If the government can catalogue and put them on the net many of the present generation Britain may want to visit India to connect with their ancestors and put a wreath on their tombs. In the process they will be unwittingly promoting what can be crudely termed as "graveyard tourism". Most of all, we must create public awareness to defer to the dignity of the dead for, to borrow from the epitaph on Viceroy Lord Elgin’s grave, “He being dead yet speaketh”.
<br />Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha
<br />NIRVANA’ Buddha Colony
<br />Patna 800 001
<br />(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar and a free-lance researcher. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)
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<br />Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-21081278448507398172010-07-26T06:31:00.000-07:002014-11-24T05:32:30.288-08:00Mind your manners. Sir!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;"> Mind your manners, Sir!</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">(Published as lead article in the Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi on Friday, 8 October,2010)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">The professed iron-frame of the British Indian administration was not dubbed the Indian Civil Service for nothing. The pun on ‘civil’ underscored its non-military character as much as ‘civility’ inbuilt in their persona. I often wondered how the initial inductees would have handled human interaction in course of their work, given the totally unfamiliar climate, culture and language. They did not have the benefit of Dale Carnegie’s famous <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How to Win Friends And Influence People</i> which was some years away in the future. Call it serendipity but in course of one of my research forays into the archives I stumbled upon a Memorandum on the subject of Social and Official Intercourse between European Officers and Indians. It was printed in 1913 at the Government Press, <st1:city st="on">Ranchi</st1:city> (yes, the provisional government of the newly-formed state of Bihar and Orissa functioned from <st1:city st="on">Ranchi</st1:city> while the new capital was coming up at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna.</st1:place></st1:city>). It was meant for the benefit of the young British officers starting their career in <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>. It draws heavily upon a set of instructions issued in 1821 to his Assistants in <st1:place st="on">Central India</st1:place> by Sir John Malcolm, Agent of the Governor General. Be it the subordinate staff or the public at large the emphasis is on easy accessibility while courtesy with compassion is to be the given norm of behaviour. The detailed do’s and don’ts give a rare insight into the Indian psyche and leaves one wondering if the British understood us better than we do ourselves.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN"> True, times are not the same. We are today a free nation. There has been perceptible democratisation of our services. Has it translated into making our public servants more civil, sensitive and empathetic towards the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">aam aadmi</i>? We can pick some tips from the century-old circulars, which remain as valid today, and leave our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">babus</i> do some soul searching.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">In dealing with the public, read native Indians, the British officers were to guard against being condescending and overbearing. For men may dread but can never love or respect those who are continually humiliating them by the parade of superiority. A greeting cannot be taken for granted and must be appropriately acknowledged, a word for word and gesture for gesture. It may be a perceptible nod of the head or a raised hand but never the left hand or just one finger. He had to be ever mindful of his conduct; he could be watching a thousand people with his two eyes but he was under constant scrutiny by two thousand eyes and more. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN"> The young civilian was exhorted to be careful about his dress and deportment and about the kind of language he used. In order to communicate better he was encouraged to gain proficiency in local language and custom. The opening gambit was important so as to put the supplicant at ease. How you addressed a person was important and his age had to be respected. Extra care had to be observed while interacting with women; there was no scope for frivolity lest it was misconstrued as flirting, a point worth taking note of by our officialdom. With increasing presence of women at the work place today the male boss or colleague has to be gender sensitive. Showing Sir Walter Raleigh-like chivalry can be risky; so it is safest to be cordial but correct.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN"> Accessibility tops the list of dos and don’ts. Telephones were still not for the common man and travel was time consuming and rigorous. Personally waiting on the ‘sahab’ was thus the preferred option. “On no account should peons or servants be permitted to refuse access to their master without his personal orders.” Demand for tips by minions was to be strongly discouraged on pain of severe penalty. We can compare this with the ground reality today. Some times the officer takes pride in keeping a visitor waiting while he may be doing nothing better inside the chamber than eating <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">paan paraag </i>or flipping the pages of a glossy magazine. You fare no better on phone. In the morning the sahib is either in the bathroom or doing pooja. During office hours you will be lucky to get past his PA or his Pa’s PA. A message is seldom taken and is replied to even more rarely. Mobile phones flash either no answer or switched off. What would have been the British masters’ take on that? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">Once the visitor has been ushered in the officer should be all attention and hear him out patiently. ‘A refusal or an unpalatable order is accepted with much greater resignation when the officer, who has to give it, has listened to all that is to be said on the other side.’ Maintaining eye contact throughout is important. Fast forward this bit to the present day. The visitor may be pouring his heart out while the person across from him is busy talking into his Bluetooth or sending SMS on his Blackberry.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">What is valid in dealing with the public becomes crucial in handling the large staff he presides (and not lords) over. “An officer should be freely accessible to all his subordinates, and should make a point of knowing personally as many as possible of them.” This is a universal leadership attribute and holds good for all times. One’s own name is music to the ears and a good boss should address his staff by name. In appropriate situations he should add prefix and suffix to the name, such as Mr. So and So or Ramchandra Babu or Mukherji Saheb. So that grievances, if any, are nipped in the bud easy accessibility is a must. An aggrieved person cannot open up before a haughty and domineering boss, Give him a patient hearing but heed thy own counsel. “He should be shy of making promises but, if he makes one, he should always perform it.” Being polite and graceful is one thing but he cannot afford to have favourites, and he has to let that be known and seen. Being foreigners the British could not be accused of nepotism, a charge our officialdom now is vulnerable to.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">If<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> noblesse oblige</i> was valid for the British masters, it is more so today for our bureaucrats who enjoy a privileged position in society. It may not be in their hands to solve everybody’s problems but their compassion can be a balm for the bruises. There is no scope ever to be uncouth and abrasive. Being polite and courteous always pays. Grace never goes out of fashion.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">Sudhir Kumar Jha</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-IN">(The author is a former Director General of Police, <st1:place st="on">Bihar</st1:place>. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna @gmail.com.)</span></div>
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Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-45831456352425024772010-07-26T06:27:00.000-07:002010-08-23T06:22:31.834-07:00Women of the Raj: Not hapless onlookers of the Empire<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN">Published in the Satesman, Kolkata and Delhi, on Friday, August 13, 2010</span></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN">Novels such as E.M. Forster’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">A Passage to India</i> and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Heat and Dust</i> give a skewed view of English women in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> by portraying them as weak and vulnerable. These women were subject to the pulls and pressures of the east-west encounter and the famous ‘twain’ that Rudyard Kipling wrote of but they coped well enough. The Raj owes more to them than what has been acknowledged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because of their initial small numbers their presence may not have made an immediate impact but once they came into their own their imprint was subtle but unmistakable.<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2"><span class="ff21"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN">Their entry in to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> was gradual and not without hiccups. </span></span>It was the same sex-ratio mismatch which compelled the British East India company to follow the Portuguese example (destination Goa) of importing shiploads of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">firangi</i>( a generic term for all white Europeans) women into India with the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>object pf providing legitimate spouses for <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>their men folk and thus wean them away from the comforting arms of native mistresses. As the empire struck root miscegenation became taboo and the emphasis shifted to preserving racial integrity. As the British government took over the direct administration of the country there was a sudden surge in the number of men to run the mufassil stations. Demand dictated supply. What had been a trickle earlier now became a torrent. The opening of the <st1:place st="on">Suez Canal</st1:place> cut the travel time short. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>Larger steam ships made the journey more bearable for the damsels. The onset of <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region>’s cold weather would see hordes of young women sail out from <st1:country-region st="on">England</st1:country-region> to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> on their husband-hunting mission regardless of the inconveniences and hazards of tropical living. They came with such regularity that they were teasingly dubbed the ‘fishing fleet’. The prize catch would be a member of the ‘heaven born’ Indian Civil Service but even lesser ones would do. Those who returned home unwed were unfeelingly referred to as ‘returning empties’. <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s reputation as a rich marriage mart remained unquestioned until the end.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">What the civil servants or army officers sought in the fresh arrivals was not brilliance but maidenly virtues. Some proficiency in sports such as riding, shooting and tennis was preferred but more so hobbies like sewing, flower arranging, music and sketching. What was looked for most of all was the ability to run a smart household. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>They had to be adept at improvising to suit the needs of a peripatetic colonial life style. Various recorded accounts create an impression that these wives served a subsidiary function as mere appendages of the male members of the British Raj. That would be taking a lopsided view of their role. Life in remote stations was far from exciting. It was not always cocktail and ballroom dance. They had to put up with the stifling heat and dust of the Indian summer, cooling themselves with jugs of lemonade under a desi ceiling fan pulled by pankha-pullers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>Having an army of servants to pamper them felt very nice in the beginning but left them with all the free time. Sheer idleness made them vulnerable to depression. They willingly bore the pangs of separation but sent their children ‘home’ to be brought up as nice English ladies and gentlemen. They lost their infants to tropical diseases. As the headstones of the graveyards of the Raj era bear out more women and children succumbed prematurely to diseases than British soldiers who died on the battle field..</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>They would accompany husbands on winter tours but for the summer most of them chose to stick it out with their husbands rather than escape to the cooler climes of the hills. Those who did migrate to the hills found a freedom they could not enjoy in small places. Discreet dalliances were not scorned. Be it <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Darjeeling</st1:place></st1:city>, Simla or Ooty extra-marital affairs between married women and men on leave was an open secret and connived at. There was the local church to take care of minor scandals. To even the score the husband left behind would have an occasional fling with one of the young household maids. These aberrations notwithstanding the English wives put a stop to inter-racial liaisons which threatened the prestige and so the very racial foundations of the empire. By keeping their men on the straight path these women lent stability and respectability to the Raj. </p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">They stood by their husbands during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 and suffered the same fate or worse. The situation in 1942 was somewhat different. During the Quit India disturbances while the Raj was under attack individuals were not. Late K.F. Rustamji, the celebrated Indian Police officer, records in his diary, which has since been brought out as a book, that when the disturbances were at their peak he asked English ladies whether they would accept a guard, they turned it down point blank, In a vast land seething with anger against the British they were out shopping in the bazaar, oblivious to the harsh words being said about the British rule in public meetings. They were confident no harm would be caused to them. </p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>As Governor’s or Collector’s wives they presented a human face of the Raj before the natives by working for their welfare, especially women’s upliftment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Their special status made it possible for them to raise funds and set up institutions aimed at eradicating social evils such as child marriage, female infanticide and purdah. Several charitable hospitals and orphanages survive as monuments to the philanthropic spirit the women of the Raj.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal">But there were English women other than the wives. They acquitted themselves creditably as teachers in convent and public schools and as governesses of the children of Maharajas and Indian nobility who could afford their services. Some others produced good literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span class="nw1"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN;color:black;" lang="EN" >Flora Annie Steel and Maud Diver were two main figures of feminine Anglo-</span></span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN;color:black;" lang="EN" > <span class="nw1">Indian fiction. Their works can be taken as specimens of colonial</span> <span class="nw1">feminist and anti-feminist, anxieties in imperialist romance produced</span> <span class="nw1">by women.</span></span><span class="nw1"><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:14;color:black;" lang="EN" > </span></span><span lang="EN"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span></span>Among the other women writers were Constance Sitwell, Isobel Savory and Josephine Ransom. Emma Roberts, Fanny Parks, Emily Eden and Margaret Harkness, the names are merely illustrative, produced eminently readable travelogues containing detailed and vivid account of life in India as observed by them.. These were meant for the incredulous readers back home. </p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN">There was another set that carried the white woman’s burden to check the moral decline of Indians. They came all the way from <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">England</st1:country-region></st1:place> with that specific purpose in mind. To these women missionaries, with middle class background, <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s women seemed degraded and downtrodden. To their western mind the sequestered existence inside the zenana or harem bred multiple vices from which the hapless women had to be saved.</span><span lang="EN"> </span>Leaving proselytizing to their male colleagues these women took upon themselves a variety of burdens and were not afraid to soil their hands. They ventured into remote areas where they taught, ran orphanages, helped deliver babies, dispensed medicines, nursed the sick and dying and taught preventive health care. They may not all have been Mother Teresa but how can <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> forget these noble souls? During the two world Wars British and other white women, though not missionaries, worked tirelessly as nurses in army hospitals. Some of them found time to record their impressions.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2">There were women who were drawn to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> for her unique spiritual and philosophical appeal. As President of the Theosophical society Annie Besant allied herself with <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s Home Rule Movement and at times proved a source of embarrassment to the Empire. Margaret Noble, after meeting Swami Vivekananda, converted to Hinduism and assumed the Indian name of Sister Nivedita. As an English Admiral’s daughter Madeleine Slade belonged to the upper crust of the British society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She became a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and served him devotedly as Miraben till the end. </p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2">Much fiction and salacious literature cropped up round the white women who married or otherwise adorned the palaces of Indian princes. Very few wee really British; the others were European, Australian or American though they might claim Anglo-Saxon ancestry. Truth was at times stranger than fiction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>For the Maharajas having a white woman was considered an exterior symbol of their oriental charisma and exotic splendour. The girls easily succumbed to the lure of the sparkling diamonds and a life of luxury beyond their dreams. Who seduced who was not easy to tell. One thing that stands out is that these girls were seldom, if ever, from the higher echelons of western society. Most of them were barmaids, dancers, even school girls and other women of dubious origin. This hunger for white women left the British masters perplexed and furious, Viceroy Curzon the most of all. They made sure that on one pretext or the other these marriages were not recognized. Such marriages would mean the recognition of a physical and emotional equality that questioned the racial and class hierarchy of the Empire, the virtual undoing of the ‘fishing fleet.’ White women marrying Indian men of lesser means were few and far between.</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2">Lowest on the pecking order among the white women of the Raj were the prostitutes. There were some who merely transferred their existing practice from the west. But most joined this profession per force of circumstances. Those ‘returned empties’ who did not want to go back settled down in this trade. Some others slipped into this profession by default. Female employees of opera companies, circuses and other entertainment companies touring <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> sometimes went bust leaving them high and dry with no other option. Others plied this trade part time to supplement their salary as conjurors, dancers and actresses. In <st1:city st="on">Bombay</st1:city>, as it was then spelt, European prostitutes were concentrated in <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Cursetji Sukhlaji Street</st1:address></st1:street>; in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Calcutta</st1:city></st1:place> it was <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Elliot Road</st1:address></st1:street>.</p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span><span lang="EN">There is a growing appreciation today that standing at different vantage points ‘white women were not the hapless onlookers of empire but were ambiguously complicit both as colonizers, privileged and restricted, acted upon and acting’. Their </span></span><span class="ff21"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN">contribution to the building of the <st1:place st="on">British Empire</st1:place> has by now become undeniable.</span></span><span lang="EN"> </span>If the British ruled this country for long one of the main reasons was the courage and fortitude of their womenfolk. The courage of the Englishwoman was no less than those who took part in the charge of the light brigade. This is an aspect of the Raj which calls for an in-depth research.</p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2"><o:p>Sudhir Kumar Jha</o:p></p><p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 200%" class="plff2"><o:p>25 July 2010</o:p></p>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-70792689838863911722010-05-03T00:00:00.000-07:002010-05-03T00:05:17.265-07:00Mathew Leslie's Will<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height: 200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>ANATOMY OF A WILL<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><o:p> (published as lead article in Sunday Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi on 25 April, 2010 under the caption Bibis and Britsh Benevolence)</o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%">Until the second half of the nineteenth century the East India Company civilians, generally recruited between 16 and 18 years of age, lived an ‘unattached male’ existence in India.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To overcome their ‘home sickness’ and sense of isolation they sought comfort in the arms of native women whom they took as mistresses and concubines but rarely as legally wedded wives. However, these white <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">nawabs </i>left their women well provided for. It is significant that of the Bengal Wills from 1780 to 1785 preserved in the India Office in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, one in three contains a bequest to Indian wives or companions/concubine/mistresses. Cornwallis discouraged miscegenation and such bequests went on decreasing over the decades. Post-Cornwallis, Evangelical Victorian colonial attitudes and the wholesale arrival of memsahebs from <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region> ended all open sexual contact between the two nations. Between 1805 and 1810, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibis</i> appear in only one in four Wills; by 1830 it is one in six; by the middle of the century they have all but disappeared. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:9.0pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%">Mark Davies, a scholar from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oxford</st1:place></st1:city>, was recently in Calcutta/Patna to trace his ancestry, particularly on the mother’s side. He refutes the suggestion that most Britons would like to keep their Indian connection under wraps. He asserts that some not only boldly announce it to the world but make a special effort to research their roots and locate their forebears’ graves in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. (If properly handled this may promote what can be morbidly described as ‘graveyard tourism’.) To buttress his point he refers to a book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">A TUG ON THE THREAD</i> by Diana Quick which is currently making waves in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>. But Quick does not quite come to his rescue.<span style="font-family:Arial; color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN"> <span lang="EN">She traces her family back to 18th-century <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>, where they struggled as “country-born” (people of mixed race). She describes her father’s difficulties as the son of a British officer sent to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region> to pursue his studies just before the war.</span></span><span lang="EN"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family:Arial;color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%">Mark Davies learnt from his family records that his ancestor Mathew Leslie (born 1755) was a civil servant under the East India Company from 1773 until his death in 1804. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is the very same Leslie after whom Leslieganj near <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ranchi</st1:place></st1:city> is named. Mark’s family sources revealed that Leslie had at least three Indian <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibis</i>. Mark had descended from one of them but he did not know which one. A <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibi </i>was a mistress or concubine and seldom the legally wedded spouse. Besides being posted as<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>District Collector of Ramgurh (a much larger version of today’s Hazaribag district) and Rungpur (now in Bangladesh), Leslie had spent many years at Patna on different assignments such as a Judge of the Court of Appeal, his last posting being as Member of the Board of Revenue in Calcutta. Mark’s direct ancestor Robert, Leslie’s son, was born in 1782 when Leslie was probably based at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city>. It was therefore fair assumption on Mark’s part that he had descended from a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibi </i>from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city>. While his search for his roots has so far has been elusive, he has not given up. He kindly let me have a copy of Mathew Leslie’s Will which he obtained from the family archives.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This handwritten Will in 13 pages is couched in neo-classical style of prose. It shows scant regard for grammar and composition. It begins thus:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">‘This is the last will and testament</span> of me, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Mathew Leslie</span> of <st1:city st="on">Calcutta</st1:city> in the <st1:placetype st="on">province</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename st="on">Bengal</st1:placename> in the <st1:place st="on">East Indies</st1:place>.’ It is dated 13 August 1803. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">Edward Stuttoll, R. Cramaff and E.S. Cameron witnessed the signing, sealing and delivery of this ‘will and testament’.</span> Leslie died a few months later. Did he have a premonition? Could a life of hard work and indulgence have taken its toll? </p> <p style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>More than telling who was to get how much, the Will reveals Leslie’s personality and the working of his mind which we can take as representative of his time. If the Will expresses Leslie’s generosity, it also reveals his racial preferences. He gives his beneficiaries enough to subsist during their lifetime but the corpus is to finally vest in his family estate in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The Will excludes all movable and immovable properties and is confined to money and securities. Debts, funeral charges and expenses incurred by the executors in the execution of the Will are to be settled before giving effect to ‘legacies, annuities and bequests’. So as to preclude any future complication he included in the Will an ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Inventory</span> of my fortune on the 31<sup>st</sup> July 1803’. It is considerable but not so much as to raise eyebrows, granting it was not unusual for the Company’s servants to carry on a business of their own on the side.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%">Leslie appointed ‘<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Ralph Uvedale, Thomas Raban</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">David Colvin</span> Esqs. of Calcutta, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Henry Douglas</span> Esq. of Patna, and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Archibald Solon</span> Esquire of <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Baraile</span>, executors of this my will in India and guardians of my children as shall be in India at the time of my demise and of such posthumous child or children as aforesaid during their respective residency in India…’ <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Ralph Uvedale</span> was then Clerk of the Crown in the Supreme Court of Judicature at <st1:placetype st="on">Fort</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">William</st1:placename> in <st1:place st="on">Bengal</st1:place> and Leslie refers to him as ‘my dearest friend’. Dearest friend indeed for his name comes up again and again in the Will. Leslie set apart a sum of Rupees 50000 or 5000 pounds and the interest thereon was to go to <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Ralph Uvedale</span>, during his lifetime. Some years after Leslie’s demise his son Robert married Uvedales’s daughter. Henry Douglas, another executor, was also a civil servant under the East India Company and could have been Leslie’s colleague at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city>. Douglas died at <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city> in 1839 at the age of 78. He lies entombed in the Sabzibag cemetery in the heart of the city. It has not been possible to locate the other three executors.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%">Normally only one executor is appointed to administer a Will. So what was the need for Leslie to have five executors? That was presumably because the executors were not merely to administer the Will. They were also to be the ‘guardians of my children as shall be in <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region> at the time of my demise and of such posthumous child or children as aforesaid during their respective residency in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>… I desire they will send my children to <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> or not as they think proper. Of this they are to be the sole judges.’ Obviously one executor could not have taken care of all of Leslie’s growing up children. In all humility Leslie gave each executor rupees one thousand ‘for the purchase of a ring as a mark of my sincere friendship and regard for them.’ He had placed a big burden on them and it was a small recompense. Leslie further appointed his brothers <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Charles Henry Leslie, John Leslie</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">James Wolfe Leslie</span> ‘executors of this my will in Europe and guardians of the persons and estates of such of my children as may be in Europe at the time of my demise or be afterwards sent there by my executors in India…’ Of the six children mentioned in the Will John and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Charles were then in Europe as was a married daughter </span>Anne<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> Hindley</span>; <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Robert, Charlotte</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Sarah were in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Each one was given Sicca rupees 40000, less marriage expenses already incurred in case of daughters.</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%">Unlike several of his contemporaries among the Indian nobility, Leslie left the women in his life well provided for though some received more than the others.. Even the servants received a gratuity. However, Leslie was not equitable in his bequest to the native women (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibis</i>)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>he mentions in the Will. The lion’s share went to ‘my girl <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Zehoorun Khanum</span> late wife of <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Meer Mahomad Hassan Khan’. She received </span>‘Sicca Rupees’ 20000 while the other two<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> – ‘my girl’ Heera Beeby</span> and ‘my girl’ <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Zebon -<b> </b></span>got only 12000 each. They were to be paid in quarterly installments the interest accruing on the above amount while the principal was to remain intact under control of the executors and was to revert to Leslie’s estate after the demise of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibis. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></i>To each of the above three<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>he also bequeathed ‘a house and premises in the City of <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city>’, apparently to be enjoyed in perpetuity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Location and address of the property is not mentioned but leaves one in no doubt that all three were from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></i>Another <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibi</i>, ‘my girl’ Afsaroon, was given ‘Sicca Rupees’ 3000 only and no house. It may be noted that Leslie suffixes Khanum to<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold"> Zehoorun’s name and Beeby to Heera’s</span> but none to Zebon’s or Afsaroon’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Was Leslie fonder of one than the others or were they graded according to their appeal and loyalty to him or by the number of children each bore him? Atleast, he refers to each of them as ‘my girl’ reflecting endearment and attachment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">I</span>t appears from the Will that Leslie did not have an English wife and he did not therefore have any English children. In fact, t<span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">here is no evidence that Leslie ever married, and as no wife is mentioned in the Will, and no mother is ever named at the baptism of his children, it is safe to assume that all the children were conceived with local women. </span>The Will does not specify which child was born of which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bibi</i>.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Names of the mothers of Leslie’s children may have been deliberately suppressed to keep their doors to the British society open. </span>Leslie left it to the executors to ‘send my children to <st1:place st="on">Europe</st1:place> or not as they think proper. Of this they are to be the sole judges.’ Presumably the colour of the child determined eligibility to be sent ‘home’. Many mixed-blood children, if they were very fair skinned, were successfully absorbed into the British upper classes, some even attaining high office, like<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Liverpool, the early nineteenth century Prime Minister of England. But there were exceptions too. William Fullarton, the founder of <st1:city st="on">Patna</st1:city> on the bank of River Doon in Robert Burns country, <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Scotland</st1:place></st1:country-region> was a very dark, handsome and powerful man and had earned the sobriquet of ‘Black Willie’. His black complexion was certainly unScottish, and it is very much within the realm of probability that he was the product of a liaison his father Colonel John Fullarton had with a native <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city> dame. He spent his impressionable years in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city> where he made a fortune as a merchant. On his return to <st1:country-region st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region> he founded a hamlet on the bank of River Doon and christened it <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city> after the place of his birth. That was in 1802, around the same time that Leslie wrote his Will.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Leslie appears to have collected a virtual harem, not unusual for his time when his peers liked to live and behave like native <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">nawabs</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">White Mughals</i> as William Dalrymple refers to them. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Apparently his domestic help had a large female component and he appears to have taken his pleasure at his fancy. His virility had not dimmed at 48 when he wrote the Will. He could not be sure which of the female inmates he had bedded and when. But he wanted to be fair and gave them the benefit of doubt. ‘And whereas some of the young girls living in my families may be with child at the time of my demise, in which case and in the event of such girl or girls being brought to bed within such time after my demise as will admit of a belief that the child or children so to be born may have been begotten by me and if my said executors shall be satisfied that such child or children was or were begotten by me…’. Each such posthumous child was to receive Rupees 15000 under terms and conditions applicable to the children mentioned above, except that if a posthumous child died the amount was not to pass on to other children ‘in right of survivorship’ but would revert to the estate. </p> <p style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%">Leslie did not forget his siblings back home. He bequeathed to his sister <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold">Mary Peacock</span> the sum of pounds sterling one thousand and to his sisters <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Jane Collis</span>, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Charlotte Dorman</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Sarah Falkiner</span> the sum of pounds sterling five hundred each. To his brothers John<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold"> Leslie</span> and <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">James Wolfe Leslie he gave</span> ‘the sum of pounds sterling two thousand five hundred each for their sole and respective use and benefit.’ He left the ‘residue and remainder of my estate and effects, real and personal, I give, devise and bequeath the same unto my brother <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Charles Henry Leslie </span>of Cork in Ireland and his sons for his or their separate use and benefit.’</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:9.0pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By and large Leslie appears to have been fair and equitable in making his bequests. However, <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>author Diana Quick’s own admission in her book referred to above that <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language:EN">she was only nine when her grandfather gave her the peculiar instruction to “marry a pure-blooded</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family:Arial;color:black; mso-ansi-language:EN"> Englishman” lends support to the view that East India officials of Mathew Leslie’s generation could </span>have been guided by considerations of maintaining purity of their lineage and keeping their estate within the family in England. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:9.0pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 200%"><span style="font-family:Arial;color:black;mso-ansi-language:EN"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span lang="EN">. </span></span></p> <p style="text-align:justify">Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha</p> <p style="text-align:justify">NIRVANA</p> <p style="text-align:justify">Buddha Colony, <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Patna</st1:place></st1:city></p> <p style="text-align:justify"><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> 800 001</p> <p style="text-align:justify">(The author is a former Director General of Police, <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Bihar</st1:city>, <st1:country-region st="on">India</st1:country-region></st1:place> and a free-lance researcher. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)</p> <p style="text-align:justify"><o:p> </o:p></p>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-28931282006636155162010-05-02T23:52:00.000-07:002016-03-28T07:30:11.435-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;"><b>TAKE A LEAF OUT OF THE RAJ BOOK</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;"><b>There is no harm in imbibing the good, even from those we hate. If we look at our erstwhile colonial masters with unbiased eyes, there is a lot we can learn from them and adopt to our advantage. Private financing for public good is one of them.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">Much as we may hate the British rulers, we ought to be beholden to them for the monuments, institutions and systems they bequeathed us. Some of the buildings they built to house colleges, hospitals and Government offices are beautiful specimens of architecture and are landmarks in our cities today. Yet the British were no philanthropists. In fact, they were penny-pinchers at core. But they were clever and resourceful enough to know when to tap funds and get things done without dipping into profits. The British Governors, Commissioners and Collectors involved the local Rajas, landlords and businessmen in this task, cajoling or coercing them as was considered expedient. The Indian ‘haves’ readily responded and donated in cash and kind. In most cases, the motive was a mixture of altruism and self-interest. They wanted to leave behind something for which the posterity would remember them, they also wanted to ingratiate themselves with the British officialdom in the hope of certain favours, most of all for honorifics such as titles of Maharaja, Raja Bahadur, Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur, Rai Saheb and Khan Saheb, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">As early as the mid nineteenth century, the British prevailed upon these potentates to open a chain of Anglo-vernacular schools in their jurisdictions, this facilitating the introduction of western education in India. The Government also made them partners in promoting higher English education. Premier institutions such as the Patna College in Bihar and the Ravenshaw College in Orissa developed through donations and endowments from the native Sates and local zamindars. The reputed Patna Medical College Hospital would have been stillborn but for the local donors pitching in. Clearance was received from the Government of India in 1921 to set up a medical college at Patna. The project involved heavy capital expenditure but how to palm it off to others? The Prince of Wales was visiting India around the same time. The Government was quick to seize the opportunity and promptly created a Prince of Wales Medical College Fund. A donation in excess of Rs. 15 lakh was collected in no time. While the college was named the Prince of Wales, the donors had to remain content with wards and facilities named after them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">While heath and education were on the top of the agenda, the Government sought private contributions in other fields equally readily. That was how many district towns got their magnificent Town Halls. When the earthquake hit Bihar in 1934, the Government heavily depended on private donations in cash and kind to meet the twin tasks of rehabilitation and reconstruction, in some cases of an entire township. Even memorials to the British monarch and viceroys were raised with the money so collected. The Victoria Memorial of Calcutta, the Taj Mahal of eastern India, are the most outstanding specimens of this exercise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">The Alipur Zoo in Calcutta could not have become the attraction it is without continuous flow of private donations. The Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai (shortly to be named after Chhatrapati Shivaji, if the Government of Maharashtra has its way) owes much to the munificence of people like Ibrahim Ramitulla, Cowasjee Jahangir and the Nawab of Junagadh. The pattern was the same throughout the country. Ironically, these carried the name of a British monarch, Viceroy or Governor. At the best, a plaque in some corner acknowledged the donor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">The Raj had no pretences of being a welfare State. It was a police State and it knew its limitation where public spending was concerned. During over 50 years as a free nation we have stretched the concept of “welfare” State to ludicrous limits. In the process the Government bit more than it could chew. It was suspicious of involving private players in the task of nation-building. Always cash-strapped but still wanting to do everything by itself, it slipped in the core areas of mass literacy and primary health care. The Government failed to nurture even the IITs and IIMs set up during the Nehru era now appealing to their alumni and fishing for sponsors. Centrally funded Delhi University and Jawaharlal University are to follow suit. To add insult to injury while the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research are languishing for want of funds, the Government has decided to endow a chair of Indian history and culture at the Oxford University at a cost of 1.8 million pound sterling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">Equally said is the story of our heritage sites. Far from erecting new monuments that would make the coming generations proud, we have not been able to look after the ones we have inherited. Rather than throwing its hands up in despair, the Government should draw a lesson or two from the Raj. Fortunately, it does seem to be waking up. The Department of Culture, Government of India, set up the National Culture Fund in 1996 as a funding mechanism “different from the existing sources and patterns of funding for the arts and culture in India”. Donations to the fund, exempt from income tax, are to be used for maintaining the historical sites and developing them as tourist spots. In exchange, the sponsors get advertising space the quantum of which is to be decided by the Department of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India acting in tandem. The Taj Mahal is not up for grabs but the others are. Only in the year 2K have some offers been forthcoming. Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, a world heritage site, is to be illuminated by the Oberoi group. After Hyatt shied away, the Hotel Association of Northern India has come forward to take over the Red Fort. The Indian Oil Corporation is interested in Qutb Minar. Though the list is long, the restoration of the Sun Temple at Konark and the Ajanta and Ellora caves are the priority. Any sponsors?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">But maintenance is not enough. Some long-lasting institutions and monuments ought to be created as also some new facilities developed. One such area crying for help is higher education, technical and professional. Not everyone needs to go to a college. Let institutions of higher professional education be fewer but they be real centres of excellence. Setting them up and then running them efficiently will obviously be an expensive proposition and the State will do well to invite individual promoters of consortia to take up these projects. These should be run as any other business enterprise and not as charitable institutions. Fees will understandably be high and admissions to these will have to be restricted to those who can afford to pay and to the meritorious poor through Government and privately endowed scholarship. Let the institute be named after the promoters if they so wish. In any case, it is not a good practice to name the colleges and universities after political personalities. (We can keep Mahatma Gandhi as an exception). Setting up an Indian School of Business at Hyderabad is a step in the right direction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">We received the legacy of the National Library, National Archives and Natural History Museum in places like Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. They have reached a point of saturation and decay. Huge recurring expenditure is involved in preserving and updating the contents and maintaining the structure. Horizons of knowledge have expanded and we need many more archives and museums devoted to subjects such as space technology, oceanography, microbiology etc. For that matter, is a Birla Planetarium in Calcutta or a Tarporewala Aquarium in Mumbai enough for a country of India’s dimensions? Surely we need many more. We talk of environment and global warming but how many botanical parks, comparable to the Shibpur Botanical Garden in Calcutta, have we added during our existence as an independent nation? The Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai reportedly remains booked for two to three years in advance, thus denying many potential MF Hussains the opportunity to display their talent. There is need for more art galleries not only in Mumbai but in other cities as well. There must be art lovers among our business barons who will love to set up such galleries and go down in history as patrons of art.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;">The scope is unlimited. The Government should be the catalyst, offer suggestions and help, and leave the rest to the sponsors (no mailed fist, no pinpricks, please). Once the Government has established its bonafides a generous response can be expected. Our private and public sector behemoths are the present-day Maharajas. The tribe has grown beyond the Tatas and the Birlas. We have Ambanis, Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy and many others and funds can be comfortably taken care of. If the Raj (British) could do it, why can’t we? In fact, we can do better by allowing the promoters and donors to name these after themselves, unlike the British who appropriated the name and sent the benefactors into oblivion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;"><b>SUDHIR KUMAR JHA</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;"><b>7</b><sup><b>th</b></sup><b> April 2002</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 100%;"><b>HT Sunday Spread</b></span></div>
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Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-28915132325538293762010-05-02T23:46:00.000-07:002010-05-02T23:51:55.535-07:00European Place Names<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="90%" align="center" border="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td width="93" background="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/Articles/images/headhline.gif"><img height="22" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/Articles/images/sec.30.gif" width="198" /></td> <td background="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/Articles/images/headhline.gif"> </td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> </td></tr> <tr align="left"> <td> <p align="justify"><b><span class="headline_INSIDE">Cover Story: NAME GAME</span></b></p> <p class="story_text" align="justify"><span class="story_text">(Published in the Sunday Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi.)</span></p><p class="story_text" align="justify"><span class="story_text">How the English christened places in India might evoke memories of the Raj, but the circumstances have, nevertheless, become historical legacy that cannot be wished away, says Sudhir Kumar Jha<br /><br />REMEMBER the faux pas in a recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary? It said Bangalore — not even Bengaluru — got its name as the locals were Bengalis and spoke Bangla. This was the height of untruth and ignorance, a gaffe not expected from Oxford, but it does explain the myth and confusion prevailing in respect of place names. Places get their names by design or sheer accident. These can be plain, catchy or hilarious, obvious or intriguing, but never without some link to the past. Delving into the genesis of the English names of places in India has been an interesting but challenging exercise. For the sake of euphony, the terms “English” and “British” have been used indiscriminately. These place names evoke memories of the British Raj and, notwithstanding the ongoing attempts at renaming them, the circumstances of their naming have become historical legacy which cannot be wished away.<br />It is sad that no definitive compilation of these names is available. At the beginning of the last century, two Calcutta-based scholars, KN Dhur of the Imperial Library followed by Lt-Col DG Crawford of the Indian Medical Service, made an attempt to list places named after the British. They consulted the survey maps of districts and also went through Newman’s Indian Bradshaw, Smith’s Students’ Geography of India published in 1882 and Keith Johnston’s Atlas of India published in 1894. Periodicals such as Bengal Past & Present and Saturday Journal also yielded some names. To the information so gathered, the two added their own knowledge based on folklore and hearsay. Their total came to a sizeable number, well over 150, but was far from being exhaustive. These came from the whole of British India which covered not only what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh but also Burma and the Malay Peninsula for most of the 19th century. Were they to include the localities or muhallas of towns, roads and streets, public and private institutions, monuments, gardens and parks, et al, so named, their list would have run into thousands. Bangalore Cantonment would have provided over 100 and Kolkata at least 20.<br />The Andaman and Nicobar Islands provide over 40 such names. These islands were formally annexed in 1858 and converted into a convict settlement to confine the great number of life-prisoners left after the Sepoy Mutiny. The British gave the numerous names of their Mutiny heroes and members of the Andamans Commission to places in these islands. Several places in the Sunderbans falling in West Bengal and Bangladesh were named after officers of the Indian Navy, Royal Indian Marine, or Bengal Pilot Service. Amitava Ghosh mentions a few in his captivating book, The Hungry Tide.<br />The one class of Britishers to have left the strongest imprint on the naming of places were the civil servants from the Provincial Civil Service and, later, from the Indian Civil Service, as District Collectors, and some as Lieutenant-Governors. In the days of the East India Company, military officers carried the flag into uncharted territories and laid the foundations of civil administration. New civil stations established by them carried their names, for example Daltonganj and Hunterganj in Jharkhand and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. There are railway stations that were named after the British, be it a railway engineer, priest or civil servant, because there was no village of any importance in the neighbourhood after which these could be named — for example Palmerganj between Gaya and Dehri-on-Sone and Twiningganj between Ara and Buxar. Places were also named after ranks in the British army. We have Captainganj and Colonelganj in Uttar Pradesh and Majorganj in Bihar. Brigade Maidan and Barrackpore in Kolkata and Brigade Road in Bangalore, too, have a British army connection.<br />While many names famous in Indian history are commemorated in place names, many more of the first importance are not thus distinguished. There does not appear to be any place named after Robert Clive or Warren Hastings, the real founders of the British Empire in India.<br />It is notable that most English names were given to places in the first 100 years of British rule in India, very few in the second half of the 19th century and hardly any in the 20th. Significantly, though the missionaries carried their work deep into the hills and jungles and made healthcare and education available to tribal settlements, not many places are named after them; they apparently did not try to impose their own or any other foreign names. Nor did the British try to change the names of villages already in existence.<br />It is not that places were named only after Europeans, though exceptions are few and far between. For example, Achipur near Kolkata, on the banks of the Hooghly river, is named after Yong Atchew, the first Chinese settler in India in modern times. He came to Kolkata around 1780 and enjoyed the patronage of the East India Company as a cultivator of sugarcane.<br />Exceptions apart, these exotic place names are in two parts. The prefix is English while the suffix is vernacular, invariably Persian-Urdu. By far the commonest, in northern India, is ganj, which means a market. Also common are abad and pur, meaning town. Whereas the Hindi garh has been used at least once, as in Georgegarh, nagar does not appear to have been used at all. In southern India, the suffix used is pet, again denoting a town or market; it has also been used in Marathi as Malcolmpet in Mumbai.<br />Places were not always consciously baptised with English names. They just evolved as a corruption of vernacular names. Take the case of Bangalore. The British, after defeating Tipoo Sultan and restoring the Raja of Mysore in 1799, obtained the right to station their own troops in the state. They built their cantonment on ceded village land just east of the ancient town and fortress of Bengaluru, which was soon anglicised to Bangalore. English Bazar in West Bengal’s Malda district was originally the Rangreza Bazar, the dyers’ quarter. The first letter was dropped along the way and it became Angreza Bazar, and hence English Bazar. Kidderpur in Kolkata is not named after Colonel Kyd but derives from an older local name, Khettarpur.<br />Some names got Anglicised, in pronunciation and in spelling, because the British could not pronounce these the local way. Kanpur became Cawnpore and Munger became Monghyr and Danapur Cantonment in Bihar became Dinapore. Likewise, Waris-ali-ganj in Bihar’s Gaya district began to be called Worsleyganj. Grierson market in Madhubani, Bihar, was named after the eponymous linguist, Sir George Abraham Grierson, ICS, who set up the market while he was posted as the SDO of that area. It has been known as Gilesan Market for generations. Bhendi Bazar in Mumbai is a phonetic caricature of “behind the bazaar”.<br />Given below, by way of illustration, is the etymology of some place names from Bihar and Jharkhand:<br />Goldinganj: This is a small village on the Chapra-Sonepur road about 12 km east of Chapra, an old district town in north Bihar. The only claim to fame of this otherwise nondescript place is a ring of mystery surrounding its name. It has a railway station catering to the North Eastern Railway and a post office with the postal index No. 841211. The station is spelt “Goldinganj” while the postmark reads “Gultenganj”. Old records reveal there was in fact one Edward Golding after whom the place was in all probability named. He was appointed the Company’s Commercial Agent at Bettiah in 1766 after the local Raja had capitulated to the East India Company’s forces. In 1769, Golding was promoted as the Supervisor (precursor of Collector) of Saran Parganas. His bailiwick covered what are today Chapra, Siwan, Gopalganj, Motihari and Bettiah districts.<br />Lesliganj: This is an outgrown village, more of a kasba, in Palamu district of what is now Jharkhand. Located about 15 km east of Daltonganj, the district headquarters, on the road to Manatu, it has the usual appurtenances of an administrative outpost — a dak bungalow, a police station and a block development office. It has nothing much to offer except its exotic name. It was founded by, and is named after, Matthew Leslie, Collector of the Ramgarh Hill Tract in the 1780s. As with other East India Company officials of the 18th century, Leslie’s biographical details are extremely difficult to get. His revenue jurisdiction included the whole of what later became Palamu and Hazaribag districts and part of Gaya up to Sherghati. The Cheros had been the rulers of Palamu but their internal feuds afforded the British the opportunity to intervene and eventually assume control. As Leslie had to continually camp in Chero territory, he chose a hamlet that soon became known as Lesliganj, dropping an “e” from his name. It appears that Leslie’s good work as Collector of Ramgarh was taken note of and he was transferred as the Collector and Magistrate of Rungpore district in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), a more prestigious charge. <br />Daltonganj: Situated on the Koil river, this is the headquarters of Palamu district, now in Jharkhand. It has the usual components of a civil station but nothing else and has been a poor and neglected cousin of the other towns in Chhotanagpur. Though connected by rail and road to the rest of the country, its back-of-beyond location is responsible for its relative isolation. The town is named after Colonel Edward Tuite Dalton who, as the Commissioner of Chhotanagpur, founded a settlement here in 1861 on government land where the headquarters of Palamu subdivision was shifted from Lesliganj the following year. When Palamu was made into a separate district 20 years later, Daltonganj was the obvious choice as the headquarters of the new district.<br />Dalton was the commissioner of Chhotanagpur during the Sepoy Mutiny and for many years thereafter. He initiated several administrative measures. In 1862, he ordered an outright substitution of Hindi written in the Devnagri or Kaithi script for Urdu in the Persian character as the medium of instruction and for court work throughout his commissionerate. In September 1870, Dalton laid the foundation of a permanent church at Ranchi in the presence of a large and assorted gathering. He is best remembered for his magnum opus, The Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, published in 1872.<br />Forbesganj: This is today a subdivisional town of Purnea division in northeastern Bihar. It borders Nepal and is not very far from the Bangladesh border. The checkposts of various government departments notwithstanding, its busy market caters to buyers from both India and Nepal. The main business today is in grains and timber, jute having lost ground to plastic. How did Forbesganj acquire its exotic sounding name? It is named after Alexander J Forbes, an indigo planter and zamindar in Purnea district. His biographical details are not available except that he came out to India in the early part of the 19th century and spent the greater part of his life in Purnea, where he amassed a large fortune, mostly from indigo. One of Forbes’ indigo factories was at Forbesabad, which name was presumably changed to Forbesganj as the place developed into a township with a flourishing market. While on a trip to Calcutta, he died in 1890 at the age of 84, and lies buried at Purnea.<br />Sandys’ Compound: In the heart of Bhagalpur civil station, there is a large tract of land that is locally referred to as Sandys’ Compound. At one time this whole area formed the compound of the residence of Teignmouth Sandys, who was the Judge of Bhagalpur around the middle of the 19th century. He belonged to the Indian Civil Service, though the nomenclature had not been fashioned till then. He was recruited as a Writer, like many others before and after him. William Tayler of Patna fame was his contemporary. Educated and promising youngsters from England were appointed as Writers, something like probationary Assistant Collectors and Magistrates, and rose to become Supervisors/Collectors if entrusted with revenue functions or as Judges if utilised for judicial work. Sandys belonged to the first batch of Writers nominated in 1826 for the qualifying examination in 1827.<br />Revelganj: This is an inconspicuous town in Saran district in north Bihar. Situated 12 km west of the district headquarters town of Chapra, it is served by road and rail. Unlike some other places with European names, it is well known that Revelganj was named after Henry Revel. The East India Company posted Revel as the Collector of Customs at Chapra. It may be recalled that at that time, in the absence of satisfactory road and rail transportation, the East India Company carried on the bulk of trade and commerce by the river route. Revel realised the value of having a proper Custom House to earn revenue for the company so he set up one at Godna in 1788. A market grew around it and in no time the place developed as an important river mart. Revel appears to have been resourceful as well as kind-hearted and became a legend in his lifetime for his humanitarian and charitable acts. His memory was held in such repute that his grave was considered a shrine and his name invoked on occasions of calamity and adversity. It stands in front of the Eden bazaar alongside the Chapra-Guthni road. Tarapada Mukherjee, a local zamindar and lawyer, gave the place a facelift and was also instrumental in establishing a municipality in 1876 by combining the twin revenue villages of Godna and Semaria and, as it’s first vice-chairman, had the new township named Revelganj after Henry Revel.<br />Bakarganj: Not to be confused with Bakerganj in Bangladesh, this lies in the heart of Patna and is named after Robert Barker, an officer in the East India Company’s army. The grant of Diwani to the East India Company in 1765 made the British the virtual rulers of what later became the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. A reorganisation of the East India Company’s army followed. Barker had long served the Company’s Artillery and distinguished himself during the siege of Madras. In the reorganisation, he was to have been made Colonel of the Artillery but had to contend with the place originally slotted for Major Knox of Patna fame. Of the three refashioned brigades, the first was located at Monghyr, the second at Allahabad and the third at Bankipore (Patna) under Barker. The 21st battalion raised by Barker at Bankipur became known as Barker-ki-Paltan just as the 20th battalion raised at Lucknow was called Hussaini-ki-Paltan for having been raised on the day of Muharram. Ironically, Barker-ki-Paltan, after several changes of nomenclature, mutinied at Azamgarh in 1857. Barker rose to become a general and Army Chief and was also knighted. He spent three years at Bankipur (Patna) roughly from 1765 to 1768, that is, until the cantonment was shifted to Danapur. The area around his residence developed as a military bazaar or mandi on the eastern side of Gandhi Maidan and was named Bakarganj after him. It is today an extremely congested commercial-cum-residential locality.<br />Hunterganj: Contrary to popular thinking, Hunterganj in Chatra district, now in Jharkhand, is not named after the famous educationist and indologist WW Hunter. It derives its name from William Hunter who was the Collector of Ramgarh (spelt Ramghur) Hill Tract in 1794. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William had appointed him and other Collectors of the Bengal Presidency Justices of Peace. Hunter’s jurisdiction extended right up to Sherghati in today’s Gaya district. A patch of jungle was cleared to set up his camp during his visits to Sherghati and human habitation slowly grew around it. Soon it was being referred to as Hunterganj and developed as an administrative centre.<br />McCluskieganj: McCluskieganj is a sad saga of aspirations gone awry. The Anglo-Indians were, generally speaking, a town-bred community without knowledge of agriculture or experience of village life. They were doled out petty appointments in the Railways and Telegraphs departments while their women worked as teachers in convent schools and as stenos in multinational companies. It was becoming difficult to find employment, whether in government departments or in commercial concerns, for the increasing number of Anglo-Indian youth. Having observed their conditions first-hand, the Indian Statutory Commission made a suggestion, with the concurrence of the government of India, that an attempt be made to bring the Eurasians, chiefly the Anglo-Indians, to the land and open up a wider range of self-employment for them. The Anglo-Indians seized upon the idea and was thus born in 1933 The Colonization Society of India Limited, registered as a limited company. On behalf of the company, ET McCluskie, a Calcutta-based Anglo-Indian real estate agent and member of the Bengal Legislative Council, discovered a beautiful spot in the Chhotanagpur forests, 60 km from the district headquarters town of Ranchi. The Society bought 10,000 acres of forest land from the local Maharaja in 1932. Plots were allotted as per the layout plan prepared by McCluskie. In a creditable display of grit and determination to conquer the natural difficulties, they made the clearings, dug wells and planted orchards. It was not long before a large number of sprawling bungalows and cottages situated in the midst of several acres of land came up in these sylvan surroundings. The new colony became home to nearly 300 Anglo-Indian and domiciled European families. McCluskie died soon after and, as a fitting tribute to this pioneer, the new settlers named the place McCluskieganj, the putative Tel-Aviv of their homeland. Come Independence and, feeling deprived and insecure, there was a mad rush to migrate to Australia, the USA, Canada and the UK. The Society went into liquidation around 1955. Today there is nothing much to see here but a place gone to seed. One can take long walks through the forest, do some bird watching and listen to their chirping. Not more than 35 Anglo-Indian families now live here and fewer are descendents of the original allottees.<br />There is no dearth of English place names. One only has to be inquisitive. There has been a trend in favour of demolishing English names originally given to a place. We cannot turn the clock back by renaming such places. Naming Calcutta Kolkata has not made the traffic less congested. People still prefer VT to Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and refer to Connaught Place as CP and not by its new official appellation. Whether we like it or not, these mysterious place names have become a part of our heritage. Dhur and Crawford could not trace the etymology of each and every name they catalogued, leaving enough scope for future probe. Before the trail gets colder, all such names should be collected, collated and a funded research undertaken to record for posterity the circumstances of their naming.<br /><br />(The author can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)</span></p><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-46651666394102990672010-05-02T23:42:00.000-07:002010-05-02T23:46:12.439-07:00Writers' Building, Kolkata<p align="justify"><b><span class="headline_INSIDE">Writers’ Block (published in The Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi under this caption)</span></b></p> <p class="story_text" align="justify"><span class="story_text">Sudhir Kumar Jha time-travels to walk the musty corridors of the majestic red structure that has been home to the Bengal secretariat for a century and a half, and the nursery of generations of clerks who are a class by themselves<br /><br />THE daily commuters who pass it by every day may not cast a second glance at Writers’ Building in Kolkata, but the building is an acknowledged heritage site. Imperial and Gothic in appearance, it has been home to all shades of political opinion, from the imperialists to communists. Its corridors have been witness to history being made and unmade. It has been the seat of the Bengal Government for almost a century and a half.<br />What may not be so well-known is why Writers’ Building is so called. Nor that the present edifice is not the original but only its latest incarnation. The earliest version, erected around 1690, was a mud hovel within the old fort, meant to accommodate the “writers” of the East India Company. It was destroyed in a storm in 1695 and rebuilt. The site shifted to where the GPO is now, where a single-floor brick building came up in 1706.<br />The East India Company’s building programme in Calcutta during the 18th century was meant to be utilitarian rather than demonstrative of imperial grandeur. It remained so even after the grant of Diwani and the victories at Plassey and Buxar had riveted the shackles of the East India Company’s rule in Bengal. With a spurt in the Company’s activities, there was an increased influx of hands from England. Apart from a larger working space, a place had to be found to house these people. As the newcomers were unencumbered by families, even dormitory-type accommodation was deemed adequate. By now the Company could have the pick of the location. Without disturbing the existing arrangement, fresh construction was taken up at the building’s current location adjacent to the lake.<br />The new structure was in place by 1780. Records show that the new edifice had 19 sets of apartments, all identical, contained in a very long, rather solid three-stories block, classical in style, with 57 sets of identical windows, a flat roof and a central projection with Ionic columns. From all accounts it was uninspiring and resembled a military barrack or a seminary, but it was among the few early attempts at large-scale, classically-motivated architecture in India.<br />This original design was super-imposed in the 19th century in two phases. The first, around the middle of the century, simply embellished the existing structure with low pediments. The second enterprise, undertaken at the height of British imperial power under Queen Victoria, was more ambitious. It now had terracotta dressings, dummy portico and pediment, and a Corinthian facade. The building as we see it today covers 2.8 acres of land and is 705 feet wide; the campus is spread over 10 acres. It is a cluster of 13 four-storeyed buildings and has been home to the Bengal Secretariat since the time of Lieutenant Governor Ashley Eden.<br />Who were these “writers” that this behemoth, literally as well as figuratively majestic, was named after? With a view to compete with the Dutch spice traders in the Indies, a band of entrepreneurs formed a joint-stock company and obtained a charter from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 in the name and style of East India Company. In 1675 the Company established a regular gradation of posts. The lowest rank, that of the apprentice, was discontinued soon. Directly above them were the writers. LSS O’Malley believes (The Indian Civil Service, John Murray, London, 1931) that the appellation originated in 1645 and lasted until 1858 when the British Crown took over the direct administration of the country, by which time the mercantile duties of the office had long since disappeared. Above the writers were the factors (in charge of a trading post and not to be confused with the officer-in-charge in a factory), the junior merchants and the senior merchants — titles borrowed initially from the Dutch East India Company and officially employed till 1842. As a rule the East India Company maintained strictly separate cadres for the civilians and the military but there were exceptions when an infantry cadet received writership and vice versa. George<br />Elliot came out to India in 1779 as an infantry cadet<br />and received a writership <br />two years later. He rose to become the deputy military pay master-general.<br />A writer took about five years to become a factor. As the writers went up the ladder they occupied all the higher civilian offices and discharged assorted functions, mostly related to revenue, the judiciary and mercantile matters. They took on designations such as supervisor, collector, district judge, salt agent and mercantile agent. William Dampiers was the superintendent of police, a post corresponding to the present director general of police of the Bengal Presidency on the eve of the Mutiny and John Elliot, after whom Elliot Road in Calcutta was named, was the president of the Boards of Police and Conservancy in the early years of the 19th century. Some became commissioners, headed the Boards of Revenue and even became governors and governor-general. In all probability Job Charnock, the putative founder of Calcutta, came to India as a writer as did Robert Clive and Warren Hastings.<br />It was mandatory for these writers, at least during their probationary period, to reside in the Writers’ Building. The stipulation of compulsory residence for writers was annulled in 1835. After being used as mercantile offices for some years, Writers’ Buildings became the home of the Bengal Secretariat. It became one of the community’s most conspicuous landmarks.<br />A writer was what the term conveys — a junior clerk, a scribe. There were so many of them. One can visualize them slogging out their days on a high stool scratching interminable entries into a ledger in poor light, holding a quill in one hand and swatting mosquitoes with the other. These writers were sent to factories (trading posts); they kept accounts and were responsible for correspondence with London. Every letter to the head office was made out in triplicate to ensure that at least one surely reached its destination. Two copies were sent by two different sailing ships and the third went across land. Theirs was thus an existence of unbroken drudgery and tedium. A welcome break came in 1830 when David Wilson, a British national, opened a confectionery-cum-bakery less than 100 metres away. The writers could now take short breaks and hop across for a bun or pastry. The outlet, begun to serve primarily the writers, later morphed into the famous Great Eastern Hotel, the first modern, European-style hotel in the country. Alas, the heritage hotel is reportedly up for sale. Thankfully the Writers’ Building faces no such threat.<br />Contrary to popular belief, writers were poorly paid. Perhaps it was in line with the Company’s philosophy: a penny saved is a penny earned. Sir john Shore, successor to Lord Cornwallis as governor-general, had started his Indian career in 1769 as a writer with a salary of Rs 96, then equivalent to £ 12 a year. He was barely able to afford half the rent of an ill-ventilated modest dwelling. Paying low wages was a sure inducement to indulge in “private practice” and corruption. The Company connived with its employees when it came to creative personal trading, as long as its profits were not affected. Corruption was condoned as a well-deserved recompense for spending half one’s lifetime in hazardous exile.<br />The Company’s policy was to “catch them young”. Writers were inducted at the age of 16. Writers’ petitions or job applications had to include baptismal certificates, testimonials and details of education. Considering the writers’ impressionable age and virtual lack of education, in 1800 governor-general Lord Wellesley wanted to establish a college at Fort William for the purpose of completing the education of the company’s servants but was overruled by the court of directors. His dream came true with the opening of the East India College at Haileybury in England in 1806. Wellesley set up on his own in 1800 not a full-fledged college but a modest seminary for instruction in Oriental languages which survived until 1854 by which time it had long outlived its utility.<br />An act of 1826 gave the directors discretionary power to appoint young men between 18 and 22 as writers. A writership was a passport to great riches and it was not always acquired without dubious dealing and corruption. This arrangement lasted from 1827 to 1832. Those appointed under the “nomination” scheme included well-known names such as Sir Robert Montgomery, lieutenant governor of the Punjab from 1859 to 1865 and William Tayler, commissioner of Patna during the Sepoy Mutiny.<br />An Act of 1853 introduced the system of open competition for appointment to the civil service in India — the principle was not applied to the home civil service until 1870 — and the first exam was held in 1855. Henceforthe writers began learning the Indian languages, customs et al on the job as the arrangement at Fort William had by then been done away with. The East India College, however, sent out the last batch only in 1858 with the result that for two years the list of writers was made up of Haileybury men and Competition Wallahs, to borrow the title from George Trevelyan’s famous book.<br />The hereditary connection with India was to become a remarkable characteristic of the Hailebury system. Sons stepped into their fathers’ shoes as a matter of course and brought their cousins and their nephews along with them. The Bengal lists included several Plowdens, Colvins, Tuckers and Metcalfes. The Bombay and Madras allotments showed a similar trend. As Kipling put it in his story The Tomb of His Ancestors, generation after generation came out to serve India as dolphins followed in line across the open sea.<br />The first Indian to enter the civil service by competition was Satyendranath Tagore (1864), followed in 1871 by RC Dutt, BL Gupta and Surendranath Banerjea. Their induction put Bengal in the forefront of western learning. The writers have long been gone but Writers’ Building stands tall to salute their memory. The Indian Civil Service (ICS), the so-called “steel frame”, had every reason to be beholden to the writers. Our bureaucrats even today find it difficult to forsake the Writers’ legacy.<br /></span></p>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-53903442105342035652010-04-27T00:18:00.000-07:002010-04-27T00:26:09.164-07:00RAJ ERA CEMETERIES IN PERIL( Published in The Statesman, Kolkata and Delhi, on 5 January 2010 under the caption LITTLE POCKETS OF HISTORY )<br /><br />Showing respect to the dead is common to societies all over the world. ‘Speak not ill of the dead’, is what we are taught from our childhood. ‘Let them rest in peace’ comes instantly to mind as we pass a grave. Encroaching and vandalising their final resting place can therefore be viewed as sacrilege. Shakespeare sounded a grim warning in the epitaph inscribed in his gravestone at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon in England:<br />"Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,<br />To dig the dust enclosed here.<br />Blessed be the man that spares these stones,<br />And cursed be he that moves my bones."<br />Shakespeare supposedly wrote it himself because in his time old bodies were dug up and burned to make room for new burials. Many British men and women of the Raj era would have aspired to borrow from Shakespeare's epitaph and wished their final resting places to remain untouched by the encroaching, marauding hand.<br />There are few well kept graveyards, such as the Bhowanipore Cemetery in Kolkata, Viceroy Lord Elgin's memorial at McLeodgunj in Himachal Pradesh, the Nuns' cemetery near St Bedes College for Women in Simla, and the War cemeteries at Kohima, Delhi, Pune and Comilla in Bangladesh. Most, however, have fallen prey to encroachment, vandalism and pilferage. Some have disappeared due to the vagaries of nature or to the greed for land. It is the same story from Peshawar to Chittagong, Baramula to Trivandrum. Peshawar’s Gora Qabristan, witness to the Afghan Wars, and the cantonment cemetery in Meerut, where the Indian Uprising of 1857 began, are typical of the decay now facing old British graves. As a result, it is nearly impossible to put an exact number, far less to decipher the inscriptions on them. Criminals take away headstones making it difficult to identify the tombs.<br />Non-British cemeteries have fared no better. The Jewish cemetery, located off Lloyd's Road in Madras, now Chennai, is adjacent to the Chinese cemetery and both cemeteries have clusters of vendors and squatters with vegetables displayed on the road itself at the entrances. Portuguese, Spanish and French tombs have all but disappeared from the Indian soil.<br />Whereas most of the inscriptions on the grave stones speak of the survivor’s grief and loss, some speak of the vanity of their occupants ignoring Thomas Gray’s famous Elegy “… The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” In most cases, the tombstones are not of Viceroys and other high and mighty of the British Raj but of the countless British civil servants, soldiers, merchants, missionaries, townspeople and teachers, their spouses and children most of whom succumbed not to sword but to summer heat and tropical diseases. They are all part of India’s past. If some headstones contain doggerels we also come across some fine quotes and original compositions. At least some of the tombs can claim to be fair representatives of Indo-European architecture. Much has been lost but not all. If properly maintained these cemeteries can become virtual 'al-fresco museums'.<br />The care of these graves has become no body’s baby. Lack of interest and resources lie behind this callous neglect. But it is more a question of mindset. Local sensitivities have of course to be taken care of. The Indian public and their representatives in parliament and government have to be sensitised to the fact that conservation of the Raj era cemeteries is not meant to glorify and perpetuate British imperial history but to give us a valuable perspective on India’s heritage. We have to look at these graveyards as ‘little pockets of history’, a who’s who of the British Raj. However much we may resent the British rule in India we cannot wish it away.<br />The conservation of these tombs and cemeteries is simply beyond the capacity of local church committees. A concerted effort is called for lest this valuable source of history is lost for ever. Sadly, in India the Central and State Minority Commissions and the nominated Anglo-Indian members of state assemblies have been indifferent. The least they can do is to pressurise the government to have pucca boundary walls erected to prevent further encroachment as the hunger for land can drive people to any length. The British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA), a London-based charity, has done a great job in listing out a large number of graves and even pays for the upkeep of some. Lately, Lt. Col. Lake has launched a trust in UK with an ambitious target to raise £700,000 a year from corporate donors such as HSBC, Rothschild, Lloyds and other major foundations so that these places can be maintained in perpetuity throughout the erstwhile British empire. India-based NGOs and public authorities may also pitch in and play a coordinating role.<br />An estimated two million graves of the Raj era, lying in isolation or in clusters in designated cemeteries, dot the Indian sub continent. If the government can catalogue and put them on the net many of the present generation Britain may want to visit India to connect with their ancestors and put a wreath on their tombs. In the process they will be unwittingly promoting what can be crudely termed as "graveyard tourism". Most of all, we must create public awareness to defer to the dignity of the dead for, to borrow from the epitaph on Viceroy Lord Elgin’s grave, “He being dead yet speaketh”.<br />Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha<br />NIRVANA’ Buddha Colony<br />Patna 800 001<br />(The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar and a free-lance researcher. He can be contacted at sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com)Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227013432537719672.post-26902570515847359222009-08-08T23:20:00.000-07:002009-08-08T23:23:56.082-07:00Funding - the Raj wayMuch as we may hate the British rulers, we ought to be beholden to them for the monuments, institutions and systems they bequeathed us. Some of the buildings they built to house colleges, hospitals and government offices are beautiful specimens of architecture and are landmarks in our cities today. Yet the British were no philanthropists. In fact, they were penny-pinchers at core. But they were clever and resourceful enough to know where to tap for funds and get things done without dipping into their profits. The British Governors, Commissioners and Collectors involved the local Rajas, landlords and businessmen in this task, cajoling or coercing them as was considered expedient. The Indian ‘haves’ readily responded and donated in cash and kind. In most cases the motive was a mixture of altruism and self-interest. They wanted to leave behind something for which the posterity would remember them; they also wanted to ingratiate themselves with the British officialdom in the hope of certain favours, most of all honorifics such as Maharaja, Raja Bahadur, Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur, Rai Saheb, and Khan Saheb etc.<br /><br />As early as the mid- nineteenth century the British prevailed upon these potentates to open a chain of Anglo-Vernacular schools in their jurisdictions, thus facilitating the introduction of western education in India. The government also made them partners in promoting higher English education. Premier institutions such as the Patna College in Bihar and the Ravenshaw College in Orissa developed through donations and endowments from the native states and local zamindars. The reputed Patna Medical College Hospital would have been stillborn but for the local donors pitching in. Clearance was received from the Government of India in 1921 to set up a medical college at Patna. The project involved heavy capital expenditure but how to palm it off to others? The Prince of Wales was visiting India around the same time. The government was quick to seize the opportunity and promptly created a Prince of Wales Medical College Fund. A donation in excess of rupees fifteen lacs was collected in no time. When the time of reckoning came the college was named after the Prince and the donors had to remain content with wards and facilities named after them.<br /><br /> While health and education were on the top of the agenda, the government sought private contributions in other fields equally readily. That is how many district towns got their magnificent Town Halls. When the earthquake hit Bihar in 1934, the government heavily depended on private donations in cash and kind to meet the twin tasks of rehabilitation and reconstruction, in some cases of entire townships. Even memorials to the British monarch and viceroys were raised with the money so collected. The Victoria Memorial of Calcutta, the Taj Mahal of eastern India, is the most outstanding specimen of this exercise.<br /><br /> The Alipur Zoo in Calcutta could not have become the attraction it is without continuous flow of private donations. The Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai (shortly to be named after Chhatrapati Shivaji, if the Government of Maharashtra has its way) owes much to the munificence of people such as Ibrahim Ramitulla, Cowasjee Jahangir and the Nawab of Junagadh. The pattern was the same throughout the country. Ironically these carried the name of a British monarch, Viceroy or Governor. At best a plaque in some corner acknowledged the donor.<br /><br />The Raj had no pretences of being a welfare state. It was a police state and it knew its limitations where public spending was concerned. During over fifty years as a free nation we stretched the concept of “welfare” state to ludicrous limits. In the process the government bit more than they could chew. They were suspicious of involving the private players in the task of nation building. Always strapped for funds but still wanting to do everything by themselves, they slipped in the core areas of mass literacy and primary health care. They failed to nurture even the IITs and IIMs set up during the Nehru era and these are now appealing to their alumni and fishing for sponsors. Centrally funded Delhi University and Jawaharlal University are to follow suit. To add insult to injury, while the Indian Council of Historical Research and the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research are languishing for want of funds, the government have decided to endow a chair of Indian history and culture at the Oxford University at a cost of 1.8 million pounds sterling.<br /> Equally sad is the story of our heritage sites. Far from erecting new monuments that would make the coming generations proud, we have not been able to look after the ones we have inherited. Rather than throwing their hands up in despair the government should draw a lesson or two from the Raj. Fortunately they do seem to be waking up. The Department of Culture, Government of India, set up the National Culture Fund in 1996 as a funding mechanism “different from the existing sources and patterns of funding for the arts and culture in India”. Donations to the fund, exempt from Income Tax, are to be used for maintaining the historical sites and developing them as tourist spots. In exchange, the sponsors get advertising space the quantum of which is to be decided by the Department of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India acting in tandem. The Taj Mahal is not up for grabs but the others are. Only in the year 2K have some offers been forthcoming. Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, a world heritage site, is to be illuminated by the Oberoi group. After Hyatt shied away, the Hotel Association of Northern India has come forward to take over the Red Fort. The Indian Oil Corporation is interested in Qutb Minar. Though the list is long, the restoration of the Sun Temple at Konark and the Ajanta & Ellora Caves is priority. Any sponsors?<br /><br /> But maintenance is not enough. Some long-lasting institutions and monuments ought to be created as also some new facilities developed. One such area crying for help is higher education, technical and professional. Not everyone need go to a college. Let institutions of higher professional education be fewer but be real centres of excellence. Setting them up and then running them efficiently will obviously be an expensive proposition and the state will do well to invite individual promoters or consortia to take up these projects. These should be run as any other business enterprise and not as charitable institutions. Fees will understandably be high and admissions to these will have to be restricted to those who can afford to pay and to the meritorious poor through government and privately endowed scholarships. Let the institutes be named after the promoters if they so wish. In any case it is not a good practice to name the colleges and universities after political personalities. (We can keep Mahatma Gandhi as an exception.) Setting up an Indian School of Business at Hyderabad is a step in the right direction.<br /><br />We received the legacy of the National Library, National Archives and Natural History Museum in places like Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai. They have reached a point of saturation and decay. Huge recurring expenditure is involved in preserving and updating the contents and maintaining the structures. Horizons of knowledge have expanded and we need many more archives and museums devoted to subjects such as space technology, oceanography, microbiology etc. For that matter, is a Birla planetarium in Calcutta or a Tarporewala aquarium in Mumbai enough for a country of India’s dimensions? Surely we need many more. We talk of environment and global warming but how many botanical parks, comparable to the Shibpur Botanical Garden in Calcutta, have we added during our existence as an independent nation? The Jahangir Art Gallery in Mumbai reportedly remains booked for two to three years in advance, thus denying many potential MF Hussains the opportunity to display their talent. There is need for more art galleries not only in Mumbai but in other cities as well. There must be art lovers among our business barons who will love to set up such galleries and go down in history as patrons of art.<br /><br />The scope is unlimited. The government should be the catalyst, offer suggestions and help, and leave the rest to the sponsors (no mailed fist, no pinpricks, please). Once the government have established their bonafides a generous response can be expected. Our private and public sector behemoths are the present-day Maharajas. The tribe has grown beyond the Tatas and Birlas. We have Ambanis, Azim Premji, Narayana Murthy and many others and funds can be comfortably taken care of. If the Raj (British) could do it, why can’t we? In fact we can do better by allowing the promoters and donors to name these after themselves, unlike the British who appropriated the name and sent the benefactors into oblivion.<br />Dr. Sudhir Kumar Jha<br /> (The author is a former Director General of Police, Bihar)<br />Email : <a href="mailto:sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com">sudhirjhapatna@gmail.com</a>Sudhir Kumar Jha IPS (Retd.)http://www.blogger.com/profile/01762764167668866587noreply@blogger.com0