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History and Society in a Popular Rebellion: Mewat, 1920–1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Majid Hayat Siddiqi
Majid Hayat Siddiqi
Affiliation:
Jawaharlal Nehru University
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Extract

In late 1932 and early 1933 a popular rising occurred in the region of Mewat in northern central India. Although this rebellion broke out in opposition to the political power of the princely states of Alwar and Bharatpur, as a peasant rebellion it spread over and was supported from areas of British India. It was not, pace Harold Laski, merely an instance of peasant rebellion in an area of indirect British rule. Popular protest in Mewat arose within the totality of an historical context made up as much of developments in British India as of features that were specific to areas of indirect rule. The ideological and social world of the rebellion was also constituted of elements common to British and princely India and to the local histories of the peasant community of the Meos who rose in rebellion. The context that we write about, therefore, is one of a multiplicity of different, yet interlocking, histories—legendary, secular, reformist, sectarian, legitimist, nationalist, rebellious, nativistic—all of which end, as it were, in a final denouement in the rising of 1933.

Type
The Popular Culture of History
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1986 , pp. 442 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1986

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References

1 Harold Laski on the economic oppression of the Meo peasantry. Daily Herald (London), 1401 1933, in Foreign and Political Files of the government of India, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter cited as FPF), 104-P/1933.Google Scholar

2 Aggarwal, P. C., Caste, Religion, and Power. An Indian Case Study (New Delhi, 1971), 19, 23.Google Scholar

3 Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908), XVII, 313.Google Scholar

4 Aggarwal, , Caste, Religion, and Power, 24. From Aggarwal's map (p. 20) showing the geographical settlement of the different Meo pals (clans settled according to territorial distribution), we may infer that the distribution of the Meo community over Alwar, Gurgaon, and Bharatpur areas was in the ratio of 3:2:1.Google Scholar

5 Shakoor, Maulana Hakim Abdul, Tarikh Meo Chhatri [in Urdu] (Delhi, 1974), 238, 248.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., 184–89; Marwah, I. S., “Tabligh Movement among the Meos of Mewat,” in Social Movements in India, Rao, M. S. A., ed. (Delhi, 1979), II, 83, 86.Google Scholar

7 Maulana Shakoor's Tarikh, finally published posthumously in 1974, took more than fifty years to assume its present form. It began as a history (first published in 1919 under the title “Tarikh Mewat”) and was probably the first written history by an author from among the Meos (p. 500).

8 Personal interview with Mr. K. U. Siddiqi, Headmaster, Brayne-Meo High School, Nuh, October 1983.

9 Aggarwal, , Caste, Religion, and Power, 39;Google ScholarMarwah, , “Tabligh Movement,” 81. Punjab District Gazetteers (Lahore, 1911), vol. IV-A, p. 70.Google Scholar

10 Note on Anjuman-e-Islam, Bharatpur, FPF 163-P/1934 (Sec), Crown Representative Papers (hereafter cited as CRP), 24. The Crown Representative Papers may be seen on microfilm at the National Archives of India, New Delhi; the originals are at the India Office Library, London.

11 District Gazetteer, Gurgaon (cited in note 9), p. 82.Google Scholar

12 Marwah, , “Tabligh Movement,” 83.Google Scholar

13 District Gazetteer, Gurgaon, pp. 82, 168–69.Google Scholar The experience of the social trauma of suicide was transformed into traditional lament by the 1960s. Aggarwal, , Caste, Religion, and Power, 113.Google Scholar

14 Aggarwal, , Caste, Religion, and Power, 68, 115.Google Scholar

15 FPF 74-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 8.

16 FPF 163-P/1934 (Sec), CRP, 24.

17 This account of the AKI is based on “The Alwar State and Its Muslim Subjects,” Ch. 1, and the Farman-i-Shahi, regarding private educational institutions, dated 2 May 1932, both in FPF 743-P/1933 (Sec).

18 AKI press statement of 2 June 1932, in FPF 743-P/1933, Appendix C; Report dated 7 June 1932 by G. Lai and G. Ali, and Report of 23 July 1932 by Lala Alakh Dhari et al., both in FPF 270-G/1932.

19 Report of Dhari et al., para. 27.

20 Ibid., para. 53.

21 See text at page 450.

22 Report of Lai and Ali, 28–36.

23 “Alwar State and Its Muslim Subjects,” Appendix H.

24 External evidence for this incident is to be found in Report of Dhari et al., para. 43. The Times (London), 6 06 1932, records the incident as a quarrel between a Hindu cigarette seller and a Muslim customer.Google Scholar

25 Only three persons died in the riot. Report of Lai and Ali, and Report of Dhari el al.

26 Brayne, F. L., ed., Record of War Work in Gurgaon District (Poona, 1923), foreword, 4,Google Scholar

27 Brayne's reform activities are outlined in his Better Villages (Oxford, 1937).Google Scholar See also his Village Uplift in India (Allahabad, 1927)Google Scholar and Socrates in an Indian Village (London, 1931).Google Scholar

28 For the Guidance of Village Workers, Report on the Rural Uplift Work of Mr F. L. Brayne, with comments of Mahatma Gandhi from Young India, Oct.-Nov. 1929(1931; rpt., Delhi, 1949).Google Scholar

29 Brayne, , Socrates in an Indian Village, 45–49.Google Scholar

30 A biography of Chaudhri Yasin Khan is Abdul Hayee's Mohammed Yasin Khan (1970), in Urdu, issued from Delhi soon after his death in 1970.Google Scholar

31 I am indebted to Mr. Tayyab Husain for these details about his father's early life.

32 Brayne-Meo High School files, D C. office, Gurgaon, no. 13/721, vol. II, p. 135 and vol. VII, enclosed pamphlet of rules.

33 The connexion with the Alwar movement is explicitly stated in Shakoor, Tarikh, 480, and in Hayee, , Mohammed Yasin Khan, 7–9. The efforts of Brayne to collect funds from Meos serving in the Indian army served indirectly to spread the news of the high school (and inspired support for it) to all the pals settled in the Gurgaon, Bharatpur, and Alwar areas of Mewat. Letter, C. A. Grant Rundle (of 10/2 Bombay Pioneers at Agra) dated 10 June 1925, to Brayne, in a file of the school's early history compiled by this author from school records, available at headmaster's office, Brayne-Meo High School, Nuh (hereafter cited as “Early History”).Google Scholar

34 Log Books, Brayne-Meo High School, Nuh, 1922–1930 and 1932–1943.

35 FPF 163-P/ 1934 (Sec), CRP, 24.

36 Log Book, Brayne-Meo High School, Nuh, 1922–1930, 41.

37 “Early History,” enclosures.

38 Shakoor, , Tarikh, 477–81.Google Scholar

39 Letter, Asghar Ali to Brayne, dated 27 February 1925. “Early History.”

40 Marwah, , “Tabligh Movement,” 95.Google Scholar

41 “Alwar State and Its Muslim Subjects,” ch. 2.

42 Inquilab (Lahore) 14 and 28 August 1932, included in FPF 535-P/1932; United Provinces Native Press Report, 23 07 1932.Google Scholar

43 Al-Jamiat, , 1 08 1932;Google ScholarThe Times of India, 1 08 1932.Google Scholar

44 The Governor, Punjab, thought that “Alwar managed to square by bribery the Congress sympathizers among the Jamiat-ul-Ulema.” Letter to Haig, dated 27 November 1932, in FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 39–42.

45 Memorial, in FPF 743-P/1933. The memorial contains a detailed catalogue of peasant woes. Other information on the economic condition of the Men peasantry may be found in FPF 48-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, II, 46, and in FPF 223-P/1933, CRP, 3.

46 Ashton, S. R., British Policy towards the Indian States, 1905–1939 (London, 1982).Google Scholar

47 See notes and communications of 23, 26, 27, 28, and 29 November 1932 (FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 1–3, 9–13, 16–18, 25–27), and those of 3 and 6 December (Ibid., 67, 83).

48 Ibid., 16–19.

44 The Times of India, 13 01 1933.Google Scholar

50 Note, Intelligence Bureau, I December 1932, in FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 53.

51 FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 70–72.

52 Presidential address of Rahim Bakhsh, in “Alwar State and Its Muslim Subjects,” Appendix F.

53 The Statesman, 6 12 1932, in FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 79–82.Google Scholar

54 FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 70–72.

55 Resolutions passed, as reported in The Statesman, 6 12 1932.Google Scholar

56 See text at page 445.

57 Personal interview with Mr. Abdul Hayee, a 1927 matriculate of the Brayne-Meo High School, November 1983; The Times of India. 13 01 1933.Google Scholar

58 Yasin Khan's role even in the Firozpur Jhirka conference was that of a moderate. Personal interview with Mr. Abdul Hayee, an organizer of the conference, November 1983.

59 The second verse included in section II of the text follows this instance of direct action. The Friday of that verse never existed but the significance of the choice of this day in the verse is obvious.

60 Confidential note, C. Garbett, Punjab Secretariat, 26 November 1932, in FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 9–13.

61 “Meos No Rent Campaign in Alwar State. Armed Villagers … Whole Countryside Ready to Concentrate,” The Statesman, 29 11 1932, in FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec), CRP, 100a, b, c.Google Scholar

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid. According to another report, villagers wounded in confrontation with the revenue collectors “were removed to the Muslim Mahajereen camp at Firozpur.” The Times of India, 18 11 1932.Google Scholar

64 Details of the negotiations are in “Alwar State and Its Muslim Subjects.”

65 The Times of India, 13 01 1933.Google Scholar

66 The Times (London), 9 01 1933, reports that the “leader of the rebellion is alleged to be a former jemadar [subaltern] in an Indian cavalry regiment.” The issue of 10 January 1933 records “Captain” “Dilawar Khan” as having led the rising since “Khamukar” (Dhamokar).Google Scholar

67 “Alwar State and Its Muslim Subjects.”

68 The Times (London), 3 01 1933.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., 10 January 1933.

70 The Tribune, 4, 7, 9, and 13 01 1933;Google ScholarThe Searchlight, 11 and 13 01 1933;Google Scholar and The Pioneer, 8, and 10–13 01 1933.Google Scholar See also the United Provinces Native Press Reports, 14, 21, and 28 01 1933.Google Scholar

71 Diary entries of B. S. Moonje, for 4–6 and 9–13 January 1933. Moonje Papers, microfilm roll 2, Nehru Museum and Library, Delhi.

72 Al-Jamiat also published Dr. Moonje's assessment without comment, 13 January 1933.

73 Govindgarh Enquiry Report, FPF 346-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 16.

74 The Times of India, 14 01 1933.Google Scholar

75 Ibid., 11 January 1933.

76 For the former view, see The Pioneer, 14 01 1933,Google Scholar and The Tribune, “Rebels Beat Hasty Retreat,” 13 01 1933.Google Scholar Cf. The Times of India, 14 and 16 January 1933 and The Statesman, 14 01 1933, for the latter assessment.Google Scholar

77 Civil Officer L. Evans with Imperial Troops to Political Secretary, GOI, dated Ramgarh, 15 January 1933, FPF 48-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, II, 20–22.

78 “Ver Khan” of “Basgarhi” (The Pioneer, 13 01 1933)Google Scholar was probably Khan, Dilawar of the Bagodhia pal; The Times (London), 11 01 1933.Google Scholar

79 Prisoners thus taken were eventually released by 20 January 1933. The arrests, however, prompted veiled threats from other Meos, e.g., “Such actions … will hinder us from cooperating with Impe?al Troops.” For more details, see telegram, Nasrullah Khan, Jemadar, to Viceroy, dated 12 January 1933; reference to telegrams of protest from Yasin Khan; telegram from Yaqub Khan, President, Meo Panchayat Nuh, no date, all in FPF 48-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, I, 7, 10, 16, and II, 27a.

80 FPF 48-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, I, 17, 23.

81 Ibid., V, 132a, letter of 4 March 1933 records the end of military occupation.

82 Cf. the Meo version of the episode with that of the inquiring officer. FPF 346-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 7, 11.

83 See Appendix.

84 Ibid.

85 FPF 346-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 7, 11.

86 Ibbotson's comment, in FPF 346-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 16.

87 Ibid., 2. The report is dated 12 May 1933.

88 See text at pages 451–52 and 455.

89 The Times (London), 5 01 1933: “Moslem Rising in Alwar.”Google Scholar

90 A. Ibbotson's report, FPF 346-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, II.

91 Verse quoted in text in section II.

92 Note of 9 March 1933, FPF 48-p/1933 (Sec), CRP, V, 143.

93 Note on interview, Ganpat Rai, Secretary, Hindu Mahasabha, with R. Wingate, Deputy Political Secretary, 16 February 1933; letter from Ganpat Rai, 17 February 1933; details of a “pacification” meeting on 2 February 1933, all in FPF 178-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 12–13, 15–17, and appended notes, 3–4.

94 The searchlight, 13 01 1933.Google Scholar

95 Telegram in Alwar Diary 14, dated 22 January 1933. Meos were alleged to have looted Ganj, “a hindu village close to Kishengarh” on 30 January 1933. Telegram in Alwar Diary 20, dated 31 January 1933. FPF 26-P/1933 (Sec), enclosures.

96 Hayee, Abdul, “The Freedom Movement in Mewat,” in K. M. Ashraf, memorial volume, Kruger, H., ed. (Delhi, 1969), 299.Google Scholar

97 Telegram, dated 1 I February 1933, FPF 97-P/1933, CRP, 13.

98 Telegram, dated I 1 February 1933, from “Alwar State Hindus” to “Pol. India,” FPF 979/1933, CRP, 14.

99 Report of II April 1933, FPF 121-P/1933, CRP, 12–17. (Note that the pagination of this file is not always in sequence.)

100 This meeting was attended by representatives from eighty-five widely distributed villages. Central Intelligence Department reports, extracts, FPF 121-P/1933, CRP, 19.

101 Telegram, dated 26 April 1933, FPF 121-P/1933, CRP, 20. (Reference to be read with caveat of note 99.)

102 Note of 8 May 1933, FPF 121-P/1933, CRP, 47–49.

103 Ibbotson's comment, 8 May 1933, FPF 121-P/1933, CRP, 52.

104 This meeting was scheduled to be held under the auspices of the Shraddhanand Memorial Trust at Rewari, and Dr. Moonje was to preside. FPF 223-P/ 1933, CRP, 11. The date of this meeting had been preceded by more than six weeks of organized sangathan activities among the Ahirs of Tapukra and along the tract of Kot Qasim in the Jaipur state that bordered many Tijara and Kishengarh villages in Alwar. FPF 220-P/1933, (Sec), CRP, 50–55.

105 The Times (London), 6 06 1933, recorded that four persons were killed in this riot.Google Scholar

106 Letter of 19 August 1933, from Prime Minister Alwar State to Political Agent, FPF 971/1933, CRP, appendix to notes, 27.

107 Most of all, The Tribune, The Hindustan Times, and the vemacular press. Cf. reports inGoogle ScholarThe Tribune of 5, 7, 13, and 15 01, The Hindustan Times of 3, 8, II, and 12 January, and the United Provinces Native Press Reports of 14, 21, and 28 January 1933.Google Scholar

108 Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 12 01 1933.Google Scholar

109 Moonje diary entries, cited in note 71.

110 The Searchlight, 11 01;Google ScholarAl-Jamiat, 9 and 13 January; Leader, 8 January; Tribune, 13 01;Google ScholarThe Times (London), 6 01;Google ScholarThe Times of India, 10 01 1933.Google Scholar

111 Hindu Mahasabha and other fears and suspicions about external incitement were grounded in fact. But the extent of external incitement was limited and in any case often existed only as rumour. An example of a rumour “current in the Delhi immigrants' camp”: “Jatka [rally] will start from Punjab and UP by different routes … march will be kept secret and the volunteers will be in their ordinary dress till they reach within a few miles of Alwar when they will wear red shirts.” An example of an actual event: “Muslim volunteers wearing turkish caps with crescent on and yellow shirts arrived in Phulabas from Ferozpur Jhirka side and proceeded to Dhamukar.” On the other hand, a jatha from Firozpur Jhirka, on government advice, “decided not to enter Alwar.” FPF 59-P/1933 (Sec).

112 See text in section II.

113 Memo on this subject, dated 8 February 1933, FPF 48-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, III, 10.

114 See Appendix.

115 The Meo peasants had not always seen themselves in this pan-Islamic vision. The Times of India, 9 01 1933.Google Scholar After the “Banishment of Alwar” from his state, he charged that there had been “Islamic “Bloc” Machinations… to include Afghanistan, the NWFP and the Punjab” in the agitation. This statement seems to be the most likely source of the peasantry's ideas of their own place in the Islamic world. The Hindustan Times, 10 07 1933, in FPF 268-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, Vol. II, Appendix II.Google Scholar

116 Personal interview with Safed Khan, a ballad-singer, October 1983. Safed Khan accompanied Yasin Khan on his travels throughout Mewat from the time the balladeer was a little boy till Yasin's death in 1970.

117 The Times (London), 23 05 1933.Google Scholar

118 Letter, Z. Ahmed, dated 22 February 1933, to Political Secretary and the Political Secretary's reply FPF 74-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 6 and 8.

119 FPF 74-.P/1933 (Sec), CRP, p. 4. The Bharatpur state also prohibited the collection of “subscriptions” by the Meos of Gurgaon. AI-Jamiat, 28 January 1933.

120 FPF 74-P/1933 (Sec) CRP, 9–16.

121 Letter, Council of State, Bharatpur, dated 5 January 1933, to Political Agent, East Rajputana States, FPF 74-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 4.

122 Ibid., 8.

123 Ibid., I, contains Balbir Singh's view that had the Meos carried “the Ahirs along with them [in Alwar] the latter would have willingly joined forces in representing their grievances.” Cf. data in note 104.

124 FPF 74-P/1933 (Sec), CRP, 9–16.

125 Memo, dated 21 November 1929, on Chotu Ram's interview on behalf of the All-India Jat Mahasabha, FPF 110-P/1930.

126 The Bharatpur Anjuman was reported to have collected “thumb impressions of many Meos … separately on blank pieces of foolscap for use as and when required.” Note, dated 31 December 1933, in FPF 163-P/ 1934(Sec), CRP.

127 Ashton, , British Policy, 54–55.Google Scholar

128 “I should not like any questions affecting my State being determined on the advice of other Ruling Princes,” the Nizam had said. Ashton, , British Policy, 56.Google Scholar

129 Shakoor, , Tarikh, 499–500.Google Scholar

130 “Noncooperation in Firozpur Jhirka 1922,” file in Private Papers of H. L. Bhargava, Haryana State Archives, Chandigarh, containing the statement of Janki Nath Atal, special magistrate, dated II April 1922; and the testimony of Parshadi, accused no. 4.

131 See Appendix.

132 In November 1932 the Governor of Punjab noted that “in quite a number of cases in the past 10 or 11 years” the Meos had been involved in “open defiance” when they had “beaten Naib Tahsildars [officials] and Police etc. out of the villages over quite trivial incidents.” FPF 604-P/1932 (Sec) CRP, 39–42.

133 See Appendix.

134 See rhymes included in the text at pages 454 and 455.

135 The “ti-ti” of the rhyme on page 455 is an illustration of this.

136 We refer here to the variety of school movements in Mewat and to the “fourteen learnings” which, according to the peasant tradition, Yasin Khan is supposed to have acquired, in a suggested parallel with the legendary erudition and fairmindedness of Raja Bhoj. See Appendix.

137 English symbols figured in the peasants' appreciation of titles such as “General,” in their appreciation of the rule of law, in their pride at Yasin Khan's rendering of testimony at Govindgarh into English, in their adherence to Yasin Khan's school movement in Nuh, especially as distinct from their distance from the Deobandi missionary's activities.

138 See text at pages 463–64.

139 This article has drawn for confidence on Jan Vansina's masterly treatises on researching oral tradition. The author also wishes to record a debt to Clifford Geertz's ideas on “thick description,” a back-of-the-mind assumption in this attempt at highlighting the significant in a refractive causality, and to Bernard Cohn for his concern for the synthesis of anthropological and historical perspectives on South Asian society, expressed variously over the last two decades.