The changed historical context may also have produced shifts in perceptions of Alauddin Khalji. The Padmavat Urdu depicts Alauddin as the emperor of Hind and the refuge of the world (alampanah). The sultan is so generous, merciful and wise that the poet is hard-pressed to find words fit enough to describe him (80). Instigated by Raghav Chetan, the misguided Alauddin lays siege to Chitor, even though his courtier points out that not even a mean and lowly man will consent to surrender his women and his honor (81). Following the Padmavat, Ishrat retains Devpal’s insult, Ratansen’s vengeance and death, and the immolation of Padmavat and Nagmat. Alauddin conquers Chitor only to heap Padmavat’s ashes on his head, in recognition of his own mortality and the limits of his imperial power (96). Having lost Padmavat, he is not interested in retaining control over Chitor. He accepts Padmavat’s son Kanvalsen as the new king of Chitor, anoints him with a robe of honor, and returns to Delhi. In the Urdu masnavi, therefore, Alauddin is not an ambitious emperor driven to territorial conquest. Nor is his Muslim identity particularly significant: he is merely a misguided lover who ultimately accepts the folly of his love, mourns the death of his desire, and accepts the bounds of mortality. Again, from the perspective of expanding British paramountcy in late-eighteenth-century northern India, Jayasi’s local anxieties from the mid-sixteenth century about imperial expansion from Delhi, would no longer have been resonant. In the context of waning Mughal power, Indo-Persian courtly and literary cultures in northern India could recolor, as nostalgia, the memory of past conquerors like the Khalji sultan.
Rajput History in Early Colonial Bengal
Fresh manuscripts of Alaol’s Padmabati were still being produced in the mid-eighteenth century. One surviving manuscript was transcribed by Abul Hochan and commissioned by Kamdar Ali, whose family were the scribe’s patrons.16 Ahsan’s survey of the surviving manuscripts in the University of Dhaka Library lists two more manuscripts from the eighteenth century, and three from the early nineteenth century.17
Scholars in Bengal had been aware of the broad shape of Rajput history since the Mughal period. Mrityunjay Vidyalankar’s Rajabali (1808), among the first books of narrative prose in Bengali commissioned by the Fort William College for use by Company officials, recounted the history of the rulers of Delhi and Bengal. Mrityunjay’s accounts of the Sultanate and Mughal periods were based, in all likelihood, on the Persian histories authored and circulating among the literati and bureaucrats of the nawabs of Bengal during the eighteenth century. The number of such histories proliferated in the late eighteenth century, as the new East India Company rulers sought knowledge about Mughal and Bengali history and statecraft.18 Discussing the twelfth-century defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan with which the Delhi Sultanate was established, Mrityunjay ascribed the fall of the “Hindu dynasties” and the founding of “Yavana rule” to crimes (cannibalism and patricide) committed by the Chauhan dynasty, and the consequent dictates of a divine will that made the Yavana conqueror (Shahabuddin Ghori) its instrument of retribution.19 Such a perspective, that attributed political decline to the moral transgressions of rulers, was shared by the other Persian histories of this period.20
By the 1770s, however, the nawabi bureaucrats were eased out of the new administration and their revenue entitlements,21 a shift that eroded networks of patronage for Persian historiography and narrative traditions. Even until the 1830s, however, as William Adam’s official surveys of schools in Bengal revealed, Persian masnavi narratives such as the Sikandarnameh and the romances of Laila–Majnun and Yusuf–Zulekha were still taught and circulated in manuscript form in the Persian-language schools of Bengal.22 In Birbhum district, the school curriculum included the Tutinameh, while in Burdwan the Nal–Daman narrative and the works of Amir Khusrau were studied.23 More than once, Adam attests to the desire of Hindu landed and service gentry to provide a Persianate education for their sons.24 Surveying five districts in 1838 for competence in Persian language and letters, he estimated that 2087 Hindus were proficient, as compared to 1409 Muslims.25 While Alaol wrote in Bengali and not Persian, his masnavi belonged to the same genre that was studied in these Persian schools. It is plausible to speculate that this Indo-Persian literati, whether Hindu or Muslim, would have been familiar with his Padmabati in this period. The fresh manuscript copies produced during this period point in the same direction. It was the abolition of Persian as the language of government and the courts in 1837, that would mark a break: by 1858, when Rangalal Bandopadhyay wrote the first version of the Padmini legend based entirely on the account in Tod’s Annals, we have no evidence that the new bhadralok even knew of Alaol’s Padmabati.
Kings, Chiefs, Queens and Enemies under Indirect Rule in Rajasthan
From the 1790s onward, the East India Company intervened in Rajasthan, typically regulating relations between warring Rajput kingdoms and strengthening monarchical authority internally. With the decline of the Mughal empire by the mid-eighteenth century, the Rajput elite lost opportunities for imperial service outside Rajasthan, with their accompanying revenue grants within the empire. Internal contests over land and revenue thus intensified, aggravating the contradictions between the Rajput rulers and their chiefs.26 With the waning of Mughal power, rulers aspired to greater power domestically, while chiefs asserted their own autonomy with more confidence, in the absence of Mughal support for their rulers.27The chiefs’ fighting men who had earlier furnished the bulk of the king’s forces now served against him.28 Rulers were often unable to resist powerful chieftains taking over crown lands: in 1775 the Mewar Rana appealed to the Marathas for help against a rebellious Chundawat chief.29
Regular Maratha incursions exacerbated such tensions. Rajput rulers and factions who had earlier approached the Mughal emperor now looked to the Marathas for military intervention in resolving their disputes. Their subsequent failure to make adequate payments for such services brought further intervention from the Marathas. After the Treaty of Salbai (1782), by which the British and Marathas agreed that neither would afford assistance to the other’s enemies, the latter had free rein in the Rajput kingdoms.30 Mewar became a protectorate of the Maratha Sindhia chief by 1792; in return for help against the rebellious Chundawat chief, the Rana paid hefty tributes to Sindhia and appointed him regent. Sindhia’s deputy remained in Mewar for eight years, exacting half the agricultural revenue to his own income.31 In 1802, the rival Maratha chief Holkar plundered the wealthy shrine of Nathdwara and exacted further tribute from the Rana;32 the threat of such exactions was ever present and frequently executed.
Confronted with these twin threats, in 1809 the Rana appealed to the British for help both against the Marathas and in recovering lands seized “forcibly” by his “dependents.” By 1810, the Pathan chief Amir Khan was also collecting tribute from Jodhpur, Udaipur, and Jaipur.33 By 1811 Company policy in the region began to change. The Company Resident in Delhi noted that “a confederation of the Rajpoot states under the protection of the British Government” had great advantages. It would connect the Bombay and Bengal territories by a territory that was under the Company “for all political and military purposes.” The Rajput kingdoms could also act as friendly buffers for the East India Company in any future conflict with the Marathas.34 Subsequently, by treaties of Subsidiary Alliance with the Company signed in 1817–18, Sindhia and Holkar relinquished all claims on the Rajput kingdoms. By 1819, all the Rajput states (except Sirohi) had entered into their own Subsidiary Alliances with the Company. The Rajput kings were now forbidden to either attack or negotiate with any third party without the consent of the British government. However, they were recognized as absolute rulers within their dominions, and would also furnish troops when required by the British government. The British restored to the Mewar Rana the districts of Kumbhalmer, Raipur, and Ramnagar, which had been taken from him by the Marathas. In return, the Mewar ruler agreed to pay a quarter of the kingdom’s revenues annually as tribute for the first five years, and three-eighths after that in perpetuity.35
Br
itish intervention in Rajasthan was prompted by considerations of the Company’s strategic interests, in the context of Russian expansion in Central Asia.36 Tod extolled the gains of “one grand [Rajput] confederation” under the Company’s “protecting alliance”: “By this comprehensive arrangement, we placed a most powerful barrier between our territories and the strong natural frontier of India; . . . so long as we shall respect their established usages, and by contributing to the prosperity of the people preserve our motives from distrust, it will be a barrier impenetrable to invasion.”37
An anonymous reviewer of the Annals in the Edinburgh Review of 1830 shared such concern: “From its geographical character and position, Rajpootana is an outwork of India, in a quarter upon which a land invasion is most likely to burst.”38 Recognizing the region’s strategic importance, the British strove to define the terms on which they would engage with the Rajputs. Tod himself emphasized these practical and political considerations underpinning the Annals. His celebration of “this ancient and interesting race” and his support for “the restoration of their former independence” were colored by such strategic imperatives. “Independence” would ensure the “prosperity of the people” by preserving the “established usages” of the Rajput rulers. In return for such “gracious patronage” by the English king, the Rajputs would make “Your Majesty’s enemies their own,” so that Rajput military power was harnessed in support of the British.39 Thus, preserving the established usages and traditions of the Rajputs described in the Annals, was understood as vital to guaranteeing Rajput support for the British empire.
Tod’s Romantic understanding of nationality also shaped his perspective on the Company’s Rajput policy. By locating “nations” at regional tiers on the subcontinent, Tod distinguished between the Rajputs and the Marathas. His belief in the innate bond between such “nations” and particular territories then required the expulsion from “Rajput” territories of all “foreign” groups such as the Marathas and Pindaris. Further, given his understanding of the Rajput “nation,” Tod saw the absence of clear territorial boundaries in Rajput polity as caused by Maratha disruptions. His transfers of territory between various chiefs and princes helped to create territorially consolidated states and “routinized” political hierarchies. Also pertinent was the Company’s prolonged conflict with the Marathas until 1818, in which Tod himself had been involved. Thus he was predisposed to accept Rajput characterizations of Maratha presence in Rajasthan as “predatory oppression,” and argued for the rescue of such degraded Rajput polity by benevolent British paternalism.40 Tod’s Romantic intellectual predilections thus converged with the East India Company’s expansionist imperatives in the early nineteenth century.
Thus rationalizing their intervention in the Rajput kingdoms, the British were concerned to assess the former’s capacity to pay the costs of the Company’s intervention. This was the context in which Tod gathered information about patterns of settlement, cultivation, and administration, all useful in assessing and extracting revenue. Such information was also helpful in settling disputes over territory and revenue rights between kingdoms, kings, and chiefs. After the 1818 treaties these were the issues on which the Company consistently intervened in the Rajput kingdoms.
In Mewar, however, the East India Company’s role extended well beyond its formal commitment not to interfere in the kingdom’s internal affairs. When Tod arrived in Udaipur, he was “enthusiastically filled with the idea of raising Meywar from the depressed condition into which she had sunk, of reconstructing her Government on its old footing, and of raising her court to the splendour it had enjoyed in the time of Sangram Singh [r. 1509–27].”41
He won the Governor-General’s support: “In this actual state of the court of Oudeypore some more active interposition on your part . . . may not only be excusable but actually indispensable for the success of the measures in view.”42 Tod saw the strengthening of the Rana’s authority as the key to restoring order in Mewar, based on what he perceived as the traditional norms of Rajput polity: “Throughout Rajasthan, the character and welfare of the States depend on that of the sovereign: he is the mainspring of the system—the active power to set and keep in motion all these discordant materials.”43 Perceiving the conflicts between rulers and chiefs as a crisis in monarchical authority now construed as traditional, he embarked on a series of measures designed to “restore” the king’s powers: powers that the latter may not have enjoyed uncontested, for any length of time in the past.
Tod thus negotiated the appeasement of feuds and persuaded the chiefs to return lands they had seized from each other and from the Rana. He prepared an agreement (Kaulnama) about rights and duties, that was signed by the Rana and all sixteen principal chiefs in May 1818. While crown lands were restored to the Rana, disagreements persisted between the chiefs over the return of seized lands to each other. This resulted in the arrangement that all such disputed lands would be turned over to the Rana’s use, thus further empowering the latter. In return for the Rana respecting their hereditary privileges, the chiefs agreed to perform personal service at Udaipur with an agreed number of troops.44 The Kaulnama effectively redefined relations between the Rana and his chiefs. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the two parties had repeatedly renegotiated the terms of their mutual obligations, based on evolving assessments of their respective strengths; Mughal intervention had been consistently even handed. In contrast, the Company regime introduced by Tod sought to empower the ruler consistently at the expense of the chiefs.45 Tod’s efforts, however, had limited success. Disputes between the Rana and his chiefs regarding service and entitlements continued well after the 1818 Kaulnama, with several further attempts to negotiate fresh settlements. Chiefly disaffection with the new Company-instituted regime continued; one consequence was the support of many Rajput chiefs for the 1857 Rebellion.46
In addition to restraining chiefly power, the Company also sought to curb royal expenditure. In 1819 Tod fixed the Udaipur Rana’s allowance at Rs 1000 daily.47 While regulating the king’s expenses, he recorded the custom of extravagant gifts for bards during marriages among the Rajput elite: “The Bardais are the grand recorders of fame . . . the dread of their satire . . . shuts the eyes of the chiefs to consequences, and they are only anxious to maintain the reputation of their ancestors, though fraught with future ruin . . . Even now the Rana of Udaipur, in his season of poverty, at the recent marriage of his daughters bestowed ‘the gift of a lakh’ on the chief bard.”48
Such restrictions on expenditure, together with the general decline in royal and chiefly resources, had the effect of eroding patronage networks for the Charans and Bhats.49 When Tod gathered his sources in the early nineteenth century, however, these changes were incipient. At this juncture bardic eulogies of Rajput rulers were still significant: they asserted the exalted status of the ruling lineage for a new arbiter, the East India Company. Genealogies asserting antiquity and purity of descent (earlier useful in negotiating status with the Mughal emperors), remained relevant for the Rajput elite in the nineteenth century, in bargaining over rank and entitlements with the Company. Thus, the Mewar Rana’s emissaries invoked a “history” of never having accepted Mughal overlordship, and suggested the inclusion of a clause in the treaty to provide that the British government would not cede the Rana to any other power.50
With the pervasive military decline of the Rajput ruling lineages by the late eighteenth century, the significance of alliances negotiated through marriage was transformed. Such marriages were now less valuable for the political and military resources they brought, and more significant as markers of social rank for the two parties. The intervention of the East India Company intensified these trends. Company policy in Rajputana after 1818 actively encouraged the marginalization of queens from politics. Until now, queens and queen mothers had had a say in the adoption of heirs, and had administered the state as regents on behalf of minor sons. By 1839 they were deprived of any role in administration and their i
nfluence in matters of adoption was curtailed. Independent income from their jagirs was now included as khalisa (crown) revenue at Udaipur. In Jodhpur and Bikaner, a cash allowance in accordance with rank replaced such jagir income for the queens. At Kota, Banswara, and Karauli, their estates were reduced. Nor did the Company unilaterally impose these changes. Several rulers complained to the British against queen mothers’ involvement in affairs of the state, thus collaborating with the Company.51 While the Rajput rulers saw a real decline in their power and resources during this period, their queens experienced an even greater loss of power. Mechanisms giving them a degree of autonomy, such as independent income from entitlements in land, disappeared.52
The Shape of History: European Moorings
In addition to the dynamics of this particular historical moment in Mewar at the onset of indirect colonial rule, Tod’s version of the Padmini legend was shaped equally by his premises about history and historical narrative, forged in the context of emerging distinctions between the domains of literature and history in Europe. Like many European contemporaries, Tod hoped to prove in the Annals “the common origin of the people of the east and west,” propounding a common Scythic origin for the tribes of early Europe and “the Rajpoot tribes.”53 He thus shared the Enlightenment aspiration of finding a common origin for the civilizations of the world: it drove his quest for cross-cultural similarities: “If the festivals of the old Greeks, Persians, Romans, Egyptians, and Goths could be arranged with exactness in the same form with the Indian, there would be found a striking resemblance among them.” He cited the methods of William Jones and resolved to treat the “festivals and superstitions of the Rajputs” similarly.54 Underlying such searches for origins and comparisons of ancient cultures was a conviction of the fundamental unity of humankind, while acknowledging the distinct attributes of each civilization.55 Civilizations were compared, however, on the basis of a universal criterion of historical progress. Thus, Tod followed contemporaries such as the Whig historian of medieval Europe, Henry Hallam, in “rank[ing] nations differentially against a continuous gradient of advancement and perfection.”56 He explicitly compared Rajput polity with its European, “feudal” counterpart as described by Hallam.57 Further, he persistently perceived in the Rajput order echoes of European chivalry. Tod’s Annals thus also invoked a Romantic medievalism that recuperated medieval ballads and the heroism of chivalric knights.58 A contemporary reviewer recognized such themes in the Annals when he was reminded of Roland by Tod’s description of one Rajput prince.59
The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen Page 16