[One of my greatest pleasures in Stanford was unearthing the treasures of its libraries and reading them; Major Archer's travelogues was on of them. This column was published in Business Standard of 5 June 2000.]
Major Archer’s Travels in Upper India
In 1827, Lord
Combermere came to India as Commander-in-Chief of the British forces. His
Aide-de-camp, Major Archer, wrote a travelogue, which was published in London
in two volumes in 1833, under the title Tours
in Upper India, and in Parts of the Himalaya Mountains; with Accounts of the
Courts of the Native Princes, &c. They made their perambulations 70
years after Clive subjugated Bengal, 34 years after the British displaced the
French in south India and nine years after they finally defeated the Marathas
at Paniput and became the paramount power in India. In the course of these
conquests the East India Company removed those rulers that had fought against
it and annexed their territory. Of those who had not, some like the Mogul
Emperor were given annual pensions and deprived of their territorial rights,
while others were allowed to continue in their reign. Thus, the patchwork of red
and yellow that lasted till 1947 had already emerged in its outlines by 1827.
Those who were
allowed to rule a territory had some elasticity in their revenues. By good
management they could raise revenue; by oppression they could reduce it. The
taxpayer was the peasant; he worked for everyone else. If someone did not want
to do manual work and be at the mercy of rulers, the only employment open to
him was in court service or brigandage. Apparently, there was one gang of
brigands who specialized in robbing travellers as they crossed rivers. There
they had to divide baggage and carry it across in boatloads; thieves pounced on
the baggage at one end or the other and made away with what they could.
Warfare was a
flourishing industry in eighteenth-century India; so the demand for soldiers
was high, and all armies were overblown. When the British imposed their rule
and pensioned off some rulers, they were hard put to support their hangers-on
and make ends meet. The worst off was the Mogul King. It was the custom then
that those who were taken for an audience with the King first had to give him a
present; Lord Combermere gave him 100 gold mohurs (a mohur was worth a Pound
and 12 shillings, or 16 silver rupees), and each of the Princes ten mohurs.
Then Prince Meerza Salim took him to an anteroom and dressed him in clothes
presented by the King – a coat was draped on top of his uniform, and a turban
placed on his head. Then he was taken back to the King, who slung a sword on
the General’s waist, and received another present. But the clothes Major Archer
and his colleagues got were cheap, and he makes much fun of them.
The rulers who met
with Major Archer’s admiration were Major Skinner and Begum Sumroo. They
apparently managed their estates well and lived within their means; and their
troops were better turned out – an important consideration for the ADC of the
Commander-in-Chief, who inspected troops wherever he went. Another thing he
noticed was the design and condition of the numerous
fortresses; as soon as he saw one, Major Archer would instinctively size up how
difficult it would be to take the fort. It depended on the height and thickness
of the walls, but even more on the condition of the glacis – the open ground
surrounding the fort. The larger the glacis and the less cluttered with
encroachments, the better the view commanded by the defenders, and the more
attackers they could pick off and shoot.
Most of the cities
through which the party travelled were in a state of desolation; many houses
were in ruin, and the population was much less than it must once have been. The
wars and invasions of the eighteenth century caused much damage to the economy
of upper India. The East India company deputed an engineer called Major Smith
to repair the ramparts and city of Delhi. He lived in a Ty-kounah which must
once have belonged to some nobleman. This was an underground mansion underneath
the ramparts; it was well insulated and therefore was warm in winter and cool
in summer.
Travellers
at that time carried everything they needed: tents, cooking vessels, carpets,
furniture, the lot. The likes of Lord Combermere had elephants to carry their
baggage; camels and mules too were used. Officers rode on horses. Thus, a big
man had a big caravan with him. It was fed by foraging the countryside.
Apparently, there was a lot of wild life on the way. Major Archer thought
nothing of going off into the wild and shooting a few birds for breakfast;
antelopes and neelgays were also abundant. Once in a while the party heard of a
tiger; often the tiger preyed on villagers and their cattle. Hunting tigers was
an obligatory sport for the likes of Major Archer.
But not all the
hunters of that time could have been young and athletic; so they had devised
less demanding forms of hunting for the sedentary folk. They employed captive
cheetahs. These cheetahs would be blindfolded and carried into the countryside on bullock carts. They would be let loose in the sight of deer, which they would
chase and bring down. Villagers or courtiers beat an area for tigers and made
them break out in the direction of the hunters, who would then loose a few
fusillades at the fleeing tiger. Rulers staged fights between animals for the
entertainment of guests – important guests like Combermere got to see a fight
between an elephant and a tiger or leopard. They also saw a lot of nautch; the
Nawaub of Oudh in particular had troupes of nautch girls at his command. But
the nautch girls did not dance all the time; apparently they sang a lot. I
suppose they were ghazals, although Major Archer was too ignorant and
uninterested to know.
