This is a book about the rural life of British Punjab away from the ‘Land of Five Rivers’, i.e., present-day Haryana and Southern Punjab which lie between the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers, and how concepts of state, society, household and economy evolved during the colonial period. It covers aspects as varied as pastoralism, canal irrigation, notions of marriage and family, spread of agriculture and settlement, small princes and colonial governance. Joshi has creatively utilized hitherto unused data in English, Persian and Urdu from archives in the USA, UK and India, and for that reason alone is worthy of attention. The abstract (p. i) is most succinct, and says that Joshi studies the relationship between community, subsistence, and governance. … [I]t explores the continuities in kinship and caste practices … [w]orking outwards from the household, it studies how agropastoral lineages formed and how some of these managed … to establish autonomous states, or riyasats. … [T]his riyasati order was systematically dismantled by the colonial state. … [C]olonial attempts to settle and reform rural society, both by changing its relationship to the environment and by imposing new definitions of ‘community’ upon it, were met with uneven success. Colonial subjects in rural Punjab continued to forge bonds of kinship beyond the legal limits imposed by the state.
The Introduction points out that rural subsistence could be precarious in the region with its peculiar climate and geography. Thus, mobility and migration were important economic strategies. The precolonial and colonial states were interested in reducing mobility and producing sedentary agrarian life. Joshi adds that the precolonial Indian state was often seen as an outgrowth of family and kinship ties. Thus, the journey from rais/raees (notable) to riyasat (state) was a much-desired one for most leading families. Caste groups associated with the notable families would end up being a part of such transitions.
Joshi begins with an overview of South Punjab on the eve of colonialism, introducing the reader to the political history and the natural and human geography of the region. Joshi describes raiding and soldiering as important elements of the political economy of the region where a strong frame of governance existed in patches over time and space. Relatedly, water management and irrigation in the region was also erratic in the post-Mughal period. The region were home to Sikh, Muslim, Hindu and European households (rais) that sought to turn their control into riyasats. The rest of the book tells how the Company’s colonial regime sought to eliminate raiding and soldiering, and pastoralism with settled agriculture, stable governance and an infrastructure of irrigation.
In the chapter on the fortunes of the Kalsia household which governed from Chhachhrauli near the Yamuna in present-day northeast Haryana, the relatively unused text Tarikh-i Riyasat-i Kalsia (1908) of Munshi Inayatullah is used as a prime source to talk about the Kalsia family which had migrated from Kasur near Lahore in the 1760s. The text portrays the family as both an eminent household and a source of governance, and does not really highlight it as a stakeholder in a collective Sikh sovereignty unlike the Ravi Parkash or Tarikh-i khandan-i Shahi Riyasat-i Kalsia of Sardar Bawa Bhag Singh. Details of the revenue and law enforcement arrangements in the Kalsia territories are also provided. The text contains an extensive account of the manner in which the Kalsia zail (retinue) was organized as a raiding and soldiering band with sections on its allies (hamrahan, tab’in) and relatives. Disputes over succession arising out of a range of superior and inferior conjugal unions (karewa, chadar dalna, shadi, byah) form an important part of this study. Women in the roles of wives, mothers or sisters were vital to the running of these polities. However, the transition to colonial rule was accompanied by constricted definitions of family with less important roles for women. The study illustrates these processes with a variety of examples.
The wider relationship of these rural polities (riyasat) with related caste groups (rai’yat) is discussed next, based primarily upon the Tazkirat al-Umara (‘List of Notables’) and the Tashrih al-Aqwam (‘Description of Communities’), written by James Skinner, the English adventurer who also established his riyasat in the region. Skinner has provided details of revenue and political control pertaining to vast portions of present-day Haryana. Joshi tells about settlement and migration patterns. Ambitious men would seek rights to chaudhrayat, malikana and mukhtari on the basis of their ability to mobilize caste or got groups for raiding, soldiering and an agro-pastoral economy through conflicts for domination. The relations of these agro-pastoral caste groups with service castes are also discussed. Skinner uses the term sharafat for this sought-after ‘militarized code of respectability’ (p. 96) in which ‘noble work can … compensate for ignoble birth’ (p.115). Nevertheless, Skinner points out that this code of sharafat was violated often enough.
Owing to fundamental conflicts regarding the meaning and purpose of ‘family’ and ‘polity’, English rule attempted a systematic dismantling of these riyasats. Officers such as Charles Metcalfe and William Fraser were keen to revoke many of the land grants issued in the name of the Mughals or Marathas. Frequently now, madad-i ma’ash grants of lands and villages to temples, shrines and other such were sought to be replaced by salary and money income. Evidence of direct blood descent from the original grantee became very valuable. The role of matriarchs in riyasati households and polities became less important. The author discusses how Maya Kaur in Rewari and Begum Sumru in Sardhana became marginal with time. As the concepts of household narrowed, it became easier for the Company to let these polities lapse into its rule. Importantly, these processes were closely related to the way in which the Anglo-Sikh wars and the events of 1857 panned out.
Chapters five and six describe how the internal political and ecological frontiers of the region expanded under colonial rule. Thus, we have a lengthy description of how settled agriculture increased at the expense of pastoralism and raiding. Agrarian infrastructure was improvised and expanded. Canals from the precolonial period were restored. This was accompanied by some ecological and public health issues. The book, in conclusion, takes us to the second half of the nineteenth century whence the focus is on how notions of family, lineage and social groups evolved.
A couple of blemishes need to be mentioned. Firstly, the logic of using the term ‘resilient’ in the title needs more articulation. Secondly, a few of the more important primary sources are not mentioned separately in the Bibliography.
Vikas Rathee teaches in the Central University of Punjab, Punjab.