The Slavery of Bharatiyas(Indians) by the British- The case of Forced Labour in British India Part 1

  2. Discovery & Mystery
  3. The Slavery of Bharatiyas(Indians) by the British- The case of Forced Labour in British India Part 1
The Slavery of Bharatiyas(Indians) by the British- The case of Forced Labour in British India Part 1
Eminent historian Sri Dharampal (Image taken from here)

Before launching into the article, I would like to remember the legendary historian of Bharata -Sri Dharampal. Readers will probably be familiar with his ground-breaking work on Bharatiya society on the eve of British occupation.

Over the undertow of decades, he diligently placid original material on British India and brought to light how the Christian British destroyed our industry, education system, distorted our culture and subverted Hinduism for their own ends. Most the material he placid from the India Office records ( stored in the British Library in London) in the United Kingdom. Without any prospect of remuneration or financial support he laboured on due to his love for the motherland.

This is what Claude Alvares, a scholar and publisher, whose publication house has brought out several of Dharampal’s works, has to say well-nigh the tapasya of Dharampal:

“He did not have much of an income. There was moreover a family to support. But notwithstanding all this, he became a regular visitor to the India Office and the British Museum. Photocopying required money. Oftentimes, old manuscripts could not be photocopied. So he copied them in long hand, page without page, millions of words, day without day. Thereafter, he would have the copied notes typed. He thus retrieved and piled thousands of pages of information from the tabulated record. When he returned to India, his most prized possession was these notes, which filled several large trunks and suitcases.[i]“

 From anecdotes on Twitter, his last years were particularly nonflexible in terms of financial assistance towards his research. Not surprising, for the fate of gyana margi people in today’s Bharata is usually one of financial penury and societal neglect. When time permits, I will post the translation of a lament by G.H.Khare, an eminent historian (in the correct sense, unlike the Christo-Islamo-fascist eminences who pass for scholars) on the hardships he faced throughout his life.

A lot of the material Sri Dharampal selected has been put online by Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai. This amounts to nearly 15,500 pages of original British era records like Commissioners reports, collector reports, judicial reports etc. These have been very neatly categorized by the topic and size of the documentation. For every page Dharampal selected from the British archives, he would have to go through at several irrelevant pages. A lot of these he copied by hand and typed them up. Quite a few were cyclostyled by him.

Over the coming years I will be going through all this material and publish my wringer online and in typesetting form.

Note: Some of the references are out of whack as I am still getting used to the new fangled WordPress editor. As they say you word-stock stop progress. I will sort these out as I get familiar with progress.

In this series of articles, I will be tackling the slavery of Bharatiyas by the British. This is euphemistically referred to in British records as “Forced Labour”. Just as Colonialism is a nice sounding label for outright genocide, similarly, forced labour is a term which blunts the true nature of the atrocities single-minded by the British. My marvel in this topic was ignited years ago by a stray sentence in the introduction of one of Dharampal’s books (don’t remember which), where he mentions this as a topic which needs remoter investigation. Sometime in 2015, I came wideness the giant repository of Dharmapals documents uploaded by CPS and stumbled upon a folder titled “Dharampal Envelopes”. This then has several sub-folders which tackle variegated aspects of British oppression in Bharat. It is envelope series C-25 to C-30 which form the unshortened corpus relating to forced labour in Bharat. This runs tropical to 700 pages in total.

I went through virtually 700 pages of original British era records in the Dharampal gazetteer to yank a true picture of how the British used Bharatiyas like strays of burden, all self-ruling of cost. This wringer brings out some shocking and repulsive facts well-nigh how the British brought lanugo our siblings to the level of load delivering donkeys. I did this wringer on and off for nearly 6 years as it is very depressing subject for me personally. This is whimsically the stuff that will patina your day.

Along with the subconscious facts of slavery of Bharatiya’s other darker secrets moreover emerged: the mass rape of Bharatiya women by the Christian British. This is flipside line of research and in the coming years I will bring out a detailed typesetting on this subject. On a sidenote, these reasons ( alongwith the destruction of our economy) were the real reasons for the Bharatiya-Anglo war of 1857 CE. It is only morons who think that a pig and cow fat greased bullet caused people to magically rise in stodge and murder the white invaders.

I will spread out the content wideness several wares as it is too big to fit in one blog post. The method I used to analyse the documents is Grounded Theory , which if washed-up properly brings out subconscious aspects of the data.

By the end of this year, I will be bringing out a typesetting on the subject of forced labour, wherein I will moreover explain the wringer methodology in detail. If you are interested in the typesetting ( as and when it comes out) please fill in this form.

The readers who fill up the form will be offered a unbelieve of 40% once the typesetting is published.

All right, lets uncork our journey to understanding forced labour in British occupied Bharat. In places I have used the terms “BOB” which stands for “British Occupied Bharat“.

What is forced labour?

Lets start with a textbook definition. Very simply put whenever you are forced to work versus your will is recognised as forced labour. One of the definitions given by the International Labour organisation (ILO) for forced labour is:

“Forced or compulsory labour is all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.” International Labour Organization Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29).”[i]

Right, so big deal! How does this snooping us? What’s this got to do with things that happened in Bharat increasingly than a century ago?

Let’s simplify things with an imaginary scenario. Imagine you are driving on the outskirts of Bhagyanagar in your swanky new car. You see a roadblock superiority manned by cops. You dutifully stop your car. Next thing you know is you are dragged out, your wife gets molested, and the cops commandeer your car. Tamed and lame you are dumped on the side of the road, while the cops jump in the car and momentum off to the next city, say Warangal.

Let’s take this a bit further. You send your wife when home to Bhagyanagar and hitch a ride to the Warangal. On making inquiries you find out that the car is standing in the police commissioners office. You present yourself in front of the police commissioner, who promptly throws you into a cell. Where, of course, you receive the next round of beatings. Twice beaten, once shy, you walk out of the police station and from the corner of your eye you see a surprise. Dumped near the wall is the soul of the car with all its parts stripped out. Wiping a tear, you limp into the wide world.

Another scenario while we are at it: A night in the warm Bharatiya summer. Without a long day you are dozing in the recipe of your house. A series of loud bangs on the door rouses you from deep slumber. Groggy and bumbling you unshut the front door of the house. Next thing you know is you are stuff pulled by a couple of peons from some government department and dragged outside the house. In the morning you find yourself with a 40-kilo weight strapped to your when and trudging through the rising heat. You squint when and see a line of unfortunates like you sacrilegious their fate. The stragglers scream as a peon lashes at their backs with a whip. Leading the front is the District Collector sitting comfortably in his Ambassador car.

In both situations you don’t get a single rupee or ten rupees for your troubles.

Outlandish? Difficult to imagine today? Replace the cars with bullock carts and turn the clock when a hundred years and you get an idea what it ways when the English talk well-nigh forced labour in Bharat. While the current yield of bureaucrats and police officers, in Bharat, are a law unto themselves, they are toddlers (anari in Hindi) compared to their white forebears.

In this part and the pursuit parts, I will touch on each speciality of this oppression practised by the Christian British in Bharat.

What was forced labour used for?

Forced labour was used to run the British occupation in Bharat. This included:

  1. Government works (canals, railways, roads, bridges etc.)
  2. For government officers and their families
  3. Movement of troops
  4. European travellers. Any white person in BOB was referred to as a European. The term travellers meant these were not unfluctuating to the British wardship but were people travelling on personal business.

I will be addressing each of these points one by one. It is important to note that very rarely were Bharatiyas remunerated for their misery. Most of the time it was self-ruling slavery to the British. It didn’t matter if you were in the North, South, West or East of Bharata. The Christian British were equal opportunity enslavers. The unelevated statement made in 1844 CE by a Magistrate in Uttar Pradesh leaves no doubt as to what went on:

“It is believed that the commissariat officers on the insemination of large camps and the team of large persons of troops have been in the habit of requiring the intervention of magisterial validity in procuring the ubiety of trade people and artificers of various denominations to trailblaze such camps without remuneration… with such requisitions the magistrates have complied without objection and without reference to the illegality and injustice of such impressment.”[i]

1.      Forced labour for government works

 In terms of sheer numbers this category overwhelms all the other categories.  Indians in their lakhs were forced to work as “free” labourers on government projects and regular maintenance of existing infrastructure. This included:

  1. Construction of canals.
  2.  Railways.
  3. Repair of existing water sources.
  4.  For the trigonometrical survey of Bharat.
  5. Constructing houses of the rapist British soldiers and officials.
  6. Working as porters for British officials who moved from place to place.

Repair and Maintenance of Waterworks: An illustrative example is that of the repair and restoration of the West Yamuna waterway in the 1840’s. The issue of forced labour caused heated correspondence between the Superintendent of West Yamuna waterway works and the local magistrate. This debate was sparked off by a Magistrate order in 1844 CE which prohibited the forced impressments of artisans and trades people by military authorities. But a bureaucrat  by the name of J.Thronton wrote when to the magistrate saying that for emergency purposes it was still necessary to employ forced labour. So, by 1845 CE the Judge therefrom modified his order to exclude military “emergencies”20. As was typical of the stray British government machinery scrutinizingly everything was fitted into this user-friendly category.

To this magistrate order, a stronger reaction came from the Superintendent of Canals, west of the Yamuna, who threatened to quit if he was not given a self-ruling hand to collect people. He remoter expressed the wish that every waterway officer is given a self-ruling hand in collecting any number of labourers, without fearing consequences from law. The Magistrate of Karnaul (Karnal near Delhi?), M B. Thornbull wrote when saying the waterway works pay forced labourers 7 paise, whereas the “nerrick” (market rate) was 2 annas 6 paise and hence no one was prepared to work.

 The superintendent unmistakably mentions that 5, 18, 204 people were pressed as forced labourers for constructing the canal. This equated to roughly 43,000 people gathered monthly[ii]. And how were these people rounded up?

“I have no hesitation in stating for the information of government, that to the weightier of my weighing not a single large party has been placid unless by sowars, burkandazes, chaprasis, khalasis, malis or beldars of the waterway establishment for purpose of bringing them together…” Comment by the Superintendent of Works, West Yamuna canal22.

The superintendent threatened to stop work on the waterway if he was prevented from getting forced labour.

This was a pan-Bharat miracle and unfurled for a long time as evidenced from notes and records from all the four ends of the country. The British officials of North West Frontier provinces (now in Pakistan) have recorded in their reports of the growing wrongness in people due to impressment for waterway works and repairs 89 . A note from the collector of the Godavari district in 1872 CE to the Workbench of Revenue unmistakably spelt out the self-ruling work that villagers were expected to do on canals and waterworks 24:

  1. Digging and repairing of channels by which water is immediately distributed to the fields from tanks or irrigation channels.
  2. Turfing the leaky bunds of tanks in order to prevent breaches,
  3. Making ring bunds when breaches occur.

The collector is very well-spoken well-nigh the manner in which people were coerced when he says that, “No instance has come under my own observation in which the ryots of their own wind-down turfed the bund of a tank, but it is said to be recognized as a duty”27.

Repair and construction of roads:  In towers roads the normal tactic to save money was to stow of portions of the road to nearest village. Self-ruling labour was exacted for towers roads throughout Bharat. This included the main highways (called as trunk roads and the ones connecting the villages to each other).  A document from 1849 CE mentions that till that time forced labour was used for towers trunk roads in Salem district. The note remoter states that since Rs.9000 had been allotted for the repair of trunk roads, there was no need to gravity people to work for self-ruling 28.

Another volitional to get work washed-up self-ruling of forfeit was to use convicts for road and public works. This was eerily similar to the “slave labour” employed by the Soviet Union where prisoners were forced to dig canals, build roads and do just well-nigh anything that the communist party desired (Library of Congress, 2010). An example of use of convicts with details of how much money was saved is given in a report by the public works department on the feasibility of using prisoners to build roads. This report deals with Salem in Tamil Nadu mentions that due to upper death rate of prisoners, the use of convicts for road repairs and construction was temporarily stopped in 1844 CE. That this experiment was once tried elsewhere is demonstrated by the report writers statement that,

“the employment of convicts in gangs, at a loftiness from their gaols has been peremptorily prohibited by the Honourable magistrate of directors and the government of India. Chiefly on worth of the sickness and mortality which followed the adoption of a similar plan in Bengal”[iii].

The pursuit table gives details of the death rate vis-a-vis the total number of prisoners in the prison in Salem. The total number of deaths comes to a staggering 19,845 people in a short span of 7 years.

 Proportion of deaths to Numerical Strengths
 Convicts employed on road labourPrisoners in gaols
First half of 18398702665
Second half of 18395002630
183913705295
First half of 18409272743
Second half of 18406863310
184016136053
First half of 18415002016
Second half of 184118102737
184123104753
184233026075
184334746969
184451663282
184526107905
Total Deaths19,845 
Table 1 The death rate of prisoners employed on road construction

 The British occupation government saved an enormous value of money by experimenting in using convicts to do work instead of forced labor from people. As is presented in this volume there is irrefutable vestige that usually all public works were carried out with self-ruling labour. The key focus on saving money, nothing else. The conclusion of the workbench of public works in their report was, “It is satisfactory to find that the labour of the convicts has been very nearly as unseemly as self-ruling labour”28.

This meant the villagers were responsible for not only towers the road for self-ruling but moreover maintaining it. And all the while they were paying upper taxes for the “gift of white rule”. This was identified by in a report by the Workbench of Revenue of EIC:

“When the road passes through jungly, or naturally waterless lands, the villages are few, and the population very scant. This road labor then must be very oppressive for unconfined lengths of road are portioned off to small villages and the workmen have to waste much time in going to and from.”[iv]

Like most other uses of forced labour, the use of forced labour for making road was a pan-Bharat phenomenon. This is attested by other documents which are from the other extremes of Bharat i.e., Himachal Pradesh, Arakan hills tracts (Myanmar), Dera Ismail Khan, and Assam.

In specimen of emergencies such as floods and major forfeiture to roads it was scrutinizingly unrepealable that villagers would be corralled into the repair effort. In Dera Ismail Khan, sometime in 1883 CE, large number of villagers were forced to repair roads and a underpass which had been swept yonder in a wink inflowing [v]. This large number was usually in the thousands not hundreds. From the letter it is well-spoken that this was whimsically an one-off occurrence.

 In the 1860’s, Sir Henry Ramsey, placed in tuition of Kumaon as Commissioner, ruled as a petty tyrant. He synthetic dak bungalows and large number of roads from where British officials exercised tyranny over Indians. Kuli, bardaish and begar were variegated appellations of forced labour, mean, impressed labour with miniscule wages, labour without payment, and grabbing supplies wares etc. by Government officials without paying for them.

Begar was compelling of people to labour without any payment. Miles and miles of roads were cut into mountainsides by using self-ruling and forced labour. In the specimen of Assam, the deputy commissioner of Gaolpara states in 1881 CE that there were “two instances” of people stuff forced to work on repairing roads in the district [vi]. It needs to be kept in mind that the commissioner was referring to parwanahs which were substantially records of the orders given to grab people. However, a vast majority of instances were never recorded, stuff workaday with verbal instructions to the subordinate Bharatiya officers.

Another instance is from Madras Presidency where a government circular from virtually 1849 CE which asks officials not to use forced labour in main highways moreover notes that use of self-ruling labour for the major trunk roads was a worldwide practice[vii]. In 1880’s, in Kumaon (Himachal Pradesh) a similar practice existed where the villagers were forced to maintain district roads, while the trunk roads were maintained by the government [viii].

To maintain canals and water storage: A response to a demi-official circular from 1887 CE  asking collectors well-nigh the practice of forced labour in Punjab admits that it is worldwide practice for the maintenance and clearance of canals. The local term used for this was “cher”[ix]. The legal valuables for this practice is cited as Part VIII of the Waterway Act of 1873. The same demi-official circular evoked interesting responses for government officials wideness Bharata. One response from Bombay Presidency asserted that in wing to forced labour for transporting valise of Europeans, for troops and forced usurpation of carts, it was moreover used to maintain canals [x]. This was the response from Madras presidency as well where the legal valuables was cited as the Act I of 1858.The justification for forced labour is that people are paid rates which are higher than the market rate.

A very worldwide use of forced labour for government works was washed-up under the excuse of “customary village labour”. The word customary had nothing to do with what was traditionally the villager’s responsibility, it had everything to do with what the British starchy servants thought the villagers should do. Customary forced labour was wontedly used to maintain the water channels, well-spoken riverbeds, repair breaches in the canals and dams etc.

Additionally, plane British officials admitted that there was no clarity as to what customary labour constituted[xi]. The vicarial collector of Godavari district, H.E Sullivan, characterised customary labour in 1872 CE as a “flimsy pretence” to gravity people to work for self-ruling [xii] . It needs to be kept in mind that the villagers were paying a wide variousness of taxes to the British rulers to maintain the waterworks. Collectors and tehsildars routinely used the threat of punishment to gravity the villagers to squint without the irrigation works [xiii]. By the second half of the 19th century forced labour had wilt a way of life for most Bharatiya’s. Hence, it is not surprising when the Vicarial Collector for Godavari district informed the Workbench of Revenue in Chennai 1872 CE that:

“(In this district) the obligation to replenish unpaid labour for petty repairs to irrigation work is recognized by the ryots, and there is no practical difficulty in exacting it.”[xiv]

A detailed list of what all the villagers were forced to do is given in a reply to the question of forced labour virtually 1874 [xv]:

  1. Fill up dry gullies or repair other injuries caused by rain or the whoopee of the water to the tank bunds and supply channels.
  2. To well-spoken bunds and waterworks banks of prickly pear and other weeds.
  3. To remove accumulations and deposits in supply channels and sluices.
  4. To perform minor repairs to the value of rupees 15 or 20.
  5. To strengthen tank bunds in all dangerous places and to watch them thoughtfully in the rainy season, and to turf those parts liable to be make-believe upon by the waves.
  6. To construct temporary dams wideness jungle streams to reservation water.
  7. To construct ring dams where necessary.
  8. To well-spoken sluices and to tropical or alimony unshut calingulahs with reference to the state of supply in tanks.
  9. Erecting embankments in the beds of rivers to lead the water to the throne of channels.

The fact that these wide-stretching works were standard wideness the workbench in South India is shown by the consistency in the replies given by various collectors to the Workbench of Revenue’s query to collectors in the Madras Presidency in the early 1870’s. The list of activities clubbed under the label “customary labour” is resulting with a few variations equal to the geographic location. Punitive fines which had no legal understructure were levied on the farmers who refused to slave for free. Farmers were tamed into submission by the British overlords or their Bharatiya minions. They had little say in the matter as they were ignorant of their rights. One such fine was levied in Nellore district was tabbed a “nagalu” and was levied by the Tehsildars to bring errant farmers into line [xvi].

Most collectors were of the view that fines should be imposed on those ryots who refused to perform self-ruling labour. In fact, often fines were imposed, irrespective of their legality, and the collector’s make-believe as demi-gods who could fine and punish the ryots. One method to make the ryots submit was to gravity them to pay double the forfeit of the earthworks or refuse to lighten their tax load in times of distress [xvii]. One collector plane recommended that revenue officers should be given legal powers to impose a fine four times the value of the work and the worthiness to vendition off the zamindars and ryots properties to realise the money [xviii].

Prior to British rule (i.e. surpassing 1800’s) the usual practice was for farmers to maintain the village tanks and other water storage sources. The key point to understand is that taxation in money was unknown in Bharata and the ruling powers (the Hindu ones) did not expect the farmers to pay tax and moreover maintain the water tanks, canals etc. The revenue was taken in form of grains and an value set whispered for repairs of the water tanks. In a letter from 1872 the collector of Chennai observes that there existed 2,885 small tanks which “were synthetic by individuals or village communities and not by the Circar (the British government), and many of them are warmed-over ruined tanks restored by the ryots”[xix].

 In the early 1800’s the asura Munro introduced the ryotwari system which was the caused tremendous forfeiture to the social and economic fabric of Bharata. This imposed a stock-still money towage i.e. every year the farmers paid a stock-still value depending on their landholding. This value was paid in mazuma and did not vary with the dire straits that farmers often found themselves in. Without the imposition of the stock-still towage the creative and stray government officials came up with ways to make the farmers work for free. One method was to make the farmers responsible for any repair works unelevated a unrepealable sum. For example, in Madras in the 1870’s farmers were expected to siphon out repairs under the sum of Rs.25.

This was moreover attested by the collector of North Arcot in 1872, when he wrote that, “(when a) Taram towage imposed by the British government the state than unsupportable the responsibility of maintaining all works of irrigation on this consideration, that the so-called Taram towage is made up of a tax on the soil, plus a rate for the water which the government undertook to provide for raising wet crop”[xx]. That the government did not fulfil its part of the undear was evidenced by the complaints made by the farmers regarding the poor maintenance of large water channels [xxi].

Force was scrutinizingly unchangingly necessary to hogtie people to work for free. On occasions where hundreds of “coolies” were needed for works such as transplanting the dry riverbeds, tehsildars were deputed to terrorise the people into submission [xxii].  Farmers paid taxes such as the “irrigation cess” which was virtually 1 to 5 annas per acre of wet land 44. This cess was used to maintain the water channels and ensure regular distribution to the villages. However in spite of collecting this cess, the British officials utilised “customary labour” to make up for any shortfall in the cess collection. The focus thus was on saving money and maximising revenue for the British machinery in Bharat.

To siphon troop supplies:  Like rest of the government machinery the most wolfish use of Bharatiya’s was to act as mules for the genocidal white unwashed in Bharat. As the British Indian Unwashed was the sole ways by which the British ensured their occupation, no complaints were entertained versus the wolfish behaviour of the military 4.  The military officers used to pressurise the local starchy officials, such as district magistrates, and get them to round up people to siphon their supplies. This was mostly “free” and in many cases resulted in losses for the Bharatiya’s, who had to leave their occupation and slave for the white oppressors. No varna or jati was self-ruling from this wrongdoing and anyone at hand was dragged to work as strays of undersong for the evil British. The troops could be under the writ of Bharatiya traitors or White people, but the result was the same: loss of livelihood and vigilant distress to the Bharatiya people.

“When detachments are marched under the tuition of European officers, sometimes pressed coolies are paid and sometimes they are not. Similar treatment occurs when officers are travelling in magnitude of removals etc. as well as when other gentlemen pass through the country.”[xxiii]

This practice was worldwide right from the time the English were fighting for military supremacy in Dakshina Bharata. A letter from 1773 CE from Sir Robert Harland to the Earl of Rochford, where the former decries the loot perpetrated by the officers of the East India Company in Arcot [xxiv].  At this point in time Arcot was ruled by the Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah. The letter notes that, “The pressing of his people to serve as coolies, and their bullocks to siphon baggage, which ought to be employed for the purposes of cultivation,are what would towards to be some of the Nabob’s greatest grievances.”

A note from the collector of Tinnevally in 1837 admits that, “the valise for troops marching is invariably carried by carts or by coolies, engaged to perform service for the whole distance”[xxv].  This was whimsically service washed-up by Bharatiya’s out of love for their oppressors. The usual tactic was to get a white starchy officer to gravity them to work as slaves. Sometimes the carrot of a slight reduction in their taxes was used as inducement to try and get the Bharatiya’s to work for free.

Occasionally a right minded British starchy servant such as a magistrate would protest versus stuff made to forcibly impress Bharatiya’s of all walks in order to serve the British occupation army. One such honourable exception was the Magistrate of Kanpur who in 1843 wrote a strong letter to the commissioner of Allahabad semester well-nigh the illegality of asking public officers to grab trades people whenever the military asked them to 52. He pointedly remarks that a majority of magistrates simply stipulate to whatever demands the military made in terms of impressing people. He remoter describes the method in which this was done, “Usual undertow was for the kotwal of the municipality to collect all the trades people; and they were forced to make up a purse among themselves with which they indemnified an individual of each craft, who was thus persuaded to go with the camp” 52. The military officials, referred to as the Commissariat, refused to recoup the tradesmen who were thus forced to trailblaze unwashed divisions on the march, and insisted that they earn their living by selling goods within the unwashed zany [xxvi]. The magistrate’s letter led the Lt. Governor of North-West Provinces (today’s Uttar Pradesh) to inquire with the Commissariat regarding the magistrate’s accusations. The commissariat flippantly replied that, “We would suggest that the magistrate be well-considered that it rests entirely with himself to refuse compliance”52.  The Magistrate of Kanpur listed thirty-four types of tradesmen who were forced to trailblaze military units on the march. These tradesmen were forced to siphon their tools and supplies for long distances without the guarantee of any payment for their trouble.

It is worth noting that till the outstart of the mass manufactured automobile in the 20th century the main vehicle of travel and for delivering supplies was the bullock cart. When fighting with Bharatiya powers in the 18th and early 19th century, the British forced our people to requite up their bullocks and carts in their thousands. A good example of this is the forced requisitioning of virtually 3000 to 20000 bullocks by Munro from Andhra Pradesh during the Second Maratha-Anglo war of 1803-1804 CE (Stein, 1989). Thousands of bullocks died during the war and the lack of bullocks for tilling the fields led to severe famine in coastal Andhra Pradesh (Ceded districts).

This became the routine plane when the white tyrants had established their power in Bharat. Every time British troops and their local mercenaries marched through the country, carts and people were forcibly procured and used.  In the early 1820’s the Magistrate of Bellary in Karnataka, A.D Campbell, wrote to his seniors well-nigh the severe hardships the local people faced  from stuff forced to serve as coolies and to replenish supplies from detachment of troops [xxvii]. He details how in the short span of three months, eight corps and numerous smaller detachments marched through the district. The senior mutter of the people was not well-nigh providing labour but well-nigh not stuff paid properly and stuff mistreated by the occupation forces. Campbell listed the pursuit military formations which had marched in the district from virtually June to end of Stylized 1820 CE: 1st of the 7th N.I, 2nd of the 16th N.I., 3 of the 17th N.I., 1st of the 19th N.I., 1st of the 20th N.I., H.M 3rd regiment, H.M 46th regiment, and  2 light cavalry besides smaller detachments.

The carts and their owners were dragged to wherever the soldiers were marching and this could be hundreds of miles away. They were rarely paid and had to come when empty thus forgoing their livelihood for many days perfectly . To escape this tyranny villagers used to dismantle the carts and hibernate them in the jungle. The British resorted to keeping the “knowledge of the movements of troops in the background, as long as possible, so that district officers may, when the transport is required, pounce lanugo and seize every misogynist cart” [xxviii]. This unfurled for a long time and in response to a circular from the Governor Generals office asking for details of forced labour, a reply was received from Bombay Presidency that forced labour was used for movement of troops [xxix].

It was not only carts and coolies that were commandeered by British troops, boats were requisitioned as well. This caused considerable hardship to the boatmen who lost their livelihood for as long as the occupation forces needed their service. The teammate commissioner of Sylhet (now in Bangladesh) writes well-nigh an incidence where boats were forcibly requisitioned to facilitate the movement of the 10th regiment of the N.I 55. The Bharatiya lower rung officials such as Mirasdars absconded when the teammate commissioner sent orders to grab boats and boatmen. These absconding officials were then taken to task by the commissioner for “neglecting” their duty. The commissioner details the whole disgraceful episode as ,

“In the unprepossessed weather of 1880, when the 10th regiment N.I passed through the Karimganj subdivision en-route to Cachar, well-nigh 20 boats were impressed in the sub semester and sent to Balaganj (20 hours journey downstream) to squire in transport. Boats and boatmen were impressed with considerable difficulty”.

Continued in Part 2.

The series continues in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

[i] Registrar Nizamut adawlut NWP to Magisterial authorities : 24.8.1844, no.1364

[ii] India revenue dispatch, March 1846: 1/Ap/NWP/N.4/1846 (extract) Registrar Nizamut adawlut NWP to Magisterial authorities : 24.8.1844, no.1364

[iii] Report from the Workbench of public works on the experiment of employing convict labour in construction of public roads. Ref: Appendix to the minutes of vestige taken surpassing select committee, Appendix B, no .106,Public Works Department

[iv] Gratis, unpaid labour on road towers in Madras Presidency (MRO:BR: PWD Cons: Vol.47, Cons: 25.11.1851, No.10-1, pp.1766-85,extract).

[v] No.385,dated dera ismail khan,10th stylized 1883 From- Lt.Col E.L. Ommanney, Officiating commissioner and superintendent, Derajat semester To- The secretary to government, Punjab
[vi] No.391, dated Dhubri, 14/09/1881 From T.J.Murray, Esq, C.S., Offg. Deputy commissioner of Goalpara, To – the commissioner of the Assam valley districts

[vii] MRO:BR: PWD Cons: Vol.47, Cons: 25.11.1851, No.10-1, pp.1766-85,extract.

[viii] Northwestern provinces and Oudh ( Demi official, 07-05-1887)

[ix] Punjab ( Demi official, 28-04-1887)

[x] Bombay ( Demi official, 28-04-1887)

[xi] From  E.J Melville, Esq., vicarial collector of Vizagapatnam,  to the vicarial secretary to the workbench of revenue.dated  Vizianagrum, 14th February 1872, No.30

[xii] From H.E.Sullivan,Esq.Acting collector of the Godavery district,to the secretary to the workbench of revenue,dated Cocanada,22nd April 1872,No.96

[xiii] Proceedings of workbench of revenue, Consultation of 19-03-1860,No.1258 From J.Silver,Esq.Collector of Tinnevally, dated ?, 13-03-1860, no.96.

[xiv] Consultation of workbench of revenue 6-05-1876.From H.E.Sullivan,Esq.Acting collector of the Godavery district,to the secretary to the workbench of revenue, dated Cocanada,22nd April 1872,No.96

[xv] From G.Vans Agnew,Esq. collector of Nellore,to the secretary of workbench of revenue district,dated Nellore,26-06-1872,No.1441

[xvi] Rom G.Vansagnew, Esq.,Collector of Nellore,to the Secretary to the workbench of revenue, dated Nellore, 26th June 1872,No.1,441

[xvii]  G.D. Leman, Esq. Vicarial Collector of  the Kistna District, to the secretary  to the Workbench of Revenue, Dated Masulipatnam, 27th March 1872, No.1038.

[xviii] J.H Garstin,Esq., Collector of South Arcot, to the  Secretary to the Workbench of Revenue, dated Cuddalore, 26th March 1872, no.99

[xix] From W.Mcquhae, Esq., Vicarial collector of Madras, to the secretary to the workbench of revenue, dated 24th January 1872, No.21

[xx] From J.D Robinson, Esq., Collector of North Arcot, to the secretary to the workbench of reveneu, dated Gudiattum, 14th February 1872, No.63

[xxi] From T.A.N Chase, Esq., Collector of Kurnool , to the Secretary to the workbench of revenue, dated 23rd November 1871, No.386

[xxii] From W.S. Whiteside, Esq., vicarial collector of Trichinopoly, to the secretary to the board, workbench of revenue, dated 29th Febraury 1872, No.50

[xxiii] India Office Records: P/285/17 Madras Workbench of Revenue Proceedings 1st October 1795. (MRO: BRP: Vol.137: Pro 1.10.1795,No.12-13,pp 7354-64)

[xxiv] Home Mic. III East Indies 19,1773,Sir Robert Harland to Earl of Rochford (No XII) Recvd 10.4.1773

[xxv] collector,Tinnevelly to Workbench of revenue: 5.8.1837. ( MRO:Vol 1569,Pro 21.8.1837, No. 31, pp 9556-8)

[xxvi] From the magistrate of Cawnpoor to the commissioner of the 4th or Allahabad semester on the wardship of criminal justice for 1843, 28-02-1843,general remarks para 15

[xxvii] C-28, Magistrate  ,Bellary to Government, 31-8-1820 (MRO: Jud. Con.: Vol no. 151.B, coN 15.9.1820, Nos 9-13, pp.2203-68)

[xxviii] C-26 Letter to  Senior secretary to government, Bombay, from  J.W.Robertson, Collector, Tanna,  27-05-1874.

[xxix] Bombay Demi-Official ,05-05-1887

[i] https://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_agraw_dharampal_frameset.htm

[ii] http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/news/WCMS_237569/lang–en/index.htm

October Mon, 2022