Paro Tomar

Research

During my time as an EARTH Scholar, I was able to make a trip to the British Library in London and access records and maps pertaining to my research. With my mentor at St Andrews, Prof. Bernhard Struck, I worked on colonial governmentality and frontier making in the Thar Desert during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s. I wrote a chapter of my PhD thesis using the material collected from the British Library as well as the resources available at the Martyr’s Kirk Research Library at St Andrews. In the PhD chapter written during the EARTH Scholarship, I worked on themes like surveys, mapping and boundary making practices; frontier policies between the colonial government and the Native States of Rajputana as well as the legal dilemmas surrounding recalcitrant tribes in the desert. A part of the chapter was presented at the EARTH Scholarship Global Connects Programme; which showcased a small case study from the region of Thar-Parkar and Umarkote showing how policies of revenue maximisation and agrarian settlements led to criminalisation of mobile groups in the region. This section – while not the entirety of my work done during the EARTH Scholarship – is what I have presented below for this Digital Showcase. 

Land categorisation, Revenue and Pastoralism – Thar Parkar in the 1850s  

The Thar Desert spans 200,000 sq. km in north-western India, from the Aravallis in the east to the Indus in the west. Despite harsh conditions, it features a unique ecosystem and a population density of 84 per sq. km, compared to 3-9 per sq. km in other deserts. Its indigenous communities have long adapted to environmental changes, creating a delicate agro-pastoral complex where agriculture and pastoralism intertwine. For centuries, pastoral subsistence and mobility have characterised the resource base in the Thar.  

Independent India has seen a push towards extending agriculture, often attributing environmental degradation to pastoral groups. Although pastoralism is economically lucrative, pastoralists are politically marginalised and excluded from developmental frameworks. This marginalisation can be traced to colonial policies of revenue maximisation by extending agriculture and settling and criminalising mobile groups. Any discussion on the climate crisis in the Thar desert has to include pastoral mobile groups; and any such discussion needs to historicise their social, political and economic marginalisation through the policies of agrarian expansion and revenue maximisation.

This project attempts a small preliminary enquiry into historicising marginalisation of pastoral groups through colonial agrarian policies in the desert.  Land categorisation was closely linked to settlement and increase in revenue. This became extremely important in the desert where, due to low agriculture, there was an even greater push to increase cultivation by increasing irrigation. This was done by carefully mapping and measuring land, setting boundary marks on individual holdings and fixing revenue rates for kinds of lands. This also had consequences for pastoralists in the region. An interesting case study in this regard are the districts of Thar-Parkar and Umarkote. 

Thar Parkar and Umarkote today are districts in modern Pakistan. They form a part of the south east extension of the Great Desert and straddle the Rann of Kutch in the south-west. These districts are an interesting case study because they have primarily been agro-pastoral areas where different pastoral groups have practiced cattle and camel herding, while coexisting alongside agrarian groups. Due to low rainfall and sandy soil, the pastoral component of the rural economy has been greater than the agrarian one. Thar Parkar is also an interesting case because it is a modern day border area which also historically functioned as a ‘frontier’ zone between precolonial polities in the Thar desert and also as a frontier district during the period of British rule in India. Demography in the nineteenth century included Hindu Rajput tribes, Muslim tribes, as well as agrarian communities like the Bhils and the Kolis who were lower down the caste hierarchy (IOR*/V/23/223). An 1856 estimate put the population at ‘29,700 souls, of whom some 3000 are merchants, 3000 Musulman shepherds, and the remaining 23,700 comprising both Hindus and Musulmans, cultivators or herdsmen.’   The major dominant group was the Soda Rajput tribe which dominated economically, politically and socially. A dispatch by Lt. Jacob dated 3rd June 1856 describes the people as ‘emphatically pastoral in their habits’. 

Records from the mid nineteenth century describe the district as a ‘ naturally divided into flat and flooded lands lying contiguous to the Narra and the tract of sandhills with their intermediate hollows or Thulles’ (Ibid. ff. 845). James Holland in 1829 described Parkar where the soil was ‘ salty and sandy covered with high grass and low thorny bushes which later increased until they assumed the appearance of a jungle’ ( ‘Lt. Holland’s Journal Through Parkur, Jeysulmere,’ Bombay Political Department, 1831 – IOR/L/PS/19/24). The landscape also comprised of sand dunes which rose in quick succession covered in stunted herbage and course grass (Ibid). There were no rivers and very few perennial springs. Instead, the population relied on a number of tanks as well as rainfall. It was the Thullees that were the major cultivable land as well as pastures. 

How was agro-pastoralism of this desert district affected by colonialism? A number of factors need to the taken into account. First, the logic of the colonial state was to increase revenue. This was to be done by extending agriculture. This entailed an overhaul of earlier systems of land holdings into a new property regime. This meant redefining who owned land, including pastures and who could access them.  However, this was not a change from free access to controlled rights. Precolonial land and grazing rights were also segmented. In a dispatch dated 11th June 1856, Lt. Col John Jacob, Acting commissioner of Sindh, states that ‘until two years ago, all lands were held in lease by the heads of the Soda tribe, but under his arrangement, much oppression resulted to inferior Bheel cultivators, cultivation had a tendency to diminish, crime to increase while the average annual revenue collected by the government did not exceed Rs. 6000’ (IOR/V/23/223).  A new system was proposed wherein the system of leasing would be done away with and the government would issue directions for ‘clear and simple registry of rights’ and introduction of ‘light but fixed cash assessment’ (Ibid). The main motive was to increase revenue and it was reported that the following year, revenue ‘quadrupled to Rs. 24000’. This entailed measuring all fields and fixing the rates at which they will be assessed. These rates classified fields under four headings – fields from 1-10 bighas would pay Rs. 2 annually, 10-20 bighas Rs 3, 20-60 would pay Rs. 5 and any field having areas larger than 60 bighas would pay Rs. 8. 

This method of settlement was considered better than any other for ‘these wild people’ as ‘every holder is cognisant that his filed or Thullee is assessed in the lump at a very low rate upon its entire extent, will naturally strive to cultivate that extent thus inducing habits of industry.’ It was considered preferable if  cultivators could enter into settlements for a number of years, but due to uncertainty of rainfall and the aversion of the people to cultivation, it was agreed to make the settlements annually. Heads of villages (patels) were given small grants of rent free land and were employed for settling petty grazing disputes, assisting the police in detection of crime and in being the link between the ‘widely scattered inhabitants and the district revenue officers’ (Ibid). To make measurements easy, each cultivator had to mark out his Thullee with clear and distinct marks which also entailed making their claims to the land clear. It was stated that all cattle graziers also own and cultivate Thullees – and by cultivating they stake their claim to the land. The previous Sodas had a fixed rate of assessment of the Thullees big or small. The British categorised settlements according to size and fixed the rate for each class as well as uncultivated Thullees.  

The colonial state changed the framework of rights. The earlier tenancy under the politically dominant Soda tribe was changed and the cultivator now directly paid revenue to the State. The state became the landholder with each cultivator placed on the ‘footing of the peasant proprietors who paid an annual quit rent.’ Lands, once measured, were given over to the cultivator in perpetuity at a quit rent, fixing the tenure at which the land was held. The rent under the Sodas was never fixed as it took into account environmental exigencies and increased mobility due to pastoralism as well as high land to man ratio. Under the British, in a bid to increase revenue, the revenue was fixed and due to this the social relationship between the traditional land holders, village headmen, cultivators and agro-pastoralists changed. The village headmen acquired new power as agents of the state and as rent free land holders. The traditional land holders – zamindars – began to further oppress their tenant cultivators to meet the rising demand of revenue. However, the main cause of concern for the British were the agro-pastoralists. 

A large portion of the population was engaged in cattle herding and was mobile. To increase revenue, it was essential to induce this sizeable population to settle down and take up cultivation. It would be erroneous to think that the colonial state directly oppressed and marginalised these groups. The British realised that because the pastoralists comprised a majority of the population, a mix of lucrative and coercive measures would be required to make them engage in agriculture fully. Unlike other areas, grazing taxes here were not increased. Additionally, no revenue collections were to be made during years of bad rainfall. However, the major sentiment was that wandering cattle herders were wild, savage and criminal – they were marauders and engaged in cattle theft. A major concern was increasing ‘security’ and consequently settling these groups down with threats of punishment. In a dispatch dated 15th December 1855, the Acting Deputy Collector of Sind stated that since 1843 security of person and property has improved and thus, land under cultivation has also increased, and it is mostly the Rajputs and the Musalmans who have settled down to cultivate new lands. ‘These castes depend even now chiefly on their cattle as means of existence. Many of the small owners now possess a field or two in the vicinity of the Thurrs, more for the rights it gives them of grazing their cattle on village lands than as a means of livelihood. These men are then not dependent on monsoons to defraying the government demands on them in bad seasons’ (Ibid).  

It can be seen that with increase in revenue, the number of people convicted as ‘criminals’ also increased. (Table 1) These were ostensibly the pastoral groups who still undertook mobile occupations as well as loot and plunder as means of gathering cattle wealth.  

Table 1 – Statement showing the number of Cases tried, and the Number of Prisoners in each Case, in the Omerkote Talooka, during the past Five years.(Ibid. ff. 857). 

It can also be seen that a number of famines occurred during this period. However, as seen in the letter above, the opinion was that since these groups did not depend on rainfall, they could still provide rent in bad seasons. However, during famines, the worst hit would be cattle and livestock. In absence of livestock, marauding and looting would take place and hence ‘criminality’ would increase. Thus, who was ‘criminal’ was intimately tied to who was most vulnerable to environmental exigencies as well as who was mobile and not settled. Thus, we find, that in the capitalist colonialist goal of increasing land revenue, pastoralists were further pushed onto the margins economically and socially. 

*Note – IOR stands for ‘India Office Record’.