Central India

“ Of the state of the widely scattered and diversely governed regions of Central India and Rajpootana at the beginning of the year, it is difficult to give a correct picture. Unlike the Hindustani regions, they were inhabited by a very motley population—Bundelas, Rajpoots, Rohillas, Mahrattas, Bheels, Jâts, Ghonds, all mingled, and governed by chieftains who cared much more for their own petty authority than for the kings of Delhi and Lucknow, or for castes and creeds. ”

“ A dull Chinn enters the Police Department or the Woods and Forest, and sooner or later he, too, appears in Central India, and that is what gave rise to the saying, "Central India is inhabited by Bhils, Mairs, and Chinns, all very much alike." ”

“ The consequence is that the existing population is very diverse, and is made up of elements belonging to many parts of India. The people of the northern Districts came from Bundelkhand and the Gangetic plain, and here are found the principal castes of the United Provinces and the Punjab. The western end of the Nerbudda valley and Betūl were colonised from Mālwa and Central India. Berār and the Nāgpur plain fell to the Marāthas, and one of the most important Marātha States, the Bhonsla kingdom, had its capital at Nāgpur. ”

“ Nor are the great forests and mountain ranges of5 Central India without much beauty; while the magnificent harbour of Bombay and other sea views on the coast show that India is not wanting in many of the charms of marine landscape.
But it is time that I should speak of the people of the country. Those who have never been in India often form their ideas, (very naturally) , from the few natives of India they have met in this country; but these are a small and very peculiar class, and are by no means fair specimens, not merely of the whole population, but even of their own province. ”

“ We know, too, that there is a vast tract of country in Central India, extending east and west from shore to shore, and north and south from Sadras to Ellora, which is covered with buildings of great beauty and interest, but which nobody cares to explore. ”

“ A HANDBOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN INDIA, BURMA, AND CEYLON. Including the Provinces of Bengal, Bombay, Madras, the United Provinces of Agra and Lucknow, the Panjab, Eastern Bengal and Assam, the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and the Central Provinces, and the Native States of Rajputana, Central India, Kashmir, Hyderabad, Mysore, etc. ”

“ If the whole of India had been thoroughly subjugated and settled like the Punjab and Hindustān, it may be supposed that the same status of impurity would have been imposed upon all the indigenous races ”

“ The chief modern divisions of the population, therefore, do not follow the lines of blood and language, but of religion and caste.
Of the four elements already enumerated the oldest are the wild tribes of central India, such as the Bhils and Gonds, who probably represent the original inhabitants of the country. These number some 11,000,000. Second come the Dravidians of the south, amounting to about 54,000,000. Thirdly come the Aryans, inhabiting mainly that portion of India north of the Nerbudda which is known as Hindustan proper. ”

“ We ought not to forget that Bengal, Madras, Bombay and the Punjab are all dominated by one great central culture. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata are epics of not only the Punjab, of Bombay, of Madras but also of Bengal and the rest of India. The great religious institutions are common—I am speaking of the Hindus only—to all the provinces, Each province has got a speciality of its own, I admit, but over and above that all these different provinces are bound together in one common culture. ”

“ On the other side of the Bay of Bengal is a country, which, though called India, and under the East Indian Government, is not India. The very face of nature is different. It is a country not of vast plains, but of mountains and valleys, and springs that run among the hills; a country with another people than India, another language, and another religion. Looking upon the map of Asia, one sees at its southeastern extremity a long peninsula, reaching almost to the equator, with a central range of mountains, an Alpine chain, which runs through its whole length, as the Apennines run through Italy. ”

“ The great rivers of northern India—the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Indus—all derive their waters from the Tibetan mountain mass; and it is a remarkable circumstance that the northern water-parting of India should lie to the north of the Himalaya in the regions of central Tibet.
The population of India is very large, some of its districts being among the most densely peopled in the world. The country is generally well cleared, and forests are, as a rule, found only along the flanks of the mountains, where the fall of rain is most abundant. ”

“ He gradually discerns the population of Central India to be distributed into various and manifold denominations of tribes, clans, septs, castes and out-castes, religious orders, and devotional brotherhoods. ”

“ The United State of Gwalior, Indore and Malwa, otherwise known as Madhya Bharat, comprises 20 States in Central India including the major States of Gwalior and Indore. Linguistically, culturally, historically and economically the region forms a compact block. The position of the two major States of Gwalior and Indore, which had been recognised as viable units entitled to stand by themselves, rendered the problem of the integration of these States into one Union somewhat difficult. ”

“ The Native States of Southern India, and above all Mysore, which was for many years under direct British administration, will equally bear favourable comparison with any of the Native States of Central or Northern India. From the standpoint of education, Southern India has long held and probably still holds the lead, thanks in a great measure to the large Christian communities which comprise more than two-thirds of the whole Christian population of India. ”

“ Now what Colonel Sleeman continually insists on is that no one knows the Indians who does not know them in their village-communities—what we should now call their communes. It is that village-life which in India has given its peculiar impress to the Indian character, more so than in any other country we know. When in Indian history we hear so much of kings and emperors, of rajahs and maharajahs, we are apt to think of India as an Eastern monarchy, ruled by a central power, and without any trace of that self-government which forms the pride of England. ”

“ Neither trade, nor the flag which preceded it from the west, cared to face the dreary wastes of sand to the south of the Helmund, backed, as they are, by the terrible band of the Sind frontier hills full of untamed and untameable tribes, merely for the purpose of dropping into the narrow riverain of the lower Indus, beyond which, again, the deserts of Rajputana parted them from the rich plains of Central India. When the Indus delta and Sind were the objective of a military expedition, the conquerors came by way of the sea, or by approaches within command of the sea—never from Herat. ”

“ The plains of Upper India are reduced to their true proportions; the Central Provinces, Malwa, and Western Bengal reveal their actual ruggedness at a glance; and Southern India, from the Vindhyas to Cape Comorin, proclaims its real height above the sea-level. ”

“ Where the Hindu immigration has only been partial and the forests have not been cleared, as in Chota Nāgpur and the Central Provinces, they may keep their old villages and tribal organisation and be admitted as a body into the hierarchy of caste, ranking above the impure castes but below the Hindu cultivators. ”

“ Whether from the difficulty of approach, the distance, or the diversion of the current of adventure to other quarters of the world, this chief portion of the African continent continues almost unknown to Europeans. The central region is a blank in our maps, but occasional tales reach us of the plenty, the pomp, and even of the civilisation and industry of the table-land. The centre of India is a table-land, possessing, in that region of fire and fever, a bracing air, and a productive, though rugged soil. ”

“ In the United Provinces they are employed as higher domestic servants and make leaf-plates, while their women act as midwives.12 Here they claim kinship with the Goāla Ahīrs, but in the Central Provinces and Bengal they advance pretensions to be Rājpūts. ”

“ In central and southern India the Aryans or subsequent immigrants from Central Asia came at first at any rate only in small parties, and though they may have established territorial states, did not regularly occupy the land nor reduce the indigenous population to a condition of servitude. Thus large bodies of these must have retained a free position, and on their acceptance of the new religion and the development of the caste system, became enrolled in it with a caste status on the basis of their occupation. ”

“ Their original home seems to have been in the south of China, a land of pre-eminently round-headed races. We know that they established their dominion over portions of the Panjāb, Sind, Gujarāt, Rājputānā and Central India. If they have left traces of their settlement on their descendants we may reasonably expect to find round-headed races and tribes in regions mostly surrounded by long-headed peoples. Such a zone of broad-headed people does in fact extend from the western Panjāb right through the Deccan, till it finally ends in Coorg. ”

“ Information on the Mundas and Kols of the Central Provinces has been collected by Mr. Hīra Lāl in Raigarh and by the author in Mandla, and a monograph has been furnished by Mr. B. C. Mazumdār, Pleader, Sambalpur. It should be mentioned that most of the Kols of the Central Provinces have abandoned the old tribal customs and religion described by Colonel Dalton, and are rapidly coming to resemble an ordinary low Hindu caste. ”

“ The population of Central Asia is not only extremely sparse, but, owing to extensive deserts and to the vicissitudes of climate, many of the tribes are nomadic in their habits. The whole population is estimated not to exceed four millions and a half. When we consider that our empire of India, which approximately is of about the same geographical area as Russian Central Asia, contains a population of over 250 millions, we have at once a striking example presented to us of the difference of the two regions. ”

“ This does not, of course, mean that South India alone is the land of this play of cultures, for, in many places besides are evidences forthcoming in India to show that it had been the meeting ground of the cultures of Primitive Man Now, it has become a matter for speculation whether all these cultures are indegenous to India and radiated in different directions to all quarters of the globe, or India is only the central meeting ground and is halting place for the various cultures which had found their origin in various parts of the world. ”

“ It is necessary, once more, to remind the reader that the peninsula of India has an area and population roughly equal to the area and population of Europe without Russia. Everyone who has learnt geography at school is familiar with the great triangle, its base in the soaring Himalayan heights in the north, its apex jutting into the Indian Ocean, and marked by the satellite island of Ceylon. To the north, then, is the great mountain barrier, a tangled mass of snowy peaks, glaciers and snowfields, separating the sunny plains of India proper from the plateaux of Central Asia. ”

“ They are the only Hindus known in Central Asia. In the Punjab they are so numerous that they cannot all be rich and mercantile; and many of them hold land, cultivate, take service, and follow various avocations. ”

“ Like the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and like the highlands of Central Asia, or Ariyana, so the mountains, plains and forests of India were inhabited long before the dawn of history by masses of men of various races and split into many hundreds of tribes. Of these races descendants exist in almost the same conditions as their ancestors did many thousand years ago. In Southern India the Kader are still living in primitive tree-huts. ”

“ Of the total population of the Central Provinces, which numbered some sixteen millions at the last Census in 1911, one-fifth belong to that order of humanity which stands so low in the eyes of Hindus that it is unworthy to be reckoned as possessing any caste at all. ”

“ Another description of India is that of the Nava-Khanda, or Nine-Divisions, which is first described by the astronomers Parâsara and Varâha-Mihira, although it was probably older than their time, [12] and was wards adopted by the authors of several of the Purânas. According to this arrangement, Pânchâla was the chief district of the central division, Magadha of the east, Kalinga of the south-east, Avanta of the south, Anarta of the south-west, Sindhu-Sauvira of the west, Hârahaura of the north-west, Madra of the north, and Kauninda of the north-east. ”

“ The Himalayan gateways opened once more and through them swarmed a new race of invaders, passing out of those barren plains of Central Asia that have been ever the breeding grounds of nations and swooping upon India's treasures. ”

“ Looking ahead to the future we can picture India to ourselves only as presenting the external semblance to some form of ‘federation.’ The provinces will ultimately become self-governing units, held together by the central Government which will deal solely with matters of common concern to all of them. But the matters common to the British provinces are also to a great extent those in which the Native States are interested—defence, tariffs, exchange, opium, salt, railways and posts and telegraphs. ”