Gujarat

“ Merger of Gujarat States.—Another group of States that has merged with the Bombay Province consists of the Gujarat States. The fact that some of these States are situated close to the Indian border made it essential that a stable and efficient administration should be established in this area. The formation of a Union of the Gujarat States by themselves had to be ruled out on account of the fact that these States united together would not have constituted a viable unit. ”

“ At the time of the Periplus this peninsula, to- gether with the opposite coast of Cutch and Cambay, was subject to the Saka or Indo-Parthian dynasties.
41. A fertile country. — Gujarat is still one of the richest regions in India, its prosperity being largely due to the 60 seaports fringing its coast-lines and to the fertility of its deep black soil, which is particularly adapted to the cultivation of cotton. Horses, cattle, sheep and grain are exported in large numbers to Bombay and other parts of India. ”

“ Qizilbās͟h K͟hān, who was one of the auxiliaries of the province of Gujarat, had come to Court without the leave of the governor. I ordered that an ahadi should put him into confinement, and that he be sent back to the governor of Gujarat, so that others might not desire to do the same. The mansab of Mubārak K͟hān Sazāwal I raised 500 personal, so that it should be 1,500 personal and 700 horse. On the 29th I gave K͟hān Aʿz̤am 100,000 rupees, and ordered that the parganahs of Dāsna7 and Kāsna,7 which are equivalent to 5,000 personal, should be made his jagir. ”

“ On Monday, the 3rd, S͟hajāʿat K. ʿArab, and Himmat K., and other servants who belonged to the Deccan and Gujarat, had the good fortune to kiss the threshold. The holy men and the possessors of blessing (faqīrs, etc.) who lived at Ahmadabad paid their respects to me. On Tuesday, the 4th, the bank of the river at Maḥmūdābād became the alighting place. Rustam K., whom my son, S͟hāh-Jahān, had left in the Government of Gujarat, was honoured by paying his respects. The entertainment of Thursday, the 6th, was held on the bank of the Kānkrīya tank. ”

“ Gujarat, except on its northern Plains. parts, consists of rich, highly cultivated alluvial plains, watered by the Tapti and Nerbudda, but not much subject to inundation. The Konkan lies between the Western Ghats and the sea. It is a rugged and difficult country, intersected by creeks, and abounding in isolated peaks and detached ranges of hills. The plains of the Deccan and Khandesh are watered by large rivers, but as the rainfall is uncertain, they are generally, during the greater part of the year, bleak and devoid of vegetation. ”

“ A rebellion broke out in Gujarat^ Baroda, and Bahroch, and Aziz marched against the rebels, but was defeated and slain. The emperor then marched against the rebels in person and defeated and dispersed them. After tranquillity had been restored he remained in Gujarat and supervised the collection of the revenues of that province and of Bahroch and Cambay. Thence in 1346 he despatched two nobles to Daulatabad to summon to his presence the centurions of that province. ”

“ Out of his offerings a rosary of pearls, bought for 11,000 rupees, two elephants, two horses, two bullocks and a riding cart, and some pieces of Gujaratī cloth, were accepted, and the remainder presented to him. Sar-farāz K͟hān is a grandson of Musāḥib Beg, by which name he was called by Akbar after his grandfather, who was one of the Amirs of Humāyūn. In the beginning of my reign I increased his mansab and appointed him to the Subah of Gujarat. As he had an hereditary connection with the Court as a Khana-zada (one born in the house) , he proved himself efficient in the Subah of Gujarat. ”

“ Two schools of the Sāmaveda are known—the Kauthumas and the Rāṇāyanīyas, the former of whom are said still to exist in Gujarat, while the latter, at one time settled mainly in the Mahratta country, are said to survive in Eastern Hyderabad. Their recensions of the text appear to have differed but little from each other. ”

“ The rains are exceptionally heavy in Gujarat, and sometimes the rainpour lasted without interval for seven days and seven nights. This is mostly the case in the lowlands of India, especially at Bombay and other places, where the Gháts approach the coast. Throughout the inner plateau, as at Poonah, the wet season, which the Portuguese call winter, with its occasional showers and its bursts of sunshine, is decidedly pleasant. The brown desolation of the land disappears in a moment, and is replaced by a brilliant garb of green. The air is light and wholesome, and the change is hailed by every one ”

“ Let Bombay, with the irrepressible power of its people, occupy itself with the fair provinces of the Maharashtra, in the fullest sense of the word, whether under European or Native government, the fertile lands of Gujarat, the less productive Sindh, the country of the lower Indus; and let Madras have the whole of the Dravidian provinces to the south, so separated by language from the Northern provinces, and in which it has already accomplished no small measure of good. Let us every-where provoke one another to zeal and good works. ”

“ Gujarat was overrun by the Mahrattas; Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa were occupied by the successor of Aliverdi Khan, Audh and Allahabad by Safdar Jang, the central Doab by the Afghan tribe of Bangash, the province now called Rohilkand by the Rohillas. The Panjab had been virtually abandoned; the rest of India had been recovered by the Hindus, with the exception of such portions of the Deccan as still formed the arena for the family wars of the sons of the old Nizam. ”

“ We must rejoice, therefore, that the college at Baroda has secured the services of men of real distinction in attainments and character. In Gujarat, as much as anywhere, we find the precocity, receptiveness, and mobility of the Hindu mind. ”

“ In confirmation of the belief entertained by the people of Hargám that the king's dominions embraced this part of India, we find an ancient dih close to Sitapur known as king Bairát's dib. But it may be noted that the people of Gujarat in the west of India, and of Dinagepore in the east, also claim each for themselves this famous king. ”

“ In 1294 the emperor Ala-ud-din first invaded the Deccan, and in 1297 he conquered Gujarat. In 1312 the Mahommedan arms were triumphant through the Mahratta country; and seven years later the whole of Malabar fell a prey to the invaders. In the middle of the 14th century the weakness of the Delhi sovereigns tempted the governors of provinces to revolt against their distant master, and to form independent kingdoms. In this way the Bahmani kingdom was established in the Deccan, and embraced a part of the Bombay presidency. Ahmednagar and Gujarat also became the seats of a new kingdom. ”

“ Firishtah mentions among his conquests Dvarasamudra, Malabar, Anegundi (under the name "Kampila," for a reason that will presently be explained) , Warangal, &c, and these places "were as effectually incorporated with his empire as the villages in the vicinity of Delhi." [18] He also held Gujarat firmly. If, therefore, we venture to correct Nuniz in this respect, and say that "Togao Mamede" made war on the "Dakhan" instead of on "Gujarat," and then advanced against Anegundi (wrongly called "Vijayanagar," which place was not as yet founded) we shall probably be not far from the truth. ”

“ We called upon the village Chiefs; we chatted with the villagers; we learnt much about the country, and we taught the country something about ourselves. Gujarat was the next place—Káthiawár and Junágarh, better known as Gírnár. And then to Manhóra, where the British arms first showed the vaunting Sindi and the blustering Beloch what the British lion can do when disposed to be carnivorous, and thence to Karáchi town. There we visited every part of the Unhappy Valley, and particularly the Belochis of the hills (with whom Richard had so much to do when under Sir Walter Scott) . ”

“ Though plantains are really unfit to eat, yet of all the kinds this is the one fit to eat. This year, up to the 23rd of the month of Mihr, Muqarrab K͟hān sent Gujarat mangoes by post (ḍāk-chaukī) .
On this date I heard that Muḥammad Riẓā, ambassador of my brother S͟hāh ʿAbbās, gave up the deposit of his life at Agra through the disease of ishāl (diarrhœa) . ”

“ In Gujarat the predominant religion is Hinduism, though petty Mahommedan kingdoms have left their influence in many parts of the province. The Deccan is the home of the Mahrattas, who constitute 30% of the population. The Konkan is notable for various Christian castes, owing their origin to Portuguese rule; while in the Carnatic, Lingayatism, a Hindu reformation movement of the 12th century, has been embraced by 45% of the population. ”

“ The recognized head of the confederacy was the peshwa of Poona, who ruled the hill country of the Western Ghats, the cradle of the Mahratta race. The fertile province of Gujarat was annually harried by the horsemen of the gaekwar of Baroda. In central India two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and Holkar of Indore, alternately held the pre-eminency. Towards the east the Bhonsla raja of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the coast of Orissa. ”

“ The province of Gujarát in Western India included, in the time of Akbar, the territories and districts of Surat, Broach, Kaira, Ahmadábád, a great part of what is now Baroda, the territories now represented by the Mahi Kántha and Rewá Kántha agencies, the Panch Mahas, Pálanpur, Rádhanpur, Balisna, Cambay, Khandeah, and the great peninsula of Káthiáwár. ”

“ The native states comprise in all 353 separate units, which are administered either by political agents or by the collectors of the districts in which the smaller states are situated. The chief groups of states are North Gujarat, comprising Cutch, Kathiawar agency, Palanpur agency, Mahi Kantha agency, Rewa Kantha agency and Cambay; South Gujarat, comprising Dharampur, Bansda and Sachin; North Konkan, Nasik and Khandesh, comprising Khandesh political agency, Surgana and Jawhar ”

“ This government of ours is an unscrupulous corporation. It has ruled by dividing Mussalmans from Hindus. It is quite capable of taking advantage of the internal weaknesses of Hinduism. It will set the ‘depressed’ classes against the rest of the Hindus, non-Brahmins against Brahmins. The Gujarat Senate resolution does not end the trouble. It merely points out the difficulty. The trouble will end only when the masses and classes of Hindus have rid themselves of the sin of untouchability. ”

“ The province is divided into four commissionerships and twenty-six districts. The four divisions are the northern or Gujarat, the central or Deccan, the southern or Carnatic, and Sind. The twenty-six districts are: Bombay City, Ahmedabad, Broach, Kaira, Panch Mahals, Surat, Thana, Ahmednagar, Khandesh (partitioned into two districts in 1906) , Nasik, Poona, Satara, Sholapur, Belgaum, Bijapur, Dharwar, Kanara, Kolaba, Ratnagiri, Karachi, Hyderabad, Shikarpur, Thar and Parkar, and Upper Sind Frontier. ”

“ Many changes have come since then; even in slow-changing India. Porbandar has changed. The city of yesterday has gone. Its primitive customs, its haughty isolation, its serene atmosphere, have almost vanished. The city of to-day is not Porbandar. It occupies, of course, the old spot close to the sea. It still claims a proud position as "Capital of the Principality of Porbandar, in the sub-province of Kathiawar, in the Province of Gujarat." It still holds fifty villages in vassalage. And still its Rana Sahib is regarded as "a first-class Power." But old Hindu Porbandar has gone forever. ”

“ Vocabulary.—The vocabulary of both Gujarat and Rajasthani is very free from tatsama words. The great mass of both vocabularies is tadbhava (see Indo-Aryan Languages) . Rajputana was from an early period brought into close contact with the Mogul court at Agra and Delhi, and even in the 13th century A.D. official documents of the Rajput princes contained many borrowed Persian and Arabic words. Gujarati, under the influence of the learned Nāgara Brahmans, has perhaps more tatsama words than Rajasthani, but their employment is not excessive. ”

“ This being so, I have to say with regret that it is the merchant class which has brought ruin to the Swadeshi practice, and the Swadeshi movement in this country. Complaints have lately risen in Bengal about the increase of rates, and one of them is against Gujarat. ”

“ Having got our programme each province must be able to carry on its own activity. Indeed it may even be an advantage, for in the event of communication being cut off, we should be unaffected by reverses in other provinces. Thus for instance the Punjab need not be affected by Gujarat weakening and surrendering body and soul to the Government or say Assam going stark mad or becoming unexpectedly violent. ”

“ Very wisely the British rulers of India have left this interesting relic of ancient times untouched, so that the institution can be seen in complete working order at the present day all over India. The onward march of civilisation has somewhat shaken the fabric and has threatened the existence of several of the village industries. But at present there has not been any radical alteration. The village may still be seen divided up into its various quarters.
Take for instance a village in Gujarat. Those substantial houses in the centre belong to the well-to-do landowners. ”