Turbulent Delhi: Religious strife, social tension and political conflicts, 1803-1857

South Asia

Volumn 28, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 5-34

  Mann, Michael ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HAGEN   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

NINETEENTH CENTURY; POLITICAL HISTORY; RELIGION;

ASIA; DELHI; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; INDIA; SOUTH ASIA; WORLD;

EID: 19444380161     PISSN: 00856401     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00856400500056061     Document Type: Article

References (182)

1. Previous versions of this article and parts of it have been presented at Heidelberg University, the Institut fuer Asien und Afrikawissenschaften of the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Max Muller Bhavan in Delhi. I would like to particularly thank Narayani Gupta, David J. Gips, Evelin Hust, and Margrit Pernau for critical comments.
2. See the various articles in the volumes of the Subaltern Studies I-XI (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982 f).
3. Gautam Bhadra, 'Four Rebels Of Eighteen-Fifty-Seven', in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, Vol.IV, pp.228-75, esp. pp.263-73.
4. Cf. Sandria B. Freitag, Collective Action and Community. Public Arenas and the Emergence Of Communalism in North India (Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1992);
5. and Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction Of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990).
6. For the economic transformation of Mirzapur see Christopher A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age Of British Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp.234-53, 437-9.
7. See also Christopher Bayly, 'The Small Town and Islamic Gentry in Northern India: The Case Of Kara', in Kenneth Ballhatchet and John Harrison (eds), The City in South Asia. Pre-Modern and Modern (London and Dublin: Curzon Press, 1980), pp.20-48.
8. Final Report on the Settlement Of Land Revenue in the Delhi District Carried on 1872-77 by Oswald Wood and Completed 1878-80 by R. Maconachie (Lahore: Victoria Press, 1882), pp.133-4.
9. Frederick W. Buckler, 'The Political Theory Of the Indian Mutiny', in Michael N. Pearson, Legitimacy and Symbols. The South Asian Writings Of F.W. Buckler (Ann Arbor: Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 1985), pp.43-74, esp. pp.55-61.
10. See, for example, The Cambridge History of India, Vol.IV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937), p.448;
11. and, more recently, Katherine Prior, Lance Brennan and Robin Haines, 'Bad Language: The Role Of English, Persian and Other Esoteric Tongues in the Dismissal Of Sir Edward Colebrooke as Resident Of Delhi in 1829', in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.35, no.1 (2001), pp.75-112, cf. p.78.
12. Richard Barnett, North India Between Two Empires. Awadh, the Mughals, and the British, 1720-1801 (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1987), pp.90-5, 235-9.
13. The term 'little kingdom' was established by Bernard S. Cohn in 'Political Systems in Eighteenth-Century India: The Benares Region', in his An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp.483-99, esp. p.489.
14. The article was originally published in the Journal Of the American Oriental Society, Vol.86, no.3 (1962),
15. and subsequently Richard G. Fox, in his Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule: State - Hinterland Relations in Pre-Industrial India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971) picked up the term,
16. as Nicholas Dirks did much later in his The Hollow Crown. Ethohistory Of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987). The term connotes an idea of shared authority or multiple sovereignty.
17. See also Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1990), pp.175-95.
18. Thomas R. Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj. Northern India in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1979), pp.51-2;
19. and Michael Mann, British Rule on Indian Soil. North India in the First Half Of The Nineteenth Century (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1999), pp.195-6.
20. I am indebted to Dirk H.A. Kolff, who supplied me with the manuscript of his paper 'A Phase in the Deformation and Destruction Of an Ancien Régime Identity in Hindustan', presented at the Sixteenth European South Asian Studies Conference, Edinburgh, 5-9 Sept. 2000.
21. T.A. Heathcote, The Military in British India. The Development Of British Land Forces in South Asia, 1600-1947 (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp.70-102.
22. Eric Stokes, The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp.63-89, passim.
23. Richard Heitler, 'The Varanasi House Tax Hartal Of 1810-11', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.9 (1972), pp.239-57;
24. Gyanendra Pandey, 'The Colonial Construction Of "Communalism", in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies VI. Writings on South Asian History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp.132-69;
25. and Cohn, 'Political Systems in Eighteenth-Century India', p.496.
26. Pandey, 'The Colonial Construction Of "Communalism'", p.134.
27. Christopher A. Bayly, Origins Of Nationality in South Asia. Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making Of Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), ch.7.
28. Bayly extensively discusses the reaction to his initial exploration of this issue which appeared in an article in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.19 (1985), pp.177-203, in the first footnote. He says he was misread and misunderstood. But he now admits that it is more appropriate to speak of 'pre-conditions' rather than a 'pre-history'.
29. See also ch.2, pp.36-62, esp. pp.44-9.
30. Freitag, Collective Action, pp.4-5, 128-38;
31. and Pandey, Construction Of Communalism, pp.94-107, 148-60.
32. Vasudha Dalmia, The Nationalization Of Hindu Traditions. Bharatendru Hariśchandra and Nineteenth-Century Banaras (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), passim.
33. See also Amrita Shodhan, A Question Of Community. Religious Groups and Colonial Law (Calcutta: Samya 2001), pp.27-33.
34. Katherine Prior, 'Making History: The State's Intervention in Urban Religious Disputes in the North-Western Provinces in the Early Nineteenth-Century', in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.27 (1993), pp.179-203.
35. The lowest level of Delhi's social fabric comprised day and wage labourers such as porters, builders and draughtsmen, in addition to washers, tanners, lime-burners and urban paupers. Most of the urban poor were Muslims living in the vicinity of the city's walls and gates, both inside and outside, sometimes squatting along the remnants of the old wall and within ruined buildings.
36. The medium social strata of wholesalers, shop-owners, artisans, craftsmen, tradesmen, petty traders and retailers, also including small banias and sarrafs, mostly resided along the main bazaars and close-by mahallas.
37. Cf. Margrit Pernau, 'From a "Private" Public to a "Public" Private Sphere: Old Delhi and the North Indian Muslims in Comparative Perspective', in Gurpreet Mahajan (ed.), The Public and the Private. Issues of Democratic Citizenship (New Delhi, Thousand Oaks, London: Sage Publications, 2003), pp. 103-29;
38. and Margrit Pernau, 'Middle Class and Secularization: The Muslims Of Delhi in the Nineteenth Century', in Imtiaz Ahmed and Helmut Reifeld (eds), Middle Class Values in India and Europe (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2003), pp.21-41.
39. Commercial and trading groups migrated into Delhi during the second half of the eighteenth century. Within decades, some of them established flourishing businesses and soon became part of the new urban elite. In addition to the Jain trading cum banking group, the commercial Khattri from the eastern Panjab and the Rajasthan Agarwals played an increasing economic and social role. There were also the old and new members of the intellectual elite. The Muslim ulema was split into the dominant Sunni branch, mainly organised in the Naqshbandi and the Chishti orders, and the Shi'a branch. Additionally we find the Panjabi Khattri, Kayasthas and Kashmiri Pandits as groups, and hakims as a professional group, which became the core of the literate and learned people of Delhi from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards. See Shama Mitra Chenoy, Shahjahanabad. A City Of Delhi, 1638-1857 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1998), pp.144-5.
40. For a discussion of the powers and responsibilities of the British 'residents' at the princely courts of north India, see Michael H. Fisher, Indirect Rule in India. Residents and the Residency System, 1764-1858 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991). The Delhi Residency is discussed on pp.171-2 and pp.182-4.
41. See also K.N. Panikkar, British Diplomacy in North India. A Study Of the Delhi Residency, 1803-57 (New Delhi: Associated Publishing House, 1968), passim. With regard to the external relations, the precarious political role of the Delhi Resident has been pointed out in Prior et al, 'Bad Language', passim.
42. A. Seton, Delhi Residency, 15 May 1807, No.4;
43. Maj. Gen. A.M. Dickens, Muttra, 4 May 1807;
44. Seton, Delhi, 6 May 1807, ibid., extract of Political Letter from Bengal, dated 10 June 1807, Bengal Political Letters No.39, Board's Collections, 217/4758, Oriental and India Office Collection [hereafter OIOC], British Library.
45. Memorandum by A. Fane, General C-in-C, relating to the City of Delhi, Dec. 1837, Foreign Department Secret Consultations, 18 Apr. 1838, Nos.1 and 2, National Archives of India [hereafter NAI].
46. Thomas Fortescue, Sec. Foreign Dept., to G.H. Smith, Collector of Customs, Delhi, 17 Jan. 1846, Foreign Dept. Secret Consultations, 26 Dec. 1846, No.374, NAI.
47. Percival Spear, Twilight Of the Mughuls. Studies in Late Mughul Delhi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), p.145.
48. John W. Kaye (ed.), Selections from the Papers Of Lord Metcalfe (London 1855), letter of 1814, pp.74-6, quoted in H.K. Kaul (ed.), Historic Delhi. An Anthology (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp.390-1;
49. and extract of Military Letter to Bengal, dated 26 Aug. 1818, para.40, Bengal Military Collection, No.29, Board's Collections, 897/23372, OIOC.
50. Note by Capt. T.F. Hutchinson, Acting Garrison Engineer, Delhi, 2 Oct. 1822, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 6 June 1823, ibid. Nevertheless the fortifications were considered quite formidable according to the Indian standards of the time.
51. Major Archer, Tours in Upper India, and in Parts Of the Himalaya Mountains, 2 vols. (London: 1833), Vol.1, pp. 104-5, quoted in Kaul, Historic Delhi, pp.240-1.
52. Capt. R. Smith, Garrison Engineer, Delhi, to Capt. Cobbe, 15 Mar. 1823, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 5 Jan. 1824, Board's Collections, 717/19533, OIOC.
53. Capt. Smith to Lt. Col. Casement, Military Sec. to Govt., Delhi, 8 Aug. 1823, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 29 Aug. 1823,
54. i b i d.
55. Narayani Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, 1803-1931. Society, Government and Urban Growth (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), p.14.
56. Leopold von Orlich, Travels in India Including Sinde and the Punjab, 2 Vols. (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1845), Vol.2, p.4.
57. Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, p. 17.
58. Christopher A. Bayly, Empire and Information. Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp.84-6.
59. Minute by Gov.-Gen. (Earl Canning), Aug. 1856, Foreign Dept., Political Proceedings, 29 Aug. 1856, NAI.
60. W.H. Macnaughten, Camp, Allyghur, to Resident at Delhi, Fort William, 13 Nov. 1832, Consultation of 10 Dec. 1832, No.23;
61. note by Sdy. M. Blake, Asst. Agent to Gov.-Gen., 31 Dec. 1832, Foreign Dept., Political Proceedings, Consultation No.47;
62. Delhi Agency, Camp Paneeput, to H.M. Macnaughten, Sec. to Gov.-Gen., 26th July 1834, Foreign Dept., Political Proceedings, Consultation 2 Sept. 1834, No.20, NAI;
63. and Charles Elliott, Sec. Military Board, to Sec. to Govt., Delhi, 14 Oct. 1823, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 7 Nov. 1823, Board's Collections, 897/23372, OIOC.
64. Elliott, Delhi, to Capt. Smith, Delhi, 30 June 1824, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 16 Sept. 1824;
65. and Capt. Smith's notes on observations made by Elliott, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 1 Apr. 1824, Board's Collections, 897/ 23327;
66. and Bengal Military Collection, No.29, ibid.
67. Jitendra G. Borpujari, 'The Impact Of the Transit Duty System in British India', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.10 (1973), pp.218-43.
68. Memorandum by Capt. Smith, to Lt. Col. Casement, Delhi, 8 August 1823, extract in Bengal Military Consultations, 29 Aug. 1823, Bengal Military Collection, No.29, Board's Collections, 897/23327, OIOC.
69. Memorandum, On the Subject of the Arrangement for the Maintenance of His Majesty Shah Allam and the Royal Household, 27 Apr. 1805, quoted in John W. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence Of Charles, Lord Metcalfe, 2 Vols. (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1858), Vol.1, p.150.
70. Thomas Fortescue, Civil Comm., Delhi, to Holt Mackenzie, Sec. to Govt., Territorial Dept., 22 July 1820, paras.70-220, quote from para.101, Board's Collections, 748/20424, OIOC.
71. S.A.A. Rizvi, Shah Wali Allah and His Times (Canberra: Ma'rifat Publishing House, 1980), pp.200-1.
72. The Panjabi shoe-sellers were long known as an unruly group in Delhi. (I owe this information to Narayani Gupta.)
73. Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies Of the Raj (New Cambridge History of India, III, 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), esp. ch.2, pp.28-65.
74. Steward Gordon, The Marathas 1600-1818 (New Cambridge History of India, II, 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp.138-9. A civil war in Delhi helped to finally establish Maratha military control over the city after a Maratha army had plundered it and placed a Maratha nominee on the masnad in Lal Qila.
75. Shah Abdal 'Aziz, Fatawa-yi 'Aziz (Delhi, 1311 AH) I, 17, quoted in Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), p.46.
76. For a brief biographical sketch see Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance in South Asia, 1707-1867 (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 2002), pp.164-78.
77. Seton, Resident at Delhi, to N.B. Edmonstone, Fort William, Calcutta, 30 June 1807, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, No.26, 16 July 1807, Board's Collections, 217/4758, OIOC.
78. Private on Delhi Royal Family, letter from Maj. Gen. Cunninghame to Ellis, 24 Sept. 1831, pp.13-36, Home Miscellaneous Series, 701, pt.1, OIOC.
79. Fraser was Resident from 1829 to 1835.
80. The background of the incident is given in Spear, Twilight Of the Mughuls, Ch.IX, pp.182-90;
81. and in William H. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections, 2 Vols. (Westminster: V.A. Smith, new ed. 1893), Vol.II, pp.106-25.
82. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections, Vol.II, p.111.
83. Radhika Singha, A Despotism Of Law. Crime and Justice in Early Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp.244-5.
84. Charles Metcalfe to J.W. Sheerer, 16 June 1807, briefly summarises the events of this riot. See Kaye, Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe, Vol.I, pp. 155-6.
85. The whole episode has been meticulously reported and compiled in Bengal Political Letter No.39, Board's Collections, 217/4758, OIOC. In Jaisinghpura and the villages of Talkatora there was a Jain temple which had been built by Raja Jai Singh in 1724. At the beginning of the nineteenth century more Jain temples were constructed at Patparganj and Shahdara. See N. Gupta, 'Delhi: the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', in Robert E. Frykenberg (ed.), Delhi Through the Ages. Selected Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 137-56, esp. p.146.
86. It must be pointed out that the term 'mob' with which British officials characterised the riotous paupers of Delhi was not used in a racial sense since it was the contemporary British administrative or political language used by the governing people to describe the 'ungovernable' population. The same wording was also applied in Great Britain to describe the unruly parts of the lower social strata. See Ian Gilmoure, Riots, Risings and Revolution: Governance and Violence in Eighteenth-Century England (London: Hutchinson, 1993);
87. and Charles Tilly (ed.), The Formation Of States in Western Europe (Princeton, New York: Princeton University Press, 1975).
88. Resident at Delhi to Edmonstone, Sec. to Govt., Political Dept., Fort William, 30 June 1807, para.1;
89. Seton, Delhi Resident, to Edmonstone, Fort William, 15 May 1807;
90. extracts in Bengal Political Consultations, No.3, 16 July 1807;
91. and Resident at Delhi to Akber II King of Delhi, 9 May 1807, Bengal Political Letters, No.39, OIOC.
92. Political letter from Bengal, 10 June 1807, paras. 10, 11.
93. Contrary to this author's opinion, Warren Fusfeld argues that the British were eager to support the administrative and religious Muslim elite of Delhi in order to facilitate their rule within the city. The Muslim elite seems to have been more than willing to collaborate with the British regime. See his 'Communal Conflict in Delhi, 1803-1930', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.19 (1982), pp.181-200.
94. For these groups see above, fn. 24.
95. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaar, pp.30-1, 123-5, 141-2, esp. fn.93, and on the multicultural background of contemporary Banaras, pp.178-83.
96. The expenditure by Jain families on temples, bazaars and dwelling houses made a significant contribution to the depressed economies of north Indian towns. The building activities in Delhi especially must have supported a large part of the urban day and wage labourers who otherwise would have suffered from the decline of the Mughal building programmes in their capital-residence. See Christopher A. Bayly, 'Town Building in North India, 1780-1830', in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.9 (1975), pp.483-504.
97. Seton to Edmonstone, Fort William, 1 May 1807, para.2, Bengal Political Letters, No.39.
98. Seton to Edmonstone, Fort William, 12 May 1807, and Seton to Edmonstone, 15 May 1807, paras.8-9,
99. ibid; No.3;
100. and Resident at Delhi to Akber II King of Delhi, 9 May 1807, and Edmonstone to Seton, 28 Sept. 1807, extracts in Bengal Political Consultations, No.19 of 28 Sept. 1807.
101. B. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India, p.48.
102. Jamal Malik, 'Islamic Institutions and Infrastructure in Shahjahanabad', in Eckart Ehlers and Thomas Krafft (eds), Shahjahanabad/Old Delhi. Tradition and Colonial Change (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1993), pp.43-64, esp. pp.53-5.
103. B. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India, pp.49-52.
104. Muhammad Khalid Masud, 'The World Of Shah Abd al 'Aziz (1746-1824)', in Jamal Malik (ed.), Perspectives Of Mutual Encounters in South Asian History 1760-1860 (Leiden, Boston, Köln: Brill, 2000), pp.298-314, esp. pp.307-14.
105. Saiyid A.A. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History Of the Isna Ascari Shi'is in India (16th to 19th Centuries), 2 Vols. (Canberra: Ma'rifat Publishing House, 1986), Vol.II, pp.88-9.
106. Seton to Edmonstone, Fort William, 30 June 1807, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, No.26 of 16 July 1807, Board's Collections, 217/ 4758, OIOC.
107. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah And His Times, p.256 and pp.358-78.
108. Steward Gordon, 'Legitimacy and Loyalty in Some Successor States Of the Eighteenth Century', in John F. Richards, (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp.327-47, esp. pp.341-5;
109. and Freitag, Collective Action, pp.49-50.
110. See also the striking example of the raja of Varanasi, in Heitler, 'The Varanasi House Tax Hartal Of 1810-11'.
111. Seton to Edmonstone, 12 May 1807, and note, C. Metcalfe, Bengal Political Letter, No.39, Board's Collections, 217/4758, OIOC.
112. Later, at another public occasion, the learned Muslim dignitary, Ghulam 'Ali (1743-1824), refused to stand up in respect for the British Resident, Charles Metcalfe, and turned disgustedly away from the British party which smelled of alcohol. The incident is mentioned in Jamal Malik, 'Encounter and Appropriation in the Context Of Modern South Asian History', in Malik (ed.), Perspectives Of Mutual Encounters, pp.315-32, esp. p.325.
113. This must have been extremely frustrating for Charles Metcalfe who, still below twenty years of age, was a promoter of straightforward actions, especially when the Mughal's family and entourage were to be curbed. From his very early appointment in Delhi, Metcalfe argued constantly in favour of the Mughal's deposition. See C. Metcalfe to Sheerer, Meerut, 27 Aug. 1807, in Kaye, Life and Correspondence Of Charles, Lord Metcalfe, Vol.I, pp.163-4.
114. Apart from this, Metcalfe thought Archibald Seton too compromising a Resident. See C. Metcalfe to Sheerer, 16 June 1807, ibid., p.153.
115. Letter dated 16 June 1807, in Kaye, Life and Correspondence of Charles, Lord Metcalfe, p.225.
116. Prior et al, 'Bad Language', passim.
117. This is emphasised in Prior, 'Making History', passim.
118. Rizvi, Shah Wali-Allah and His Times, pp.172-3.
119. Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, p.10.
120. Spear, Twilight Of the Mughuls, p.195.
121. Bakr Id is the festival on which Muslims commemorate Abraham's preparing to sacrifice his son. Some Muslims kill cows on this occasion. Of course to Hindus the cow is sacred.
122. T.T. Metcalfe to R. Williams, Sec. to Board of Revenue Western Division, 31 Aug. 1822, para. 1, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, 27 Sept. 1822, Board's Collections, 827/21946, OIOC.
123. A. Ross, AGG, Delhi to Swinton, Sec., 30 Aug. 1823, paras.2-4, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, 27 Sept. 1822,
124. i b i d.
125. Ibid., paras.5-9;
126. and extract of Political Letter from Bengal, 12 Sept. 1823,
127. i b i d.
128. T.T. Metcalfe to Williams, 31 Aug. 1822, para.3, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, 15 Jan. 1823,
129. i b i d.
130. Prior, 'Making History', pp.193-4.
131. A rough estimate in 1809 put the population of Delhi slightly above 100,000. See Bayly, 'Town Building in North India', p.490. A first census taken by the British in 1833 shows an overall population of 119,860 within the city walls.
132. See The Cambridge Economic History Of India, 2 Vols., (ed. Dharma Kumar) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), Vol.1, pp.470-2.
133. A second census in 1836 showed 130,672 inhabitants. The distribution between Hindus and Muslims was 66,460 and 64,167 respectively. There was still a more or less equal distribution of Hindus and Muslims twenty years later. See Chenoy, Shahjahanabad. pp. 141-2.
134. The censuses of 1843, 1845 and 1853 showed the population rising from 131,000 to 137,000, then to 151,000. See Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, p.4, and graph p.46.
135. T.T. Metcalfe, Principal Assist., Centre Division, to H. H. Thomas, Acting Sec. to Board of Revenue, 2 Nov. 1822, para. 8, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, 15 Jan. 1823, Board's Collections, 827/21946, OIOC.
136. Gyan Pandey, 'Rallying Around the Cow; Sectarian Strife in Bhojpuri Region, c. 1888-1917', in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies II (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983) pp.118-22.
137. Williams to C. Metcalfe, 3 Sept. 1822, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, Board's Collections 827/21946, OIOC.
138. i b i d.
139. A sherishtedarwas a registrar at an Indian court or district office.
140. C. Metcalfe to Thomas, 2 Nov. 1822, extract in Bengal Political Consultations, 15 Jan. 1823.
141. Cf. Jan C. Heesterman, 'The Conundrum Of the King's Authority', in Richards (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia, pp.13-40.
142. Spear, Twilight Of the Mughuls, p.196.
143. Delhi Gazette (12 Apr. 1837).
144. Dasehra is a Hindu festival that takes place in October at the close of the rainy season, predominantly in western and southern India. In the eighteenth century it also became a military festival of the Marathas who, on the occasion of Dasehra, would ritually destroy a village to signal the opening of the season of military campaigns. See Hobson-Jobson. A Glossary Of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases (London: Linguasia, 1989), p.333.
145. Prior et al, 'Bad Language', p.110.
146. The model of the tomb of the martyr Husain, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, is called a ta'ziyah. It is usually made of wood and paper and is carried in Muharram processions in India.
147. Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, p.10;
148. and Delhi Gazette (12 Apr. 1837).
149. Delhi Gazette (15 Oct. 1853), pp.673-4.
150. Note by William Muir, Sec., Foreign Dept., Fort William, 3 Sept. 1855, Foreign Dept., Political Proceedings, Consultations, No. 79-85 of 14 Sept. 1855, NAI;
151. and Ghalib, 1797-1869, Life and Letters, (trans and eds Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam) (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1969), Vol.1, pp.122-3.
152. Sanjay Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State. North India in the Early Nineteenth Century (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), p.22, fn.81 and p.23.
153. 'Translation Of Descriptions Of Inhabitants Of Monga Mautha Taken by Captain H. Peach, Supervisor, Hissar Establishment, 28th September 1824', Home Miscellaneous Series, Vol.674, pp.201-7, OIOC.
154. D.N. Panigrahi, Charles Metcalfe in India: Ideas and Administration, 1806-1835 (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968), p.54.
155. See Mann, British Rule on Indian Soil, pp.135-208.
156. The ecological transformation and the agricultural revolution are not taken into consideration by Sharma. See his Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State, pp.218-9.
157. Michael H. Fisher, 'The Office Of Akbar Navis: The Transition from Mughal to British Forms', in Modern Asian Studies, Vol.27 (1993), pp.45-82;
158. Emily Eden, Up the Country. Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces Of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), p.97;
159. and I.H. Qureshi, 'Two Newspapers Of Pre-Mutiny Delhi', in S.R. Bakshi and S.K. Sharma (eds), Delhi Through the Ages (Delhi: Amol Publications), Vol.3, pp.111-5.
160. Sanjay Sharma, 'The 1837-38 Famine in UP: Some Dimensions Of Popular Action', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.30 (1993), pp.337-71.
161. Mann, British Rule on Indian Soil, pp.175-7;
162. and Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State, pp.63-7, 73-8.
163. The rise of wheat prices was generally regarded as an indicator of famine, albeit not the only one. See Sourin Roy, 'A Rare Document on Delhi Wheat Prices, 1763-1835', in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol.9 (1972), pp.91-100, esp. pp.96-7.
164. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp.331-2.
165. For the intellectual background see S. Ambirajan, Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp 69-47.
166. Delhi Gazette (11 Oct. 1837).
167. T.T. Metcalfe, Commr., Delhi Div., to J. Thomason, Offg. Sec. to the Lt. Gov., NWP, 7 Oct. 1837, North-Western Provinces, Criminal and Judicial, Oct. 1837, No.72, P/231/40, OIOC.
168. Delhi Gazette (19 April 1837). The appointment of a non-Muslim to that post caused protests from Lal Qila, for the Mughal regarded this to be his sovereign right.
169. Thomason to Commr., Delhi Division, Agra, 11 Oct. 1837, North-Western Provinces, Criminal and Judicial, Oct. 1837, No.73, P/231/40, OIOC.
170. Sharma, Famine, Philanthropy and the Colonial State, p.128;
171. and Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, pp.333-4.
172. 'Imaginary Conversation on the Late Events, or Opposite Views Regarding Indian Political Economy Entertained by Buneahs, Bankers, and Sahib Log', Delhi Gazette (8 Nov. 1837).
173. Gupta, Delhi Between Two Empires, p.11.
174. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars, p.334-5.
175. Delhi Gazette (4 Oct. 1853), p.414.
176. Buckler, 'The Political Theory Of the Indian Mutiny', pp.54-60.
177. Spear, Twilight Of the Mughuls, pp.200-8.
178. Prior et al, 'Bad Language', pp.112.
179. Ibid., p.111.
180. T. Metcalf, Ideologies Of the Raj;
181. and Harald Fischer-Tiné and Michael Mann (eds), Colonialism as Civilizing Mission. Cultural Ideology in British India (London, Nashville: Anthem Press, 2003), passim.
182. Ranajit Guha, Dominance Without Hegemony. History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).