The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, Volume 2. Robert Vane Russell

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СКАЧАТЬ or small they are absolutely unfitted by their natural instincts to be landlords. Shrewdest of traders, most business-like in the matter of bargains, they are unable to take a broad view of the duties of landlord or to see that rack-renting will not pay in the long run.”

      Still, under the influence of education, and the growth of moral feeling, as well as the desire to stand well with Government officers and to obtain recognition in the shape of some honour, many of the Mārwāri proprietors are developing into just and progressive landlords. But from the cultivator’s point of view, residence on their estates, which are managed by agents in charge of a number of villages for an absent owner, cannot compare with the system of the small cultivating proprietor resident among tenants of his own caste, and bound to them by ties of sympathy and caste feeling, which produces, as described by Sir R. Craddock, the ideal village.

      26. Commercial honesty.

      As a trader the Bania formerly had a high standard of commercial probity. Even though he might show little kindliness or honesty in dealing with the poorer class of borrowers, he was respected and absolutely reliable in regard to money. It was not unusual for people to place their money in a rich Bania’s hands without interest, even paying him a small sum for safe-keeping. Bankruptcy was considered disgraceful, and was visited with social penalties little less severe than those enforced for breaches of caste rules. There was a firm belief that a merchant’s condition in the next world depended on the discharge of all claims against him. And the duty of paying ancestral debts was evaded only in the case of helpless or hopeless poverty. Of late, partly owing to the waning power of caste and religious feeling in the matter, and partly to the knowledge of the bankruptcy laws, the standard of commercial honour has greatly fallen. Since the case of bankruptcy is governed and arranged for by law, the trader thinks that so long as he can keep within the law he has done nothing wrong. A banker, when heavily involved, seldom scruples to become a bankrupt and to keep back money enough to enable him to start afresh, even if he does nothing worse. This, however, is probably a transitory phase, and the same thing has happened in England and America at one stage of commercial development. In time it may be expected that the loss of the old religious and caste feeling will be made good by a new standard of commercial honour enforced by public opinion among merchants generally. The Banias are very good to their own caste, and when a man is ruined will have a general subscription and provide funds to enable him to start afresh in a small way. Beggars are very rare in the caste. Rich Mārwāris are extremely generous in their subscriptions to objects of public utility, but it is said that the small Bania is not very charitably inclined, though he doles out handfuls of grain to beggars with fair liberality. But he has a system by which he exacts from those who deal with him a slight percentage on the price received by them for religious purposes. This is called Deodān or a gift to God, and is supposed to go into some public fund for the construction or maintenance of a temple or similar object. In the absence of proper supervision or audit it is to be feared that the Bania inclines to make use of it for his private charity, thus saving himself expense on that score. The system has been investigated by Mr. Napier, Commissioner of Jubbulpore, with a view to the application of these funds to public improvements.

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      1

      This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Mīr Pādshāh, Tahsīldār of Bilāspur, and Kanhya Lāl, clerk in the Gazetteer office.

      2

      Bāsi or rice boiled in water the previous day.

      3

      A measure containing about 2½ lbs. of grain.

      4

      This article is mainly compiled from papers by the late Mr. Baikunth Nāth Pujāri, Extra Assistant Commissioner, Sambalpur; Sitāram, Head Master of the Raigarh English School, and Kanhyā Lāl, clerk in the Gazetteer office.

      5

      Now transferred to Bengal.

      6

      Dalton’s Ethnology of Bengal, p. 322.

      7

      This article is mainly based on a paper on Aghoris and Aghorpanthis, by Mr. H. W. Barrow, in the Journal Anthr. Soc. Bombay, iii. p. 197.

      8

      Bhattachārya, Hindu Castes and Sects, p. 392.

      9

      Aghoris and Aghorpanthis, pp. 224, 226.

      10

      Page 208.

      11

      The Tribune (Lahore), November 29, 1898, quoted in Oman’s Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India, pp. 164, 165.

      12

      Studies of Indian Life and Sentiment, p. 44.

      13

      The information about birth customs in this article is from a paper by Mr. Kālika Prasād, Tahsīldār, Rāj-Nandgaon State.

      14

      Go, gau or gai, an ox or cow, and pāl or pālak, guardian.

      15

      Ind. Ant. (Jan. 1911), ‘Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population,’ by Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar.

      16

      Elliot, Supplemental Glossary, s.v. Ahīr.

      17

      Early History of India, 3rd ed. p. 286.

      18

      Elliot, ibidem.

      19

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