¹ This essay is not intended as a full research paper. More detailed findings will be presented in my ‘Patrons and Politics in Allahabad, 1880–1920’ in Gallagher, J., Seal, A. and Johnson, G. (eds.), The Local Roots of Indian Nationalism (CUP, forthcoming), and in a future publication.Google Scholar

² E.g., Frykenberg, R. (ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (University of Wisconsin Press, 1968).Google Scholar

³ See, e.g., Fox, R. G., From Zamindar to Ballot Box (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969).Google Scholar

⁴ Take for instance the case of the small marketing towns of Shankargarh, Bharatganj and Sirsa in Allahabad District. Shankargarh founded in 1874 by the Raja of Bara became one of the largest towns in the south of the district, Porter, F. W., Final Settlement Report of the Allahabad District (Allahabad, 1878), p. 41Google Scholar. The Raja of Manda received dues from the tradesmen, Ahirs and outcastes of the towns of Sirsa and Bharatganj. Records of the Commissioner of Allahabad Division, Post-Mutiny bastas (bundles), (hereafter CA.) basta 64, 215 Judicial of 1881, ‘taxes formerly levied by the Raja of Manda’. Government attempted to discontinue these levies in 1873, but the lineage was strong enough to maintain a considerable illicit income from them. Nayar-i-Azam (Moradabad), 5 12 1892, Reports on the Vernacular Press for Upper India (later United Provinces Newspaper Reports, hereafter UPNNR) for 1892.Google Scholar

⁵ CA. basta 208, 351 Judicial of 1885, ‘Mohurrum-Ramlila, 1885’ enclosure (ii), ‘arrangements made in Allahabad, Fatehpur and Banda Districts’.

⁶ For instance, the Maharaja of Vizianagram, a Madrasi, in Benares, or Raja Rampal Singh, taluqdar of Rampur, Kalakankar, in Allahabad.

⁷ CA. basta 279, 45 Judicial of 1882, ‘Mohurrum–Ramlila, 1882’ refers to events in 1848 and 1852.

⁸ Take, for instance, the collapse of the Agarwal Panchayat in Benares after a prominent member of the community had failed to be ritually purified on return from abroad, documented in The Agarwal Caste Case (India Office Library, tract, n.d., circa 1917)Google Scholar or a similar case within the Allahabad Malavi Brahmin community reported Leader (Allahabad), 20 October, 25 12 1924.Google Scholar

⁹ The Allahabad Kalwar (liquor distiller) community provides some examples. Richer Kalwars had begun to employ priests (purohits) who ascribed them to spurious gotras (clans) modelled on those of the upper Vaishya castes. Crooke, W., Tribes and Castes of the North Western Provinces and Oudh (Calcutta, 1896, four vols.), III, 107;Google Scholar and Nesfield, J., A Brief View of the Caste System of the N.W.P. and Oudh, etc. (Allahabad, 1885), p. 54. The richest Allahabad family, that of Mewa Lal-Lakshmi Narayan, also propagated the interests and ritual standing of the ‘Jaiswal’ jati, which seems to have been an ad hoc and fairly recent agglomeration of successful Kalwars, rather than a long-standing endogamous division;Google Scholar see the Kalwar Kshatriya Mitra (Allahabad, 1915–1924, in the Library of the Hindi Sahitya Samellan).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hindustani Khattris were divided into status divisions within jatis as in Punjab, see Hazlehurst, L. W., ‘Multiple Status Hierarchies in Northern India’, Contributions to Indian Sociology; New Series, no. 11, 12 1968.Google Scholar

¹¹ This distinction was adopted in Jain, L. C., Indigenous Banking in India (London, 1929),Google Scholar and by Report of the United Provinces Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee (Allahabad, 1930).Google Scholar

¹² Mukherjee, S. N., ‘Caste, Class and Politics in Calcutta, 1815–38’, in Leach, E. and Mukherjee, S. N. (eds.), Elites in South Asia (Cambridge, 1970).Google Scholar

¹³ CA. basta 10, 57 GAD of 1892. Divisional Durbar List.

¹⁴ Nevill, H. R., District Gazeteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh (Allahabad, 1903–1914),Allahabad, XXIII, 59–61.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Thacker's Indian Directory (Calcutta, 1880–1885), ‘Allahabad’.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Reports on the Administration of Allahabad Municipality (Allahabad, annually from 1883) also preserved in manuscripts with marginal comments by the commissioner in commissioner's records.

¹⁷ Proceedings of the Working Committee of the Allahabad Municipal Board [PWC], Municipal Record Room, Allahabad.

¹⁸ See, for instance, Prayag Samachar, 15 March 1901, UPNNR 1901;Google ScholarNatya Patra, 1 April 1898, UPNNR 1898.Google Scholar

¹⁹ District Gazetteer, pp. 59–61Google Scholar and also Agrawal Jati ka Itihasa, II (Bhanpura, 1938) for further details of these families.Google Scholar

²⁰ The family of Manik Chand of Phulpur. Siddiqui, N. H., Landlords of Agra and Avadh (Lucknow, 1951), p. 50.Google ScholarDistrict Gazetteer, p. 189; Durbar List 1892, etc.Google Scholar

²¹ For the importance of mercantile raises in local educational charity see General Report on Public Instruction for the North-Western Provinces, 1872 (Allahabad), 1872, pp. 121–2.Google Scholar Correspondence with the ‘Allahabad Institute’, Selections from the Educational Records of the Government of India (Delhi, 1963), 11, 134–7. On cow-protection, IOL; Judicial and Public Papers 1894, 357, 257, ‘note on the gauraksha sabha’; NAI; Home Public B, October 1894, 143–6, notes on the cow-protection movement;Google ScholarHindi Pradip, 17 September 1888, UPNNR 1888, etc.Google Scholar

²² Leader, 29 July 1911, election petition case.Google Scholar

²³ Das, Ram Charan later became treasurer to the United Provinces' Provincial Congress Committee, Indian People, 15 November 1906.Google Scholar

²⁴ Kothi has a wider significance than ‘bank’ and conveys an accurate impression of a diversity of economic activity; ‘a granary, a warehouse or store room; a mercantile or banking house or firm; a government factory or establishment’, Wilson, H. H., A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms (London, 1855, second edn., Delhi, 1868).Google Scholar

²⁵ The four major Allahabad firms, Piru Mal Rai Radha Rawan, Shankar Lal Fakir Chand, Megh Raj Harbilas and Toriram Sitaram maintained branches before 1870 at the following places: Agra, Farrukhabad, Rajpur, Benares, Kalpi, Shikohabad, Calcutta, Murshidabad and Patna. District Gazetteer, p. 60 and Agrawal Jati, II, 14–18, 45, 100.Google Scholar

²⁶ E.g., in Allahabad, Lala Bihari Lal, most prominent relative of Lala Das, Ram Charan became Vice President of the U.P. Zamindars' Association. Pioneer, 26 October 1930,Google ScholarSiddiqui, , Landlords, pp. 54–5. Jagat Narayan, with a failing banking firm, became involved in one of Allahabad's earliest landlord associations, CA. basta 132, 252 Revenue of 1889, collector's notes on revenue administration report. The family of government treasurer Sita Ram Bhargava, became one of the most prominent landlords across the Ganges.Google ScholarDistrict Gazetteer, p. 60. United Provinces Secretariat Records, 578 Revenue of 1918, ‘position of landholders who pay more than Rs 5,000 per annum; Allahabad’. Outside the district an obvious example was the family Nihal Chand–Sukhbir Singh which founded the Muzaffarnagar Zamindars’ Association.Google Scholar

²⁷ District Gazetteer, p. 59, cf. Indian People (Allahabad), 13 02, 1908.Google Scholar

²⁸ Das, Ram Charan was the largest houseowner in the city (District Gazetteer, p. 59), see also Proceedings of the Working Committee Allahabad Municipal Board (PWC), house assessment lists, 1908–10. The sons of Jagat Narayan could still count on the votes of 50–60 tenants in ward IV of the municipality in 1911;Google ScholarLeader, 2 June 1911, report of election petition case.Google Scholar

²⁹ Shukla, S. P., ‘A Survey of Small Urban Industries of Allahabad City,’ Report to the United Provinces' Provincial Banking Enquiry Committee, II, 418–23. This shows the traditional system at work; scattered references suggest that it had once been more widespread.Google Scholar

³⁰ For a general discussion of the significance of Municipal patronage see Robinson, F. C. R., ‘Municipal Government and Muslim Separatism in the United Provinces, 1883–1916’, Paper read at The Second Modern South Asian Studies Conference,Copenhagen,1970, pp. 5–14.Google Scholar

³¹ Lala Jagat Narayan, for instance, attained influence by complete control of the octroi tax establishment in Allahabad, PWC, no. 3 of 1900–1, dated nil., PWC, 1 April 1900 and 15 May 1900, for the course of these disputes,Google Scholar also Natya Patra (Allahabad) for 05 1898, UPNNR 1898.Google Scholar

³² Report on the working of the Income Tax, Act II of 1866, North Western Provinces and Oudh, for the year ending 31, March 1887 (Allahabad, 1887), pp. 1–5.Google Scholar

³³ E.g., see Prayag Samachar, 19 November 1906, UPNNR 1906, Prem Bhawan Library and Hindu orphanage. CA. basta 25, 14 GAD of 1897, for charitable activities of bankers and other raises during famine;Google Scholar and Agrawal Jati, II, 46–7, 101–2 passim.Google Scholar

³⁴ See, e.g., Nur ul-Absar, 15 March 1870, UPNNR 1870.Google Scholar

³⁵ Qaisar ul-Absar, 8 June 1879; Dabir-i-Hind, 27 December 1879;Google ScholarKoh-i-Nur (Lahore), 18 08 1881, UPNNR 1881.Google Scholar

³⁶ Coneybeare, H. C., Fisher, F. H. and Hewett, J. P., Statistical, Descriptive and Historical Account of the North-Western Provinces of India (Allahabad, 1884), VIII, Pt. 2, 167, and district police administration reports, CA.Google Scholar

³⁷ District Gazetteer, pp. 69–73.Google Scholar

³⁸ For a description of these leaderships see Bayly, C. A., ‘The Development of Political Organisation in the Allahabad Locality, 1880–1925’, Oxford University D.Phil. thesis, 1970, pp. 168–71 and 226–9;Google Scholar also Siddiqui, N. H., Landlords, p. 43.Google Scholar

³⁹ Roznamacha (Lucknow), 9 01 1873;Google ScholarKoh-i-Nur, 12 September 1874, UPNNR;Google Scholar see also pragwal case, Leader, 18 November 1911.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ For the Magh Mela Committee see PWC, 6 April 1886, also Pioneer (Allahabad), 24 and 27 January, 1882.

⁴¹ As the balance of local power changed, professional men became more involved with attempts to control pragwals. Indian People, 21 January, 1909; CA. dept. 12, 53 and 111 of 1907 [these records are not kept by basta after 1906], see also case of Malaviya standing as intermediary for them, Home Political Deposit, March 1918, 38, Govt. U.P. to Govt. India, 16 January 1918, National Archives of India.

⁴² CA. basta 12, 94 GAD of 1894, ‘Music Before Mosques’, encl. (i), list of influential Muslims.

⁴³ CA. basta 208, 351 Judicial 1885; basta 147, 279 Judicial of 1886; basta 279, 45 Judicial of 1882, etc.

⁴⁴ Independent (Allahabad), 16, 17, 18 12 1921, gives names of those who took the Civil Disobedience volunteer pledge.Google Scholar For convictions see Leader, 26 12 1921, ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Dariabad, a suburban village active in 1857, in the communal conflicts of the 1880s and 1890s had its own militant Khilafat committee in 1919–21. Independent, 30 November 1919.

⁴⁶ District Gazetteers of the U.P., XXVI, Benares, 53–4; 116.Google ScholarSiddiqui, , Landlords, pp. 149–53.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Chand, Nihal was ‘a moneylender grown rich and become a zaminder’, memorandum on U.P. 1901, MacDonnell Papers, MSS. Eng. Hist. C 353, Bodleian Library, Oxford.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Details on these magnates can be drawn from the relevant District Gazetteers; Siddiqui, , Landlords; Agrawal Jati, etc.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Robinson, F. C. R., ‘Municipal Government’, pp. 24–31.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Tribune (Lahore), 24 November 1886.Google Scholar

⁵¹ E.g., Leader, 26 August 1916; Abhyudaya, 9 December 1916 and 15 March 1919. This tactic was used effectively during 1916–18 when the Hindu professional men boycotted the board and unseated several raises who refused to join them.Google Scholar

⁵² See remarks by Municipal Chairman in Reports on the Administration of Allahabad Mrunicipality [MAR], 1910–13, e.g., MAR, 1913, p. 12.Google Scholar

⁵³ MAR, 1911–14. Monthly municipal debates were published in extenso in the Leader from 1910.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Calculated from returns to municipal boards, United Provinces Gazette, annually, part III, May–June. Biographical material from local press and UPA Municipal Department.

⁵⁵ Leader, 4 and 16 February; 5, 11,14 and 16 March 1910. PWC, 12 and 27 February 1910. MAR, 1909–1910, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Home Public A, November 1911, 164–84, Govt. U.P. to Govt. India, 25 April 1910, report on the first elections to the new legislative council.

⁵⁷ In 1917, the collector Freemantle could write ‘… Mr Malaviya forms rather than reflects the opinion of the Hindu community’. Freemantle to Motilal Nehru, 14 May, 1917, ‘Allahabad Improvement Committee Papers’, Nehru Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum, Delhi. These papers make it clear how closely ‘communal’ peace was connected with power on the municipal board. A change of power in the latter inevitably influenced the whole question of local control.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ These were Hussain, Mahomed Vilayat, sajjada nashin of Diara Shah Ajmal, and Abdul Baqi Khan, municipal commissioner.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ See evidence in the case of Razak, Abdul, reported Leader, 27 July 1918 ff.; the collector was said to have taken the advice of the rais class alone but ‘a certain majority of the Mahomedans… say in common with the Hindu committee that the general body of the Mahomedans should be consulted’.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Abhyudaya, 15 March 1919.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Remarks of Khan, Aftab Ahmad, Transcript of ‘Proceedings of a meeting held at Lucknow, 3 April 1914, regarding the communal situation’, Meston Papers, MSS Eur F 136/15, India Office Library.Google Scholar

⁶² Note regarding the anti-cow-killing agitation in the United Provinces. Home Political A, December 1914, 1–4.Google Scholar

⁶³ For the politics of the Kayastha Pathshala (High School) see Bayly, C. A., ‘The Development of Political Organisation’, pp. 124–30.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Indian People, 2 12 1906; address of the Vaishya Mahasabha, MacDonnell Papers, MSS Eng. Hist. C358, Bodleian Library, Oxford.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ E.g., note the attempt of Tandon, P. D., a jati-fellow of the leading Allahabad bankers to manipulate the Khattri Conference to the benefit of the Congress. Leader, 23 October 1910.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Kalwar Kshatriya Mitra (Allahabad), 03 1918 and February 1919, for various Kalwar associations. A polarization is evident between the raises of the old mohullas, and younger men in the new residential areas.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Jain, L. C., Indigenous Banking in India, pp. 22, 74;Google ScholarCalvert, H., The Wealth and Welfare of the Punjab (Lahore, 1936), p. 257.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ In Allahabad locality the Bundelkhand Land Alienation and Encumbered Estates Acts, passed 1901–3, severely limited the profits of local moneylenders and bankers by providing the agricultural classes with some protection. Jain, L. C., in United Provinces Provincial Banking Committee Report, II, 129,Google Scholar for a summary of effects in Allahabad, S., see CA. Dept. 12, 6 of 1921, annual revenue administration report.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Banking Committee Report, I, 247.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ One of the Tandon family's kothis was partitioned in 1911. Allahabad Civil Suit 268 of 1910; Leader, 23 March 1911.Google Scholaralso Agrawal Jati, II, 46, 88, and 100. Such partitions would, of course, only be harmful in generally adverse financial conditions.Google Scholar

⁷¹ For instance, in 1911 the ‘Allahabad District Muslim League’ began to contest elections as a body, Leader, 16 March 1911; commissioner's letter, 5 April 1910; Home Political A, October 1913, 100–18, ‘the state of Muslim feeling … in India’. There were specific and novel appeals to caste feeling, e.g., case of the Kayasths, , Leader, 13 November 1913.Google Scholar

⁷² Note the rapid growth after 1908 of bodies such as the Indian Traders' Association, Leader, 28 September 1911; Abhyudaya, 17 June 1917. George Town Young Men's Association.Google ScholarLeader, 25 September 1913. Also the Kalwar Youth Sabha, Allahabad Temperance Association, Servants of India Society, Theosophical Lodges, etc.Google Scholar

⁷³ See Proceedings of the North Western Provinces Legislative Council, 1893–8. Analysis of questions has revealed that members, interpolated questions overwhelmingly concerned with constituency issues.

⁷⁴ See Hill, J. L., ‘Congress and Representative Institutions in the United Provinces, 1886–1901’, Ph.D. thesis, Department of History, Duke University, N. Carolina.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Chaturvedi, S. R., Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (Benares, 1936), p. 11.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Prayag Samachar, 15 March 1901, UPNNR 1901 for Malaviyas election activitieson behalf of the Ram Charan Das etc., according to the Leader Jubilee Number, 1930. ‘Pandit Malaviya always consulted him [Das, Ram Charan] whenever any new undertaking was projected, whether it related to the formation of an association, or the holding of a sitting of the Indian National Congress’.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Malaviya was editor of Rampal Singh's journal, Hindustan, from 1884 to 1886; the Raja later supported him while he studied at the bar.

⁷⁸ Note on the Hindustani (Lucknow), Report on the Vernacular Press of Upper India, 1890, Home Public B September 1891, 129–35. Varma was said to be ‘a man of no postition whatever, a pushing upstart, who … forced his way onto the Luck-now Board’. See his obituary, Leader, 25 June 1914. He was a representative of the Lucknow ‘Khetrio and Saraswati Sobha’ [sic] an association of Lucknow cloth merchants and others.Google ScholarReport of the Indian National Congress, Allahabad, 1888 (Calcutta, 1889), pp. 119–20.Google Scholar