¹ Indian politicians, thirsting for more power, were keen to give the impression that there was little worth having in the towns. See, for instance, the evidence of Madan Mohan Malaviya and Sunder Lal before the Decentralization Commission, Royal Commission upon Decentralization in India, Parliamentary Papers 1908, XLV, pp. 749 and 754.Google Scholar

² Report on the Administration of the NW Provinces for the year 1869–70 [NWP Administration Report] (Allahabad, 1871), p. 70.Google Scholar

³ The UP municipal boards had the highest percentage of elected members in India. Tinker, Hugh, The Foundations of Local Self-Government in India, Pakistan and Burma (London, 1968), p. 48, Table 3. In 1904–05, out of 1,249 municipal commissioners, 155 were nominated by Government and 155 were members ex-officio, usually the local district magistrate or joint magistrate, a deputy collector and a tahsildar. The rest were elected.Google Scholar

⁴ The municipalities of Lucknow, Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Bareilly and Moradabad.Google Scholar

⁵ Note on the ‘Agency for the exercise of the executive powers of a municipal board’, n.d., Municipal 1910, I E, Uttar Pradesh Secretariat Records, Lucknow [UPS].Google Scholar

⁶ Nevil, H. R., District Magistrate, Ghazipur, to Commissioner, Benares Division, 20 June 1911 and see also Fergusson, J. C., District Magistrate, Saharanpur, to Commissioner, Meerut Division, 29/30 August 1911, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, National Archives of India, New Delhi [NAI].Google Scholar

⁷ Soon after Balak Ram gained the upper hand in Fyzabad, the municipal servants spent over a week decorating the city in honour of the maktab ceremony of his grandson for which they were rewarded with a holiday on the great day. Leader (Allahabad), 5 April 1911.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid., 20 June 1913.

⁹ Ibid., 1 April 1915. ‘The subordinates’, a Leader mofussil correspondent wrote of the Fyzabad municipal employees who had gone canvassing with Balak Ram, ‘generally think their loyalty consists only in their proving useful in elections and upon this their future prospects entirely depend.’ Ibid., 6 April 1912.

¹⁰ Nasim-i-Agra, 7 December 1887, North-western Provinces and Oudh Native Newspaper Reports 1887. [Hereafter references to this source, which after 1902 were continued as United Provinces Native Newspaper Reports, will be abbreviated UPNNR.]Google Scholar

¹¹ Jam-i-Jamshed (Moradabad), 3 January 1892 and 27 March 1892, UPNNR 1892.Google Scholar

¹² Report of Municipal Administration and Finances in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh 1900–01 [hereafter for reports up to 1900/01 NWPMAR and for reports from 1901/02 UPMAR] (Allahabad, 1902), p. 1; the report for 1914–15 declared that one of the aims of the imminent municipalities bill was to ensure that the municipal staff were ‘secure in the tenure of their posts under varying party majorities’. UPMAR, 1914–1915, p. 8.Google Scholar

¹³ For instance, many of the glories of Muttra were supplied by its great family of Seths: the temple of Dwarakadhis, the Jamuna Bagh Chattris and the good repair of the property in the civil lines. Growse, F. S., Mathura: A District Memoir (North-Western Provinces' Government Press, 1874), Part I, pp. 91, 99, 103.Google Scholar The role of the large landowner in creating a market centre and adorning it is well illustrated in Fox's description of the activities of Rai Udai Baks Singh, Raja of Bilampur, in building up the Sahibganj area of ‘Tezi Bazar’. Fox, Richard G., From Zamindar to Ballot Box (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969), pp. 75–77.Google Scholar

¹⁴ In 1895–96, the provincial income was Rs 324, 87,000 and the total municipal income Rs 52,92,780. NWP Administration Report, 1895–96, pp. 67 and 148.Google Scholar

¹⁵ The octroi was the traditional trading impost of Hindustan. In 1884–85, it was levied in seventy-seven towns and raised 16⅓ lakh rupees out of a total municipal taxation of 19½ lakh rupees. In 1914–15, octroi, although levied in only thirty-seven towns still provided 27½ lakhs out of a total 88⅔ lakh rupees. NWPMAR, 1884–85, Form 1; and UPMAR, 1914–15, Abstract of Statement No. II.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Enquiry into the subject of municipal taxation with special reference to the limitation of the octroi tax (Allahabad, 1909), p. 16, Municipal 1908, 700 D, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁷ ‘Octroi officials brought undue pressure to bear on the traders.’ the Hindustani complained when Babu Sri Ram beat Bishen Narain Dar in the Lucknow municipal elections of 1892. Hindustani (Lucknow), 9 March 1892, UPNNR 1892.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Municipal taxation enquiry, p. 16.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Major-GeneralCurrie, Fendall, Below the Surface (London, 1900), p. 100.Google Scholar

²⁰ Leader, 5 April 1911.Google Scholar

²¹ Very often the kotwal was a Muslim. Under the Mughals he was firmly abjured to avoid all points of religious tension. Allami, Abul Fazl, Ain i Akbari trans. Jarrett, Colonel H. S., Vol. II (Calcutta, 1891), Ain IV ‘The Kotwal’, pp. 41–3.Google Scholar

²² Under the 1892 Councils Act, the possession of a municipal commissionership was one of the qualifications for prospective candidates. The more important municipalities of the UP were divided into two constituencies which each recommended a representative from their commissioners to the provincial council.Google Scholar

²³ When the government set about circumscribing the executive functions of the municipal commissioner in preparing for the 1915/16 municipalities legislation, local politicians protested vigorously. Under the bill, commissioners deliberated and municipal servants, with great security of tenure and under the control of a civil servant, administered. A committee on which they were represented warned that ‘boards would strongly resent total exclusion from executive functions and control.…’ Typed draft of the Lucknow committee recommendations, 8 April 1914, Municipal 1915, 230 E, UPS.Google Scholar

²⁴ District Gazetteer [DG] Ballia, XXX, 81–2. The Iraqis were thought to be converts from the Hindu Kalwars (distillers), their name being derived from araq or arrack. They were generally shopkeepers or money-lenders and several owned land.Google Scholar

²⁵ For the money-lending activities of this Pathan community see E. I. Brodkin, ‘Rohilkhand: A study in the Great Indian Rebellion, 1857–58’, unpublished paper delivered in Cambridge, November 1967.Google Scholar

²⁷ Note by Auckland Colvin, 11 June 1889, Home Public A August 1892, 237–52, NAI.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid.,

²⁹ An examination of the Benares region in 1885 has revealed that of the 134 revenue payers classified as paying over one thousand rupees per year in land revenue, thirty-nine (paying thirty-one per cent of the revenue) were ‘new men’ most of whom owed their wealth and position to the conditions established by British rule. Cohn, B. S., ‘Structural Change in Indian Rural Society 1596–1885; in Frykenberg, R. E. (ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Madison, 1969), pp. 78–9.Google Scholar

³⁰ Members of the great Qanungo family of Meerut had ‘from time immemorial… been bankers and zamindars.’ The family was founded by one Jograj in the reign of Aurangzeb. At the turn of the twentieth century, three Qanungoyan, Lala Murari Lal, Lala Banarsi Das and Lala Jainti Parshad sat on the Meerut Municipal Board. DG Meerut, IV, 93.Google Scholar

³¹ The fortunes of Lala Nihal Chand's family are a good example. The joint estates of his father and uncle were increased by lending British officers money during the Mutiny. By the beginning of the twentieth century they contained 41 villages. Under Nihal Chand and his son, Lala Sukhbir Sinha, the family dominated the Muzaffarnagar municipal board, where it provided vice-chairmen (up to 1910 the highest position that a non-official could usually expect to reach), and the district, where it ran the Muzaffarnagar Zamindars’ Association. DG Muzaffarnagar, III, 113.Google Scholar

³² The division is made along administrative boundaries; see map. At first, this might appear an unsophisticated method of delineating economic regions in the vast Gangetic plain where one area shades imperceptibly into the next. But land policy had an important role in determining concentrations of wealth. The dividing line is drawn between the areas under Agra rent law and those under Oudh rent law and permanent settlement. All of Benares division is included in the division of east UP and Oudh although some of it was under Agra rent law. The reason for this is that those parts of Benares division not permanently settled nevertheless had more in common with east UP and Oudh than with west UP and Doab. This is also true of Gorakhpur.Google Scholar

³³ The broad-gauge reached Cawnpore in 1859, Saharanpur in 1869. During the 1870s and 1880s the broad and medium gauge traversed every district and, by 1900, even the most remote areas of the province were connected with Calcutta, Delhi, the Punjab, Bombay and western India.Google Scholar

³⁴ DG Benares, XXVI, 58.Google Scholar

³⁵ Ibid., pp. 53–5, 120–2.

³⁶ DG Mirzapur, XXVII, 100.Google Scholar

³⁷ DG Ghazipur, XXIX, 65–9; DG Jaunpur, XXVIII, 67; DG Fyzabad, XLIII, 44.Google Scholar

³⁸ DG Gorakhpur, XXXI, 75–8.Google Scholar

³⁹ DG Lucknow, XXXVII, 51–2.Google Scholar

⁴¹ For instance, Khairabad, DG Sitapur, XL, 240; or Hardoi, DG Hardoi, XLI, 267.Google Scholar

⁴² DG Sitapur, p. 121; DG Unao, XXXVIII, 108.Google Scholar

⁴³ DG Moradabad, XVI, 55–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ DG Agra, VIII, 52.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Cawnpore's imports grew from 648, 580 maunds in 1847 to 13,733,725 maunds in 1907. DG Cawnpore, XIX, 75.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Taking 1873 as 100, the index of retail prices of food-grains in India rose from 102 for the quinquennium 1870/75 to 188 for the quinquennium 1910/15. Calculated from Index Numbers of Indian Prices 1861–1931 (Delhi, 1933), Summary Table III.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The author of the Mainpuri district gazetteer described the process. ‘After the Mutiny, however, a totally new condition of things came into being. Hitherto the speculating classes had only looked upon land as a form of security and had not ambition to become landed proprietors themselves. The money-lender who intruded into a Thakur or Ahir village to oust the original owners of the land would have needed more than a common degree of courage, and the adventure was not generally considered to be worth the risk. But the reign of law and order which has prevailed since 1859, together with the great security of landed property and the high profits to be derived from it, have brought about a new era. The banking classes who before the Mutiny lent out their capital grudgingly and showed no desire to drive landlords to extremity, now compete with one another to accommodate the zamindar and encourage his extravagant habits, and by foreclosures and auctions in execution of decrees are steadily and persistently increasing their hold upon the land.’ DG Mainpuri, p. 111.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Hindustani, 8 June 1892, UPNNR 1892.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Booklet on Lucknow Division, Revenue and Agriculture 1918, 578, UPS.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cawnpore, although in the Doab, had considerable influence over the trans Ganges district of Unao. Many Cawnporis owned land there and it was an area favoured by political agitators from the city.Google Scholar

⁵¹ DG Kheri, XLII, 72; DG Bahraich, XLV, 71; DG Lucknow, p. 88; DG Unao, p. 83; DG Rae Bareli, XXXIX, 68; and Settlement Report [SR] Sultanpur, 1898, p. 10.Google Scholar

⁵² In the first half of the nineteenth century, the landed communities had had a hard time, large quantities of their property entering the hands of civil servants, merchants and bankers. Cohn, B. S., ‘The Initial British Impact on India: A Case Study of the Benares Region’, Journal of Asian Studies, XIX, No. 4, August 1960, pp. 418–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵³ DG Ghazipur, pp. 118–19.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ DG Jaunpur, p. 91; and for purchases made by Nawab Abdul Majid see the booklet on Benares division in Revenue and Agriculture 1918, 578, UPS.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ DG Basti, XXXII, 88; DG Azamgarh, XXXIII, 106; and in Gorakhpur and Mirzapur, the money-lending groups had not done well enough to be regarded as proprietors, DG Gorakhpur p. 109; DG Mirzapur, P. 129.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ SR Muzaffarnagar, 1921, p. 6. The landlord who was gaining land through money-lending was rare enough for the settlement officer of Muzaffarnagar to suggest that ‘A notable exception is the influential family of Jansath town [an important Muslim family, the Jansath Saiyids] of which the members are steadily increasing their wealth by money-lending.’ Ibid., p. 7.

⁵⁷ Kayasths too lost land in many districts and also groups restricted to particular areas such as Gujars, but, in nearly every district, Rajputs and Muslims lost land. DG Saharanpur, p. 116 (Rajputs only); DG Muzaffarnagar, p. 117; DG Meerut, pp. 83–4; DG Bulandshahr, pp. 92, 106; DG Aligarh, pp. 90–2; DG Muttra, p. 121 (Muslims only); DG Etawah, pp. 77–86 (Rajputs only); DG Mainpuri, p. 104; DG Agra, p. 87 (Rajputs only); DG Farrukhabad, p. 80(Rajputs only); DG Bijnor, p. 108; DG Budaun, p. 84; DG Moradabad, p. 88; DG Pilibhit, p. 101; DG Cawnpore, p. 129–30; DG Allahabad, p. 102; DG Fatehpur, p. 101 (here Muslims lost and Rajputs gained); DG Hamirpur, p. 84 (Rajputs only); DG Jalaun, p. 70 (Rajputs only); DG Jhansi, p. 116 (Rajputs only). Muslim holdings appear to remain stationary in Agra and Shahjahanpur, DG Agra, p. 87; DG Shahjahanpur, p. 87; and Muslims actually made slight increases in Saharanpur, Farrukhabad and Mainpuri, DG Saharanpur, p. 116; DG Farrukhabad, p. 80; and DG Mainpuri, p. 104.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ DG Cawnpore, p. 130.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ SR Bulandshahr, 1919, p. 4.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Calculated from statements showing the occupation of members of municipal boards, Municipal 1908, 594 D, UPS.Google Scholar

⁶¹ For a description of this affair, see below.Google Scholar

⁶² Kayasths had 24·5 per cent and Muslims 38·4 per cent of seats on east UP and Oudh municipal boards. Calculated from ‘Statement showing caste of members of Municipal Boards’, Municipal 1908, 594 D, UPS.Google Scholar

⁶³ Leader, 25 March 1910. Qazi Ferasat Husain won and his victory was celebrated by Muslims and Kayasths with a party given by Ram Garib at which the Muslims' praises were sung by a Kayasth pleader in a Qasida.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Calculated from statements showing the occupation of members of municipal boards, Municipal 1908, 594 D, UPS.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Bayly, C. A., ‘Patrons and politics in Northern India’, above.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Pearson, J. R., District Magistrate, Meerut, to Commissioner, Meerut Division, 16 August 1911, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Calculated from statements showing the occupation of members of municipal boards, Municipal 1908, 594 D, UPS.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ For example, in 1907–08, four Keshgi Pathans, landowners and leading Muslims of the town, and five Vaishyas sat on the municipal board in the booming Bulandshahr cotton town and grain mart of Khurja. Some of these Vaishyas were Churuwal Banias, the leading Hindu residents of Khurja, who owned property in many parts of India, were large bankers as well as traders and had a big interest in the cotton trade. One, Lala Nathi Mal had recently purchased the house and property of Azam Ali Khan, the last important member of a once notable, but now declining, Bhale Sultan family (Muslim Rajput). DG Bulandshahr, p. 259; and ‘Statement of the members of Bulandshahr municipal board’, Municipal 1908, 594 D, UPS.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ In 1907–08, Muslims were under-represented in the trading centres of Muttra, Hathras, Firozabad and Chandausi, in the major political centres of Moradabad, Allahabad, Meerut and Bareilly and in other areas where they had lost a particularly large amount of property, such as Muzaffarnagar and Sambhal.

⁷⁰ In Amroha town, ‘During the past century several families have acquired wealth by trade and in many cases have bought up the revenue-free holdings of the Saiyids.’ DG Moradabad, p. 177.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Ibid., p. 176.

⁷² Note by Kunwar Jagdish Prasad, District Magistrate, Muzaffarnagar, 29 October 1917, General Administration Department [GAD] 1918, 603, UPS.Google Scholar

⁷³ See, for example, the comments of the following Muslim newspapers: Amir-ul-Akhbar (Cawnpore, Urdu), 7 April 1891, UPNNR 1891, and Cawnpore Gazette, 1 June 1892, UPNNR 1892. Some commercial men, particularly those from families of long standing, had much in common with the Muslims, such as, for instance, Lala Sita Ram, the leading Agarwal banker of Meerut, who corresponded in Urdu and had many Muslim friends. Sita Ram Papers, NAI. In addition, Hindu professional men such as Motilal Nehru felt much the same as the landed Muslims about commercial men. When the wife of Mohanlal Nehru attempted to launch the political career of Nehru womanhood by taking the quite unprecedented step, as a woman, of standing for the Allahabad municipal board, he wrote to his son: ‘…imagine Mohan Rani sitting in the company of a number of pragwals, banias of sorts, and the so-called Raises whose greatness depends on the number of mistresses they keep.’ He was going to have nothing to do with it. ‘I am myself one of the voters…I hope to be better occupied elsewhere.’ Motilal Nehru to Jawaharlal Nehru, 29 February 1912, Nehru Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum, New Delhi [NMM].

⁷⁴ Extract from fortnightly Demi-Official [D-O] report from H. C. A. Conybeare, Commissioner, Meerut, 20 May 1907, Home Poll D August 1907, 4, NAI.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Fox's local study of Tezibazar, Jaunpur district, illustrates well some of the background and some of the characteristics of the communal antagonism that existed between Hindus and Muslims: for example, the selling up of Muslim estates to banias at the beginning of the twentieth century, the rise of the banias at the same time to challenge and to take political power from the zamindars, and the antipathy between trader and Muslim, ‘The most anti-Muslim of status categories’, Fox states, ‘are the Baniyas and the Brahmins.… Local people say that Baniyas and Brahmins are especially anti-Muslim because these castes most retain the spirit of Hinduism in social habits and ideals and are therefore most inimical to Islam.’ Fox, From Zamindar to Ballot Box, pp. 69–81 and 113.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ The political career of Hamid Ali Khan reflects the changing style of politics. He began as a Congressman, but by 1901 he had joined Viqar ul-Mulk and Munshi Ehtisham Ali in appealing for Muslim political organization to combat the government's Hindi resolution. In 1906 he was a member of the provincial committee of the All-India Muslim League appointed at Dacca, and by 1914 he was regarded both by the landed interest and by the government as a ‘safe man’.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ In fact, the Lucknow Congressmen misjudged the situation. In 1892, the northern municipal board seat had five electors representing the municipalities of Agra, Bareilly, Meerut, Lucknow and Fyzabad. Meerut (a Muslim) and Fyzabad voted for Hamid Ali Khan, Agra, Bareilly and Lucknow (the local district magistrate) voted for Sri Ram. In 1895, with a broader electorate, Hamid Ali Khan lost 9–5.Google ScholarHills, J. L., ‘Congress and Representative Institutions in the United Provinces, 1886–1901’ (Duke University, Ph. D. thesis), pp. 220–3, 239.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ In 1893, east UP and Oudh saw thè most severe communal outbreaks of the century. But the disturbances in Gorakhpur and Azamgarh districts, as in the case of those of 1913 and 1914 in Fyzabad, were rural, not urban, affairs. Rizvi, J. M., ‘Muslim Politics and Government Policy: Studies in the development of organisation and its social background in North India and Bengal, 1885–1917’ (Cambridge University, Ph. D. thesis, 1969), pp. 102–03.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ An annual fair at the sangam at Allahabad which is thought to be the point of confluence of the mythical holy river, Saraswati, with the Ganges and Jumna. It ranks with Hardwar and Benares among the most important of Hindu bathing festivals. The management of such a festival provided considerable patronage in the grant of monopolies to pan, incense and flower sellers.

⁸⁰ Bayly, C. A., ‘The Development of Political Organisation in the Allahabad Locality, 1880–1925’ (Oxford University, D. Phil. thesis, 1970), pp. 231–5.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Municipal B March 1888, 40, UPS, cited in Hill, J. L., ‘Congress and Representative Institutions’, pp. 128–9.Google Scholar

⁸² Municipal B October 1891, 31, UPS, Ibid., p. 129.

⁸³ An illustration of the city's reputation lies in the Hindu saying that ‘In Moradabad there are nothing but mukkhiam, macchar aur musalman,’ (flies, mosquitoes and Muslims).

⁸⁴ NWP Administration Report, 1871–72, pp. 4, 10–12.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Minute, Babu Brijnandan Prasad, vice-chairman, Moradabad municipal board, 28 February 1898, Municipal A October 1898, 92 f. UPS, cited in Hill, J. L., ‘Congress and Representative Institutions’, pp. 130–31.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Hill stresses the prevalence of communal politics in west UP, Ibid., p. 130.

⁸⁷ The only figures available for UP municipal electorates are for 1911 when Muslims had a majority of voters in only ten municipalities. Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ This price rise reached peaks in the years 1897 and 1908. Index Numbers of Indian Prices 1861–1931, Summary Table III.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ In 1897, the Muslims had a nine to eight majority on the board, but by 1907 they were in a four to eight minority. The Muslim press claimed that the Hindus had influenced the redrawing of the ward boundaries. Naiyar-i-Azam (Moradabad, Urdu), 26 April 1910, UPNNR 1910.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Note for the Collector of Bareilly by Munshi Asghar Ali Khan, 1911, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

⁹² Prayag Samachar (Allahabad, Hindi), 19 March 1891, UPNNR 1891.Google Scholar

⁹³ Home Public A December 1893, 210–13, NAI.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Rohilkhand Gazette (Bareilly, Urdu), 24 February 1903, UPNNR 1903.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Sahifa (Bijnor, Urdu), 12 June, 1904, UPNNR 1904.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Ibid., 5 August 1903, UPNNR 1903.

⁹⁷ Gohar-i-Hind (Najibabad, Urdu), 5 February 1902, UPNNR 1902.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Note by Shaikh Zahur Ahmad, Barrister-at-Law, Allahabad, 2 February 1911, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Commenting generally upon this problem before the Decentralization Commission, Kazi Azizuddin Ahmad, Deputy Collector of Moradabad, stressed that district officers had lost a great deal of power since the introduction of the elective system in local government.

¹⁰⁰ Kashshaf (Muzaffarnagar, Urdu), 24 January 1896, UPNNR 1896.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Municipal B January 1890, 36, UPS, cited in J. L. Hill, ‘Congress and Representative Institutions’, p. 129.Google Scholar

¹⁰² In 1883, Yusuf Ali, the Muslims' spokesman on the Bengal Legislative Council, demanded separate representation as protection in local and council government and, in 1884, this was included among the demands of the National Mahommedan Association. Seal, A., The Emergence of Indian Nationalism (Cambridge, 1968), p. 311. In the late 1880s, separate representation in various forms was adopted in several Punjab municipalities, for instance, Wazirabad, Lahore and Amritsar. Aligarh, the only UP municipality to get separate representation before the 1916 Municipalities Act, was given communal electorates in 1890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰³ Meetings were definitely held at Moradabad and Bijnor, see reports in Nizamul-Mulk (Moradabad, Urdu), 28 February 1903, UPNNR 1903;Google Scholar and Uruj (Bijnor, Urdu), 14 July 1903, UPNNR 1903;Google Scholar there was much talk of a district political association in Budaun, Zul Qarnain (Budaun, Urdu), 14 July 1903;Google Scholar and such associations were formed in at least two places, Saharanpur and Shahjahanpur, Pioneer (Lucknow), 31 July 1903,Google Scholar cited in Wasti, S. R., Lord Minto and the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1905–1910 (Oxford, 1964), p. 60;Google Scholar and Edward Gazette (Shahjahanpur, Urdu), 26 June 1903, UPNNR 1903.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ These two men were Nawab Medhi Ali, Mohsin ul-Mulk and Syed Hosein Bilgrami, Imad ul-Mulk While the draft memorial was being drawn up at Bombay, Viqar ul-Mulk was one of the Mohsin ul-Mulk's most frequent correspondents.

¹⁰⁵ Municipal Taxation Enquiry, p. 16.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Index numbers of Indian prices, based on retail prices of food grains, show the following increases during this period: 1901–05, 137·6 1906–10, 190·6; 1911–15, 197·8. 1873 equals 100. Calculated from Index Numbers of Indian Prices 1861–1931, Summary Table III.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ 17 municipalities received the privilege in 1910, a further 16 in 1912 and the remainder in the Municipalities Act of 1916.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ The municipal and district boards of each division elected representatives who formed a divisional electoral college by which the candidate was selected.

¹⁰⁹ The municipal boards were: Allahabad, Agra, Meerut, Lucknow, Fyzabad, Benares, Bareilly and Cawnpore. The first four elected members in 1909, the second four in 1912 and so on.

¹¹⁰ The four Muslim constituencies were Agra/Meerut; Rohilkhand/Kumaon; Lucknow/Fyzabad and Allahabad/Benares/Gorakhpur. In these constituencies, Muslim voters had the right of direct election. This was another source of grievance for the Hindus who were compelled to operate through electoral colleges.

¹¹¹ In the 1906 Muslim memorial to Minto, Muslims had claimed a proportion of separate representation greater than their proportion of the population on the grounds of their ‘political importance’.

¹¹² Leader, 24 October 1909.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Cutting from the Leader of 12 May 1912, enclosed in Hasan Ali Khan, member, Agra District Board, to Mahomed Ali, 14 May 1912. (The words in italics were underlined in the original by Hasan Ali Khan, and he also added the quotation marks.) Mahomed Ali Papers, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

¹¹⁴ Summary of the argument of a typical leading article on the question. This one commented on Sachchidananda Sinha's address to the Provincial Conference of 1912. Leader, 6 April 1912.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Al Bashir (Etawah, Urdu), 15 March 1910, UPNNR 1910.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Home Municipal A August 1909, 2, November 1909, 17 and D February 1910, 3, NAI.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Note by Munshi Asghar Ali Khan, 9 August 1911, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Harcourt Butler to Sir James Duboulay, Private Secretary to the Viceroy, 25 November 1910, Hardinge Papers, Cambridge University Library, 81.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ D-O Letter from the Commissioner of Lucknow, 18 May 1909, Home Poll A October 1913, 100–18, NAI.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ D-O letter from the Commissioner of Agra, 21 February 1911, Ibid.

¹²¹ Ibid.

¹²² GAD 1910, 442, UPS.Google Scholar

¹²³ D-O letter from the Commissioner of Lucknow, 31 August 1909, Home Poll A October 1913, 100–18, NAI.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ D-O letter from the Commissioner of Allahabad, 5 April 1910, Ibid.

¹²⁵ D-O letter from the Commissioner of Gorakhpur, June 1911, Ibid.

¹²⁶ Burn, R., Chief Secretary, Government of UP, to Secretary, Government of India Education Department, 4 September 1912, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Ibid.

¹³⁰ Leader, 18 March 1911 and 28 March 1911.Google Scholar

¹³¹ How Muslims could benefit in a landlord-dominated electorate is illustratedby the large proportion of seats which they held, in excess of the proportion of the population, on district boards.

¹³³ Report by the Commissioner of Rohilkhand, cited in UPMAR, 1911–12, p. 2.Google Scholar

¹³⁴ Increased competition united the Muslims except in areas of Shia-Sunni conflict such as Amroha and Lucknow.

¹³⁵ Leader, 13 November 1912.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ Report by the District Magistrate of Saharanpur, 1 August 1909, enclosed in Hose, Chief Secretary, Government of UP Municipal Department, to Secretary, Government of India Home Department, Home Municipal A November 1909, 18, NAI; and Leader, 4 April 1910.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ Leader, 11 May 1912.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ Ibid., 27 March 1912.

¹⁴⁰ The electoral college consisted of thirty-nine delegates, eight from the municipal boards and thirty-one from the district boards—a reflection of the way in which the council regulations had been drawn up in favour of the landed interest. Leader, 12 December 1909.Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ Ibid., 14 January 1910.

¹⁴² Ibid., 13 March 1910.

¹⁴³ Ibid., 24 March 1910.

¹⁴⁴ Based on a note by Hose, Chief Secretary, Government of the UP, 26 May 1910, Municipal 1910, 291/98, UPS; and Leader, 10 June 1910.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ Leader, 18 March 1911.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ Ibid., 27 November 1912.

¹⁴⁷ Gould, H. A., ‘A Working Paper on Religion, Ethnicity and Coalition Formation in Local Level Indian Politics’ (unpublished paper presented at the conference on religion and political modernization, Honolulu, 22–25 March 1971).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ Until the 1930s, the landlords usually put their own interests before those of their communities. Thus, in 1906, Jehangirabad refused to attend the Lucknow meeting at which the Muslims drew up their memorial to Minto for fear of offending his fellow talukdars and, in 1909, Partabgarh, later a vice-President of the UP Hindu Sabha, was prepared to help a Muslim landlord into the council in preference to a Hindu Congressman. But even the landlord interest did not remain for ever impervious to communalism. Reeves has shown how, in the elections of February 1937, the landlords were eventually broken by communal and factional pressures. This he calls a ‘turning point in the political development of the United Provinces.’ Reeves, P. D., ‘Landlords and Party Politics in the United Provinces, 1934–7’, Low, D. A. (ed.), Soundings in Modern South Asian History (London, 1968), pp. 261–82.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ In 1907, out of 20 east UP and Oudh municipal boards (information is not available for the remaining four; Balrampur, Gonda, Nanpara and Sultanpur), there were more Muslims and Kayasths than any other group on 12 (Benares, Mirzapur, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Kheri, Sandila, Rae Bareli, Sitapur, Khairabad, Nawabgani and Bahraich). By 1915, Muslims and Kayasths sat in greater numbers on a further 5 boards (Ballia, Shahabad, Azamgarh, Fyzabad and Tanda).

¹⁵⁰ For instance, Al Bashir, 15 March 1910; Zul Qarnain, 19 March 1910; Naiyar-i-Azam, 26 March 1910; Muslim Review (Allahabad, Urdu), March 1910;Google ScholarAl-Fasih (Bareilly, Urdu), 3 May 1910, UPNNR 1910. One of the many demands came from the UP Muslim League, an organization that only sprang into existence for electoral purposes. Ibni Ahmad, Secretary, UP Muslim League, to Chief Secretary, Government of UP, 2 November 1910, Manomed Ali Papers, Jamia Millia Islamia.Google Scholar

¹⁵¹ Holms, J. M., Secretary, UP Municipal Department, to Secretary, Government of India Education Department, 16 March 1908, Home Public A October 1908, 116–46, NAI.Google Scholar

¹⁵² Opinion of Sir John Hewett, quoted in R. Burn, Chief Secretary, Government of UP, to Secretary, Government of India Education Department, 4 September 1912, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI.Google Scholar

¹⁵³ Burn to Commissioners of Divisions, 22 April 1911, Ibid.

¹⁵⁴ ‘Note by the Hon'ble Raja Sir Muhammad Ali Muhammad, Khan Bahadur, of Mahmudabad on Separate Representation of District and Municipal Boards’, 18 October 1911, Home Municipal B April 1914, 28, NAI.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ This point was made strongly by the Muslim members of the Jaunpur municipal board, Home Educ Municipal A April 1914, 22–31, NAI. Local conditions were also reflected in the comments of the districts officers. Those from east UP divisions wrote of communal harmony and argued that separate representation was not necessary. See, for example, the report on Gorakhpur.J.Hope Simpson, District Magistrate, Gorakhpur, to Commissioner, Gorakhpur Division, 14 August 1911, Ibid. Most officers from west UP, Doab and even Oudh reluctantly conceded that the communities were divided, and, ignoring the recommendations of the Decentralization Commission, wanted government to continue to hold the ring. See, for example, H. C. Ferard, Offg. Commissioner, Agra Division, to Secretary, Government of UP, 21 November 1911; and C. A. Mumford, Chairman, Allahabad Municipal Board, to Commissioner, Allahabad Division, 21 July 1911, Ibid.

¹⁵⁶ Note by Shaikh Zahur Ahmad, Barrister-at-law, Allahabad, 2 September 1911, Ibid.

¹⁵⁷ Hewett, basing his policy on the ‘Burn Circular’, recommended that where Muslims numbered less than one-third of the population they should be given a proportion of elected seats on municipal boards equivalent to half as much again as their proportion of the population; where they accounted for between a third and a half of the population, Muslims should have half of the total number of seats; where Muslims were more than half of the population of a town, they should have a percentage of seats equal to their percentages of the population. If implemented, the result would have raised the number of Muslim elected members of boards from 30·3 per cent, the proportion on 1 April 1911, to 46 per cent.

¹⁵⁸ Private note by Sir James Meston, 6 September 1913, Meston Papers, Mss Eur F 136 6, India Office Library, London.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ In urging the change of plan, the UP government wrote: ‘As you will understand, it is likely to make a great difference to the prospects of passing a workable Bill if we are able to introduce it into Council shortly and to get it through by, say July next. In any case there is likely to be considerable opposition to some of the most necessary provisions; but that opposition will probably be much greater if the consideration of the Bill is postponed long enough for the present vague expectations of radical changes to crystallise.’ A. W. Pim, Secretary, Government of UP Financial Department, to L. Porter, Secretary, Government of India Education Department, 24 December 1914, Home Legislative A July 1915, 1–5, NAI.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ Between 1909 and 1912, the following ‘Old Party’ men sat in the provincial council: Nawab of Rampur, Nawab of Pahasu, Nawab Abdul Majid, Nawab Asadullah Khan, Raja of Jehangirabad, Shaikh Husain, Munshi Asghar Ali Khan, Aftab Khan and Syed Ali Nabi. The last named, at this time, was regarded as an ‘Old Party’ man although later he veered towards the ‘Young Party’.

¹⁶¹ In 1915, all-India and provincial Hindu Sabhas were formed in the UP in reaction to the possibility of further council reforms and the success of Muslim demands. In April, while the provincial political conference at Gorakhpur demanded self-government after the war but refrained from passing the usual resolution against separate representation, an All-India Hindu Sabha was formed at Hardwar by men from the west UP, many of them Vaishyas and Khattris. In December, while Wazir Hasan in Bombay was turning the joint Hindu-Muslim front into a reality, a provincial Hindu Sabha was formed at Allahabad.

¹⁶² Syed Ali Nabi, President of the UP Muslim League, to Secretary, Government of UP, 19 October 1915, Municipal 1915, 230 E No. 58, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁶³ Representation of the Sapru Committee on the Municipalities Bill, to Secretary, Government of UP Municipal Department, Leader, 29 October 1915.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁴ Note by Meston 22 October 1915, Municipal 1915, 230 E No. 57, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁵ Letter from Simla signed by all the non-official members of the Select Committee, to the Secretary, UP Legislative Council, 11 October 1915, Ibid.

¹⁶⁶ Note by Meston, 22 October 1915, Ibid.

¹⁶⁷ Three formulas to settle the proportion of Muslim representation were discussed. Nehru recommended that minorities should have thirty per cent weighting (as it was technically called) in excess of numerical proportion, provided that this in no case resulted in giving them more than one-third of the total number of seats. The Muslim League asked for fifty per cent of the seats, irrespective of the proportion of population. Asghar Ali Khan stood by the suggestion of the Hewett administration that Muslims should have fifty per cent weighting provided it did not result in giving more than fifty per cent of the seats. Compromise proved impossible, although it was generally agreed that moderate Muslim opinion would accept forty per cent weighting with a proviso that this should not result in giving more than forty per cent of the seats. Meston was left frustrated, and reiterated the official position that the matter would be taken up after the war. Based on a note by A. W. Pim, 27 October 1915, Municipal 1915, 230 E No. 62, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁸ ‘Report of the Select Committee on the United Provinces Municipalities Bill’, 25 December 1915, UP Gazette Extraordinary, 1915.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁹ Muddiman, A., Secretary, Government of India Legislative Department, to Secretary, Government of UP Municipal Department, 10 March, Municipal 1916, 230 E No. 74, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁰ It was extremely fortunate that the Government of India's reply coincided with a meeting of the legislative council, enabling Meston to call together the non-official members on 13 March 1916 to explaing the situation.

¹⁷¹ Note by Meston 14 March 1916, Municipal 1915, 230 E Confidential, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁷² The following was the compromise formula drawn up by Motilal Nehru on 14 March 1916 and included in the final reading of the bill: 1. That the figures representing the proportion of the Mohammedan population within municipal areas be derived from the total population within those areas according to the last census as compared with the whole population within the same areas. 2. That in Municipalities where the Mohammedan population is less than 25 p.c. they may be allowed a weighting of 30 p.c. on their actual number. 3. That in Municipalities where the Mohammedan population is not under 25 p.c. of the total population but under the average arrived at under (1) above they may be allowed such weighting as will raise their number to the said average. 4. That where the proportion of the Mohammedan population is over the said average the number of seats to be given to them shall be in accordance with their ratios to the total population. 5. That where the percentage arrived at under (1), (2), (3) & (4) results in a whole number and a fraction over ½ the number of elected seats attached to the boards be increased by 1— the seat so created to be given to the minority. 6. That the same principles be applied mutatis mutandis to non Moslem minorities. From ‘Original note by P. Moti Lal Nehru regarding the terms agreed to at the meeting of Hindus on March 14th. A. Pim 16.5.1916’. In pencil, Municipal 1915, 230 E Confidential, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁷³ It was most unusual for a lieutenant-governor to write a letter of this nature; it is an indication of his eagerness to get his legislation through. D-O letter Meston to Muddiman, 21 March 1916, Home Public B September 1916, 70–2, NAI.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁴ Eight non-official members of the Council did not attend on 29 March 1916: Maharaja of Balrampur, Rana Sheoraj Singh, Rai Shanker Sahai, Raja Kushalpal Singh, Babu Moti Chand, Nawab of Pahasu, Nawab of Rampur and Pandit Sunder Lal.

¹⁷⁵ The Council proceedings do not give a breakdown of the voting on the amendment. The list is based on evidence from the Council debates and newspapers. It is tentative. The Council proceedings record that the voting was thirty-six to three. Twenty-two officials and the Anglo-Indian were certain to vote with the government. The Leader states that the Hindus who supported the amendment were five nominated members and Nehru which leaves seven remaining votes, the same as the number of Muslims. We can assume that all seven Muslims voted for the amendment. Three men voted against the amendment. It is agains reasonable to assume that these were the three Hindus who spoke against it. This leaves five Hindus in the last column, present but not voting. There is one small problem in this division. Mahadeo Prasad spoke forcefully for the amendment but yet, according to the Leader, he abstained from voting for it. Proceedings of the Council of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, assembled for the purpose of making laws and regulations, 1916 [hereafter UPLC] (Allahabad, 1917), pp. 178–9 and Leader, 14 April 1916.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁶ H. V. Lovett to Pim, 20 June 1914, Municipal 1915, 230 E, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁷ These six were: Jagat Narain Mulla, Prag Narain Bhargava, Maharaja of Benares, Mahadeo Prasad, Balak Ram and Narsingh Prasad.

¹⁷⁸ Sapru and Nehru were its other two members.

¹⁷⁹ Extract from the diary of the Superintendent of Police, Cawnpore, 8 April 1916, Municipal 1915, 230 E No. 80, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁰ So friendly was Mulla with the Mahmudabad family that he witnessed the will of Raja Mahomed Ali Mahomed.

¹⁸¹ These were Brijnandan Prasad, Sukhbir Sinha, Bishambhar Nath and Gokul Prasad. Gokul Prasad represented Benares division but practised in the High Court and lived at Allahabad which was the site of his consuming interest, the Kayasth Pathshala.

¹⁸² Pioneer (Allahabad), 3 April 1916.Google Scholar

¹⁸³ UPLC 1916, p. 167.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁴ UPLC, 1916, p. 231.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁵ Ibid., p. 229.

¹⁸⁶ Minute by Babu Brijnandan Prasad, vice-chairman of Moradabad municipal board, 28 February 1898, Municipal A October 1898, 92 f, UPS; J. L. Hill, ‘Congress and Representative Institutions’, p. 131.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁷ Gorakhpur Kayasths were divided by faction. One group led by Ram Garib operated with Muslims in municipal politics, the other of which Narsingh Prasad was an adherent consisted only of Kayasths.

¹⁸⁸ UPLC, 1916, pp. 217–18.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁹ Sapru and Mulla were burned in effigy in Lucknow. CID Memo No. 3304 Allahabad 17 April 1916, Municipal 1915, 230 E No. 80, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁰ Meston to Sapru, 8 April 1916, GAD 1916, 222, UPS. In making this offer, Meston was rewarding Sapru for the stand he had taken. It is clear from the correspondence that passed between them in the days from the March 14 agreement to the Council debate that Meston was relying on Sapru to bring recalcitrant Hindus into line.

¹⁹¹ Note for Meston by Pim, A. W., 15 February 1916, Municipal 1915, 230 E Confidential, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁹² Motilal to Jawaharlal Nehru, 20 July 1915, 29 March 1916 and 30 March 1916, Nehru Papers, NMM.Google Scholar

¹⁹³ Motilal Nehru to Editor, Indian Daily Telegraph (Lucknow), published 30 08 1916. The Leader refused to publish this statement of Nehru's position, so, with the help of ‘Young Party’ leader Wazir Hasan, it was published in the Lucknow paper. Municipal 1915, 230 E No. 83, UPS.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁴ UPLC, 1916, p. 229.Google Scholar