Thanks are due to Stuart Corbridge and Gerry Kearns and to the late Professor Eric Stokes, whose inspiration and guidance will be missed by a whole generation, and but for whom my own researches would never have commenced.

¹ E.g.Brown, J., Gandhi's rise to power (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 83–111. I follow D. Hardiman here by wherever possible using the more accurate transliteration ‘Kheda’ rather than the anglicized ‘Kaira’.Google Scholar

² Pocock, D., Kanbi and Patidar, a Study of the Patidar Community of Gujarat (O.U.P., 1972),Google Scholar and Mind, Body and Wealth, A Study of Belief and Practice in an Indian Village (Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar

³ Hardiman, D., ‘Peasant Agitations in Kheda District, Gujarat, 1917–34’ (Sussex D.Phil., 1975);Google Scholar and ‘The Crisis of the Lesser Patidars: Peasant Agitations in Kheda District, Gujarat, 1917–34’, in Low, D. A. (ed.), Congress and the Raj (Heinemann: London, 1977).Google Scholar

⁴ Hardiman, D., ‘Politicisation and Agitation among the Dominant Peasants in Early Twentieth Century India’, Economic and Political Weekly, IX (28 02 1976). I am heavily indebted to the stimulating contributions to the subject made by both of the above-mentioned authors.Google Scholar

⁵ For the origin of these terms see Lenin, V. I., To the Rural Poor, in Collected Works, Vol. 6 (Lawrence and Wishart: London, 1961), pp. 361–430,Google Scholar and Tse-Tung, Mao, How to Analyse the Classes in the Rural Areas, Report of an Investigation into the Peasants Movement in Hunan, and The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party,Google Scholar in Selected Works (Lawrence & Wishart, 1954), Vol. I, pp. 138–40, and 21–59, and Vol. 3, pp. 72–101 (pp. 92–3ff).Google Scholar For the projenitor of much modern debate see Alavi, Hamza, Peasants and Revolution in the Socialist Register for 1965 (Merlin Press: London), pp. 241–77.Google Scholar

⁶ Choksey, R. D., Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, 1800–1939 (Asia Publishing House, New York, 1968), p. 14.Google Scholar

⁷ These officials remained powerful and wealthy individuals even though sometimes absent from the district or circumvented. See Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. III, Kaira & Panch Mahals (Bombay, 1879) (hereafter Kheda Gazetteer), p. 92.Google Scholar

⁸ Bishop Heber, R., Northern India, ed. Laird, M. A. (Cambridge, 1971), p. 301. The Bishop commented that the lawlessness of the Bhils and Kolis required the magistrates and collectors to have ‘a larger force of armed men in their employ than any others of the same rank whom I have met with …’. The Ahmedabad district was peculiar in consisting almost entirely of mehwasi villages,Google Scholar see Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. IV, Ahmedabad (Bombay, 1879)Google Scholar (hereafter Ahmedabad Gazetteer), p. 146.Google Scholar

⁹ Kheda Gazetteer, p. 90: ‘These sub-divisional officers formed a well-to-do class. Besides their village fees, “dasturis”, most of them had, chiefly by taking land in mortgage, acquired considerable estates’.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Kheda Gazetteer, pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, p. 151.Google Scholar

¹² Rabitoy, N., ‘System v. Expediency: The Reality of Land Revenue Administration in Bombay Presidency, 1812–20’, Modern Asian Studies, 9, 4, pp. 531–6.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid., p. 537.

¹⁴ Though briefly restored in the late '60s, '70s and early '80s, most talukdars and mehwasdars effectively lost their proprietary rights and were only maintained with government assistance, viz, Bombay Act VI of 1862.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Desai, M. B., The Rural Economy of Gujarat (O.U.P. India, 1948), p. 99.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Byrom Rowles described the Bhats as ‘the medium through which every transaction whether just, or unjust, was forced to be conducted … they had acquired all the power of government’. But Neil Rabitoy concludes that after 1816, ‘The Bhats suffered a greater loss of influence than any other class in Gujarat society during the first twenty years of British rule’. See Rabitoy, N., ‘Administrative Modernisation and the Bhats of British Gujarat, 1800–1820’, Indian Economic and Social History Review (hereafter I.E.S.H.R.), vol. IX, no. 1 (03 1974), p. 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ By 1831–32 grain prices were less than half the average money value, necessitating widespread remissions of revenue over Gujarat.

¹⁸ Correspondence Relating to the Introduction of the Revenue Survey Assessment in the Kaira Collectorate of the Province of Gujarat (Bombay, 1869) (hereafter Correspondence), p. 159 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865): ‘Mr Mill's Jummabundy reports for 1832–34 give a most dismal account of the state of the ryots and revenue in some parts of the Kaira collectorate. I must confess that I attribute this sudden change in part to the influence of the patels, who had lately been deprived (by the abandonment, in a great measure, of the system of leasing) of profits which had been theirs almost hereditarily from time immemorial’.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Correspondence, p. 13 (Pedder's, W. G. no. 11 of 21.3.1862).Google Scholar

²⁰ Kheda Gazetteer, p. 105.Google Scholar

²¹ Capt. Prescott, C. J., Gujarat revenue survey superintendent, Correspondence, p. 1 (no. 99 of 25.3.1862).Google Scholar

²² Hardiman refers to them as patidars with small ‘p’.

²³ Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. IX, pt I, Gujarat Population, Hindus (Bombay, 1901), p. 154.Google Scholar

²⁴ See Dumont, L., Homo Hierarchicus (Weidenfeld & Nicholson: London, 1970), p. 161.Google Scholar

²⁵ Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. II, Surat & Broach (Bombay, 1877)Google Scholar(hereafter Surat & Broach Gazetteer), p. 372.Google Scholar

²⁶ Correspondence, pp. 9–10 (no. 11 of 21.3.1862).Google Scholar A good example of the third stage in the ‘developmental cycle’ of the Raj as outlined by Fox, R. G. in Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule: State—hinterland Relations in Pre-industrial India (Berkeley, 1971), p. 97.Google Scholar

²⁷ Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. IX, pt I (Bombay, 1901), p. 163.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, p. 158; and Correspondence, pp. 27 and 35 (no. 11 of 21.3.1862).Google Scholar

²⁹ Lewa Kanbis who had risen to the status of shareholders were distinguished, for example, by the title of ‘gazeepoora’ in the village of Ore [Od]. Correspondence, pp. 34 and 524 (no. 11 of 21.3.1862 and no. 3 of 11.4.1863).Google Scholar

³⁰ Capt. Cruikshank, J., Reports on the Portions of the Dholka Purgunna in the Ahmedabad and Kaira Collectorates and on the Mehemoodabad & Nureead Purgannas & on the Oomret & Bhaluj Tuppas in the Kaira Collectorate (Bombay, 1853) (hereafter Reports), p. 111.Google Scholar

³¹ Cruikshank describes this distinction as ‘broadly drawn’, Reports, p. 97.Google Scholar

³² Hardiman refers to ‘superior and lesser Kanbis’ up to 1900 and to ‘superior and lesser Patidars’ thereafter. This obfuscates the division between the lesser Patidars and the ordinary Kanbis (the erosion of which is of crucial importance) and also, I believe, incorrectly suggests that a qualitative re-structuring of the social hierarchy was completed before the end of the nineteenth century.

³³ Hardiman, , ‘The Crisis of the Lesser Patidars’ (1977), pp. 48–9, and ‘Peasant Agitations’ (1975), p. 42; here the author also admits that stratification among the Patidars did not in practice work as he has described it.Google Scholar

³⁴ E.g. ‘Peasant Agitations’ (1975), p. 40.Google Scholar

³⁵ For example, an ekada (marriage circle) formed by the Patidars in 91 villages in the Charotar in 1863 states their determination not to give girls in marriage to ‘the 13 most honourable villages as formerly’ according to Cooke, H. R., Report on the Repression of Female Infanticide in the Bombay Presidency (Bombay, 1875), p. 40, and Cooke himself makes frequent references to the ‘13 kulia villages of highest rank’,Google Scholarwhile, Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar, p. 61, refers to a top 16 villages.Google Scholar

³⁶ Pocock, , Kanbi and Patidar, ch. II, pp. 60ff.Google Scholar

³⁷ As the Patidars were in the nature of a decaying sub-caste in this period I use the terms ‘status’ and ‘standing’ interchangeably.

³⁸ The removal of the desais and the subordination of the patels was quite literally a weight off the shoulders of the nurwadars. See the history of the village of Tranja (Matar taluka), Correspondence, p. 517 (no. 3 of 11.4.1863).Google Scholar

³⁹ Cruikshank, , Reports, p. 91.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Correspondence, pp. 180–1 and 250–1 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865 & Rev. Dept. no. 1408 of 6.4.1868). That any progress is observable in Borsad at all is impressive, considering how ruinous was the lease under which it was managed in the 'thirties and 'forties (Kheda Gazetteer, p. 104) necessitating large scale remissions which by the 'fifties had become almost nominal.Google Scholar

⁴¹ This they did willingly, however, as their share was fixed at Rs 1–5–10 per beegah—Correspondence, pp. 342–55 (no. 24 of 11.11.1864).Google Scholar

⁴² Correspondence, p. 182 (Rev. Dept. no. 4580 of 23.12.1865).Google Scholar

⁴³ Correspondence, p. 151 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865). The Survey was introduced as early as 1851 in the Dholka taluka of Ahmedabad on the lines laid down by Wingate and Goldsmid.Google Scholar Also see Kumar, R., ‘The Rise of the Rich Peasants in Western India’, Low, D. A. (ed.), Soundings in Modern South Asian History (London, 1968), pp. 25–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The mulleks declared that Survey and Assessment would ruin them financially and socially, and Beyts, N. B., the Settlement Officer, found them ‘exceedingly sensitive of being elbowed out of the management of their villages…’.Google ScholarCorrespondence, pp. 402–7 (no. 268 of 9.7.1867, no. 530 of 24.7.1867, and Rev. Dept. no. 3859 of 9.11.1867).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ ‘Before the introduction of British rule the village sharers acted as farmers of revenue and as middlemen between government and the husbandmen and in most cases were found to have exacted the most ingenious and crushing taxes. Though, under the Survey settlement, they have lost this uncontrolled power of exaction they have still much influence’. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. IX, pt I, p. 166.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Correspondence, p. 17 (no. 11 of 21.3.1862). He also advises against abolition for fear of offending Bhats and Brahmins, as in many villages lands have been alienated to them rent free (see p. 515, no. 3. of 11.4.1863).Google Scholar The financial advantages of this arrangement are explained in Bombay Presidency Annual Land Revenue Administration Proceedings, 1866, p. 280, para. 6.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Correspondence, p. 207 (Rev. Dept. no. 1349A of 31.3.1868). Similar views were also expressed by other officials, see p. 63 (no. 521 of 26.2.1863) and p. 133 (Rev. Dept. no. 2942 of 17.8.1866).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Correspondence, p. 59, para. 26 (no. 44 of 1861) and p. 95, para. 5 (Rev. Dept. no. 2481 of 30.6.1864). This was because the demand was always realized in nurwa villages without annual deductions for waste as in other villages.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Correspondence, p. 95, op. cit. Supposedly this was to account for agricultural improvements which were in fact hardly taxed at all: ‘… the power of the government to levy assessment was checked; not by the ability to pay of those nurwadars who had improved their lands but by that of those who had not. This explains the great popularity of the nurwa tenure …’ (Correspondence, p. 58, op. cit.).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Incorporated in Mehmedabad and Nadiad talukas during boundary changes in 1867.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Correspondence, p. 624 (no. 561 of 21.11.1864) and p. 283 (no. 500A of 13.10.1867).Google Scholar

⁵² Correspondence, pp. 134–6 (Rev. Dept. no. 1789 of 25.4.1866 and no. 1613 of 2.5.1866). Any attempt to levy the full assessment was considered most ill advised.Google Scholar

⁵³ Correspondence, p. 108 (A. C. Trevor's no. 20 of 18.9.1865): ‘The nurwadars might have been directed to lower their demands on these (customary) tenants in a degree proportionate to the decrease in their own assessment. To have done so, however, would, I think, have excited more discontent among the nurwadars than would have been compensated for by the benefits to the tenants’.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Report on the village of Koobudthal. Correspondence, p. 53, para. 10 and p. 55, para. 16 (Pedder's, W. G. no. 44 of 1861).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Capt. Prescott, , Correspondence, p. 220–1 (no. 424 of 17.10.1867). See also p. 127, para. 2 (Rev. Dept. no. 2091 of 14.5.1866).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Correspondence, p. 59, para. 26 (no. 44 of 1861).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Rogers, A., Correspondence, p. 128 (Rev. Dept. no. 2091) and pp. 206–7 (Rev. Dept. no. 1349A of 31.3.1868).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Correspondence, p. 96, para. 11 (Rev. Dept. no. 2481 of 30.6.1864).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Correspondence, p. 699 (no. 544 of 21.11.1864).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Correspondence, pp. 388–9 (no. 361 of 18.10.1865).Google Scholar

⁶¹ Hardiman, , ‘Peasant Agitations’, pp. 55–6.Google Scholar

⁶² Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. IX, pt I, p. 156.Google Scholar

⁶³ See Kumar, R., Western India in the 19th Century (London, 1968).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Correspondence, pp. 77–80 (no. 16 of 28.9.1863). Also see p. 54 for an explanation of the terms under which a share can or cannot be reclaimed.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Correspondence, p. 54, para. 15 (no. 44 of 1861).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ See Shukla, J. B., Life and Labour in a Gujarat Taluka (Calcutta, 1937), p. 90;Google Scholar and Mukhtyar, G. C., Land and Labour in a South Gujarat Village (Calcutta, 1930), p. 202.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Correspondence, p. 118, para. 23 (no. 20 of 18.9.1865). The same ill feeling between the principal nurwadars, attempting to confine the privileges of shareholding to themselves, and the lesser nurwadars and customary tenants led the latter to challenge the right of the nurwadars to raise their rent in the civil courts.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Cruikshank, , Reports, pp. 75–6.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Correspondence, p. 69 (no. 16 of 28.9.1863). Alindra, , today the second most prestigious Patidar village, is a typical example.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Capt. Prescott, , Correspondence, p. 471 (no. 546 of 21.11.1863). Shukla, Life and Labour in a Gujarat Taluka, p. 232, also comments: ‘Possession of more land is believed to raise the agriculturist in the estimation of others’.Google Scholar

⁷¹ In Olpad Shukla found that of the small proportion of the total debt that was secured (30%), only 24% was secured on land.

⁷² Capt. Prescott, , Correspondence, p. 601, para. 16 (no. 561 of 5.12.1863).Google Scholar

⁷³ Correspondence, p. 154, para. 42 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Quoted by Pocock, , Kanbi and Patidar, p. 59.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Cooke, , Repression of Female Infanticide, p. 86.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ In 1856 Mr Inverarity reported Lewa Kanbis who told him ‘that the birth of a daughter is a source of unmitigated grief to them and a calamity second only to the death of a beloved son’, quoted in Nath, Viswa, ‘Female Infanticide and the Lewa Kanbis of Gujarat in the 19th century’, I.E.S.H.R., vol. X, no. 4 (12 1973), p. 386.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Surat and Broach Gazetteer, p. 373: ‘25 years ago [A.D. 1852] in villages near Broach, there were not half-a-dozen females in a community mustering hundreds of souls’. However, observers were often ignorant of the custom of Purdah.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Hardiman incorrectly states that in response to a petition from Veridas Ajubhai, Desai of Nadiad, this law was never enacted. If anything the reverse was the case as after the law was introduced (see Cooke, , Repression of Female Infanticide, p. 19) the only modification, in 07 1873, was to restrict its application to the Lewa Kanbis of the two districts who were recognized by government as the worst culprits.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ See Leach, E. R., Aspects of Caste in South India, Ceylon & N/W Pakistan (Cambridge, 1960), p. 7. Patidars did not intervene in the disputes of lower castes such as the Kolis, and village caste councils were informal and discredited by the rapid rate of change within the caste in the late nineteenth century.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Pocock, , Kanbi and Patidar, p. 32: ‘Jainism and devotional Vaishavism have been major religions of the Bania [Vania], who… provide a model for Patidar emulation’.Google Scholar

⁸¹ David Pocock has commented: ‘Here, as so often in the study of social hierarchy, we find that the system itself forces people at the lowest levels to engage in behaviour which is then cited as proof of the lowness of the people concerned and hence used to justify the system which represses them’.

⁸² Pocock, , Kanbi and Patidar, p. 162. My interpretation here differs from Pocock as the sources I have consulted suggest that ekadas were developed by lesser Patidars in reaction to the secession of kulia Patidars—this difference arises because both Pocock and Hardiman describe events in terms of the modern situation where the kulia/akulia distinction has been obscured and simply replaced by one between kulia Patidars (who can claim descent from nineteenth-century shareholders) and ordinary Patidars (who cannot, i.e. are descended from ordinary Kanbis). Pocock describes the historical distinction on p. 60, but then reverts to modern usage on p. 160.Google Scholar See Kheda Gazetteer, pp. 31ff.Google Scholar

⁸³ Cooke, , Repression of Female Infanticide, p. 24.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Viswa, Nath, in ‘Female Infanticide and the Lewa Kanbis of Gujarat’ (I.E.S.H.R., 1973), also reports the greater prevalence of infanticide among high-ranking Patidars, while lower status Kanbis might even have to accept marriage alliances with Kolis. The Kanbis of Ahmedabad and Broach agreed not to intermarry with those of the Charotar but such agreements were soon broken.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Correspondence, p. 43 (Pedder's no. 11 of 21.3.1862). The title Muttia derives from muth, a monastery.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Correspondence, p. 27, op. cit.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Kheda Gazetteer, p. 109.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Correspondence, p. 719 (no. 7 of 24.11.1863).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Cruikshank, , Reports, p. 111.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Cruikshank, , Reports, pp. 90–1.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Cooke, , Repression of Female Infanticide, p. 13. My italics.Google Scholar

⁹² Correspondence, p. 142 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865).Google Scholar

⁹³ Correspondence, p. 608 (no. 561 of 5.12.1863).Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Fernandez, (Deputy Super. Rev. Survey, Gujarat): ‘There is no doubt… that the western part of Borsad is the heart of the tobacco country’. Papers Relating to the Revision Survey Settlement (hereafter R.S.S.) of the Borsad Taluka of the Kaira Collectorate (Bombay, 1895), p. 4.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, p. 149.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ All these statistics are from the R.S.S. Reports of Borsad and Nadiad Talukas (1895), the Bombay Presidency Annual Jamabandi Reports, 1881/2 to 1900/01, the Annual Season & Crop Reports, 1884/5 to 1919/20, and Correspondence, p. 264 (no. 500A of 13.10.1867).Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Capt. Prescott's, Report on Nadiad taluka, Correspondence, pp. 145–6 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865), and Cruikshank, Reports, pp. 69 and 93. As a comparison the Deccan Riots Commission estimated the total possessions of the average Deccan Kanbi to be worth a mere Rs 200.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ In a fit of enthusiasm it was said of Nadiad in 1865 that ‘it would be difficult to find a richer looking, or more fertile district in the world’Google Scholar (Correspondence, p. 141, op. cit.).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ R.S.S. of the Kapadvanj Taluka (1895), p. 6.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Surat & Broach Gazetteer, p. 373.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Surat & Broach Gazetteer, p. 62. Thus the average size of farms here was 5 and 9 acres respectively compared with 16½ acres in a dry-crop taluka such as Chikhli.Google Scholar

¹⁰² Desai, , Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 55.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ R.S.S. Reports of the Matar, Anand and Nadiad Talukas (1895) and of the Mehmedabad Taluka (1894), respectively pages 16, 19, 121 and 16.Google Scholar If the assessment was correctly pitched it was thought that the average price per acre ought not be more than 20 times the assessment, see Papers Relating to the Enquiry into the Current Revision Settlements of the Matar and Mehmedabad Talukas of the Kaira district (Bombay, 1932), p. 12.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ R.S.S. of the Borsad Taluka, para. 29, p. 7, and para. 38, p. 9.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ 2nd R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, para. 16, p. 10.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ R.S.S. of the Thasra Taluka, p. 7 and appendix K.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ R.S.S. of the Kapadvanj Taluka, p. 10. Steady progress didn't even begin in Kapadvanj till 1877/78.Google Scholar See also other R.S.S. Reports, particularly Borsad, para. 32, Nadiad, p. 24, and Kheda Gazetteer, pp. 114–15.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ According to the figures given in the settlement reports the population of Borsad taluka was increasing by approximately 1.8% p.a. in the late nineteenth century—a rate many times greater than that to be found in the less prosperous talukas.

¹⁰⁹ 2nd R.S.S. of the Mehmedabad Taluka, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, p. 156.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Kheda Gazetteer, p. 97.Google Scholar

¹¹² Kheda Gazetteer, p. 106.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, p. 36.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Hardiman, , ‘Peasant Agitations’, pp. 46–7 and 51.Google ScholarAs in Ahmedabad, as Charlesworth, N. R. F. observed (see ‘Agrarian Society & British Administration in Western India, 1847–1920’, Cambridge D.Phil. 1974, p. 117), ‘The “talukdar” was a broken reed who could safely be patronised.’Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Hardiman, , ‘Peasant Agitations’, pp. 45–6,Google Scholar though Dharaiya, R. K., Gujarat in 1857 (Ahmedabad, 1970), p. 104, gives a rather different impression.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Kheda Gazetteer, pp. 105–6.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Desai, , Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 156.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ The names for the various forms of labour service are taken from D. Pocock's contemporary account (see Kanbi and Patidar, p. 22) but there are nineteenth-century documentary references e.g. Correspondence, p. 7.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, p. 156, also Kheda Gazetteer, p. 88.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, p. 80.Google Scholar

¹²¹ For example an Anavil who engaged a Hali who had left another master without his permission was fined and the Dubla was punished by caning.

¹²² Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, pp. 55–6: ‘Almost all families of the Dublas had been slaves for many generations… The Desais had the privilege of paying the lower rates of assessment allowed to Kaliparaj… and treating them with a rude sort of kindness got hold of in their names the richest lands. These lands were cultivated by the Kaliparaj as halis while the Desais lived like lords’.Google Scholar

¹²³ Breman, Jan, Patronage and Exploitation, Changing Agrarian Relations in South Gujarat, India (California, 1974).Google Scholar

¹²⁴ See ibid., p. 47.

¹²⁵ Pocock, , Kanbi and Patidar, p. 32: ‘the Patidars, having come up, for the greater part, in the British period… were less concerned with the traditional symbols of status (e.g. the sacred thread).’ The popularity of the puritanical swaminarayan sect, particularly, accounts for the comparatively low status of Brahmans in Gujarat.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Shukla, , Life and Labour in a Gujarat Taluka, p. 115. According to the census three-quarters of the agricultural labourers in Surat were still halis.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Ibid., ch. IX, pp. 232ff. Thus in the similarly advanced taluka of Olpad nearly two-thirds of money borrowed was spent on non agricultural items, and ‘ancestral debt’, which with marriage accounted for the largest proportion of total debt, was ‘largely a legacy’ from the cotton boom of the 'sixties.

¹²⁸ Surat and Broach Gazetteer, p. 202.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, (1895), p. 80.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. VII, Baroda, (1883), (hereafter Baroda Gazetteer), p. 67.Google Scholar

¹³¹ Ahmedabad Gazetteer, pp. 67, 80 and 64.Google Scholar

¹³² Baroda Gazetteer, p. 126.Google Scholar

¹³³ Maconochie, E., 01 1895, R.S.S. of the Borsad Taluka, p. 6.Google Scholar

¹³⁴ Maconochie described this as ‘a very common practice’, R.S.S. of the Thasra Taluka, p. 7.Google Scholar

¹³⁵ Surat & Broach Gazetteer, p. 67.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ Surat & Broach Gazetteer, p. 387.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ R.S.S. of the Thasra Taluka, para. 16, p. 6.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ R.S.S. of the Borsad Taluka, p. 10.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ Shah, Ghanshyam, Caste Association and Political Process in Gujarat, A Study of Gujarat Kshatriya (Bombay, 1975), pp. 24–5.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ Cooke, H. R. (Collector), R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, p. 74, para. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ Bulkley's report on Kapadvanj, , Correspondence, p. 719.Google Scholar

¹⁴² R.S.S. of the Borsad Taluka, p. 9.Google Scholar

¹⁴³ Kheda Gazetteer, p. 121.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁴ Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, p. 59.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ R.S.S. of the Thasra Taluka, para. 45, p. 11, and p. 108.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ R.S.S. of the Thasra Taluka, para. 13, p. 4, para. 29, p. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ For example, in Mandvi taluka in Surat district the Chodras, among the poorest in Gujarat, who accounted for 43% of the population, consumed 72% of the spirits produced in the taluka.See Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, p. 57.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ R.S.S. of the Malar Taluka, p. 81.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ Correspondence, p. 602 (no. 561 of 5.12.1863).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ Correspondence, p. 148 (no. 418 of 25.11.1865).Google Scholar

¹⁵¹ Correspondence, para. 18, p. 441 (no. 77 of 23.1.1863).Google Scholar

¹⁵² Correspondence, para. 15, p. 418 (no. 542 of 31.12.1862).Google Scholar

¹⁵³ R.S.S. of the Anand Taluka (1895), p. 33.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1900, p. 810.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ See the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vol. IX, pt I, pp. 237–44, and Shah, , Caste Association and Political Process in Gujarat, p. 14.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ Shukla, , Life and Labour in a Gujarat Taluka, p. 67.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁷ Col., A. T. Etheridge, Report on Past Famines in the Bombay Presidency (1868), p. 50.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁸ Report on the Famine in the Bombay Presidency, 1899–1902 (Bombay 1903), vol. I, p. 9, para. 22.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ Percentage decrease of population, 1899–1900:

See Census of India, 1901, vol. IX, Pt I, p. 26.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ Report on the Famine in the Bombay Presidency, 1899–1902, vol. I, p. 90, para. 172.Google Scholar

¹⁶¹ Ibid., pp. 89 and 115.

¹⁶² Indian Famine Commission, 1901, appendix, vol. I [Evidence/Bombay], pp. 561, 564 and 565.Google Scholar

¹⁶³ Famine Department Proceedings, 11 and 12 1901, p. 5141.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁴ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1902, p. 2072.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁵ 2nd R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, p. 73.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁶ Report on the Famine in the Bombay Presidency, 1899–1902, vol. I, p. 87.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁷ 2nd R.S.S. of the Mehmedabad Taluka (Bombay, 1921), p. 6, para. 13.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁸ 2nd R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, p. 74 and p. 6, para. 12.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁹ Compare R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, para. 18 with 2nd R.S.S. para. 6, and R.S.S. of the Mehmedabad Taluka, para. 14 with 2nd R.S.S. para. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁰ See the comments on Matar in Land Revenue Proceedings, 1904, p. 2531.Google Scholar

¹⁷¹ Robertson, , 07 1916, 2nd R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, p. 11. The situation was the same in Mehmedabad where formerly in the early 1890s the average rent had been three times the government assessment.Google Scholar

¹⁷² Govt. Resolution 5621, 08 1901, Land Revenue Proceedings, 1901, p. 1887.Google Scholar

¹⁷³ 2nd R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, p. 76.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁴ What Quin, H. O. (collector in 1899) called ‘the fairly well-to-do cultivator’, Indian Famine Commission, 1901, appendix, vol. I, p. 1091.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁵ Report on the Famine in the Bombay Presidency, 1899–1902, vol. I, pp. 67 and 70, and vol. II, pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁶ Famine Department Proceedings, 09–12 1902, p. 3161.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁷ Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, p. 77.Google Scholar

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¹⁷⁹ 2nd R.S.S. of the Anand Taluka (1942), quoted in Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, p. 89.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁰ Mukhtyar, , Land and Labour in a South Gujarat Village, pp. 4 and 6.Google Scholar

¹⁸¹ Press Note (12 1918), Land Revenue Proceedings, 1918, p. 1413.Google Scholar

¹⁸² At least this was the case in neighbouring Ahmedabad, see the Statistical Atlas of the Bombay Presidency (Bombay, 1925), p. 47.Google Scholar

¹⁸³ Desai, , Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 55–6.Google Scholar

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¹⁸⁵ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1920, pp. 61 and 63.Google Scholar

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¹⁸⁹ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1900, pp. 807 and 815, also Land Revenue Proceedings, 1918, p. 1036, and Irwin, P. G., ‘The Dairying Industry of Kaira’, South Asia, no. I (08 1971), pp. 123–31.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁰ Mukhtyar, , Life and Labour in a South Gujarat Village, p. 180, commented that up until 1900 ‘people knew very little of marketing as now understood… The money-lender was all supreme… [But] paddy is now sold direct in the … market and not, as before, through the money-lenders.’Google Scholar

¹⁹¹ Desai, , Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 108, also Land Revenue Proceedings, 1918, p. 1039.Google Scholar

¹⁹² Mehta, J. M., A Study of the Rural Economy of Gujarat (Baroda, 1930), p. 39, showed that in two villages in the cotton-jowar tract in Surat 12.5% of the total cultivated area was let on lease while in two villages in Kheda the figure was 42%.Google Scholar

¹⁹³ Kumarappa, J. C., Survey of Matar Taluka (Gujarat Vidyapith, 1931), pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁴ Desai, , Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 151–3.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁵ Tahmankar, D. V., Sardar Patel (G. Allen & Unwin: London, 1970), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

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¹⁹⁸ Choksey, , Economic Life in the Bombay Gujarat, pp. 141 and 185.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁹ Shukla, , Life and Labour in a Gujarat Taluka, p. 195.Google Scholar

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²⁰¹ Lawrence's, H. S. memo, Land Revenue Proceedings, 1902, p. 1265.Google Scholar

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²⁰³ Hardiman, , ‘Politicisation and Agitation among Dominant Peasants’ p. 369.Google Scholar

²⁰⁴ Desai, Mahadev, The Story of Bardoli (Ahmedabad, 1929), p. 111.Google Scholar

²⁰⁵ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1919, p. 737.Google Scholar

²⁰⁶ Mehta, , Study of Rural Economy of Gujarat, pp. 67 and 153–7; Desai, Rural Economy of Gujarat, p. 164–206.Google Scholar

²⁰⁷ 2nd R.S.S. of the Matar Taluka, p. 77.Google Scholar

²⁰⁸ ‘The end was far from making me feel happy… the Kheda peasants had not fully understood the inner meaning of Satyagraha’. See Gandhi, M. K., An Autobiography or the Story of my Experiments with Truth (J. Cape, London, 1972), ch. XXV.Google Scholar

²⁰⁹ Brown, , Gandhi's Rise to Power, p. 98.Google Scholar

²¹⁰ Mead, P. J., chief secretary, 05 1919: ‘Five good seasons out of the seven preceding years cannot seriously be described as a period of severe agricultural distress.’ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1919, p. 737.Google Scholar

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²¹² Hardiman, , ‘Politicisation and Agitation among Dominant Peasants’ and ‘Peasant Agitations’, p. 316 to end.Google ScholarWolf, E., Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (Faber & Faber, London, 1971), pp. 290–3ff.Google Scholar Also see the comments of Stokes, E. T. in The Peasant and the Raj (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 282–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹³ Lenin, V. I., The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977), pp. 179–81 and 183–4. By the second decade of the nineteenth century the bulk of the Kheda Patidars most nearly conform to the class of the ‘rural bourgeoisie’ described here.Google Scholar The dubious nature of any attempt to reduce politics directly and simply to the interaction of class forces is dealt with, from a Marxist point of view, by Cutler, et al. , in Marx's ‘Capital’ and Capitalism Today, vol. I (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1977), pp. 314–15ff.Google Scholar

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²¹⁵ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1902, pp. 1413–17.Google Scholar

²¹⁶ Land Revenue Proceedings, 1903, pp. 1365–6 and 1269.Google Scholar

²¹⁷ One patel in every five and one talati in every four was being fined each year for unruly conduct, a cause of great concern to the government. See Land Revenue Proceedings, 1900, pp. 809 and 1640; and Land Revenue Proceedings, 1895, pp. 868 and 970.Google Scholar

²¹⁸ See footnote 13 on p. 109 in Somjee's, A. H. article ‘Social Mobility Among the Patidars of Kaira’, in Contributions to Asian Studies, vol. 12 (E. J. Brill: Leiden, Netherlands, 1978), pp. 105–13. This article explores interesting developments subsequent to those discussed here. For instance in the 1960s many Patidars began to oppose Congress for its espousal of ‘welfarism’.Google Scholar

²¹⁹ Chadney, J. G., ‘Caste and Class in India’, Man in India, vol. 58, no. 2 (06 1978).Google Scholar

²²⁰ Shah, , Caste Association and Political Process in Gujarat, pp. 123 and 130–3. Shah claims that Patidars deliberately made Kshatriyas unwelcome in the Congress party, and that the first Kshatriya political meeting was organized in 1942 in opposition to the plans of Patidar nationalists to blow up railway lines and bridges.Google Scholar