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Urban Politics in the Local Kingdoms of India: A View from the Princely Capitals of Saurashtra under British Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Howard Spodek
Howard Spodek
Affiliation:
Temple University, Philadelphia
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Extract

A Substantial body of literature argues persuasively that Indian towns were often founded by local political-military rulers to serve as fortress-headquarters. In order to enhance their personal prestige, improve the efficiency of their administration, and provide market facilities for their small kingdoms, the rulers later invited merchants, artisans, administrators, and professionals to the fortress capitals. These invited, non-landed groups then formed courts, markets, and temple establishments which were dependent on the ruler for protection in an often violent atmosphere. The headquarters towns have been seen as the geographical locus and political nexus, or hinge, at which village levels of polity were linked with regional or state levels of government in a predominantly agrarian society. The most explicit and sophisticated presentation of this ‘hinge’ view is in Richard Fox's ‘Rajput “Clans” and Rurban Settlements in Northern India.'

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , March 1973 , pp. 253 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 This general pattern of urban development and morphology has been traced for several regions of India at various time periods. Cf. Cohn, Bernard S., ‘Political Systems in Eighteenth-century India: The Banaras Region,’ Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. LXXXII, No. 3, pp. 312–20;Google ScholarFox, Richard G., From Zamindar to Ballot Box (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), especially pp. 270–1;Google ScholarFox, , ‘Rajput “Clans” and Rurban Settlements in Northern India,’ in Fox, (ed.), Urban India: Society, Space, and Image (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Program in Comparative Studies on Southern Asia, 1970), pp. 167–85;Google ScholarStein, Burton, ‘Integration of the Agrarian Systems of South India,’ in Frykenberg, Robert Eric (ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), pp. 175–216;Google ScholarSingh, K. N., ‘The Territorial Basis of Medieval Town and Village in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India,’ Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. LVIII (1968), pp. 203–20;CrossRefGoogle ScholarShah, A. M., ‘Political System in Eighteenth-century Gujarat,’ Enquiry Vol. I, No. 1 (Spring 1964), p. 88.Google Scholar

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9 ‘Owing to the number of separate jurisdictions into which the peninsula is split up, the head of each exercising the right of imposing customs and other imposts adlibidum, there is very little internal trade in Kathiawad and consequently there are no exhange operations carried on between Rajkot and Wadhwan and the other commercial towns worth noting.’ National Archives of India. Western India States Agency File. 1864, Vol. 5, No. 57 ‘Banks.’Google Scholar

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20 The record of the dissolution of the BGJP railway syndicate unfolds in National Archives of India. Western India States Agency File for 1911, RY/2 and RY/3. ‘The Breakup of the BGJP Railway.’

21 Vakil, C. N., Lakdawala, D. T., and Desai, M. B., Economic Survey of Saurashtra (Bombay: School of Economics and Sociology, University of Bombay, 1953), p. 323.Google Scholar

22 Subsequent events suggest that the ruler's fears were justified. After Independence and merger in 1947–1948, the population of Kotda Sangani town dropped from 4,219 in 1951 to 4,194 in 1961 while the population of the district was rising about 30 per cent. The town was declassified as urban in the Census of 1961 and reclassified as rural.

23 Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand, The Indian States' Problem (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1941).Google Scholar

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27 Ibid., p. IV:60 n. 74.

28 The theory of the town as hinge implies that people below the headquarters-town level were brought into the political process. In fact, however, their major form of participation was only the payment of revenue. This was especially true under Rajput rulers who considered themselves somewhat foreign to the area they controlled.

29 The Limbdi Satyagraha as well as the overall progress of the anti-princely nationalist movement in Saurashtra is reported in Gandhi, M. K., Indian States' Problem.Google Scholar

30 Spodek, Howard, ‘Urban–Rural Balance in Regional Development: A Case Study of Saurashtra, India, 1800–1960’ (Chicago: unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1972).Google Scholar

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33 Stein, op. cit., pp. 175–216.Google Scholar

34 Dimock and Inden, op. cit., p. 14.Google Scholar

35 Stein, op. cit., p. 194.Google Scholar

36 Burton Stein, ‘The Segmentary State in Indian History.’ Paper delivered at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New York City, December 1971.

37 Stein, in Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History, p. 207.Google Scholar

38 Ibid.

39 Seal, Anil, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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41 Cohn recognizes the necessity for the attempt to analyze economic integration but lacks the data. Cohn, op. cit.Google Scholar

42 Pirenne, Henri, Medieval Cities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952).Google Scholar

43 Warner, W. Lloyd et al. , Yankee City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).Google Scholar See also Stein, Maurice, The Eclipse of Community (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960);Google Scholar and Vidich, Arthur and Bensman, J., Small Town in Mass Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968).Google Scholar