Journal of South Asian Studies The Koli and the ...

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The Koli and the British at Bombay: The structure of their relations to the Mid‐Nineteenth century a

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Peter Reeves , Andrew Pope , John McGuire & Bob Pokrant

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South Asia, Vol. XIX, Special Issue, (1996), pp. 97-119.

THE KOLI AND THE BRITISH AT BOMBAY: THE STRUCTURE OF THEIR RELATIONS TO THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY* Peter Reeves, Andrew Pope, John McGuire, Bob Pokrant Curtin University of Technology

HIS IS AN ACCOUNT OF THE WAY IN WHICH RELATIONS BETWEEN THE

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Koli, the fishers of the islands which made up Bombay, and the British, who comprised the East India Company's administration ('government') at Bombay, were structured from the British acquisition of the Bombay in the 1660s until the 1840s. For the greater part of that period those relations were mediated by the imposition on the fishers of a patel - an office held by a Parsi family whose name in the nineteenth century documents is spelt 'Patell' - who was responsible for the collection of the taxes on the fishers, taxes which were a central part of the relationship. In the last decade of the period under examination, however, the Bombay administrators moved to alter these arrangements and to change, therefore, the nature of their relationship with the Koli. The paper argues that these moves reflect the changing nature of the colonial state in this part of western India which made necessary changes at the most basic levels of interaction between colonial authority and its subjects.

* Research for this paper has been supported by ARC Grants administered through Curtin University. We wish to thank Dr Jim Masselos for his considerable help in understanding Bombay while we worked at the the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections (the old India Office Library, hereafter OIOC) in May 1992. Needless to say, he is not responsible for any errors or misconceptions which remain and may have found their way into this paper.

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'Governor and Koli. A Fisherman's Legend'1 The starting point is a song which was to be commonly heard, its collector says, among the people in Bombay.


Nakhwa Kolijat bholi Ghara madhye dravya mahawa Topiwalyan kulam kela Batliwalya chya barabar Seaman Koli of simple mould Hath in his house a great host of gold Lo! at the order of Topiwala [Governor] Koli is peer of Batliwala [millionaire] S. M. Edwardes, the chronicler of Bombay, claims that this 'quaint' 2 Marathi ballad, records 'the history of ... [the meeting of] the English Governor the Parsi millionaire and the Koli Patel' which 'crystallises' the honourable connection and friendship which has existed from the earliest days of British rule in Bombay between the aboriginal fishermen, the Parsi pioneers of commerce, and the English Government in the person of its highest representative. It recalls to us the days of siege and warfare when the Governor of the struggling settlement sought the help of the sturdy fishermen, and when Rustam Dorabji put himself at their head, formed them into a rudely-drilled corps, and drove the Sidi off the island. It recalls the action of the Honourable Thomas Hodges in their behalf a century and a half ago, and the subsequent confirmation of their ancient rights by Sir James Ferguson and Sir Bartle Frere. And lastly it represents a belief, which has attained almost the sanctity of religion in the heart of Kolidom, that between themselves and the King's representative in Bombay there exists a bond of good-feeling and respect which dating as it does from 1675 has been welded firm by time and shall never be broken.3 1

S.M. Edwardes, By-ways of Bombay (Bombay, Times of India, 1912), pp. 96-9. This is the title of chapter xvi. In Byways, Edwardes published simply this verse, along with the account of the 'legend'. In 1923 he published a longer text of a form of the ballad: in which the story behind the ballad is retold but in which the particular verse quoted in 1912 does not appear. This version, Edwardes says, was composed by an old Koli, Antone Dhondu Nakhwa, about 1880; 'the whole ballad in its original form' having been lost S.M. Edwardes, 'A Koli Ballad', The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 52, part 657 (June 1923), pp. 127-30. Our thanks to Professor Shahid Amin for drawing this article to our attention and for his stimulating comments on an earlier draft

2

It is interesting that by 1923 this text is no longer 'quaint' but 'a doggerel verse in Marathi' Edwardes, 'A Koli Ballad', Indian Antiquary, p. 127. Edwardes, Byways, p. 99. The Honourable Thomas Hodges was governor from 1767 to 1771. We believe that the references to the activities of Sir Henry Bartle Frere (governor 1862-67) and Sir James Ferguson (governor 1880-85) on behalf of the fishing people relate to questions concerning the fishing stakes in Bombay harbour; but this is still under investigation.

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In his essay, which had originally been an occasional piece in the Times of India, Edwardes recounts the story behind the ballad. Zuran Patel, the ancestor of Mahadev Dharma Patel, the 'present' headman of the Christian Kolis of Bombay, was wealthy4 and 'an intimate friend of a certain Parsi millionaire'. 5 The story, Edwardes says, was as follows: one day the Parsi and the Koli Patel were sitting talking when the governor6 'wandered into Mandvi Koliwada and came suddenly upon [them]'. The Parsi 'made obeisance' but the Koli remained both seated and 'indifferent', so the governor asked the Parsi the identity of his 'scarlet-clad comrade'.7 He was then informed, writes Edwardes, that the man was a rich fisherman who from time to time was accustomed to spread out his piles of gold and silver in the street to dry. 'And', added the Parsi, 'so simple and guileless is he that the people walk over the glittering heap with wax on their feet thus robbing him in open daylight; and yet he does nought, believing that the pile of wealth must shrink even as his piles of fish shrink, when placed in the sun to dry.8 The governor then asked for an introduction: and enquired whether he would grant some portion of his wealth to Government. 'Yes, as much as the Government may desire', was the ready answer. 'But', quoth his Excellency, 'what will you ask of Government in return?' 'Only this', answered the Koli, 'that Government will grant me the exclusive privilege of roofing my house with silver tiles'. After some little discussion, a compromise was effected; and Zuran Patel received permission, as a special mark of favour, to place a few copper tiles above his house.' 4

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6 7

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Edwardes records that this wealth 'can be proved from the ancient documents relating to the properties recently acquired by the Improvement Trust in and around Mandvi. For his name appears as chief owner in many of them; and it seems clear that the spoils which he gathered from the sea formed the basis of a goodly heritage upon dry land'. (Ibid., p. 97). At p. 98, Edwardes indicates that Mahadev Dharma Patel lived in a house in Dongri Street [Road?] which 'is reputed to be the identical house' to which Zuran Patel affixed the copper tiles in the legend. Note that in his 1923 version of the ballad gives Zuran Patel as Juran Koli, 'the Patel or headman of the Kolis of Mandvi', Indian Antiquary (1923), pp. 127-8. Edwardes says that 'Batliwala' would identify the millionaire as Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy but that the term had come, in Bombay by the early twentieth century, to mean simply a 'millionaire' or a 'rich and prosperous' person and that the reference was more probably to one of the Wadias 'the original shipbuilders and dock masters of the East India Company', Byways, p. 97. The Indian Antiquary version of the ballad certainly appears to identify the Parsi as 'wadia'. He identifies the governor as either Lucius Bentinck, Viscount Falkland (governor from 1848-53) or Lord [John] Elphinstone (govemor from 1853 to 1860). The reference is to the red cap worn by the Kolis of Mandvi, Thana, Versova and Madh; Gazefteer of Bombay Cify and Island, 3 vols (Bombay, Times Press, 1909), Vol. I, p. 229. Although the Gazetteer was compiled by Edwardes, he indicates that the material on fisheries came from a Mr Abdul Razzak; what is not clear is whether the material on the Kolis also came from that source. Edwardes, Byways, pp. 97-8 Ibid., p. 98. Interestingly, the version given in Indian Antiquary, indicates that the governor offers to make Juran Patel 'a Zamindar' but he declines this offer and asks only for the silver tiles. The version

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These tiles were on the house still occupied by Mahadev Dharma Patel ('the present headman and leader of Christian Kolis of Bombay' 10 ), Edwardes records, 'but many alterations have taken place, and the tiles have disappeared'.11 He continues: For many years, so runs the tale, they were preserved as a sort of family escutcheon, being taken off the roof and fixed in a conspicuous position in the wall. Perhaps they were stolen, perhaps they were worn away by constant polishing. Who can say? They have passed beyond the realm of fact to that of legend. Suffice it to say that the Kolis firmly believe the whole story, and add thatZuran Patel's house was the only real strong house in Bombay at that epoch, the walls being built upon a framework of iron girders and the cellar, containing the piles of silver, being stouter than a modern safe.12 Edwardes interprets the 'cellars' of the Mandvi Koliwada as being 'originally the colouring ponds of the fishermen which, as building progressed and crowding set in, were enclosed with tiles and bricks and mortar and utilized as storerooms'. 13 Edwardes thus suggests that the verse - and the ballad from which it came - can be read as a story about a meeting between the Koli, Parsi and Governor which conveys positive messages about the 'honourable connection and friendship' between the three groups represented and especially the 'bond of good-feeling and friendship' between Koli and 'the King's representative'. But is such a literal interpretation what is really called for? We think that alternative messages are encoded in the verse and we wish to discuss the nature of the relationships involved as a means of highlighting the possibility of these different interpretations. The Koli and the British at Bombay The Kolis of Bombay were Son Kolis, one group of the original inhabitants of the area comprising Gujarat, the Deccan and the Konkan. The Son Koli territory was the northern Konkan, from Bassein to Ratnagiri; they were

10 11 12

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continues: 'The Governor demurred and suggested the use of copper tiles instead. "Henceforth it shall be the special privilege of your family to use five copper tiles. This will make you famous, and songs will be sung in your honour: your name, O Koli Patel, will be more widely known than by beating of a battaki'", p. 129. Ibid., p. 97 Ibid., p. 98 Ibid., pp. 98-9. Professor Amin, in commenting on an earlier draft, made the point that 'there is a tradition of showing accumulated wealth through gold plated/silver plated gambade, kaas, whether it is the dome of Ghazi Miyan's shrine or the golden dome of the Golden Temple or the Gurudwara Bangla Saheb in New Delhi'. Ibid., p. 99


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traditionally fishing people and sailors.14 In Gujarat and the Deccan there were other groups of Kolis who were cultivators or, in some cases, watercarryingfishing- and boating-people. The Son Koli community's centre was at Alibag, where the Sar Patil of the community resided. Each Son Koli community had an hereditary patil and Rothfeld says that in Son Koli panchayats 'caste jurisdiction is exercised mainly in regard to the laws of navigation and fishing rights or what are really professional questions'. 15 Versoli, close to Alibag, was an important religious centre for the community.16 On the seven islands that became Bombay island, and on neighbouring Salsette, Koli were said to be 'the first and for a considerable time the most numerous' group of people.17 There were Koli settlements on each of the islands: Kolaba (which is a contraction of Koli Bhat or 'Koli estate'), Old Woman Island (said to be a corruption of 'A/ Omanis1 island, denoting the home of the deep-sea fishers 18 ), Bombay, Mazagon ('Machcha gaum', 'fish village'), Sion, Mahim, and Worli. On Salsette there were Koli settlements at Thana, Versova, Madh Island, Juhutara and Danda. Important Koli settlements continue down to recent times: koliwada at Worli, Dongri, Danda, Versova, Mahim, Mandvi and Sion are all identified in the literature.19 Bombay San Kolis revered Mumbadevi, 'the original patron goddess and putative namesake of the city', whose temple, as Masselos points out, was once where 'Victoria Terminus now stands'. 20 When Bombay (along with Bassein and Salsette) was ceded by Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat to the Portuguese in the 1530s, there were said to be between five and ten thousand people at Bombay, most of them Kolis.21 The original Son Kolis of Bombay referred to themselves by the nineteenth century as 'Gaonkar' ('of the village') following the movement into some parts of the 14

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18

19 20

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Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series, Bombay Presidency, 2 vols (Calcutta, Superintendent of Government Printing, 1909), Vol. I, pp. 152-4. O. Rothfeld, ICS, wrote the section on the Son Kolis in R. E. Enthoven, The Tribes and Castes of Bombay, 3 vols. (Bombay, Government Central Press, 1922), p. 258. Vijaya B. Punekar, The Son Kolis of Bombay (Bombay, Popular Book Depot, 1959), p. 3; R.E. Enthoven, Tribes and Castes of Bombay, Vol. II, p. 258. R.X. Murphy, Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society (1844) cited by Punekar, The Son Kolis, p. 4; also S.M. Edwardes, The Rise of Bombay. A Retrospect (Bombay, Times of India for Government of Bombay, 1902), pp. 8-11. Edwardes, citing the Bombay Gazetteer in Rise of Bombay, p. 17; the distinction is said to be with the Koli from Mazagon who fished in the harbour. He says that 'Oman' was the name given to the sea that washed the west coast of India. Man Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (Delhi, Oxford Univ. Press, 1982), notes p. 47, cites the A'in-i-Akbari, Vol. I, p. 389, in identifying the present-day Indian Ocean as 'the ocean ... which extended to Basra and the Red Sea, Persia and Africa, and which was known as 'Uman or the Persian Ocean'. Punekar, The Son Kolis, p. 2. Jim Masselos, Towards Nationalism. Group affiliations and the politics of public associations in nineteenth century Western India (Bombay, Popular Prakashan, 1974), p. 2. See BumeU's description of the Mumbadevi and Ganesh shrines in John Burnell, Bombay in the Days of Queen Anne, introduction and notes by Samuel T. Sheppard (London, Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser. No. 72, 1933), p. 48. Punekar, The Son Kolis, p. 4.


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Bombay area.(principally, it would seem, Versova and Thana) of Son Kolis from Thai, in Alibag Taluk, who were forced to migrate to escape the exactions of the Angrias.22 These new arrivals were dubbed 'Thalkar' in contrast to the 'Gaonkar'. An early eighteenth century account made other distinctions: for example, between 'Dolecars, who are annually chosen to preside as head over the rest of the members' and 'Muchedoms, who are overseers of the fishery and go out with the boats'. 23 By the twentieth century the functional distinctions within the community were said to be, firstly, between the 'Dolkar', who did the fishing, and the 'Sate' (mainly from the Mandvi koliwada) who marketed the catch; and, secondly, between groups among the Dolkar who were distinguished by the kind of fishing they did.24 A further mark of differentiation, which arose from Portuguese influence, was that some groups among the Koli became Christians. We have a picture of the Koli fishery operations in the early eighteenth century, about forty years after the British acquisition of the territory. John Burnell described the typical scene presented by the fishery - probably the most significant fishery in Bombay at the time - tended by the Kolis from Dongri: They go out of a morning, forty or fifty in a fleet, to the fishing stakes, which lie off the middle ground, and there lay all day, having generally one of the Company's monchews [manchuas] or yachts for their convoy for fear of the Coringing [Karanjia] gallivats which sometimes pillage and make slaves of them. These fishing stakes are large spars of timber, as thick as a topmast, spliced together, to the length of a hundred and twenty or thirty feet, piled down firm into the ground in rows, two or three hundred in number, by which the boats ride and to which they fix their nets. They are a great expense to erect them, it being 100 Xerafims fine to any ship that shall run one of them down. Their nets are long and strong, made of the bark of a tree of dark brown complexion. The meshes are wider or narrower according to the use they design them for. They are very curious [fastidious] about in mending the least decay and as careful in preserving them when out of use, laying them in long stone cisterns, three or four feet deep, to which they put the bark of a tree pulverised and mix'd with the water in which

22

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24

Ibid., p. 5; cf. Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, p. 186: 'Upwards of 400 other side (i.e. across harbour) Kolis have settled with their families in the district of Mahim'. Burnell, Bombay in the Days of Queen Anne, p. 38. Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, p. 208 cites the Collector in 1767 as reporting the Dolkars as 'the fishing Kolis in my department, and the only people Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, Vol. I, p. 228.


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. they lie, which, they say, mightily strengthens them.25


It was fisheries such as these which made the Koli such a significant element of the population of the islands. When Bombay was acquired by the Portuguese in 1534, the new colonial masters immediately moved to take 'duty' from them: the first quotations which both Hobson-Jobson and the Oxford English Dictionary use to define 'Coolie' (which is a corruption of 'Koli') relate to the taxes on 'the Coles [Kolis] who fish at the sea stakes and on the river Bacaim'. 26 There can be no doubt that the British, like the Portuguese before them, valued the Koli inhabitants of the islands: they were the major portion of the population of about ten thousand when the British acquired the islands and they provided, therefore, the essential basis for tax and rental income from the islands. That income, which rose from about Xerafins 75,000 (equivalent at the time to about 6,500 pounds sterling) in the 1670s to Xerafins 145,000 by the 1720s,27 was essential in the early periods when trade - except for that, significantly, in dried fish28 - was of relatively little account. Most Koli, as we have seen, were fishers at the fishing stakes or in the open sea but some were also agriculturists working the rice lands (the 'batty' -paddy - grounds, so that they were involved in much of the production of the islands. The taxation of the fishers was a poll tax that was modified, for those who actually fished, by the type of fishing undertaken and, hence, the gear used. A description from the Collector of Land Revenue, Bombay, in 1840, on the eve of the ending of the system, underlines the essential characteristics: this tax is at present levied in this Island on the Cooley or fishing tribe without reference to their religion or to the manner in which they employ themselves, whether as sailors on board Pattamars, as boatmen, Carpenters, Shopkeepers or as fishermen. This impost from having been in operation a great many years is thoroughly understood by all parties and realized without difficulty. It is as relates to proprietors of nets and fishing stakes, a tax graduated on the supposed advantages of situation, 25

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27 28

Burnell, Bombay in the Days of Queen Anne, pp. 39-40; manchua is from the Portuguese for a sailing boat. Gallivats were galleys or war boats, see H. Yule and A.C. Burnell, HobsonJobson, new edition by W. Crooke (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1903, reissued 1968), p. 361, 'gallevat'. Karanjia is an island near the Thana coast. A map of Bombay showing the fishing stakes is given in John Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia, being nine years ' travels, 1672-1681, edited, with notes and introduction by W. Crooke, 3 vols (London, Hakluyt Society, 1909-15), Vol. I, facing p. 157. Fryer makes brief mention of the Koli, Vol. I, pp. 1724. Botelho, 1548, in Hobson-Jobson, p. 250. The Oxford English Dictionary, (2nd ed., 1989), Vol. III, pp. 891-2, gives a similar quote from Botelho (referenced to Estado da India in Subsidios, Lisbon, 1878, V, 155). Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, pp. 105-6, 168. Ibid., pp. 84-5.

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thus, the parties who fish with nets in the Bombay Harbour pay between Rupees 14 and 15 annually, those who fish higher up the harbour in comparatively shallow water pay but 9 Rupees, while the Coolies who have neither boats nor stakes, but fish alongshore pay but Rupees 4 per annum. There are several other rates the sum of all depending on supposed advantages of fishing sites or modes of catching fish.29 Fishers themselves defined the rates in terms of their own experience. A petition of 1840 listed the following rates: 'tax for every fisherman between the ages of 16 and sixty years Rupees three and a quarter; ... Tax for every fishing boat with a boatman per annum Rupees 8.1.0; ... market fees by each seller of fish ten seers for every Sunday'30; and the fishers of Portuguese descent noted, in another petition, 'that from the time of the Portuguese Government an obnoxious fee or personal tax on the body of each Cooley carrying on business as crew has been levied at the rate of Rupees 1.0.36 each'. 31 The exploitation of the Koli, however went much further than taxation. Burnell recorded the fact that the 'Muchedoms', the 'overseers of the fishery', were given a brief to ensure that the fishery was always undertaken: Their business is likewise to call the people forth to their occupation, and upon refusal or negligence, have power to drub or set them in stocks, most of the inhabitants being slaves to the Company, especially those of Mazagon [ie., the chief fishing town].32 Moreover, having fished, they were liable to be taxed by company officials in a personal capacity: of every boat the Commander of the Fort can demand a fish as his perquisite. This is termed a wellgat, though he seldom requires more than enough to serve him for one repast, their plenty making them purchasable at small and easy rates.33 On occasions, the Koli also had to conduct fisheries without wages. This was 29

OIOC, P/373/20, Bombay Revenue Consultations [BRC] 8 July 1840, no. 4309, Collector of Land Revenue Bombay to Govt.: Boyd, Collector of Land Revenue, Bombay, 19 June 1840. For a detailed breakdown of the rates for different locations and types of fishing see P/372/14, BRC 21 June 1837, no. 3395, 'List of Rates on Fishing and Other Coolies of Bombay and Mahim District and also on Dalvery Boats coming to this port from different stations' prepared by B. Doveton, Collector Bombay, 30 June 1834 and C.W. Allen, Asstt Collector Mahim, 15 Apr. 1837.

30

OIOC, P/373/20, BRC 1 July 1840, no. 4227, 'petition from Sinwas Possia Patell and other fishermen on Bombay dated 29th April'. OIOC, P/373/20, BRC 1 July 1840, no. 4228, 'petition from Jooran Bawa Patell and other Portugese fishermen of Bombay, dated 1 June'. Burnell, Bombay in the Days of Queen Anne, p. 38. Ibid., p. 40; wellgat is said to come from Marathi helgat, 'guard pay, a word still in use for presents to sepoys', or 'wolgate' - 'due from the fishery and wood boats'.

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done, in particular, at 'Breach Candy', where the sluice gates in the 'vellard' which had been built to control the flow of waters into the low-lying interior of the islands allowed a profitable fishery as the waters receded.34 Exploitation of their fisheries' labour was not all that was demanded, however. Edwardes comments that while 'most Kolis' were fishers and agriculturists, 'a few may have been forced to relinquish these duties for that of palanquin-bearing'.35 'A few' was quite misleading since he admits that there were 'many petitions and appeals' lodged against this form of forced labour. In 1754 the directors, in what was thought of as a magnanimous gesture, made it illegal for 'anyone' to 'keep' Koli palanquin-bearers: anyone, that is, apart from 'the Governor, Council, Superintendent, Mayor, Chaplains, Surgeons, and such English as have families'!36 But that seems to have had only partial success. A petition against the practice in 1767 produced a letter of explanation from the Collector of Land Revenue protesting that he did not deal with the Koli in such ways, but indicating that such practices were carried on. I beg to inform your Honourable Board . .. that not any Kolis who act under me have ever been employed to fish in the Breach water. The Dolkars, who are the fishing Kolis in my department and the only people who possess nets, are never employed to carry palanquins. Those Kolis employed for that purpose receive the same fixed pay established for all Kolis who carry palanquins on this island; and whenever they are employed in such a manner as to leave their families and habitations, they receive, if only for a single day, much higher 'bhatta' than what it is customary to allow Kolis in adjacent countries.37 Not until the 1790s was the practice finally eliminated. Then, in 1791, the Directors speak of nothing less than the 'emancipation' of the Koli. As we understand that an old arbitrary power, which was established when the island belonged to the Portuguese, has been exercised in later times, and perhaps is in some degree still exercised, against this most useful set of people, the fishermen, a certain number of them being obliged to fish in the Breach water and to act as palanquin-bearers to such of the gentlemen in office, for the first of which duties they receive no pay or scarce any and for the latter not near the wages customary, and that they experience other grievances which must not only subject their industry to imposition, but their persons to insult and oppression from the sepoys and others authorized to compel 34

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Ibid., pp. 204-5; 'vellard' was from the Portuguese vallado, 'a fence' and the area became known as 'Breach Candy', 'the Beach beside the "Khind" or Pass'. Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, p. 73. Ibid., p. 186. Ibid., p. 208.

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them to execute such duties, we direct that in case such grievances do still in any degree exist, they be on receipt of this letter entirely abolished and the fishermen released from all such servitude and left as free as the other inhabitants of the island.3* There is thus a very much darker picture of the Kolis incorporation into the colonial state of the English company than is suggested by Edwardes' 'honourable connection and friendship . . . [and] bond of good-feeling and respect'. The question that might then be posed is: how were the Koli 'managed' in these roles during British times? It is in this regard that the role of the Parsi 'Patels' becomes important; in the following section we trace the rise of that connection and its reduction in the 1830s, in part because of the supposed inadequacy of the then Patel but even more because of the pressures that grew for a more 'European agency' in the Bombay administration by midcentury. The Koli and the Patel family The story of the Patel family begins in the later years of the Portuguese occupation of the islands. In 1640, about a century after the Portuguese came to Bombay, says the nineteenth century historian of the Parsis of Bombay, Dosabhoy Framjee,39 the first Parsi settler, Dorabji Nanabhai (or Nanabhoy), arrived on the island. Framjee neatly summarises Dorabji Nanabhai's role as an intermediary between the Kolis and, firstly, the Portuguese and, then, the British: [he] was employed by the Portuguese Government in transacting miscellaneous business with the natives of the place. He continued to perform this duty after the transfer of Bombay, and as the new rulers were ignorant of the manners, language and customs of the people, he was frequently consulted by the English about their affairs. In the year 1668 the population consisted chiefly of fishermen, and it having been found necessary to raise the revenue of the place, the new authorities levied a body tax upon them, and entrusted its collection to Dorabji Nanabhai, who is said to have carried out his order smoothly and without any friction, whereby he became exceedingly popular among the people. On his death in the year 1689 he was succeeded by his son Rastamji Dorabji in all the

38

39

Ibid., pp. 226-7. History of the Parsis including their manners, customs, religion, and present condition, 2 vols (London, Macmillan, 1884), Vol. II, p. 49. Dosabhoy Framjee is referred to in this way in the OIOC catalogue; on the title page of these volume his name is given as Dosabhoy Framjee Karaka. A similar account is given in Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, p. 99.


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offices he had held under the English.40 Dorabji Nanabhai's son, Rastamji Dorabji, greatly strengthened the position of the family in British Bombay. Framjee recounts how he did this by securing the company's settlement against the attacks of the Sidis of Janjira in 1692.41 Rampant plague had greatly weakened the British and their musketeers at the time of the Sidi advance. Rastamji Dorabji ' . . . raised a militia from among the fishermen of the population, fought the invaders and defeated them. He then despatched messengers with the news of that victory to the Chief of the English factory at Surat, who soon arrived in Bombay and took charge of the Government'. 42 For these 'invaluable services'43 Rastamji Dorabji was 'appointed by Government Patel of Bombay, and a sanad was issued conferring the title upon him and his heirs forever'. 44 This position as 'Patel' was understood to give him a special position with regard to the Kolis: 'He was', as Framjee put it, placed at the head of the fishermen caste from which he had formed his little army, and invested with the power of adjudicating civil and religious disputes among them. Edwardes, says that he was 'honoured alike by the Government and the Kolis whose domestic disputes he was empowered to settle'. Rastamji Dorabji Patel died in 1763 'at the venerable age of ninety-six' 45 and the title of Patel passed to his son, Kavasji Rastamji, who made the family into a major power in the expanding city. In those days Government found much difficulty in providing tonnage for transporting troops from one place to another, and Kavasji Patel was therefore entrusted with the work of supplying boats and vessels for public service, which duty he performed very creditably and most satisfactorily. When the British took Thana and Bassein from the Maratha Sardar Raghunathrao Dada Saheb, Kavasji Patel was appointed to an 40

41 42

43 44 45

Framjee, History of the Parsis, II, pp. 49-50. 1668 was the first year of effective occupation by the British. Dosabhoy Framjee, in a footnote, gives details of the revenue of Bombay in that first year given as 'rents' for Mazagon, Mahim, Parella [sic], Vadela, Sion, Vaoly [Worli?], Bombain, returns from tobacco, taverns, customs and coconuts, and 'miscellaneous' income all of which totalled 75,000 Xerafims or about 6,490 pounds sterling. Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, p. 106, also has these accounts. See also the briefer account in Hormazdyar Dastur Kayoji Mirza, Outlines of Parsi Hisory (Bombay, The Author, 1974), pp. 245, who says that Dorabji Nanabhai was a karbhari or manager for the Portuguese and was appointed 'tax collector' by the British. On the background to the situation see Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, pp. 130-2. Framjee, History of the Parsis, II, p. 52; Mirza, Outlines, p. 246; and Hormusji Dhunjishaw Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre on Indian Soil, Vol. I (Bombay, Claridge & Co, 1939), p. 496. Framjee, History of the Parsis, II, p. 52. Edwardes, Rise of Bombay, p. 162; cf. Framjee, History of the Parsis, II, p. 52. Framjee, History of the Parsis, II, p. 52.


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SOUTH ASIA important post in the former place, where he established a number of Parsis as a colony, and built out of his own purse places of worship and other charitable edifices. No Parsi was allowed to go to Thana without a pass from Kavasji. The large tank at Khetvadi in Bombay, which up to this day bears his name, was the gift of his generosity. It was built in the year 1776, and in those days supplied a want by which thousands of poor people were benefited with the blessing of one of the greatest necessities of life. This tank was repaired at the expense of the Patel's family up to 1834, from which year the Government voluntarily undertook its maintenance. The wellknown street in the fort of Bombay, 'Kavasji Patel Street', was named after him.46

Kavasji Rastamji became so significant a figure - 'gave so much satisfaction' in the affairs of the city that Governor William Hornby invested him with a 'khilat' or dress of honour in 1775.47 Kavasji died over twenty years later, in 1799. He was succeeded in the title of Patel and his other offices by his son Sorabji.48 It is at that point that the history of the Patel family effectively stops in Framjee's account. Framjee moves from Sorabji's succession to the 'last of the distinguished members of the Patel family' whom he names as Hirjibhai Rastamji Kavasji Patel, 'one of the most extensive merchants in China' who 'went at a later period to England to press upon the English Government some claims which he fancied he had against it for losses during the China War'. 49 In moving in this way to Hirjibhai, Dosabhoy Framjee omitted any mention of Rastamji Kavasji Patel, the man who succeeded Sorabji and the man who was, in fact, the last to act as the Patel of the Kolis.50 Rastamji Kavasji Patel lost 46

47

48

49

50

Framjee, History of the Parsis, Vol. II, pp. 53-4; Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre, p. 336 who lists the villages in the new possessions for which Kavasji Rastamji (who he gives as Seth Cowasjee Rustomjee Patel) was made Patel as Monpessier, Charni Bunder, Turambu, Math, Manori, Versova, Danda, Bandra, Kalyan and Bhimardi - a number of which were certainly Koliwadi. He mentions also his famous mango tree which he says was still called 'Cowasjee Patel's Amba'. Framjee, History of he Parsis, Vol. II, p. 53. Darukhanawala, Parsi Lustre, I, pp. 496-7; He had a brother, Dorabji Rastamji Patel, who was a leading china merchant; this brother succeeded to his contracts for supplying boats, as well as cotton and timber, to the East India Company. In 1801, Dorabji Rastamji, together with his partner, Cursetji Manekji Shroff, obtained the contract to supply materials to the Gunpowder Factory at Mazagon. Ibid., p. 54. It has not possible to tell whether Hirjibhai Rastamji Kavasji Patel was Rastamji Kavasji's son but, given the pattern of names in the family, that appears to be a possible deduction. If so, it suggests that Rastamji Kavasji was at least able to continue bis commercial career and give his son a start in business aer losing his tax collecting role with the Kolis. The other possibility is that Hirjibhai was the son of Dorabji Rastamji, who had also been in the China trade and that possibility would suggest that Rastamji Karasji Patel left no successor, or further mark, after the early 1840s. Because he is passed over in silence it is difficult to be certain about the date of his succession. The circumstantial evidence from the BRC, however, suggests that this was probably in the early 1820s: when the Collector is reporting on the unsatisfactory nature of Rastamji Kavasji's stewardship, he goes back to the collections of 1822-23. This could suggest that Sorabji succeeded his father in 1799 and was succeeded by (his son?), Rastamji Kavasji, in c. 1822. Rastamji Kavasji is usually shown in the records of the Bombay Revenue Department as 'Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell'.


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office in 1830; regained it in that same year; lost it again in 1833; was restored to office in 1837; and then finally lost it, to a new system altogether, in 1840. When he recorded the conferral of the title of 'Patel' on Rastamji Dorabji, Framjee indicated that by the 1880s the 'Patelship' was 'an authority which up to this day is enjoyed by his descendants, though not in the same degree as before'. S1 In fact, his silence on Rastamji Kavasji Patel is an indication that there had been a major change in the position of the Patel family: a change which denoted a major shift in the handling of relations with the fishers of Bombay by the British.52 Framjee's silence about Rastamji Kavasji Patel would seem to be the result of what happened in the 1830s. In what follows, we will endeavour to show that the final loss was, in fact, as much about a revolution in the administrative system as it was about Rastamji Kavasji's inability to conduct the affairs of the Patelship efficiently. 'European Agency': changing the colonial relationship Rastamji Kavasji Patel's fall from grace began in 1830. In July of that year Mr Doveton, the Collector of Bombay, explained to the Board the reasons for his suspension of Rastamji Kavasji Patel 'from the office he has long enjoyed ... in the Collection of the Revenues': 53 On my taking charge of the office, I found that there was a balance outstanding against him of Rupees 11,655.2.2 up to 1828/29 and I lost no time in calling on him to discharge it. After having repeatedly sent to him and as frequently put off under some frivolous plea or other, I obtained on the 7th March last, a payment of Rs 3000 from him and which then left a balance of Rupees 8,655 odd against him. From the above date he was again continually urged to discharge the remainder, but without effect, until my patience was completely worn out, and finding that neither entreaties nor threats prevailed with him I came to the painful determination on the 1st Instant of carrying into operation the measures alluded to in the 1st paragraph of this letter, and which the late Collector, Mr Sparrow, was at one period on the point of enforcing when similarly situated as myself. On the 1st instant I recovered a further sum of Rs 4,000 so that there remained still due a sum of Rs. 4,655. 2. 20 which he promisefd] to pay in the course of the next eight days.

51

52 53

Framjee, History of the Parsis, II, p. 52. A further indication of this shift in Framjee's account is his note that, in 1834, the Government had taken over the maintenance of Kavasji Rastamji's great tank in Khetvadi. OIOC, P/370/33, BRC 4 Aug. 1830, no. 342, Collector - Board, 1 July 1830.

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The above paragraph was written early in the last month, and I was induced to give the Patell until die end of it, to complete the whole payment. As however, he has again broken his engagement, I deem it my duty to lay the whole of the circumstances before the Hon'ble Board. I have kept in deposit since January last, the allowances hitherto drawn by him and which amount to Rupees four hundred and fourteen, and whether the Balance due is paid within a few days, or otherwise, I am decidedly of opinion that the collections should no longer remain in his hands, but be committed to some other person whom I will select for that purpose. The seriousness of this move was immediately apparent. Doveton himself acknowledged that this would be seen as disturbing a settled feature of Bombay administration: 'the respectability of that family has alone made me unwilling to take this extreme measure until all hopes of a successful termination of the delays in question have failed'. This was a view with which the members of the Board agreed: they could go along with a 'temporary' suspension but a permanent move would make them 'uneasy'. 54 Rastamji Kavasji himself knew, moreover, that he had to trade heavily on his family's history and reputation in his petition for reinstatement. This tax originated about a century and a half ago when these districts chiefly inhabited by Coolies contained a small population compared with the present, and the Government of that day was pleased to appoint my ancestors Patells and to grant them this collection of the Tax as a reward for service done to the Hon'ble Company and the descendants of the family have from thence to the present period uninterruptedly continued Patelship of the Caste and the collection of the Tax.55 He explained why the tax was difficult to collect and why there was constantly a lag in transferring funds to the government - a lag which, he implied, earlier collectors had accepted as a part of the 'system': The Tax is an annual Tax falling due on the 9th of October in every year when the persons assessed are constantly engaged on board of vessels fitting out for sea, at the Break of the rains when they proceed to sea and do [not] generally quit these vessels until the end of July in the following year, so that it is only during the month of August and September that an opportunity offers of collecting this Tax for the preceding year as in the succeeding month of October when another year falls due, the vessels are again out fishing on their annual voyages.

54

55

OIOC, P/370/33, BRC 4 Aug 1830, nos. 343 and 344, minutes by Mr Caversham and the Governor, Sir John Malcolm. OIOC, P/370/33, BRC 4 Aug. 1830, no. 346, petition from Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell, 6 July 1830.



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. The majority of the persons assessed to the Tax are so poor as to be nearly destitute of the common necessities of life and totally unable from want of means to make the payment of the Tax at once, so that the only mode in which I can collect it is by degrees in the best manner I am able. Nevertheless the officers of Government regularly demand the payment from me shortly after it has fallen due, before even an opportunity has been afforded me of beginning to make the collections, but as I have always been anxious for the sake of my own character and for the honour of my ancestors' name to meet the demand of the Government, the arrears of Tax have hitherto been paid up chiefly out of my own pocket and at some personal cost and none of the predecessors of the present Collector of Land and Revenue have ever found it requisite to make complaint of any default on the part of me or my ancestors, in accounting for this Tax, on the convictions that it was always paid as soon as circumstances allowed. In his response to this petition, Doveton acknowledged some of this difficulty but he added - in a point that was to become more insistent as his comments proceeded - that he still thought that the Patell should have been more conscientious. I am unwilling to be severe on him but the records of this department bear strong testimony to the negligent mode in which his duties have been performed, in the repeated calls made upon him by my Predecessors.56 For the moment, however, Doveton was willing to lift the suspension, a substantial amount of the arrears having been paid in. He insisted, nonetheless, that the Patell should be told plainly that it was only the 'respectability' of his family and an 'expectation of more regular payments' which made it possible for the Board not to confirm the suspension; and that was the line taken by the Board in informing Rastamji Kavasji that he had been 'restored'. 57 Some two and a half years later, in March 1833, Doveton pressed for a renewed suspension on the grounds that the outstanding balances 'on account of the Coolery and the new Salt Batty grounds' for 1831-32 and 1832-33 had mounted to nearly Rs. 16,500. On this occasion, however, he gave a more critical account of Rastamji Kavasji's personal circumstances. I am of opinion that it will no longer be for the interest of Government that the Collection should remain in the hands of that family. Rustomjee Patell is notoriously and deeply insolvent and appears to have been so situated for years past I 56 57

OIOC, P/370/33, BRC 4 Aug. 1830, no. 347, report of the Collector, 20 July 1830. OIOC, P/370/33, BRC 4 Aug. 1830, no. 349, J. Williamson, Sec. to Govt to Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell, 31 July 1830.

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therefore beg respectfully to request that the Marine Paymaster, Commissary General and the Quartermaster General be authorized to hold in deposit for ultimate payment to me the various sums due to the Patell on account of his transactions with their different Departments, as I fear we possess no other means for liquidating his Balances the greater portion of his property being I have reason to be mortgaged to several rich merchants here.58 Rastamji Kavasji responded once again with a petition59 - 'very nearly a Copy' as Doveton remarked, of the one used in 183060 - but on this occasion neither the collector nor the members of the board were moved by Rastamji Kavasji's entreaties. He was told that 'notwithstanding the very great forbearance which has been shewn towards you, His Lordship in Council has determined not to grant you any further indulgence or to allow you to retain the situation so long held by your family'. 61 A further petition in April was rebuffed62 and even when he 'paid up the whole of the Balances which were due from him', 63 the board was willing only to release payments due to him, not to reinstate him. 64 Not even when the mobilisation of 'the principal fishermen of Mazagon, Mahim, Vorlee, Colaba and Bombay'65 to pray 'that the office of Patell be continued in the family of Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell', could save him.66 Embedded in this discussion came the signs that attitudes to Rastamji Kavasji had furthered hardened: he was now accused by the collector of illegal exactions on his own account ('dustoree') and of concealing the true sums owing to government67, and that a new system was considered essential. On 24 July, Doveton requested approval for an 'Establishment for the Collection of the Coolery and new Salt Batty Grounds' of a Receiver and Accountant, a Clerk and four peons.

58 59

60

61 62

63 64

65 66 67

OIOC, P/371/10, BRC 17 Apr. 1833, no. 2006, Collector to Board, 26 Mar. 1833. OIOC, P/371/10, BRC 24 Apr. 1833, no. 2287, petition from Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell, 28 Mar. 1833. OIOC, P/371/10, BRC 24 Apr. 1833, no. 2288, report by the Collector, dated 13 Apr. 1833, on the petition in no. 2287. OIOC, P/371/10, BRC 24 Apr. 1833, no. 2291, reply to Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell, 20 Apr. 1833. OIOC, P/371/11, BRC 15 May 1833, no. 2605, Secretary to Government to Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell, 3 May 1833 . The petition was summarised in the Bombay proceedings merely as 'the Patell throws himself upon the compassion of Government and prays he may be allowed to retain his situations in consideration of the time they had been held in bis family', no. 2604, dated 22 Apr. 1833. OIOC, P/371/16, BRC 31 July 1833, no. 4264, Collector to Board, 12 July 1833. OIOC, P/371/16, BRC 31 July 1833, nos 4265 and 4266, Chief Secretary to Collector and copies to Military and Marine Departments. OIOC, P/371/16, BRC 31 July 1833, no. 4508. OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4719, Chief Secretary to Collector, 20 Aug. 1833 OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4709, Collector to Board, 24 July 1833, dasturi 'a customary fee or perquisite', H.H. Wilson, A Glossary of Revenue and Judicial Terms (Calcutta, Eastern Law House, enlarged ed., 1940), p. 199


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Although this Establishment may appear large, I am convinced from the enquiries I have for some time past been making, and the information I have consequently acquired, that it will prove no more than requisite when the difficulties attending the Collection are taken into consideration- the Coolies in question are well known to be very troublesome, and require to be both carefully and firmly dealt with, and the evasions which they too frequently adopt in order to free themselves from the usual taxes can only be encountered by extreme vigilance on the part of the Receiver.® It of course rests with the Right Honorable the Governor in Council, to comply with the request of the Patell to be again allowed to collect the above Revenues, but I fear, that in such case, we should lose the opportunity which now exists, of placing them on a better footing; whether with reference to die interests of Government, or of the Coolies at large.® The board supported Doveton: members still had some regrets at the loss of the services of 'this respected family',70 but there was a general feeling that Rastamji Kavasji should be given no hope of restoration. However much inclined Government might be towards the family of the Patell, I think it would be bad policy to hold out hopes of the restoration of the Office as an influence would naturally be reported against the new receiver in a manner that might prevent him from the full performance of his duty, and lead the Collector at the end of the probationary term to report a failure. The opposing influence would be of the strongest description that of a family who has enjoyed the office for a long series of years feeling strong hopes of restoration and the dread on the part of the Koolee fishermen to thwart them for fears of future consequences to themselves.71 They did accede, however, to Rastamji Kavasji's request that the official notification of the action taken should say that he had been 'removed' rather than 'dismissed'.72

68 69

70 71 72

OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4709, Collector to Board, 24 July 1833. OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4710, Collector to Board, 7 Aug. 1833; OIOC, P/371/17, BRC, 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4711, Collector to Board, 8 Aug. 1833; no. 4712, 'petition of Boollook Sarowan Patell and other Bast Gounker inhabitants of Vorlee Village sent to B. Doveton, Collector of Land Revenue, Bombay, 17 July 1833'. OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4715, minute by Mr Newnham, undated. OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 21 Aug. 1833, no. 4718, minute by Mr Sutherland, undated. OIOC, P/371/17, BRC 4 Sept. 1833, no. 4931, petition from Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell dated 22 Aug. 1833; no. 4932, minute by Mr Newnham subscribed to by the Board; no. 4933, Board to Collector, 2 Sept. 1833; P/371/18, BRC 11 Sept. 1833, no. 5084, Doveton to Board, 3 Sept. 1833.

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This suspension lasted for four years until Doveton's successor, W.G. Bruce, moved to reinstate Rastamji Kavasji. He did this, he said, 'partly for the sake of the individual himself.


I cannot but think that in the loss and degradation of the four years suspension he has now endured, he has suffered a penalty adequate to the offence. He is the head too of a very respectable family which has been reduced by misfortune from affluence to a state of extreme indignity with which they have for some years been struggling and is besides an old servant of this Government.73 But he also did it, clearly enough, because he had need of the influence of the family with 'the fishermen of this island whose patellship and the collection of the Poll Tax they are subject to, which appertains to it, he and his forefathers have held for more than a century'. This act of grace would likewise be very agreeable to the class of fishermen between whom and himself as their ancient hereditary chief, an attachment naturally subsists highly favourable to the mild collection of the tax which I would here observe, besides being open to the general objection against all such imposts of being a fixed rate upon fluctuating and uncertain income, is one of a highly complicated description branching as it does into no less than twenty four different rates, according to circumstances which are by no means clearly defined, and governed by no written rules. Although therefore I have no reason to speak otherwise than most favourably of the present Receiver's conduct, it must be obvious that such a tax is open to great abuse, only to be effectively guarded against by its collection being placed in the hands of an individual who like the Patell by being united to the contributors by some bond of sympathy and having a perfect knowledge both of it and of them, must be disposed to exercise his power mildly and equitably.74 The point, he believed, was that without the influence of Rastamji Kavasji, he could not achieve success with the new system that was desired. I have been endeavouring for some time past to simplify this tax, but all my efforts have been frustrated by die jealousy and suspicion of those subject to it, who cannot be made to believe that their advantage, and not the interest of Government was the object I had at heart.75 73

74 75

OIOC, P/372/14, BRC 6 June 1837, no. 3393, Collector to Board, 31 May 1837; no. 3394, petition from Rustomjee Cowasjee Patell to Mr Bruce, 4 Apr. 1837; no. 3398, Chief Secretary to Bruce, 10 June 1837. OIOC, P/372/14, BRC 6 June 1837, no. 3393, Collector to Board, 31 May 1837. Loc. cit.


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Members of the government agreed with this move because it was seen as essential for the new system. 'I take it for granted', wrote the governor, Sir Robert Grant, that Mr Bruce has looked thoroughly into the former proceedings in this case, and, if so, he may be allowed to act on the strong opinion he entertains in favour of restoring Rustomjee.... As he seems to reckon a good deal on Rustomjee's influence with the fishermen, it may be worth his while to consider whether that person's restoration might not be combined with some understanding that he was to assist in removing the suspicions and jealousies on the part of the fishermen which have hitherto thwarted Mr Brace's efforts to remodel and simplify the tax of which he speaks.76 This simplification of the tax was effectively an attempt within the government to move the system of taxation from that of the traditional muhtarifa, the tax on trades and professions (usually transliterated in English as 'mohturfa') which was seen in Bombay as a remnant of Maratha government, to what was to be a new simple and uniform system. The index to the Revenue Consultations gave the following summary of the directions from the government to the Revenue Commissioner in mid-1838. He was informed that Govt. approves of the plan recommended by him of abolishing all existing taxes on the Fishermen and levying a Poll tax instead, the rate now levied on Salsette being the maximum; that before making a reference to the Government of India, he should state whether he concurs in the scale proposed by the Collector and whether the measure should not be extended to Rutnugeree and Guzerat... The Collector of Custom in Bombay is furnished with a Copy of the foregoing letter and requested to State whether the proposed tax would interfere with those payable by the Bombay Fishermen, and if such interference is desirable.77 As is clear from this note, this shift was connected with the impact of the acquisition of new territories - Ratnagiri and Gujarat - on the administrative arrangements for the much more complicated presidency that Bombay had become by the 1830s. The discussions stretched through to 1840 and became embroiled in widely differing views among company servants, both in Bombay Presidency and the Government of India as to what form the tax should take and at what rates it should be levied: whether it should be on nets, on boats or a poll tax; whether it was to be related to the productivity of the fishing grounds; 76

77

OIOC, P/372/14, BRC 6 June 1837, no. 3397, minute by the Governor, 6 June 1837; also no. 3398, Chief Secretary to Brace, 10 June; Bruce reported that 'ever since the Patell's intended restoration became known, many of the fishermen declaring that they would now pay it to no one but him': P/372/15, BRC 5 July 1837, no. 3883, Collector to Boatd, 29 June 1837. OIOC, Z/P/3474, BRC Index for 1838, nos. 5383-95, 'Fishermen'.


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whether it was to be regarded as a rent which protected the fishermen from the intrusions of others and so on. By the end of January 1840, the Revenue Commissioner, J. Vibart, was able to forward to the Chief Secretary, L.R. Reid, copies of correspondence with officials in Surat, Broach, Thana and Ratnagiri on these matters and his own firm recommendation that all existing taxes should be abolished and replaced with a poll tax of no more than Rs 4.8.0 per person per annum and that this should apply to males between sixteen and sixty who were engaged in fishing as their livelihood. Fishermen who had gone into cultivation were not affected as they were taxed through land taxes and those who were engaged in curing and drying fish were to continue to pay mohturfa. It was suggested that 'mocuddums' (mukaddams) be appointed to collect the poll tax under the supervision of the Collector of Land Revenue; these mukaddams would be remunerated by exemption from the tax, a percentage of the collection or a fixed sum, depending on the size of the village. Refusal to pay would lead to imprisonment and/or attachment as if the tax were land revenue. After determining the amount due from a village, it was suggested that the collector should have the discretion to leave . . . the distribution of the total amount at which the village is assessed, to the body of the fishermen collectively, taking an agreement from one or more of the body, who may consent to become answerable for the payment of the sum total due to Government; and allowing him or them consideration of their undertaking such responsibility, such sum as he [the Collector] may think it advisable to fix in the same manner as that allowed to the mocuddum under clause 4.178 By mid-February the Chief Secretary had a memorandum for the Governor-inCouncil which accepted Vibart's recommendations, provided a draft Act and draft rules (based entirely on Vibart's suggestions).79 On 12 March 1840, Reid wrote to Vibart to say that the Governor in Council had accepted his views on the poll tax entirely; and he forwarded copies of the draft Act and rules.80 These changes seem to represent an attempt to basically put 'European agency' 81 into control of the relationship of the colonial rulers and the fishing people. Until the expansion of the presidency in the first two decades of the 78

79

80

81

OIOC, P/373/13, BRC 19 Mar. 1840, no. 1754, J. Vibart, Rev. Commr, Bombay to L.R. Reid, Ch. Sec., Bombay, 29 Jan. 1840 with Enclosure: 'Rules for the proposed Poll tax on Fishermen'. The discussion in the earlier part of the paragraph draws on Vibart's discussion in the text of his letter of the matters raised by the correspondence and the copies of the correspondence which are enclosures to his letter and are in no. 1755. Ibid., no. 1756: Memorandum by Chief Secretary, 12 February 1840, with draft of Act and proposed rules. Ibid., no. 1759: Ch. Sec., Bombay to Rev. Commr., 12 Mar. 1840; the same was copied to the Collector of Customs, Bombay in ibid., no. 1760. In his doctoral thesis 'Sovereignty, Profits and Social Change: The Development of British Administration in Western India, 1800-1820' (Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1972), Neil Rabitoy suggests that this was a major issue raised by the expansion of the Presidency.


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nineteenth century, there was a relatively 'cosy' situation in Bombay: the island was able to act as an essentially commercial centre with its internal affairs easily regulated through an elaborate system of 'farming' operations. Everything that could be dealt with in that way was 'farmed' out to contractors: tobacco, spirits, ferries, licences to come and go, the fishing in every tank on the island, the fishing through the sluice gates at Worli and so on. In that climate, relations with the fishing people were nothing more (nor less) than a financial matter: people meant taxes, taxes meant collectors, and taxes, therefore, needed 'farmers' who would give the government its 'due'. Conveniently, when the British took over the island, there was a 'dubashi' who could fill a role as collector of those dues: Dorabji Nanabhai, who had done similar work for the earlier colonial rulers, the Portuguese and was now ready to do the same for the British, hi the role that he adopted he was nothing more than that. In the case of Dorabji Nanabhai's family, because of the 'Patel' title given to them in 1692, they were able to think of themselves, and be thought of by some of the British, as the patels 'of the fishing people rather than as simply tax farmers with responsibility for the tax in relation to the Kolis. The distinction is an important one. The notion that the Kolis needed a patel from outside their community serves very well to suggest that they were helpless, passive, unorganised people who had no group solidarity or social organisation sufficient to cope with the impact of the colonial rule or the presence of colonial rulers. The acknowledgment that they were a fullydeveloped community with their own social institutions, notions of leadership and forms of relationship would allow them a social existence which would be destructive of proper colonial subservience and even of that existence within Indian society which, from their long occupation of, and important economic role on, Bombay Island, they would have every right to expect to be acknowledged. The role of the Parsi patel is thus one of those signs of the marginalisation of fishing people, both in colonial and in Indian society, which has always been their lot. And the small revolution in the colonial relationship which the 1830s marked was no more than a tightening of the colonial strings with the almost inevitable demand (symbolised by the notion of the mukaddams who will undertake the responsibility for payment of the poll tax in return for a 'consideration', and an accession of local political power!) that a comprador element be built into the subject community itself. For some one hundred and sixty-five years the Parsi family on Bombay Island was a quite satisfactory means of exerting control over the Kolis and extorting from them a 'body tax' and various other exaction but in the extended Bombay presidency after 1819, with many different fishing communities and with larger returns from taxation and exaction at stake, that was no longer acceptable and the full colonisation of the fishing people needed to be enacted. What is interesting is that even as that question was being brought to a head, with relation to the fishing people, the imperatives of the economic situation within the colonial state was demanding that the whole question of


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taxes on 'trades and professions' - muhtarifa - be finally addressed.82 There has been relatively little systematic discussion of this question, partly because in Bengal and much of northern India this part of the sayar income dropped out of sight with the 'reformation' of sayar at the time of the Permanent Settlement in 1793 when some of the charges which had been levied in this way were turned into government-imposed and government-collected taxes (excise and octroi); some were handed to the zamindars as a supplement to their income from rents (e.g. a return on fisheries, jalkar, the 'produce of water' or ferries and the like); and some were simply abolished (pilgrim taxes).83 In the Madras presidency, because the raiyatwari did not provide the same rationale for the reform of sayar, and in the Bombay presidency, because of the late expansion into areas so recently held by relatively powerful regimes like the Marathas, muhtarifa ('mohturfa') remained. It was often thought of as simply an urban tax84 and often assumed to be primarily about a tax on the looms of weavers. The truth is that it was much more than that and affected many spheres of economic activity. And increasingly it came to be seen by the economic rationalists of the day as essentially a drag on economic 'freedom' and hence on the economic development which the colonial state needed to maximise its returns.85 In Bengal there was no problem, because the imposts had effectively turned over to the comprador (zamindar) class. In Madras and Bombay, on the other hand, it remained - and, for many, rankled - until the 1840s and 1850s. It took the company until then to finally summon up the political muscle to remove it: in 1844 in Bombay86 and in 1856 in Madras.87 Conclusion We return to our starting point: the ballad of 'Governor and Koli'. At the outset we questioned Edwardes' claim that the ballad could be read as a confirmation of the 'honourable connection and friendship' between Koli, British and Parsi in Bombay: and especially the 'bond of good-feeling and friendship' between Koli and 'the King's representative'. Having now 82

83

84

85

86

87

J.W. Langford was assigned to special duties to produce a report on 'mohturfa' in 1839-40 and be submitted a report which was circulated for comment; unfortunately it is not recorded in the OIOC's copy of the BRC: OIOC, P/373/11, BRC 19 Feb. 1840, nos. 1130-34. see Bengal, An Abstract of the Regulations Enacted for the Assessment and Realization of the Land Revenues in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa for the years 1793 to 1824, inclusive, 4 vols (Calcutta, Government Gazette Press, 1826), Vol. III, p. xx for Regulation XXVII of 1793; and B.H. BadenPowell, The Land Systems of British India, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1892), Vol. I, pp. 42 1-2, 516. Ravinder Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century (London, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1968), pp. 36-7. see, e.g., J.W.B.Dykes, Salem. An Indian Collectorate (London, W.H.Allen, 1853), pp. 415-9, 465, 486, 491. OIOC, Z/P/3480, BRC Index for 1844, nos 1282-96: 'Taxes and Imposts - Abolition of Town and Mohturfa Duties'. Great Britain, House of Commons, Parliamentary Papers, 1857, session 2, paper no. 83,:East India, 'Correspondence relating to... Moturpha etc Taxes at Madras', p. 401.


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recounted the history of the Koli and 'the Patell family', we offer the following as possible interpretations of the alternative messages which are encoded in the verse. One way to look at the 'legend' of the ballad would be as a 'myth' which provides the Kolis with an account of the key role that they played, along with the Parsis (who, in this account are to become their 'peers'), in British Bombay, rather than as a straightforward 'story' of an encounter between a Koli, his Parsi companion and an English Governor. In this sense one might interpret many of the facets of the story for their mythical, rather than their actual, quality: the 'piles of gold and silver' on the streets would then be the fish spread out to dry; the wealth picked by the feet of the people walking by might then be the scales of the fish; the 'cellars' would be not the physical cellars of a house in Mandvi koliwada but the sea which is strong because only the Koli knows its secrets and can bring out its 'wealth' - the fish - which the goddess of the sea allows them to take and which is used (in the form of money) as a central bond between fishers and rulers mediated by a 'middleman' (in Indian terms, a dobashi, 'a person of two languages'). Seen in this way, the 'legend' could accord with aspects of the history of Koli-Parsi-English relations in Bombay from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, especially in underlining the role of particular Parsis with regard to Koli affairs and of the central role that 'giving' wealth to the government (taxation) had in that relationship Another way of reading the ballad would be to see it not as a very 'ancient' text, but rather as one coming from the mid-nineteenth century. It could become, then, an account of the break in Koli-British relations, as mediated by the Patels, through the 1830s and into the 1840s. On this reading we could assume that this is a ballad designed to give Kolis a central place so that what is actually being recounted is the situation in which the Koli are freed of a relationship which had been seen as unequal and which was now being made more 'equal', albeit in a colonial context where the colonised are all equally subjects. Such an account would see Batliwala and Zarun Patel in 'conversation', not at that point as equals but as those who already are linked in a superordinate/subordinate relationship. And the making of the Koli equal to the Batliwala might then be a removal of the special role of the Batliwala and a sharing of the common fate of colonial domination. In this way a reading of the ballad might make it possible to listen to how the marginalised in a colonial situation are able to portray their situation in a way which derides the corrupting elements at the centre of the colonial relationship.