TRIGGERS FOR MIGRATION - Development of Railway,Road & Telegraph

Development of Railways, Road & Telegraph

Map Of Indian Railways In 1870

Between 1853-69 4255 railways laid out 4255 Miles of tracks across India.. Statistics show that the migration increased rapidly only after 1860’s which would be covered in the later slides when we shall focus on region specific migration. A proverb goes “where the railway goes, the marwari follows its ways”

With completion of rail corridor in 1916 through Shekhawati movement of women and children became speedier and safer thereby causing permanent migration to the areas where business was based. It was a sign to both the British and the locals that the marwaris were here to stay.

The railways had replaced the river routs as the main conduit for goods traffic rendering the rail center of Kanpur a better locus of operations. As a result Marwaris moved to Kanpur from River ports of Mirzapur and Farrukhabad

In 1839, the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Delhi was opened and this was followed by links between major cities in British India.

Integrated postal service was introduced in I837.  Post office act of 1854 provided uniform rates. By 1861, there were 889 post offices handling nearly 43 million letters and over 4.5 million newspapers annually. Public Telegram was introduced in India in 1855

TRIGGERS FOR MIGRATION - Rise of Port Cities

Rise of Port Cities

Tod in 1832 saw that the establishment of British rule forced the Marwaris to pick up foods at the ports of Calcutta and Bombay if they were to make a profit, rather than wait for someone to bring the goods to Pali or Churu in their homelands.

The successive wave of opportunity were ultimately governed by the demands of British and foreign port export firms. Just as the East India Company developed export line after export line to solve its remittance problem, old banking firms developed complex flows and counter flows of commodities and hundi's to balance the drains and inflows into their various branches.

TRIGGERS FOR MIGRATION - Rise of British East India Company

Rise of British East India Company

The establishment of British power furnished the conditions for the Marwari migration. On the one hand, it caused the decline of their older fields of activity in financing the warring princely states and trading along Rajasthan’s caravan routes. On the other, it opened new opportunities, to serve as intermediaries in the new foreign oriented commerce that the British were developing.

On one hand, the British imposed all sorts of discriminations against businesses based in the princely states of Rajasthan. On the other them provided relative security of property to those based in British India.

Most dramatically, the British impact was to cause the decline of former centre's of political power  and the rise of new commercial ones to shift the trade routes on which merchants perform must live.

The British needed to find experienced intermediaries as their agents, to supply armies, and to help in the conduct of government finance.

The expanding market demanded the provision of credit to craftsmen and peasants, the British rule provided an opportunity to secure this credit against land. Increased physical security gave additional assurance to moneylenders and traders, that they would be able to see the fruits of their ventures.

The Marwaris with some capital, a wide “resource group” on which to draw for credit, and a high level of commercial skill, were among the obvious candidates for the roles opened up by the British. As Parlov points out in his work, that Marwari enterprise was a product of the British. Marwari firms in general responded to the greater physical security in British India.

Origins of British Rule In India

British Conquest of India

Before the British East India Company established itself in India following was the situation which was clearly not conducive for development of trade.

Currency

A plethora of currencies  was in circulation in different parts of the country. Their relative value was determined by their metal content and the prevailing price of the metal in a given market. To complicate matters further, the purchasing power of the currency in the same market varied depending on the age of the coin, the older the coin, the less the value to allow wear and tear. The company’s silver rupee was declared to be the legal tender throughout India in 1835.

Custom Chowkies
Thevenot, who visited india in the first quarter of the 18th Century, counted 16 custom points within a distance of less than 60 miles. Anyone who could assert a measure of administrative control could extract payments for goods passing through its territories.

Metric System
The situation in the realm of weights and measures was chaotic. Standards varied not only among region, provinces, and districts, but sometimes even between 2 villages. For instance ser, a basic unit of weight used all over the land, ranged between 20.63 tolas and 78 tolas
 

TRIGGERS FOR MIGRATION - Diminishing Opportunities in Native Land

Diminishing Opportunities in Native Land

In the course of the 18th century, the Shekhawat thakurs sought service in the Jaipur army.
In spite of their employment in the Jaipur army, many Shekhawat thakurs attempted to supplement the meager earnings from their decreases estates by resorting to banditry.

In 1835, in a bid to restore law and order, the British East India Company recommended the formation of the Shekhawati Brigade, an army of local troops that was successful in curbing the excess of these thakurs. 

By 1820’s because of high duties, traders were preferring diversion through Shekhawati and caravan trade across the region presented an ever-decreasing proportion of the local Bania’s source of wealth.

By 19th Century the Banias had become quite powerful. They could tolerate only a certain amount of extorsion by their Rajput rulers and then they started exhibiting their firmness and made confident moves, migrating out of their region.

Another geographical factor which might have had an impact on trade through these routes could have been the “1819 Rann of Kutch Earthquake” that dammed the Puram river and changed the course of Sindhu river which flowed through “Lakhpat”, the last frontier of Kutch and a prominent port at the mouth of “Kori” creek. Lakhpat which literally means the city of millionaires was an important trading post connecting Gujarat to Sindh.


MYTH

Merchant families moved out of their native land in Rajasthan due to famines

REALITY

There were several famines in Rajasthan in 1812-13, 1868-69, 1877, 1891-92 and 1899, but there is little indication that these were times of accelerated out migration by businessmen. On the contrary, according to some observers, businessmen were able to assist in transportation grain to the affected areas
  

SHEKHAVATI - Merchant Towns

Merchant Towns

Shekhavat’s and Qaimkhani’s followed the custom of equally diving the estates among their sons. By 19th Century they held smaller and smaller shares in smaller and smaller estates. —They competed with each other offering concession to merchants, especially their own protection. Over time this competition may well have resulted in a mercantile influx in this area as a whole. —The concessions often included exemptions from estate octrois and immunities from prosecution. —Special emissaries from estate owners are reported to have convinced the Poddars of Churu to move to Ramgarh and the Goenkas to move to Dundlod, then budding centres of Shekhavati.

An apocryphal story about the formation of Ramgarh arrributes it to the fact that the Thakurani of Churu teased her sister, the Rao Rani of Sikar over the lack of merchants in Sikar realm. On her return the Rao Rani was supposed to have pestered her husband until he agreed to setup a merchant city state in Ramgarh. —Another apocryphal story about the formation of Ramgarh’s origin is rather interesting. It so happened that in Churu, which was a part of the Bikaner state, a particular Poddar clan rose to great prominence as the main merchant family trading in woollen products. Nothing was wrong with that; trade was the main occupation of the marwaris of Shekhawati. But things became really bad when the state funds dried up and the thakur (chieftain) of Churu imposed a new levy on the wool trade. This obviously angered the Poddars. They thought this was unfair and opposed the hike. But the thakur was adamant too. So the Poddars lifted their bag and baggage and off they went to settle themselves in a new place (see Churu for more). and with the help of the Raja of Sikar, the Poddars founded Ramgarh in 1791. The displaced Poddars then vowed to make Ramgarh so beautiful so as to outdo Churu. 

SHEKHAVATI - Caravan Routes & Trade Concessions

SHEKHAVATI - Caravan Routes & Trade Concessions

—After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 the Mughal empire went into a decline. In 18th Century rulers in Gujarat supported by the foundation of Bhavnagar port established a trade link with the Gulf. An overland caravan route linking towns of Bhiwani (Haryana) and Bhavnagar (Gujarat) crossed the region of Churu and Shekhawati. The principle commercial lines followed are: from Delhi via Bhiwani in Hissar (the greatest eastern part of Rajputana) to Rani (Taranagar), the other via Churu, Ratangarh and Sujangarh to Phalodi, Nagore, Jodhpur and Pali in Marwar (Jodhpur state). 

Pali was the entre pot for the eastern and western regions where the productions of India, Kashmir and China (Tibet?) where interchanged for those of Europe, Africa, Persia and Arabia. Caravans from the ports of Kutch and Gujarat imported ivory, copper, dates, gum-arabica, borax, coconuts, broad cloths, silks, sandalwood, camphor, dyes, drugs, oxide, sulphate of arsenic, spices, coffee etc.

In exchange they received chintzes, dried fruit, hing (from Multan), sugar, opium (from Kota), silks and fine cloth, potash, shawls, dyed blanket, arms and sale of home manufacture. 

        

SHEKHAVATI - Shekhavat's

Shekhavat's

—In 1727 Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh 2 moved the Kachhawaha capital to Jaipur he and his heir imposed their Sovereignty on the Shekhawat’s reducing them to the status of thakurs i.e Landed nobles. —They retained their hereditary properties and ruled them in a more or less self-governing fashion.