GLIMPSES OF ‘AN ANTHOLOGY OF SELECTED WRITINGS ON EAST BENGAL’ FROM THE ‘INDIA COLLECTION’ AT THE INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE LIBRARY, DELHI
Raana Haider

The Daily Star, Bangladesh
Oct 6 2007

Introduction

The ‘India Collection’ at the India International Centre Library in
New Delhi earlier constituted the ‘Collection of British Books on
India’ of the British Council, New Delhi. Numbering over 3000 rare
and old books, documents, personal accounts, prints, memoirs, maps
and manuscripts; the ‘India Collection’ consists largely the works
of British authors on India, particularly covering the British period.

The Collection spans the period from the 17th century (the earliest
title is dated 1672) to 1947.

The extracts presented below draw on expansive archival material
pertaining to selective original works in the form of memoirs, records
and travel accounts primarily on nineteenth-century East Bengal. Rich
in topographical and architectural documentation and social customs
the topics include administration, animals, architecture, climate,
customs, geography, lifestyle, mores and manners and the rulers; by
generations of British civilian and military officers, scholars and
traders in India. These ‘voices that speak’ from a bygone era are an
introduction to a larger literary canvas of the British presence in
East Bengal that will be explored in a forthcoming book.

‘Memoirs of a Bengal Civilian’ by John Beames

Published by Chatto & Windus, London, 1961.

(R.H. Note): John Beames arrived in Calcutta in March 1858 at the
age of twenty-one; as one of the last batch of cadets appointed by
the East India Company. He served in Chittagong from 1878-1879, was
appointed District Magistrate of Balasore and retired from India in
1893. His other accomplishments were a translation from the ‘Turki
of Babar’s Memoirs’ and an unfinished ‘Historical Geography of India’.

Extract:

"We were supremely unhappy at Chittagong. In fact we spent there
two of the most miserable years of our existence. The contrast to
Cuttack where we had been so happy, was cruel. Sir Ashley Eden, the
Lieutenant-Governor, was unfriendly to me and put junior men into good
appointments over my head. The pay of the appointment of Commissioner
and Judge of Chittagong was less by some Pounds 350 a year than that
of other Commissionerships, though, as everyone said, a man ought
to have been paid higher, and not lower, for having to live in such
a place. And it was a terrible burden to have the work of Judge, work
of which I had no previous experience, added to the already very heavy
work of Commissioner. The two posts were, in fact, incompatible. The
work of one interfered with that of the other. If I devoted time to the
administrative work of Commissioner, I got into trouble with the High
Court for neglecting my judicial work as Judge, and vice versa. The
arrangement was an unworkable one. Fortunately circumstances arose
(though after my time) which compelled the Government to sever the
two posts and appoint a separate officer as Judge."

"…We were engaged on a very difficult, in fact an almost impossible,
task with these Mughs. The tangled maze of hills in which they live
is densely wooded and contains a great deal of valuable timber. It had
been placed under the charge of the Forest Department. A department of
any kind in India always assumes that the world exists solely for the
use of itself. And considers that anything that interferes with the
working of the department ought to be removed…Finally some wise man
observed that it was not so much the Mughs themselves as their practice
of ‘jhuming’ that did harm, and he suggested that they should be
taught to till the soil by ploughing like the Bengalis…Every year the
steamers of the British India Company carry from Bengal to Chittagong,
Akyab and Rangoon thousands of Bengali labourers, who go to earn good
wages for two or three months by cutting and garnering the crops,
while the lazy Mugh proprietors sit in their verandas smoking their
long, rank cheroots and cutting jokes at the hard-working Bengalis…"

‘The Hand-Book to India: A Guide to the Stranger and the Traveller
and a Companion to the Resident’ by Joachim-Hayward Stocqueler

Published by W.H. Allen & Company, London, 1845.

Extract:

"Calcutta to Dacca (186 miles)

…The trip from Calcutta is effected by means of boats of large
barthen at all period of the year. Dacca is both a civil and a
military station, and many indigo-planters likewise reside there,
or in the neighbourhood. The following is the best description of
the place that we have fallen in with:

"The city of Dacca, with its minarets and spacious buildings, appears,
during the season of inundation, like that of Venice in the West,
to rise from the surface of the water, and, like the generality of
native towns presents an irregular appearance…There is an Armenian
church at Dacca. The floor of the interior of the building is divided
into three parts: one enclosed by a railing, for the altar; a central
portion, into which two folding-doors open; and another railed off,
which is exclusively occupied by the women and children, has a gallery
over it…The floor of the verandah contains many tomb-stones, in
memory of departed Armenian Christians, who formerly abounded in the
city of Dacca, where there are still an influential and wealthy body."

(RH Note): there is no mention of the source of the above account
of Dacca.

"…But the chief cause of the destruction of the city of Dacca is to
be traced to the loss of the muslin trade, which has almost entirely
disappeared. It is true that, by giving a commission, an extremely
delicate article may be still procured, at the rate of 150 rupees,
or Pounds 15 for ten yards; but at that rate, as may be readily
imagined, little can be sold, as the demand must be necessarily very
small. The working of shawl-scarfs with flossed silk is carried to
great perfection, and many are despatched by banghy to Calcutta.

Beautiful ear-rings and other ornaments, made of the purest silver,
and of an infinite variety of patterns, can be supplied at a very short
notice, and at reasonable prices. The suburbs of Dacca were formerly
inhabited by thousands of families of muslin-weavers, who from the
extreme delicacy of their manufacture, were obliged to work in pits,
sheltered from the heat of the sun and changes of the weather; and
even after that precaution, only while the dew lay on the ground,
as the increasing heat destroyed the extremely delicate thread…"

‘Mercantalism and the East India Trade’ by P.J. Thomas

Published by Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London, 1926. New impression, 1963.

Extract:

"…A Persian ambassador, returning from India in the seventeenth
century, presented his royal master with a cocoanut set with jewels,
containing within it a muslin turban thirty yards long. But such
excellence has long passed away, and is not even attempted at the
present time. (RH Note: In a footnote Thomas adds): "This industry
is now practically dead. The Exhibition at Wembley (1924) has only
one old specimen of the old Dacca work."

"…Some of the poetic names of muslin tell their own tale. "Subnam"
(or evening dew) is the name for a thin pellucid variety, because
it is scarcely distinguishable from the dew or sand. Another of the
chefs d’oeuvres of Dacca is called "Abravan" (running water) because
it is supposed to be invisible in water. "Alabalee" (very fine),
"Tanjeb" (ornament of the Body), "Kasa" (elegant) are also interesting
examples of poetic nomenclature. These goods were called by similar
fanciful names in other countries also. It has been called in Europe
ventus textiles (textile breeze) ‘web of woven air’, ‘cobweb’, and
so forth. The woollen manufacturers of England said that muslin was
the shadow of a commodity rather than a commodity by itself. This
was indeed great praise."

"Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India from
Calcutta to Bombay 1824-1825 by the Reverend Reginald Heber D.D. Vol.

1. (3 Vols. Third Edition).

Published by John Murray, London, 1828.

Reverend Reginald Heber was the Lord Bishop of Calcutta.

Extract:

"To the Right Honourable Charles W. Williams Wynn,

Dacca, July 13, 1824.

My Dear Wynn,

…Two thirds of the vast area of Dacca are filled with ruins,
some quite desolate and overgrown with jungle, others yet occupied
by Mussulman chieftains the descendants of the followers of Shah
Jehanguire, and all of the "Lions of war," "Prudent and valiant Lords,"
"Pillars of the Council," "Swords of Battle," and whatever other names
of Cawn, Emir, or Omrah, the court of Delhi dispensed in the time of
its greatness. These are to me a new study. I had seen abundance of
Hindoo Baboos and some few Rajahs in Calcutta. But of the 300,000
inhabitants who yet roost like bats in these old buildings, or
rear their huts amid their desolate gardens, three-fourths are still
Mussulmans, and the few English, and Armenian, and Greek Christians who
are found here, are not altogether more than sixty or eighty persons,
who live more with the natives, and form less of an exclusive society
than is the case in most parts of British India. All the Mussulmans of
rank whom I have yet seen, in their comparatively fair complexions,
their graceful and dignified demeanour, particularly on horseback,
their shewy dresses, the martial curl of their whiskers, and the
crowd, bustle, and ostentation of their followers, far outshine any
Hindoos; but the Calcutta Baboos leave them behind toto coelo, in
the elegance of their carriages, the beauty of their diamond rings,
their Corinthian verandahs, and the other outward signs of thriving
and luxury. Yet even among these Mahommedans, who have, of course,
less reason to like us than any other inhabitants of India, there is
a strong and growing disposition to learn the English language, and
to adopt, by degrees, very many of the English customs and fashions."

"…The most whimsical instance of imitation, is perhaps that of
Mirza Ishraf Ali, a Zemindar of 100,000 acres, and with a house like
a ruinous convent, who in his English notes, signs here hereditary
title of "Kureem Cawn Bahadur" in its initials, K.C.B."

"…a desire of learning our language is almost universal even here,
and in these waste bazaars and sheds, where I should never have
expected any thing of the kind, the dressing-boxes, writing-cases,
cutlery, chintzes, pistols, and fowling-pieces engravings, and other
English goods, or imitations of English, which are seen, evince how
fond of them the middling and humbler classes are become…"

‘British India: Its History, Topography, Government, Military Defence,
Finance, Commerce and Staple Products with an Explanation of the
Social and Religious State of One Hundred Million Subjects of the
Crown of England’ by Robert Montgomery Martin, Esq.

Published in London, 1855. Reprint1983.

(RH Note): Robert Montgomery Martin was Treasurer to Queen Victoria
in Hong Kong and Member of Her Majesty’s Legislative Council in China.

Extract :

"Dacca, – on the Burha Gunga, an offset of the Koniae or Jabuna; 4 m.

long, and 1 and ¼ m. broad. It is at present a wide expanse of ruins.

The castle of its founder, Shah Jehangir, the noble mosque he built,
the palaces of the ancient newaubs, the factories and churches of
the Dutch, French and the Portuguese, are all sunk into ruin, and
overgrown with jungle. The city and suburbs are stated to possess
ten bridges, thirteen ghauts, seven ferry-stations, twelve bazaars,
three public wells, a variety of buildings for fiscal and judicial
purposes, a gaol and gaol-hospital, a lunatic asylum, and a native
hospital. Population, 200,000.

Raana Haider is a writer and researcher on global cultural heritage.

Her book India: Beyond the Taj and the Raj, India Research Press,
New Delhi will be out soon.

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