Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/50

 ;

HAK

42 rSja alone, with which he

might reward

his retainers

but here again the



the result of wal- and military aggression. We have instances (see articles Sikandarpur and Kheri district)' of the establishment or re-establishment of a r^j by the voluntary election of the people in order to further the common interests or protect them from the common enemy, the T&j arose as

supreme government.

The raja's titles are generally most modem inventions there was no raja of the Bisens before Hanwant Singh none of the Janwars till two generations ago, none of the Ahbans,theoldest clanin Oudh, till RajaLone Singh's time they never had a r^ja in Hardoi; there is none of the Kalhans, of the Chamar Gaurs,ofthe B^hman Gaurs; there was none of the Jangres till Jodha Singh conquered Dhaurahra. In point of fact, in times of ordinary tranquillity, even of such tranquillity as was common in Oudh, there was no necessity for a raja, and no Indian Government, unless in the last stage of decay, would have tolerated the existence of any raja within its dominions whom it could possibly or safely reduce to subjection.

No doubt, at the break up of each empire, a number of able men started into local greatness when the Jaunpur kingdom was broken up, the Bais, the Kanhpuria, the Soinbansi, the Bachgoti clans found it convenient to have rajas with the establishment of settled order and the Mughal empire, the unity of the raj vanished, and property Was divided according Again, when the Mughal empire broke up, to the ordinary Hindu law.



were established the Muhamdi, Kaimahra, Kala Kdnkar, the Dhaurahra, the Katiari, the Dera principalities. Again, when the Oudh kings had lost all real power and devoted themselves to sensuality, there arose the great principalities of Oel, Shahganj, Jahangirabad, Mahmudabad, Maurdnwan, Sissaindi. On what did these principalities rise ? Not oh the ruins of others; if so,' there would be numerous traces left. The Bilkharia raja, for instance, was dispossessed six hundred years ago, but he has maintained his title and honours on a petty principality of eight vilBut I have met with no lages, compared to which Monaco is an empire. other banished princes in fact the rdj rose on the wrecks of village proprietary communities, and no other opinion can be formed by those who take care to extend their inquiries beyond the mere family trees of the

rajas.

That

rajas

were not congenial to the

soil

of Hardoi, that the people

resisted the outward pressure of the Lucknow Government, and the temptation to raise a strong barrier against foreign oppression, goes to show

that rajas, far from being the natural outcome of rural life, the natural political result of the Hindu economy, were a lien, if not distasteful to the people, only accepted as a means of escape from greater evils, from more distant and harsher tyrants. At any rate there were no rajas in Hardoi, in the sense of hereditary chiefs of great clans, and lords of their lands. Dip Singh* of Siwajpur is possibly an exception, and it is expressly re• He is believed with truth to be a descendant of the gar, now Bilgratn, was captured by the Moslems iu or Elliot's History of India, vol. I'V., pp. 37-38.

Raja Sri, whose town of Srina^ about 803 N., 1400 A. V.— Vide