Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/249

 RAE 241 neglected in practice the principle of primogeniture, and regarded their rája not as the lord of the clan's property but as the ceremonial chief, the social leader, and nothing more ; who were prepared to follow the military guidance of any able scion of the family in despite of, or even in opposi- tion to the nominal head to whom their allegiance was due. At the same time there is no doubt that the name of Tilok Chand and the credit of a lofty lineage have had a wonderfully conservative effect upon the minds of the Hindus, constraining naturally dissonent elements into harmony. Their estates are occupied by more than half a million of inhabitants, whom their internal wars have made miserable for three hundred years, yet, as Mr. Benett points out, not so miserable as they would have been without them. There is no longer now a necessity for them, and there is little doubt that if the fostering hand of Government were withdrawn, the whole Tilokchandi clan in the space of a hundred years would give place to men more in accord with the spirit of the time. That their sub- jects are beginning to question that divinity whose potency was rudely assailed in 1857 is evident from the following anecdote related by Colonel Macandrew. :- « These call themselves Tilokchandi Bais to distinguish them from the Kath Bais, who are supposed to be the offspring of the real Bais by women of inferior caste. The Tilokchandi Bais will neither eat nor intermarry with them. An instance of this was exemplified the other day when the proposal was made that the Bais should erect a biidge over the Sai at Rae Bareli. The Tilokchandis proposed that the Kath Bais should sub- scribe. The latter at once professed their willingness to do so provided the Tilokchandis would acknowledge them to be Bais by eating with them. Nothing more was heard of the proposal that they should sub- scribe. The Kath Bais are scattered over the district, generally in consider- able communities, holding their villages both from Government and from the taluqdars; there are no Kath Bais taluqdars." As a general rule family trees are not given in this work, but an excep- tion must be made in honour of this heroic clan, nearly every name in whose roll has a place in the annals of Oudh chivalry. 31