After a Much-Heated Political Debate, The Union Cabinet Earllier This Year Approached Caste-Based Enumeration in the Upcoming National Census. This means that for the first time Since 1931, India will officially count its citizens by caste.
Although the idea of a caste census in india is of attributed to colonial authorities, Little is known about a simple case-based country that has been carried out twack in RAJASATAN MARRWSTAN MARRWSTAN MARRW. Kingdom. Conducted in 1664 under directions from the kingdom’s ‘Home minister’ munhata nainsi, the process of case data collection is known to have shaped the first knowledge colonial census of Western rajashan Administrator Alexander Boileau in 1835 in marwar and the adjacent kingdoms of bahawalpur, bikaner and jaisalmer.
Cambridge University’s Norbert Peabody in his essay, ‘CENTS, Sense, Census: Human Inventories in Late Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial India’ (2001) a detailed analysis of nainsi’s caste-based data enumeration and suggests that the implication has been so far beyns to suggest that “European Colonisers Alone Reponsible For Interoking New Knowledge. Practices that radically transformed Indigenous Societies. ” The role of the colonized and indigenous forms of knowledge, his findings show, were important markers in the history of social institutions in India.
Marwar, Rajasthan in 1664
In 1664, the Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb Held Political Control over Much of Rajasthan. But Rajput Kingdoms Like Mewar, Amber, and Marwar Continued to Operate Under their listers, often as tributaries or vassals to the Emporor.
Marwar was ruled by the Rathor Clan, one of the 36 Rajput clans that Had Controlled Large Parts of Western India Since the 12th Century. The king, Jaswant Singh of Marwar, was the head of the clan and its military.
For centuries, marwar remained small. The idea of bhaibantor “sharing among brothers,” Meant power was distributed among the clan, and the king was just the first among equals.
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Paradoxically, it was only after coming under the mughal influence that the custom of marwar was about to consolidate power, expand their territories, and development a more hierarchical sistem without. A key change included the adoption of Mughal-style Bureaucratic Administration, which meant keeping detailed records.
Then Came Munhata Nainsi, Marwar’s 17th-century equivalent of a home minister. According to Peabody, nainsi conducted the first systematic caste-wise enumeration of households between 1658 and 1664 Across Seven Districts of Marwar, Including the Capital Jodhpur. At the time, nainsi was not trying to classify social hierarchies; He was attempting to solve a tax problem.
Marwar’s Urban Households Paid A Heartha Tax, And Different Casters Paid Different Rates. Privileged Castes Got Concessions While Other Paid More, Espected Specialized Tools OR Trade Materials. Rural Households were not even included as they were taxed on crops and livestock separately.
Thus, what nainsi created was not a social survey but a revenue manual.
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Around 175 Years Later, Administrator Boileau would copy the same methods for his 1835 census of western rajasthan.
Findings of Nainsi’s Survey
Most of Nainsi’s Career Coincided with the long reign of maharaja jaswant singh rathor of marwar (1638-1678). Early in his professional life, nainsi was successively appointed as the administrable head (hakim) of various administrative districs (parganas) Throughout the kingdom.
His Household Lists were part of a Much Larger Document Titled Marwar ra parganan ri vigat (An account of the districs of marwar). “While the household lists are lacked the universalizing thrust of the later colonial censuses, they are clearly used casted as the basis for differring population data,” Peabody notes in his research.
Nainsi’s Records Divided Casters Into Broad Groups: Low-Ranking “Purifying Castes” and Higher, Unnamed Ones. But the order varied from place to place. Officials usually listed mahajans, escaically the oswals, first, what is not surround nainsi was an oswal himself.
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These lists were not rigid or codified but, Instead, varied from town to town. The Way Officials Recorded Casters Semed to Depend on Local Politics and Practical Concerns Rather than Any Overarching Ideology. Caste Mattered Economically, and Officials Recorded Identity Because IF AFIEDED TAX. Thus, Nainsi’s Lists Focused Less on Caste and more on State Revenue.
SUBSEQUENT Colonial surveys
The colonial connection becomes clear when you look at what happened almost 200 years later.
In 1835, Boileau conducted a census in marwar and neighbouring kingdoms like bikaner and jaisalmer. His methods were remarkably similar to nainsi’s. “Many British administrates did the building from Surveys from Scratch,” Peabody says. “They copied exist Systems, relying on Indian information and scribes who used earlier methods like nainsi’s to gather data.”
Even before the Famous 1871-72 All-India Census, British officials were conducting smaller, localized caste-based surveys. But Instead of Inventing New System, They Relied on Local Administrators WHO WEER ARE ARE AREEDY Familiar with Indigenous Enumeration Practices. “The Urge to Minutely Classify the population in terms of numerous casters did not typically from Higher-Ranking Officials in the colonial boreaucracy, but from low-level administrate Officials. actually collecting the data in the field, ”writes peabody.
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While the british may not have intimate caste-based enumeration to India, they are systematised and amplified it to serve colonistic administctive needs. What had been a flexible, locally -adapted tax tool became an empire-wide system of social classification.
Peabody suggests that by shifting focus to pre-colonial trends and events which influnced colonial feats, we are about to appreciate that the colonial process arce out of an encounter out of the colonial process. Non-European Societies, and not out of an inherited sense of superiority.