On cool summer evenings, having finished his dinner, the English civil servant John Faithful Fleet arranged to have the local bards from the southern region of the Bombay presidency sing the best-known songs of the area to him at his tent. As the crowds gathered to sing along to the popular tunes that were to be performed, Fleet put down the clefs and key signatures to record the repeating chorus. He tells us that these ballads aren’t easily tamed between ledger lines, with their changing meter, disregard for rhythmic consistency, and ad-libs, despite their simple vocal rendition. And yet, he managed to put on record the tunes, lyrics, and translations of these songs published in the journal The Indian Antiquary between 1885 and 87.
What is of general interest to the readers of the Antiquary, the epigraphist tells us, is the historical and political value of these songs for governance, which could provide a “genuine native view” of the system of administration and the measures taken to enforce it. These songs, “never meant for European ears,” but on the tongue of most of the villagers in the south of Belgaum and north of Dharwad paint “ingenuous illustrations” of the local officers, magistrates, and even Queen Victoria herself, he notes. Additionally, on account of being composed by “uneducated rustics,” these songs are considered to hold linguistic insights about “the vernacular as it is actually spoken,” not accessible in the “artificial compositions” given to written records in Kanarese or Sanskrit. Admixtures from Marathi, Urdu, and borrowed English terms are fitted into the four-syllabic prosody common to Kanarese (Kannada). His collection comprises lamentations of the final downfall of places of renown, commemorations of rebellions, reflections on the introduction of the Income Tax, and the mounting tensions between cultivators and moneylenders (Fleet 1885, 293–95).
Two pieces with sheet music are discussed below and reproduced on the piano.
Uprising in Kittur
‘The Ballad of the Insurrection of Rayanna of Sangolli’ recounts the events following the imposition of the Doctrine of Lapse – under which royal vassals of the East India Company would be directly annexed if they did not have an heir – upon the Kittur principality. The Desai of Kittur held hereditary office as a vassal under Peshwa rule and had continued to hold his Zamindari [fief] under Company rule with cash allowances and honorary gifts restored, until his death without an heir (Stokes 1870, 77–79). Rayanna, a Sanadi – a bearer of rent-free title in exchange for service to the Desai, had his first foray with the British East India Company in 1824, fighting alongside the widow of the Desai. This tale recounts his second attempt at armed conflict provoked by the confiscation of rent-free service lands in 1829[1]. Said to have acted alongside the adopted son and heir of Kittur, Rayanna rode through several villages, adding to his numbers all those disaffected by British taxation, looting the Kucheris[2] and destroying the records at Bidi and Sampgaon, mounting a full-scale rebellion, resulting in the death of the collector and political agent of Dharwad[3], Sr. John Thackeray. Although hesitant at first to call in the military as it was a matter of honorary titles[4], when Rayanna continued his raids, the government eventually raised the regular troops. Despite their efforts, Rayanna continued his raids, until he was eventually betrayed by other claimants to the title. “He was condemned to hang at Nandagud, the scene of his chief robbery” writes H.J. Stokes (85) who also notes that close to his burial sprang a Banyan tree under whose shade a temple was erected, and Rayanna was deified.
The version of the Ballad that Fleet records is signed off by the bard Basava of Mandala-Heballi, who sings of being an eyewitness to the events described. The pastiche, based on prevalent narrative tropes within which colonial power is described, is interesting. The Magistrate in Dharwad is narrated to have momentarily left his seat of power (gaddi) in frustration “throwing down his hat, and biting his wrist, and gnashing his teeth” on hearing about these unfolding disturbances – the poet’s way of suggesting the insurrectionists were not far from unseating the British. Queen Victoria is anachronistically narrated to be part of the unfolding events. Powerful and wise, she immediately realises the severity of the matter, responding to the letter from Dharwad in person. Although the events took place during the reign of King George the IV, the inclusion of Queen Victoria as a character in the story plays an important part in the mimetic representation of sovereign power. Not only is it used as a stand-in for a name of a ruler that the villagers were familiar with by the 1880s, the establishing of proximity and familiarity with the figure of the sovereign, giving a sensory association and a voice to her gives us pause to examine the notion of sovereign power and legitimacy in the feudatory. Subsequently, the Magistrate is narrated to immediately recognize the beauty on Rayanna’s face along with a messianic recognition of nobility and bravery in him when he is presented before the court in chains. The judgement of his gut is to set him free but the men who have betrayed Rayanna to answer the Company’s promise of rewards beg the Magistrate to put him to death, fearing for their lives. The song suggests that before the official letter from the sovereign arrives, Rayanna is hastily put to death. In its narrative imagination, the Magistrate laments alongside the villagers and even pays out 10 rupees to have Rayanna buried.
The Disarmament Act
The Disarmament Act of 1857 was passed as an immediate consequence of the revolt of 1857. Orders were issued to confiscate all weapons of every description. The ballad of ‘The Bedas of Halagali’ recounts the refusal of the villagers to surrender their arms. The Bedas, recorded as professional hunters by Fleet, resented the measures imposed upon them despite the fact that the state of Mudhol, of which Halagali was a part, had not participated in the revolt. Fleet pegs this disturbance to a hasty implementation upon people “who were not even yet fully accustomed to the security of the British rule” as well as to their race and caste for having a “turbulent disposition” (356). Upon quelling the resistance, the village is burnt as punishment.
In this ballad, the very first verse establishes the government as distant and foreign with the orders coming from Vilayat (Europe). The ballad chronicles long lists of items lost to the Kumpani Sarkara (EIC government) as if to memorialize it. The different types of swords and shields passed down through generations or bought with great difficulty upon incurring debts, the material they are made of, the distinct decorations they are adorned with and memories they held in relation to these weapons are recounted. The question of masculine power and honor are also invoked. The promise of hereditary property upon disarming is contrasted with the value, dignity and honor the weapons brought them. The bard asks, “were not the rich men in great anxiety” (Fleet 1887, 357) having kept their land but given up its means of protection? The fear that the government was baiting them to give up arms, leaving them defenseless and without access to negotiation, pervades the narrative as they repeatedly fight off promissory speeches. The four rebels who vow to take on the Kumpani [Company] soldiers are narrated to have inflicted heavy losses upon the British even as they are continuously subjected to a barrage of bullets. Hebalak Saheb (Magistrate Willam Havelock) is narrated to have tried to trick them into surrender while Kar Saheb (Lt. Alexander Kerr) is named for his cruelty. When the battle is lost, all the household items, jewels, tools and clothes that are either burnt or looted are listed. The village is said to be obliterated without remainder in the closing verse.
As Borati (2014) notes not all ballads were stories of rebellion or disaffection towards the British, and several Ballads sang praises of the might of the Empire like they would have about the previous rulers and at times there were more pointed appraisals of particular policies or officers, slipping in a demand or two between laurels. The reining in of rich and powerful native elites is recounted in some stories. Banal matters of administration are sometimes rendered in song, underscoring how important it was to their lives. The Song of Bijaraya, for instance, praises Thomas Munro for introducing a system that is thought to have brought justice. The song celebrates the way he assessed and surveyed the lands for taxation and abided by his promised treaty.
The ballads in Kannada provide a fresh provocation to examine the penetration of the Empire and the complex and variegated history it occasioned – where simple caricatures, painted then, can themselves act against the simplistic caricatures invoked now.
Piano rendered by Gabel Mascarenhas.
Boratti, Vijay. 2014. ‘The British in the Folklore of Colonial Karnataka’. Folklore 125 (3): 344–52.
Fleet, J.F. 1885. ‘A Selection of Kanarese Ballads’. In The Indian Antiquary: A Journal of Oriental Research, edited by J.F. Fleet and C.T. Richard, VOL XIV.-1885. Swati Publications 1984.
Fleet, J.F. 1887. ‘A Selection of Kanarese Ballads’. In The Indian Antiquary: A Journal of Oriental Research, edited by J.F. Fleet and C.T. Richard, VOL XVI.-1887. Swati Publications 1984.
Inagaki, Haruki. 2021. The Rule of Law and Emergency in Colonial India: Judicial Politics in the Early Nineteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan.
Skaria, Ajay. 1999. Hybrid Histories: Forest, Frontiers and Wilderness in Western India. Oxford University Press.
Stokes, H. J. 1870. An Historical Account of the Belgaum District in the Bombay Presidency. Education Society’s Press.
[1] Before the EIC, certain communities, the hill tribes in particular, provided the services of watchmen to the chiefs in the plains. In exchange, they were given rent-free lands which were cultivated by the village headmen and the dues (giras) extracted. When the dues weren’t paid, the tribal chiefs would raid the plains as a means of payment and negotiation. See. (Skaria 1999).
[2] Courts or offices for administration of secular matters of commerce.
[3] Dharwad was in particular focus for administrative restructuring as the EIC sought to expand the cotton plantations in the region.
[4] There was a growing consensus in the Bombay government that ‘natives of rank’ should be co-opted to police the region and control the raiders. See. (Inagaki 2021, 65–90).
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