Introduction
Over three decades have passed since the concept of collaboration was popularized by the Cambridge historian Ronald Robinson.Footnote 1 He maintained that in the absence of overwhelming resources, the British ran their empire on the cheap through securing the support of local elites. They identified indigenous elite groups comprising tribal chiefs, landowners, traders, and businessmen and attached them to their rule by means of patronage. In return, the local elites secured law and order and assisted the administration. Robinson's awareness that there were different patterns of collaboration and that this involved intra-elite competition has been explored primarily in terms of such situations as Kenya and South Africa. Work on India, however, has also shown in general terms that collaboration was not a one-way relationship and the local collaborating elites also manipulated the state for their own advantages.Footnote 2 However, there has been no detailed local-level study of the importance of the impact of elite competition on the collaborative process.
This article aims to address this gap in the literature through a case study of collaboration in the Shahpur district of the Punjab province of British India during the crucial period of the First World War. Shahpur forms an important case study as it was the leading recruitment district for the Indian Army. In peace time, collaboration involved local elites in policing and magisterial activities as well as in the role of military contractors. They competed for patronage in fulfilling these roles. Wartime increased the state's demands for men, money, and resources, which the elites supplied while still maintaining their role as indirect rulers of the countryside.
The colonial state had bolstered the power of local elites in the Shahpur district, as elsewhere in West Punjab, through its patronage and the protection of their economic interests in a rapidly commercializing agricultural environment.Footnote 3 The massive irrigation schemes in the West Punjab gave it the resources to patronize local elites. Prestige drove the elites in their roles in rural society and in their relationship as allies of the British. The war years intensified the state's demands, increased its rewards, and encouraged elites in their competition. These focused on the leading Mitha Tiwana branch of the Tiwana family and its rivals. The Tiwanas had risen to prominence as allies of the British at the time of the 1857 revolt and emerged as the leading landowners and military contractors of the district. They benefited from a network of private canals and from grants of land in the irrigated canal colony areas, which were watered by the state canals. These canals turned vast barren tracts into wheat fields. The Tiwanas were locally powerful before 1857, but their power was immensely strengthened thereafter. In this respect, they fit to an extent the contention of Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib that the collaborating elite was not only promoted but was created by the colonial state. The British changed the notion of property from ‘rights to rule’ the land to ‘rights to own’ the land by creating the institution of private ownership of property,Footnote 4 and by allotting landed grants they created a new loyal class of landed gentry.
The sketch for the theory of collaboration was propounded by Robinson, who was one of the early founders of the Cambridge School of Historiography. The concept became more fashionable within the Cambridge School with the seminal article by Anil Seal, ‘Imperialism and Nationalism’.Footnote 5 Other studies by SealFootnote 6 and by C. A. BaylyFootnote 7 discuss the methods and political consequences of colonial control. The role of elites and their loyalty to the colonial state is discussed with reference to a number of regions in India. For example, T. R. MetcalfFootnote 8 has illustrated this in relation to the taluqdars (large landholders) of Awadh, and Sarah Ansari has employed the concept of collaboration with regards to pirs (spiritual guides) and sufis (Islamic mystics) of Sindh,Footnote 9 to mention just a few. As far as Punjab is concerned, Ian Talbot and David Gilmartin have discussed the role of the landed and religious elites.Footnote 10 Their pioneering studies in the 1980s revealed that the collaborating elite in Punjab had a cross-communal composition. Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu Jat cultivators were woven into the system of informal alliances through a common agriculturist ideology and various material incentives. The keystone of the collaborative system was the protection provided by the Land Alienation Act of 1900 for the designated agriculturalist communities. Until its passage, land had been passing into the hands of moneylenders, as a result of growing rural indebtedness. This situation is revealed in the classical literature produced during the colonial era and exemplified in the works of Malcolm DarlingFootnote 11 and S. S. Thorburn.Footnote 12 The maintenance of the Land Alienation Act and the closing of its loopholes became a major unifying factor in the Unionist Party which came into existence following the introduction of dyarchy. From 1922 to 1946 it dominated Punjab politics by bringing together representatives of the landowning West Punjab Muslim elites and the Hindu Jat peasant proprietors of southeastern Punjab. Throughout its existence, the Unionist Party was motivated by loyalty to the British, which brought considerable prosperity to the region. The colonial authorities saw it as a vehicle for limiting the power of the Congress and latterly, the Muslim League. The Muslim League was also seen as a potential threat to the collaborative system of rule in a province that, because of its connection with the Indian Army, was seen as being immensely important.
David Omissi and Tan Tai Yong have provided influential studies of the history of military recruitment in colonial Punjab.Footnote 13 These have linked recruitmemt with the collaboration of the leading families drawn from the British-designated martial castes. The latter formed the backbone of the Indian Army from the 1880s onwards. The army was overwhelmingly a Punjabi force with both immediate and long-term implications for the history of the region. With respect to both military recruitment and the landlords’ wider collaboration, studies have been mainly based on provincial-level records. This has tended to play down the complexities and tensions surrounding army recruitment.
Rajit K. Mazumder has produced an interesting study of recruitment and military imperatives in the expansion of agriculture in Punjab, but again from a provincial perspective. He also brings into focus the infrastructural developments such as transport and communications networks created by military needs which sheds fresh light on the impact of military incomes with reference to the Amritsar district.Footnote 14 Mustapha Kamal Pasha's work is the only micro-level study but, like Mazumder, he does not focus on the impact of lineage competition on processes of recruitment, or how elites secured recruits from among their dependants. His focus is mainly on the dynamics of underdevelopment and military recruitment in one barani (rainfed) tehsil (an administrative sub-division of a district), Pind Dadan Khan, of the Jhelum district.Footnote 15
Recruitment and records in the Shahpur district
The broad brush approach does not give much scope to bring out the grassroots perspective on collaboration and the way it impacted on military recruitment. There is a need to focus on grassroots developments, based on district level sources which, as we shall see in this section, have not been utilized until this work. The findings provide original insights into military recruitment in wartime Punjab and into the wider operation of the processes of collaboration. During the First World War huge numbers of army recruits were ‘voluntarily’ raised by the traditional elites. The district was ranked number one, with 4,920 recruits raised during the first five months of 1918, which was the most crucial phase of the war.Footnote 16 In terms of overall number of personnel in the army, the district ranked fourteenth among the 28 districts of Punjab in November 1918.Footnote 17 In keeping with their post-1857 history, the Tiwanas, a Rajput Muslim tribe centred at Mitha Tiwana, were at the forefront of this process. While a number of studies have acknowledged the leading role of the Shahpur region in the war effort, this has not previously been examined in detail, in part because of lack of access to local historical sources.
The account in this article is primarily based on the war-related files available in the deputy commissioner's record office, Sargodha. They form a previously unutilized historical record. First information reports of the police station in Jhawrian have also been used. The record at the deputy commissioner's office contains a wealth of information about the contribution made to the war by the collaborating elites. Files on the official correspondence of the executive officers and the military officers also provide a detailed picture of the official policy of management of the war effort in the district. All these files are catalogued as ‘the District War Series’. These original files, such as the ‘Material for the War History of the Shahpur District’, were used by M. S. Leigh, a sub-divisional officer at Khushab, to write up the official district war history.Footnote 18 In addition to this famous work, the War Services of the Shahpur District,Footnote 19 he also wrote The Punjab and the War. The district records bring out clearly the experiences and contributions of the local population to the war effort and the ways in which local rival Tiwana chiefs sought to secure advantage over factional rivals as a result of their sacrifices. The intense rivalries amongst loyal collaborators are rarely glimpsed in the official published record.
They are revealed in the district files, first, because they contain detailed local-level accounts which were omitted in the selected published record. In War Services of the Shahpur District Leigh constructed an account with the benefit of hindsight to serve official ends. Second, this record also includes letters from the general public, some of which, especially those written by the Tiwana ‘military contractors’, shed fresh light on how collaboration worked and was locally understood at this critical historical juncture.
Collaboration and control during the war: a comparative study of the services of Tiwana Maliks
The rivalries between the leading Tiwana Maliks were a key element in driving military recruitment in the Shahpur district. This has not, however, been revealed in previous studies. The rival branches of the Tiwana family, led by Malik Umar Hayat Tiwana, Malik Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana, and Malik Mubariz Khan Tiwana, sought to outdo each other in raising recruits. This not only demonstrated their authority in their locality, but was designed to ensure that they received the lion's share of patronage from a grateful colonial state. They were towering figures in the district, with dynamic energies and a combination of ambition, cupidity, courage, and loyalty. All the three Tiwana Maliks had historically served the British and had been handsomely rewarded for this.Footnote 20 Although they shared the tradition of loyalism, they competed vigorously for local power and influence. The outbreak of war had provided a golden opportunity to the cadet branches of the family to improve their standing. Umar Hayat, on the other hand, sought through his government service to reinforce his position as the leading Tiwana and to fend off rivals. Before Umar left for the war front, first in France and later in Mesopotamia, his position had been strong enough to see off a threat from the other Tiwana Maliks who challenged his claim to be the leading tribal representative. But in his absence from the district the other Maliks sought to steal a march on him by raising volunteer army recruits more vigorously than his estate managers were able to do. Despite being invalided while on service in France, local services rendered in Shahpur could have tipped the balance in favour of his rivals; ultimately, however, his accumulated political and social capital with the colonial authorities was to prevail. Before turning to this, it is important to trace the rivalries between the Tiwanas which impacted so significantly on wartime collaboration in the Shahpur district.
Tiwana branches and their rivalries: the issue of unity and division
The existing literature on the Raj's important military contractors in Punjab tends to portray them as unified. This is mainly because they have been viewed through the prism of provincial rather than district-level sources. The official war history of Punjab smoothed out the wrinkles of local conflict among the ‘loyalists’. While subsequent historians have been aware of the political motivations of this colonial discourse, they have also over-estimated the impact of social relations and especially marriage alliances in binding together elite families of collaborators such as the Tiwanas. Ties of kinship, family history, and shared cultural values were stretched by the competition for resources created by the colonial state. These included waste land leases, honorary titles, and other forms of patronage arising from various forms of government service. Receipt of such awards enhanced families’ social standing, not only with respect to tenants and other dependents, but in terms of lineage rank. Cadet branches could steal a march on the senior tribal lineages. The competition was especially intense in Shahpur district because of the amount of patronage on offer, arising from the ambitious programmes of canal colonization in the 1880s. The only thing that was common among the Tiwanas and prevalent throughout the period (until the British deserted their erstwhile collaborators) was their loyalty to the British. Even the matrimonial alliances, which were mainly made for defence against other tribes, proved weak at the time of the clash of interests. For example, Umar Hayat Tiwana used his influence to get his son, Khizar Hayat Tiwana, a ministerial post in Sikandar's cabinet; the other potential candidates, Khuda Bakhsh and Sardar Khan Noon, were all his distant relatives.
In fact, the competition among the Tiwanas during the First World War was not new. Umar Hayat's claim to predominance dated back to his ancestors’ support for the British during the Sikh Wars and the revolt of 1857. His Mitha Tiwana ancestors were portrayed by Umar as the leading branch of the family. The rival claimants to this position were the representatives of the Hamoka and Jahanabad branches of the family. By the time of the First World War, they were headed by Nawab Malik Khuda Bakhsh Khan and Malik Mubariz Khan Tiwana respectively. Both family branches also had a tradition of loyalty to the British. But this was not as prestigious as that of their Mitha Tiwana rivals. By evoking examples from history, Umar Hayat compared his family's position with the other Maliks in the following manner:
The head-branch of the Tiwana family to which late Malik Sher Muahmmad Khan, Fateh Sher Khan and my father belonged had served in the Multan Campaign and then in the Mutiny, every time furnishing large contingents of cavalry. To these services no other minor branch has got any claim. In these campaigns the services of my father were considered to be the best, as apart from Khan Bahadurship he was granted the title of C.S.I.Footnote 21
However, this assertion was not completely true, as the father of Mubariz Khan Tiwana was among the troops of Sahib Khan, the father of Umar Hayat, and had served in various campaigns during the uprising of 1857. Of course the most prominent role was that of Umar Hayat's father who had assisted the British in the Multan siege. Later, under the orders of the commanding officer, he was sent on detached duties whereby he, along with his brothers, Malik Jahan Khan and Malik Fateh Khan, fought the Sikhs near Jhang, Rajoa, Chachar, and Bhera and remained with Lord Napier until the end.Footnote 22 In this way his services eclipsed those of the other Tiwanas and established the relative pre-eminence of his family. However, the British rewarded all the Tiwanas who offered services with titles, jagirs (landed estates), lands, and political pensions, and their position as the natural leaders of the rural society was entrenched.Footnote 23 In this way different branches of Tiwanas came to be represented by different important families who had become exorbitantly rich owing to the allotment of huge land grants.
In the late nineteenth century different Tiwana branches became more identifiable by their leading scions, as they in turn became prominent via the receipt of state patronage for their meritorious services. Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana represented the Tiwana family of Khawajabad, tehsil Shahpur. This family had originally come from Hamoka, tehsil Khushab.Footnote 24 Khuda Bakhsh, during the Chitral Expedition in 1894–95 and the frontier disturbance in Waziristan in 1897, extended his services in connection with transport on the demand of the government. In 1894 he was appointed as extra assistant commissioner, and from November 1903 to February 1907 he served as a British envoy at Kabul. On his return he was given the title of ‘nawab’ along with a political pension. The amir of Kabul conferred upon him the title of Izat Nishan (the sign of honour), which he used on his letterhead, as the British government allowed him to use the title in India.Footnote 25 Mubariz Khan Tiwana represented the Tiwana family of Jahanabad. Originally this family was a part of the Mundial family of Hadali.Footnote 26 Mubariz Khan had pursued a military career and got a commission in 1885 in the Bengal Lancers, which was also known as 9th Hodson's Horse. He served for six years and retired as risaldar (a non-commissioned cavalry rank).Footnote 27 Later on he was made an honorary captain in the same regiment. Both Mubariz Khan and Khuda Bakhsh had their huge ancestral estates in the Shahpur tehsil, at Jahanabad and Khwajabad respectively. Umar Hayat also had a huge ancestral estate at Kalra in Shahpur teshil. He originally belonged to the Mitha Tiwana branch of the family. Talbot's research on the Tiwanas provides an in-depth account of the Mitha Tiwana branch and Umar Hayat's family.Footnote 28 Here, it is sufficient to say, that Umar Hayat, following the footsteps of his late father, Sahib Khan, surpassed all his competitors because of his meritorious military career and the various services that he delivered to maintain peace and tranquility in the district. His military prowess and unflinching devotion to the war effort at home and abroad owed much to his education, which was carefully supervized by the colonial authorities.
Early training of Sir Umar Hayat Tiwana: an edge over other Maliks
Under British tutelage, right from an early age, Malik Umar Hayat Tiwana was set for a career whereby he had to play a prominent role not only as a chief collaborator but also as a ‘military contractor’Footnote 29 for the Raj. Malik Umar Hayat Khan was born in 1875, and he was about four years old when his father died and he inherited the Kalra estate. He was not cast adrift; rather all matters from the management of his estate to his personal education were taken care of by the British. His estate was brought under the Court of Wards and its assets increased significantly and profits spiralled. Even before he joined Aitchison College the British had provided him with ‘a highly educated tutor of Edinburgh University who brought him up according to the English way of living’.Footnote 30 His tutor instilled in him the habits of a tough and hardy lifestyle. He was encouraged to do most of his work with his own hands. At the age of 13 he walked from Muree to Kashmir and traversed different parts of Kashmir. He went on foot to high peaks such as Amarnath and Haramukh, both of which are higher than Mont Blanc.
Umar had a very distinguished career at Aitchison College Lahore, which had been established in 1886 to provide education along Western lines for the designated landed gentry of Punjab.Footnote 31 Umar not only remained at the top of his class but established a record by winning seven prizes in one year in reading and athletics combined. He did courses in the riding school, on foot drill, and single sticks and foils which instilled in him good soldierly qualities. He was also imparted veterinary training, which included the rough treatment of surgery. It was this skill which later on helped him save all the animals aboard his ship while the other regiments lost animals at sea during the First World War. At Aitchison College, General Parot trained him in horse breeding, a skill that helped him to not only maintain the largest stud farm in Punjab but also provide various cavalry regiments with remounts. Under Colonel Helon he was trained in farming. Last but not least, for the management of his estate, he was trained under Sir James Wilson, which helped him maintain his estate, nearly doubling the area and income.Footnote 32
Other members of the Tiwana tribe were also educated at Aitchison College. Malik Fateh Sher Khan died in 1894, and his son Muhammad Sher Khan was educated at Aitchison College. Mubariz Khan Tiwana and Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana unfortunately could not attend Aitchison College. However, Khuda Bakhsh was raised under the Court of Wards and was educated at home.Footnote 33 Umar Hayat compared his position with other Tiwanas in the following manner:
The representatives of Malik Sher Muhammad Khan and Fateh Sher Khan's family were for a long time under court of wards. After its release they have not taken the prominent part in serving the Government and have not come up to the proper standard. I am the only person to represent and keep up the tradition of that head family. With all this at my back I started my personal services. I can safely say that they surpass comparison within the district or even in the Punjab, and can be favourably compared with those of any one in India.Footnote 34
Collaboration and competition during the First World War
Malik Umar Hayat, even before the First World War, had established his military prowess by rendering active service in Somaliland and Tibet, which was duly recognized by the government by conferring the award of Companion of the Indian Empire upon him. It was his passion for active service and the desire to uphold the family tradition that led him to become the first volunteer from Punjab to participate in the theatre of war. His competitors, for example, Mubariz Khan Tiwana, had been long retired from the army whereas Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana had pursued a civil career and, therefore, could render services only on the home front.
Umar set forth in August 1914 from his landed estate at Kalra to spend the initial 15 months of the war in France.Footnote 35 Along with other ruling chiefs, he met his own expenses on war duty. Unlike princely ‘volunteers’ who mostly stayed out of danger and remained far behind the front line, Umar was attached to the infantry brigade and always remained at or near the front line. It was for this reason that he was mentioned three times in despatches for gallantry in France. Rana Jodha Jang and the others who were also mentioned in the despatches could not claim to be volunteers because they like ‘other professional officers were sent under orders with emoluments’.Footnote 36 Then he was transferred to Mesopotamia at a very crucial time just before the surrender of Kut on 29 April 1916. Later he was given leave to return to India for a short time, the most part of which he spent attending to the welfare of soldiers. He was again sent back to Mesopotamia to relieve a critical situation, as the British ‘feared that Pan-Islamic sentiment would undermine the loyalty of Muslim troops fighting the Ottoman forces’.Footnote 37 For these services over a period of one year and ten months he was awarded a knighthood on 3 June 1916. Umar Hayat in this sense took a lead amongst the Tiwanas in that he not only faced the brunt of the war in various theatres but also rendered other duties after being invalided to India due to rheumatic arthritis after the fall of Baghdad in March 1917.Footnote 38
The vacuum created by Umar Hayat's absence from the Shahpur district was readily exploited by Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana. Comparing his position with Umar Hayat he said, ‘although I had not the good fortune of being sent to the front by the British Government, who [in the absence of Umar] considered my presence in India more valuable, yet I spared nothing to render my humble services in connection with the War in various quarters’.Footnote 39 In August 1914, he offered his personal services along with 500 sawars (mounted men) of his own clan, and he also proposed to bear their expenses. Again in September 1914 he offered two companies of infantry with 100 men each and two troops of cavalry with 50 men each and further proposed to bear one-third of their expenses, but these offers were not accepted as the British wanted his services in the domain of recruitment and public tranquillity.Footnote 40
On the home front he rendered all the services that Umar Hayat could have offered had he been in the district. In September and October of 1914 he held meetings in Shahpur, Gujranwala, and Gujrat districts to preserve peace and assured the government of the loyalty of the people in these districts. In 1915, peace in Jhang, Muzaffargarh, Mianwali, and Shahpur districts was imperilled by an unprecedented number of robberies. He placed 12 horsemen at the disposal of the district authorities and they remained under the command of the Shahpur superintendent of police until order was restored.Footnote 41 At this critical juncture Mubariz Khan Tiwana did not lag behind as he provided his own sawars to help the district authorities to deal with the problem of lawlessness. Thus both the Maliks extended valuable support to augment political control in the absence of Umar Hayat Tiwana.
In September 1916 Khuda Bakhsh, at the request of the Punjab government, was appointed on a special recruitment duty, and within a matter of days he successfully enlisted 3,500 muleteers (mule drivers) and camel drivers in the Rawalpindi division. He was also required to perform recruiting duties in Pind Dadan Khan and at various other places and successfully enrolled 1,400 men in the Shahpur and Gujrat districts. Moreover, he contributed Rs. 15,000 towards the War Loan. During his recruitment campaigns he always spent money from his own pocket and extended all possible assistance when required by the deputy commissioner.Footnote 42
When a district recruitment board was established in 1917 Khuda Bakhsh offered his bungalow in Sargodha for housing the office and it remained occupied until the end of the war. As a member of the district recruiting board he never missed any of its meetings, despite the fact that he was working as a revenue member at Bahawalpur. He tried his best to take the lead in offering services to the government above all the other Tiwanas. In this objective he offered various incentives to his tenants to enlist in the army which included remission of water dues on his private inundation canal and the prompt distribution of Rs. 25 for the family.Footnote 43 In this way he managed to recruit a number of his tenants, which exceeded the number of recruits provided by Umar Hayat Tiwana.
Umar, being away on the front line, could only write to his mukhtars (estate managers) at Kalra.Footnote 44 He kept pressing upon them to step up the recruitment drive in accordance with the official requirement. His absence however meant that he could not exercise the same degree of personal control over his agents and tenants as his Tiwana rivals. He was well aware that in his absence his rivals were stealing a march on him.
Unlike Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana, Malik Mubariz Khan Tiwana had a military background. The district authorities had given him the trustworthy office of the president of the War League when it was established in January 1917, which he ran very efficiently. It is interesting to note that the major portion of his services was on the financial side of the war as long as Umar Hayat was on the front line. He donated an ambulance and made monetary contributions to various war funds and charities which amounted to Rs. 60,000. Moreover, he spent Rs. 39,600 on bearing the expenses of his old ‘half-squadron in the 9th Hodson's Horse for the very first year of the War’.Footnote 45 In July 1917, the Punjab government asked each district to provide a certain quota of recruits in a period of 12 months ending 30 June 1918. Umar Hayat Tiwana by this time had come back from the war front and was working vigorously as an assistant recruiting officer. Mubariz Khan Tiwana in response renewed his efforts and in December 1917 produced 100 recruits in a single day from amongst his tenants, whereas the total number of recruits to his credit previously was just 11.Footnote 46 Overall, he remained far behind the other two Tiwana Maliks in terms of procuring recruits.
Landlords such as the Tiwanas relied on patron-client ties with their tenants and labourers and kinship affiliations in order to deliver recruits to the colonial authorities. The greater number they procured, the more they demonstrated their local influence and the more they stood to gain from the rewards which would inevitably follow the cessation of hostilities, as they had done from 1857 onwards. The greatest sign of power was, however, the ability to raise recruits from areas outside their local seat of power. Umar Hayat in this sense took precedence over Mubariz Khan Tiwana, as he not only procured recruits from amongst his tenants but also enlisted a significant number of people from all over the district.
Like Umar Hayat, Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana also recruited outside the district, but this relied on his official position in the neighbouring princely state of Bahawalpur. In early 1917 when he assumed the charge as the revenue member of the Bahawalpur Council, Mr W. C. Renouf requested him to start the recruitment operations, and he provided almost 300 recruits for the Bahawalpur Double Company and collected Rs. 12 lakhs (one lakh is equal to 100,000) for the War Loan. Recruitment for the Indian Army started at the beginning of 1918, and by the end of the war 3,500 people were enlisted. At the beginning of 1918, however, a serious riot took place at Mubarakpur and Khuda Bakhsh took immediate steps to defuse the situation. In June 1918 he had to visit the place again as some people caused disturbances over the issue of recruiting. He successfully managed to restore order, and recruitment activities continued unhampered.Footnote 47
When similar recruitment-related disturbances took place in the Shahpur district, all three Tiwana Maliks contributed to settle the affairs. As the war went on horrible tales of destruction and carnage on the Western Front reached the home districts of soldiers. At the same time, the loss of men meant that recruiting pressures intensified. Until 1916 the total strength of men in the army from the district rose very slowly. The total number of combatants on 1 January 1915 was 2,834, and by 1 January 1916 it had risen to 3,320. The first serious demand for recruits was made the following October as the province was required to produce 3,500 mule and camel-drivers for service in Mesopotamia. From the district, Malik Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana was appointed by the provincial recruitment board to raise the recruits, and no less than 760 men were enlisted from Shahpur.Footnote 48 The demands increased as the death toll rose. In July 1917 the provincial government assigned quotas to all the districts for the following year. The Shahpur district was asked to provide 5,727 men. The next demand on the district was made nine months later when it was required to raise 11,520 men during the 12 months ending 31 May 1919, which proved to be the final call.Footnote 49
These new demands were accompanied by a reorganized and increasingly coercive recruiting system. As Yong has pointed out, the civil administration, right from the bottom to the top, was geared up for the recruitment process. Under the new ‘territorial system’ the recruitment zones were made to synchronize with the administrative boundaries of the districts and the divisions. The recruitment procedure was streamlined through a single chain of command by appointing mostly civilian recruitment officers at the district and military officers at the divisional level. A central recruiting board was established at Delhi to ascertain the military manpower requirement and to allocate the quotas to the provinces. Soon afterwards, in June 1917, a provincial recruiting board was constituted to administer a recruitment campaign in the province. The lieutenant governor, Michael O’ Dwyer himself chaired the board, which comprised of the financial commissioner, commissioners of the administrative divisions, and notable members of the collaborating elite from various districts. From Shahpur, Major Malik Umar Hayat Tiwana represented the district. The fundamental feature of the new system was that the entire civil administrative machinery of the province was mobilized in the recruitment operations, and the rural military elite assumed the role of ‘military contractors’ at an unprecedented level.Footnote 50
In the Shahpur district, in the villages that refused to enlist, their entire populations were ordered to move out of the houses, and every sort of pressure was used. Wives were separated from their husbands and sons until the men agreed to enlist.Footnote 51 Feroz Khan Noon, in his autobiography, maintains that coercion resulted from the overzealousness of lower-level recruiting officials rather than British intention.Footnote 52 Ashiq Hussain Batalivi, however, ascribes this to the tremendous pressure exerted by the higher officials on their subordinates to meet the quota fixed for the district.Footnote 53 Feroz Khan's argument seems to hold water. The lower ranking military and non-military officials used illegal means without the sanction of the military authorities higher up the chain. For example, referring to the recruitment-related disturbance that took place in the Lahore district, a British military official wrote:
I agree with you in thinking that it looks very much as if an attempt had been made to round up the youth in this case. In fact the whole recruitment party appears to have acted like a press-gang. As you know, I am much opposed to these methods. . .I do not wish to get Lieutenant William into trouble, but he seems to me to have acted injudiciously, and I should like the military authorities to take steps to prevent these ‘press gang’ methods in future.Footnote 54
In the Shahpur district, because of coercive recruitment methods, serious disturbances took place at Mardwal, Lak, and Behk Lurka, and in the latter place tehsildar (officer in charge of a sub-division of a district) Sayad Nadir Hussain was murdered while on recruitment duty on 27 July 1918.Footnote 55 In all these disturbances, local collaborators played an important role in diffusing the tension and in arresting the culprits. Umar Hayat Tiwana, who was extremely popular in the district for his philanthropy and other work, became as a result one of the most detested persons. Moreover, his prestige suffered terribly because of the recruitment work he undertook after these disturbances. He received anonymous threatening letters, as a result of which he had always to be vigilant and keep extra guards with him.Footnote 56
In 1917 when the Lak tribe resisted recruitment, no proper police were available for repression of the disturbances.Footnote 57 Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana and Mubariz Khan Tiwana offered their own sawars who worked under the command of the superintendent of police for a considerable period of time. However, the most valuable services were provided by Umar Hayat Tiwana, who brought a large body of sawars and assisted the police for many days at his own expense. While his mukhtars were helping the police he made personal efforts and arrested all the culprits who otherwise may have absconded.Footnote 58 He took considerable risk and put his life in danger when he went single handedly to negotiate with large groups of men. In 1918, when the Lurka Tribe opposed the authorities on the issue of recruitment and had killed a tehsildar, Sayad Nadir Hussain, as mentioned earlier, Umar Hayat not only sent his sawars to help the police but also visited the place in person; the other Tiwana Maliks following his example sent their sawars and accorded similar help.Footnote 59
In April 1919 the Jallianwala Bagh massacre shook the whole of Punjab and serious disturbances broke out in various districts. It was expected that the Shahpur district would soon be affected. All the Tiwana Maliks once again raised hastily improvised forces in the shape of sawars to deal with any untoward situations. A train was seriously damaged a few miles to the east of Malakwal and railway staff had shown unruly behaviour at Kundian. However, the district remained calm except for one incident in which wild grass at the Sargodha goods-platform was set on fire. The Tiwana Maliks provided contingents of sawars to patrol the railway lines.Footnote 60 Umar Hayat Tiwana, with his own sawars took on the role of protecting a very long section of the railway line. Comparing his position with other Tiwana Maliks, Umar Hayat wrote to M. S. Leigh:
During the disturbances. . .I worked more than any of the local aristocracy and when helping the police I went to the most dangerous and difficult places. . .At Shahpur within six hours I raised a body of men mostly on horses and some on foot, amounting to about three hundred. While the sawars of other leading families put together for that purpose would not come up to even a quarter of mine. Footnote 61
This indicates strongly that there was an inherent sense of competition among the Tiwana Maliks and that Umar Hayat Tiwana was determined to maintain his status as head of the Tiwana tribe. Before leaving for the front line he had offered the viceroy of India ‘through Colonel Maxwell that [his] property was at the disposal of his majesty’.Footnote 62 Even from France, through various letters, he offered his cars, horses and the rest of the estates to the government, yet he feared that his loyal servicesFootnote 63 would not be fully recognized. In one of his letters to the British authorities Malik vented his frustration in the following manner:
I may also add that had I taken no part in the War as well as the others and had not been given the distinction of a Herald, my ten years services in Councils, and those as Magistrates and many others. . .would have been sufficient to elevate me to my present designation on their own strength. So by my work I have quadrupled the standard laid for the elevation of others to my present position, of which in my case a quarter only has yet received recognition.Footnote 64
He was a member of the Imperial Legislative Council and before proceeding to France he was going to be nominated for the second term as member of the council. As a member, according to the protocol, his position was equivalent to that of a major general; he sacrificed this position, left for the front line, and returned as a captain.
Within the district his social position was threatened by his competitors who had considerably augmented their position and had almost raised it level with him. Mubariz Khan was first awarded an Order of the British Empire and then Companion of the Indian Empire for his recruitment and other services. Khuda Bakhsh similarly received an Order of the British Empire and subsequently Companion of the Indian Empire for his tremendous work in the district as well as in the Bahawlapur state.Footnote 65 Both were awarded recruiting badges and 15 squares of land were granted to each in 1915.Footnote 66 Umar was awarded Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in 1916 for proceeding on active service to France. He was given the title of Commander of the British Empire and granted 15 squares of land for his services on the home front.Footnote 67 With no further recognition of his services there was every likelihood that he might have lost his prominent position. He had lost many chances of an award of land grants because of his absence overseas and had seen his rivals increase their landholdings. This now threatened the balance of social power in the district. Umar Hayat lamented that:
There are awards to some people in Shahpur which if counted collectively I would not hesitate in sweeping with them and the minor branches have been brought up within such a range that with a further elevation they will supersede the leading branch which instead of being elevated correspondingly according to its services and merits has been made to mark time and stand still, notwithstanding its past services and having its members as recognised heads by government and the public which is on record in the Punjab Chiefs.Footnote 68
Umar had developed a strong feeling that he had been ignored by the authorities and his services were not duly recognized. He left no stone unturned to redress the scale in his favour. His first engagement after returning from Mesopotamia, despite the fact that he had not completely recovered, was to attend the darbars (public audiences held by a high-ranking official) at Rawalpindi and Lahore in April 1917 and for the latter he was given the distinction of an aide-de-camp to the viceroy. He volunteered his services at a time when recruitment was going to become more vigorous. He was appointed as assistant recruitment officer with powers similar to those of paid recruiting officers, whereas the other honorary Indian recruiting officers, except for retired Captain Ajab Khan, had no enrolling powers. His workload was enormous and entailed constant travelling, so he had to give up living in Kalra and based his headquarters in Shahpur. During his work as assistant recruitment officer he inspected 2,509 recruits and alone enrolled 1,460 and on top of that he inspected and enrolled many more working jointly with fellow assistant recruitment officer, Major Miller. His services were also hired by the neighbouring Mianwali district where people had been reluctant to join the army. At the behest of the deputy commissioner he started recruitment work there and, using his personal influence and experience, enrolled 100 recruits during his stay. The recruitment work initiated by him continued successfully until the end of the war.Footnote 69
He was appointed a member of the provincial recruiting board. The board had deep trust in his knowledge of recruitment and army requirements. He was for this reason selected by the board to represent it at the conference on recruitment held in Delhi in April 1918. Besides this he was a member of the district recruiting board. He was also a very active member and officer bearer of various bodies such as the district war league and its local committees. Commenting on his services to the war effort he said:
As to my work in India I can safely lead those who have not gone to the front, not by neck but by many lengths [and] this later portion of my services excluding all the War services done at the front, is far more substantial than some of the Punjabis who have received Knighthood while remaining in India, if by virtues of those services they got Knighthood my services in India alone deserve no less. When I got the first recognition in the War for service during a year and ten months, I was sure to get the same for my continuously serving at the front and in India for a much longer period nearly two years and a half.Footnote 70
Umar's frustration was not groundless as his services were far greater than those of his Tiwana competitors. Even on the monetary side his contribution was at least equal to theirs. Mubariz Khan Tiwana had made the single largest donation in the district. However, if we compare it with the personal expenditure of Umar Hayat Tiwana and his staff in France and Mesopotamia as well as in India, the position becomes very clear. Umar in France and Basra alone spent Rs. 88,851, out of which Rs.26,586 went towards paying the salaries of 15 staff members including him.Footnote 71 Moreover, as an assistant recruitment officer he incurred the expenditure for his recruitment office in Shahpur from his own pocket. The pay and food allowances for the six members of staff for 11 months cost him about Rs. 12,769.Footnote 72 In this way he spent a lot more than anyone in the district. Even after the cessation of hostilities, his work did not come to an end as he had ‘been attending boards and arresting deserters’.Footnote 73 His sense of grievance was compounded by the fact that the war had given his competitors an opportunity to raise their social standing and attempt to equal his. No doubt he had served more and he deserved more, therefore he vehemently pleaded his case:
Some of my relations have been getting swords of honour and various other rewards every six months for period out and away from the District; and others have been accorded a preferential treatment by being offered the first opportunity of choosing land from one colony to the other. . .I am confident that the perusal of my case by the Government will show that I have got sufficient claims for further recognition.Footnote 74
Right from the beginning the government had ‘promised that during the War the services done by the individuals will not go in vain’.Footnote 75 When the war history of the Shahpur district was going to be written it was highly publicized by the authorities, and all those who had made a contribution were required to submit the record of their service with some proof, which gave a further impetus for competition among the Tiwana Maliks. This competition to win favours by getting acknowledgement of their services in the war history revealed the acrimonious nature of competition among them more clearly as they wrote letters to the district officials submitting records of their services and depicting their contribution as second to none. This lends credence to the argument that they were in fact engaged in fierce competition and were trying to surpass each other in the matter of rendering services to the colonial masters with the expectation of material benefits to further strengthen their position. The Tiwanas were not, of course, alone in this, as local studies from other recruitment areas of Punjab would testify. There have not been studies elsewhere using the type of district records which, as in the case of Shahpur, would lay this bare.
While some British officials regarded the rival claimants they had to deal with as tiresome, they revealed how successfully the collaborative process had utilized the local power structure. At its root, the competition between local elites to maintain izzat (honour) had driven the war effort. The long-term ties the colonial authorities had developed with leading families had enabled them to exploit this. At the same time local elites exploited the state by securing material rewards such as grants of land as well as honorary gifts and titles.
Punjab's rural elite lined up to stake its claims. Some of these were found on examination to be exaggerated.Footnote 76 The district authorities soon realized that Umar Hayat's case was stronger than those of the other Tiwanas. They officially composed ‘A brief account of the career of Captain the Hon’ble Malik Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana, CIE, MVO’Footnote 77 and appreciated his work in the following manner:
His services in the Lak case as well as the rest of his work in the District which has come directly under the observation of local authorities, has established beyond doubt that there was no comparison between his services and those of any other inhabitants of the District.Footnote 78
It soon became axiomatic that his services were far superior to those of his rivals, whose aspirations to challenge his position were now effectively smothered. The district administration acknowledged that the recruits provided by him proved to be better soldiers as they were carefully selected from the people whom he had trained during various horse-riding, tent-pegging, and other cantonment competitions. Hence it was generally believed by the military as well as civil officers after the war that his recruits were ‘good war material’ compared to the tenants enlisted by the other Tiwanas. Some of these latter recruits had proved to be a liability, and their names were struck off the service record because ‘they did not take considerable part in the war except adding to the expenditure’.Footnote 79
Umar also received appreciation from higher political authorities. The governor of Punjab, Sir Michael O’Dwyer, had developed a friendship with him right at the beginning of his Punjab administrative career as an assistant commissioner. He had followed Umar's subsequent career with keen interest. Just before his planned departure from the province,Footnote 80 he wrote to Umar the following letter:
I shall be leaving Punjab in a few days and before going I must express on behalf of the Punjab Government and myself personally my appreciation of the splendid work you have done in the Punjab during my term of office.
By being one of the first of the aristocracy of the Punjab to go to the Front in France and in Mesopotamia, you set an admirable example to a class famous for its loyal services. Your great influence in the East Punjab has been an asset of much value to Government in these years of anxiety and your work in recruiting locally and on the Recruiting Board has been of great assistance in the success of the Punjab war effort. The Punjab Government is fortunate in having a man of your wide influence of sterling loyalty to look to in times of crisis and you have worthily upheld the high tradition of the Tiwana Clan. It is with great regret I part from one of my oldest friends in the Punjab, one whose career I have always followed with deep personal interest and I am confident that in the years to come you will have even wider opportunities of service to your King and Country and will achieve even higher distinctions.Footnote 81
Besides being an acknowledgement of the significant services provided by Umar, this letter can also be viewed as part of the discourse on collaboration in Punjab. It reflects the colonial mindset on the mechanics of collaboration as a process. Indeed Umar had set an example and that was why Khuda Bakhsh Tiwana presented his services for the front; and when this was not accepted he worked hard within Punjab for the war effort. However, in 1916 he vicariously fulfilled his ambition by readily agreeing for his only son, Allah Bakhsh, to be sent to Basra. This certainly provides evidence that Khuda Bakhsh did not want to lag behind Umar in any sense. The same was true with respect to Mubariz Khan Tiwana. As we noted earlier, he hurriedly provided 100 recruits in a single day in December 1918. In fact, this was a competitive display of their loyalty. The letter also reflects how the Tiwana pride was evoked into action at the time of crisis. This was not just an attempt to receive honour from the British, however, but was part of an internal competition for status. Umar considered the Mitha Tiwanas as the ‘head branch’ and he fought back to preserve its status when it was threatened by his competitors. This shows that the collaborating elite more or less had imbibed the colonial discourse of social Darwinism and of ‘martial race theory’ and therefore that Tiwana pride and collaboration went hand in hand. Last but not least, Umar became successful in preserving the prized position of his family and Tiwana dignity because the British had trained him right from the beginning to embark on a career as a chief collaborator and that was why his career was keenly observed by such officials as O’ Dwyer.
Conclusion
This grassroots study has thrown light on the processes of collaboration and military recruitment in the key Shahpur district of Punjab. It has revealed how the competition between the Tiwana military contractors drove military enlistment during the war years. It has also shed light on the roles of tenants and estate agents in the recruiting process. Studies on Punjab's military history have previously focused more around provincial than district-level analyses. The study reveals how the official records produced by the state had a homogenising effect and was silent regarding intra-elite competition in the recruiting process. While there may have been a degree of indoctrination in the colonial state's values, it was the desire to use its patronage to bolster family influence or to transform local hierarchies that was the key factor in securing willing military contractors. They not only competed for the British largesse but also utilized state patronage in their local struggle for power and influence. Collaboration was thus a dynamic two-way process, rather than the top-down, one-way relationship that is often portrayed. Of course, not all West Punjab districts had families with such prestigious collaborating histories as the Tiwanas. Nor did all districts receive such government largesse. We are thus seeing the collaborative mechanism working at its optimum in this case study. The local military contractors in Shahpur saw a functional utility in raising recruits for the British Indian Army in times of both war and peace. As Imran Ali has argued, the resulting entrenchment of the local elites’ power distorted both economic and political development in the region.Footnote 82 From the narrow perspective of the leaders of the martial castes, however, they had made the right decision in pinning their fortunes to those of the Raj. The successful closure of the war brought benefits to that segment of society which had, directly or indirectly, contributed to the war effort.
The West Punjab military contractors worked with the grain of local notions of ‘honour’, but as manpower demands increased, during the course of the First World War, there were limits even to their ability to raise recruits. The enlistment of soldiers beyond the traditional communities of recruits created crises in which the Tiwana Maliks had to police disturbances. The First World War had put tremendous strain on the collaborative arrangements. Inflation, over-recruitment, and coercive recruitment were all contributing factors in the disturbed conditions in Punjab in the immediate post-war era. Radical nationalism was as much a legacy of war as a sustained loyalism. Jallianwala Bagh was the other side of the coin of the paternalistic Punjab school of administration.
The limits to collaboration were to be even more starkly revealed during the Second World War when the British again demanded men, wheat, and other supplies from the West Punjab districts. Certainly the Muslim League's breakthrough in Punjab after 1946 can be seen as partly due to the strains placed on the collaborative process as a result of recruitment and the requisitioning of food grains.Footnote 83 It was not coincidental that the last unionist leader and prime minister of a united Punjab was Umar's son, Khizr Hayat Khan Tiwana. GilmartinFootnote 84 and TalbotFootnote 85 have provided part of the explanation for the collapse of unionism in the 1940s in terms of factionalism after Sikander Hayat's death and the takeover of the party by Khizr Tiwana. This study, however, has revealed that there was always factionalism within the collaborating class as they were competing with each other for British patronage. In other words, they were not a unified, homogenous group of collaborators in the way they are often portrayed in the literature. Even within the ultra-loyalist Tiwana tribe, there were tensions that could be exploited later. They were intensified by the very colonial patronage which oiled the wheels of the collaborative mechanism. At one level, the Tiwana family history is a story of the success of collaboration; but at another it reveals the limitations resulting from the factionalism that was to prove the Achilles heel of unionism.
