Geographical Imagination of Lt. Col. James Tod:

Lt. Col. James Tod, the second son of Mr. James Tod, was born at Islington on 20th mach 1782. Tod’s “original destination was a mercantile life…” which his “inclinations rebelled against”. In 1798, procuring a cadetship in the East India Company’s service, he came to India.

First coming in contact with the geography of Rajpootana in connection the Pindaree raids, Tod extensively traveled in these areas at a time when these were almost unknown to the British. His journeys were conducted during his “eighteen years of residence among the western Rajpoots till March 1822”.

The map of Rajpootana that he produced, out of the ‘eleven folio volumes of routes’ was the first map of Rajpootana. In the maps of India prior to 1806 practically ‘nearly all the western and central states of Rajasthan were found wanting”. He was ably assisted for the topographical and architectural drawings made by his cousin Captain Patrick Waugh, and by Ghasi, a professional Indian draughtsman, during their tours through Rajasthan

The precision and importance of the map he produced can be evinced from the fact that the map formed the basis of Warren Hastings’s campaigns in these areas. Tod publicly asserted that “every map, without exception, printed since that period has its foundation as regards western and central India, in his labors”.

For Tod the Annals of the Rajpoot States he published in 1829 had a close relation with the geography of the region. In the preface of the Annals he writes:

“The basis of this work is the geography of the region, the historical and statistical portions being consequent and subordinate thereto. It was indeed originally designed to be essentially geographical….”

The romantic sensibility of Tod invested him with a desire to particularize the natural divisions of Marwar in term “…employed by the natives…”. In the ‘Sketch of the Indian Desert’, Tod tracks down the geography of Marwar in terms of ‘thul’ which ‘means an arid and bare desert’ and ‘roee’ which ‘implies the presence of natural vegetation but is equally expressive of the desert’.

Relying on the traditions illustrating the ‘geography of the desert’ bounded by nine fortresses- “ Poogul to the north; Mundore in the centre of all Maroo; Abu, Kheraloo and Parkur to the south; Chotun, Omerkote, Arore and Lodorva to the west”.


Major Works of Lt. Col. James Tod:

Annals and Antiquities of Rajpootana, 2 Vols. Published 1829 & 1832, London

Travels in western India Embracing a Visit to the Sacred Mounts of the Jains and the most celebrated shrines of the Hindu faith between Rajpootana and Indus with an account of the ancient city of Nehrwalla, 1832, London


More on James Tod

Muslims Pastoralists of Thar, North West Rajasthan

From mungersar der to the pastoral complex of Chhatragarh

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Chhatragarh is located on the right bank of the IGNP main canal around 82km from Bikaner in the north western direction on the Bikaner - Anupgarh route. U

nlike Pugal and Sattasar , Chhatragarh was a made a state directly under the rule of the rajas of Bikaner sometime in the end of the nineteenth century.

It owed it's importance in those days to the fact of being an important settlement on the routes which connected Bikaner with Bahawalpoor and Multan . Situated on the north western frontier of Bikaner it always had strong ties with the settlements across the border spread out along the eastern bank of Indus.

Hindal Khan Chauhan a pastoralist from the Vangrala johadi of Chhatragarh related to us the story of the origin of the settlement of Chhatragarh.

There was a _mungersar der_ where no one used to live. Once two Chauhan muslims from Kela lost their way in the dunes. While looking for the way they felt thirsty and were not carrying water with them. They looked around for water everywhere but couldn't find it. Dejected and tired they sat under a khejri tree waiting for their doom. After some time they saw a sparrow who sat on the slender khejri tree. Seeing drops of water in the wings of the sparrow they thought that there must be water nearby. They looked around amidst the dunes to discover to their surprise a small pit around two feet deep full of sweet water. Both of them drank the life saving water and

came back to Kela.

They told their kinsmen about the place their life got saved. Mungersar der was lucky and had sweet water as well. So they had decided to go, and settle there. Many people dissuaded them but they just didn't listen and went back to the pit with their families and livestock. They tried digging a well there. They would have barely dug some feet that the thakur of Sattasar used to forcibly fill that pit with sand. They pleaded to the raja of Bikaner for help.

The Raja stopped the Thakur and gave the Chouhan pastoralists money to dig the well. In this way they started a settlement and named it Chhatragarh after one of the princes of the Rajas of Bikaner. To make the settlement into a proper village where more people could come and settle they had to get some banias. So two families of Rathi banias was brought from Marot in Bahawalpoor. Five families of Parihar muslims from Raner were brought and were made headmen of the village. In this way the settlement of Chhatragarh came into being. At that time Chhatragarh was a big village which covered the areas of present day villages of Awa, Surjanwali, and Kharwali.

Till 1955-56 one could find Muslims, Nais, Meghwals, Rajputs, Bania, Brahmins residing in the village. Routes to Bikaner were tracks which were sandy and difficult to traverse, the only mode of transport being either camels or on foot. It used to take four days to make a to and fro trip to Bikaner for replenishing the daily necessities of the village.

Having access to a water source was a necessary precondition for settling in Chhatragarh. The semi nomadic pastoral population of Chhatragarh survived on more than twenty five johads or tobas which were either owned by some families or a community. The water structures supported several permanent and kutcha nomadic encampments, where pastoralists lived with their livestock. The region (rohi) around Chattragarh, called Chitrang in local parlance supported some of the best grasslands of sewan, dhaman, bhurat.

-->Chhatragarh got connected to Bikaner though a metal road when the construction work for the IGNP canal began in the early seventies. The construction of the canal in the area, as elsewhere, initiated a process of destruction of grasslands by excessive cutting of Khejri and Phog which were sold in the brick kilns. The only business which attracted the Banias and Joshi Brahmins to the market of Chhatragarh was buying of wool and ghee from the pastoralists and selling the pastoralists items needed by them for daily subsistence.

From a handful of shops which used to deal with only daily necessities which the Chhatragarh bazaar offered have increased,in a span of three decades, from early sixties to nineties to more than eight hundred shops which deal with a wide variety of commodities.

Based on notes of field work in 1993-95

Photo Credits: Vikram Channa

For more on the pastoralism and grasslands of Thar,Read:

Let hundred flowers bloom

Work with the Mirs, the mesmerizing singers from the interiors of the sandy Thar is getting livelier. It seems to be picking up largely through the grace of the ever increasing audience/lovers of Sufi Music and the tenacity of the Mirs to carry on with their traditions.

It was nice to get a phone call from Razak Ali and that he has been diligently at his music, learning from the grand old ustaad, his own grandfather Subhan Khan. Raza has been giving programmes in North rajasthan. Waris Ali and Abdul Jabbar seem more sure of froming a more consistent schedule for their musical traditions. Shabnam Virmani from Srishti the Design school at Bangalore was telling the other day that 27 students are going to Pugal to learn local cultural history, would be spending a week with the Mukhtiyar, the Mirs and other folk singers. While browsing came across mention of a support initiative by Manana, a Delhi based NGO. it was delightful to see Bassu Khan's photograph who has been identified as a young talent to be groomed. They have been funded in this by the National Culture Fund. Mukhtiyar the other day was telling that even the Western Rajasthan Culture Zonal Centre at Udaipur was taking interest in developing an initiative on teaching young Mir children.

read More about work with the Mirs of Pugal

Folk music and musicians of Thar, Rajasthan

The meeting of around hundred performers from Managaniyars, Langas, Mehers, Dhadis, Meghwals and Bhils communities of Barmer and JaIsalmer district was memorable in more than one ways. Braving the scorching heat of May, folk musicians, young and old, collected from 3^rd to 5^th May in the hill township of Barmer city to successfully convene a well organized three day event in the backdrop of vast horizons and star lit skies.
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Among those present were illustrious stalwarts like Rukma Bai, Nage Khan, Karim Khan, Chanan Khan, Hakim Khan, Bade Ghazi Khan who had their first international exposure in the early 1980s and have since then visited more than two dozen countries. Versatile old poets like Bhopji Dhadi and Pathane Khan, who recited traditional verses in dingal and poems about the havoc wreaked by the recent floods in Barmer with equal ease, never hesitated with their wise interjections. Mishri Khan, the grand old jaltarang specialist, always posed challenges with his fundamental and existential ruminations. Ridmalram, Chaturbhuj, Raees Khan, Bhungar Khan, the younger among the performers, participated with their mature suggestions and innovative ideas.

Their hidden ecstatic bodies would spontaneously come in play when they went on to singing a song or strung a melody on the kamaicha or deftly played the khartal. The old and the new singers created a seamless blend of sonic aura that seemed to organically possess everybody present.

for more details on the Conference See Enticing Overtures and Ecstatic renditions