Chapter 1—
Gangetic Bihar:+
Circuits of Exchange and Modes of Transportation

"Words cannot describe our gratification on seeing the river Ganga [Ganges]." The South Indian pilgrim Enugula Veeraswamy penned this line in 1830, upon seeing this holiest of holy rivers for the first time. It was a sentiment shared by all Hindus, for whom the Ganges is a vital part of religious life and beliefs. Having started his long journey in Madras, he must have been elated at reaching a juncture from which his primary destination of Banaras lay within easy reach. So, too, the other pilgrimage centers (many of which were located on or near the Ganges) he wished to visit were now accessible. For the Ganges opened up north India to him: he could travel on its waters as had generations of people before him, or he could follow the well-worn road that skirted its banks. A seasoned traveler by then, having already been on the road for four months, he recognized from the thriving commercial town of Mirzapur that this river was a major communications artery.^[1]

To compare the modes of travel employed by Veeraswamy with those alluded to in the late-eighteenth-century account of the Patna historian Ghulam Husain or those utilized by the early-seventeenth-century Jain

[1] EnugulaVeeraswamy'sJournal(KasiyatraCharitra) , ed. and trans. P. Sitapati and V. Purushottam (Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Governmental Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute, 1973), pp. 81-82. See also below, chap. 3, on pilgrimages and their role in the local and regional system of exchange.

merchant named Banarsidas is to confirm the observation made by one commentator that so little change had occurred in the system of transportation in some areas that the mid-nineteenth-century traveler was said to be moving "as slowly and as tediously as in the days of [the third-century B.C.E. Emperor] Asoka."^[2] Certainly Veeraswamy's travel experiences reveal that he shared much in common with Banarsidas, who had journeyed across north India conducting business and undertaking pilgrimages on land—by foot, by palanquin, by cart, by carriage, by horseback—and on water, by raft.^[3] Indeed, the "tyranny of distance"—Fernand Braudel's evocative metaphor of the constraints imposed by "antiquated means of transportation" on pre-eighteenth-century society and economy^[4] aptly characterizes the system of transportation in South Asia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

By the time of Mahatma Gandhi's birth in 1869, however, new means of communication were penetrating extensive areas of the region. This change was primarily ushered in by, to use one traveler's phrase, the "marvel and miracle" of railways.^[5] There was moreover the added benefit of construction of new roads to serve as feeders to the rail lines. Thus, by the early twentieth century the triumph over distance appeared to have made its way even into the hinterland. Witness the whistle-stop tours of Gandhi and other leaders in the early 1920s as they crisscrossed Bihar spreading their gospel of Noncooperation, a message disseminated through newspapers and other public media as well.^[6]

This chapter examines the effects of these developments in transportation on circuits of exchange—marketing and trade. It shows that "antiquated means of transportation" that relied on waterways and a limited system of roads in the prerailway era hindered the development

[2] L. S. S. O'Malley, "Mechanism and Transport," in ModernIndiaandtheWest , ed. idem (London: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 235; Jean Deloche, Transport andCommunicationsinIndiaPriortoSteamLocomotion , vol. 1, Land Transport , trans. from the French by James Walker (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 1.

[3] [Husain, Ghulam] Seid-Gholam-Hossein-Khan, SeirMutaqherin , trans. Nota Manus (Calcutta: T. D. Chatterjee, 1902), vol. 4, passim; Veeraswamy, Journal; Banarsidas, Ardhakathanaka , trans. Mukund Lath (Jaipur: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharati Sansthan, 1981), passim.

[4] TheStructuresofEverydayLife , vol. 1, CivilizationandCapitalism15th-18thCentury (London: Collins, 1981), pp. 415-30. Also see John Hurd, "Railways," TheCambridgeEconomic HistoryofIndia , vol . 2: c . 1757-c . 1970 , ed. Dharma Kumar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 737-39, on the transportation constraints of the prerailway era.

[5] Bholanauth Chunder, TheTravelsofaHindootoVariousPartsofBengal andUpperIndia (London: N. Trubner, 1869), vol. 1, pp. 140-41.

[6] See below, chap. 4, regarding Gandhi and the Noncooperation Movement.

of trade across great distances. Inherent temporal limitations played a role, too, as annual disruption caused by the rainy season added to the "tyranny of distance." So did government policies, because the colonial regime opted not to expend the funds necessary to build and maintain a system of roads to overcome these obstacles. What financial commitments it made in this regard were principally directed at forging links between its seat of power, the port city of Calcutta, and the interior.

I will first consider rivers and roads during the prerailway age, essentially the first century of colonial rule, and then turn to the development of railways in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.^[7]

The Ganges—navigable throughout the year—was the principal river highway across the vast north Indian Gangetic plain stretching from Delhi to the Bay of Bengal. Vessels capable of accommodating five hundred merchants were known to ply this river in the ancient period; it served as a conduit for overseas trade, as goods were carried from Pataliputra (later Patna) and Champa (later Bhagalpur) out to the seas and on to ports in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia.^[8] During the Mughal period it was used extensively for hauling bulky merchandise, boats of four hundred to five hundred tons regularly sailing on its waters. European merchants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries traveled the Ganges in their journeys inland from the Bay of Bengal; so did Europeans coming from Delhi and Agra. For much of the first century of colonial rule, it functioned as the "channel" of the "greatest part of the inland trade of Bengal and Behar, and the whole of the maritime trade both of these and of the [North-]western provinces."^[9]

The role of the Ganges as a "channel" for trade was enhanced by its natural links—it embraces all the major rivers and streams in both north and south Bihar. By far the more important channels for trade were the northern tributaries that flow down from the sub-Himalayan

[7] See also Yda Saueressig-Screuder, "The Impact of British Colonial Rule on the Urban Hierarchy of Burma," Review io (1986): 245-77. See also S. N. Mukherjee, Calcutta:Essaysin UrbanHistory (Calcutta: Subarnarekha, 1993); Sukanta Chaudhuri, Calcutta:TheLivingCity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Dilip K. Basu, ed., TheRiseandGrowthoftheColonialPortCitiesinAsia (New York: University Press of America, 1985).

[8] R. R. Diwakar, BiharthroughtheAges (Calcutta: Orient Longmans, 1958), pp. 181, 244.

[9] Charles E. Trevelyan, ReportupontheInland CustomsandTownDutiesof theBengalPresidency , ed. Tarasankar Banerjee (1834; reprint, n.p.: Academic Publishers, 1976), p. 128; Henry T. Bernstein, SteamboatsontheGanges (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1960), pp. 13-14; Hameeda Khatoon Naqvi, UrbanCentresandIndustriesinUpperIndia , 1556-1803 (London: Asia Publishing House, 1968), pp. 97-98.

ranges in Nepal and proceed in a southeasterly direction toward Calcutta. Of these, the Gandak was the principal river artery for trade. Although navigable throughout the year, particularly the last eighty miles of its stretch leading into the Ganges, it was a difficult river to negotiate because of its narrow channels during the dry season and its terrific currents during the rainy season. Boats of up to one thousand maunds (approximately thirty-six tons) reached Lalganj in the rains, of up to five hundred maunds reached Bagaha; upstream boats generally carried half the amount of their downstream loads. Until well into the nineteenth century the Gandak was a major conduit for the trade of Champaran and Muzaffarpur. Grain (especially fine rice), oilseeds, opium, indigo, and saltpeter were sent down this river and coarse rice, salt, spices, cotton, piece goods, and other goods brought back in exchange. Govindganj in Champaran and Lalganj and Hajipur in Muzaffarpur were the primary centers of trade on this river. Hajipur also benefited from its proximity to the junction of the Ganges and Gandak.^[10]

Two other important northern tributaries were the Gogra (Ghaghra), which carried much of the traffic across the administrative boundaries of Saran and the North-Western Provinces, and the Muzaffarpur River (also known as the Burhi Gandak), which intersects Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga. Their effectiveness as affluents for trade varied seasonally: they were best when their waters were swollen with rain. The Burhi Gandak, for instance, could be plied by boats carrying as much as two thousand maunds as far as Roshera, and of up to one thousand maunds as far as Muzaffarpur. Khaguria, located at that river's confluence with the Ganges, and Roshera, Samastipur, and Muzaffarpur, towns farther upriver, were key sites for "country trade." Much of the trade on the Gogra was negotiated through Revelganj, which, because of its advantageous location near the Ganges, emerged as a major trading center in the nineteenth century.^[11]

[10] A. Wyatt, StatisticsoftheDistrictofSarunconsistingofSircars SarunandChumparun (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 1848?) (Notes on Chumparun), p. 2; A. Wyatt, GeographicalandStatisticalReport oftheDistrictofTirhoot (Calcutta: Calcutta Gazette Office, 1854), pp. 4, 15; "Report on a Project for . . . Gunduck," Capt. W. Jeffreys, Engineer, Dec. 23, 1868, Bengal PWD Procs., Irrigation, Jan.-April 1869, Mar., nos. 4-5. Rama Shanker Lal, "Transport and Accessibility in Lower Ghaghara Gandak Doab," DeccanGeographer 7 (1969): 26, estimates that as much as 90 percent of the trade of the area was formerly conducted by these water routes.

[11] "Apprehended Scarcity in North Behar," J. C. Geddes and A. P. MacDonnell, to GOB, Jan. 24, 1876, Bengal Scarcity and Relief Procs., 1876-77, Feb. 1876 (hereafter Geddes and MacDonnell report); "Report on the Water Communications . . . of theBhagulpore and Patna Divisions," T. H. Wickes, Executive Engineer, no. 40, Aug. 25, 1874, Bengal Scarcity and Relief Procs., Nov. 1874, no. 42.

The rivers from the south are another story. Short, dependent on rainfall, shallow but rapid when in spate, and tending to branch into many channels in their lower reaches, these tributaries have historically not been significant as lines of communication and transport. Exemplifying these conditions is the Son, which originates in the plateau of central India and forms the administrative frontier of Shahabad with Gaya and Patna. Although the primary river in south Bihar, it never emerged as an important line of transportation because it could not support boats of substantial weight during the long dry season, and its waters turned into rapids in the rains. Large boats utilized the river between July and the end of November; in December it was navigable only by small boats. Therefore, its primary commercial use was in floating bamboos and other timber. Daudnagar and Arwal were the primary trade centers on this river for the movement of "country produce."^[12]

Throughout the Gangetic network of rivers and streams, traffic ebbed and flowed in accordance with the rainy season. Traffic on the Ganges was generally heavier upstream in the first half of the year, with the pattern reversed in the latter half of the year when the river, swollen from the rains, carried more traffic flowing downstream. Furthermore, boats were less likely to get mired in sandbanks in the wet weather. Especially in the south the "river-borne export trade . . . [was] brisk only during the months of July, August, September, and October, when the rivers are full of water."^[13]

Traffic patterns were also conditioned by the marketing calendar of the staple items of the Ganges-borne trade. Rice, available in the Bengal markets in December and January, was shipped to Bihar and the North-Western Provinces, where demand always exceeded local supply. In the first six months of the year the surplus rice of the great alluvial and deltaic plain between the Himalayas and the Bay of Bengal made up a substantial portion of the up-country traffic. Oilseeds, largely a product of Bihar and the North-Western Provinces, reversed the trade

[12] W.W. Hunter, StatisticalAccountofBengal , vol. 12, DistrictsofGayaand Shahabad (London: Trubner and Co., 1877), pp. 20, 163; George A. Grierson, NotesontheDistrict ofGaya (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1893), p. 9; Singh, TransportGeography , pp . 93-94; J. Macnamara, District Engineer, Shahabad, to Magte., Shahabad, no. 87, Mar. 26, 1867, Bengal PWD Procs., Aug.-Sept. 1867, Aug., no. 4.

[13] GOB, ReportontheInternalTrade ofBengalfortheYear 1876-77 (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1877), pp. 8-9.

flow in the second half of the year when they were dispatched to the Calcutta market. First appearing in the markets in April and May, oilseeds added significantly to the downstream traffic in the second half of the year because their export to Bengal began in July and continued through the rainy season. Together rice and oilseeds accounted for more than half of the traffic on the Ganges.^[14] Not all commodities traveled in that direction, however. Indigo, sugar, hides, wheat, saltpeter, and oilseeds moved with the flow toward Bengal, whereas rice, opium, and tobacco moved against the current back toward Patna and the North-Western Provinces.^[15]

Overland transportation also followed this rhythm and pattern. Champaran's exports of largely grain, corn, pulses, oilseeds, sugar, indigo, opium, ghee, and hides were conveyed on the roads in their largest volumes between November and May. This timing coincided with Champaran's two major harvests of bhadai (autumn) and rabi (spring) crops, which were collected October-November and March-April, respectively. At the height of the season of overland traffic, in the five peak months from the beginning of December to the end of April, as many as eight thousand carts and an equal number of bullocks and tattoos (ponies) operated by the well-known Banjara pack-bullock traders passed daily over the roads, many of these destined, either directly or indirectly via intermediate stops, for the major markets along the Ganges. From there the movement downstream awaited the onset of the monsoon rains, which typically commenced in June and tapered off in September. Boats negotiating the swollen river generally moved twice as fast as those going upstream.^[16]

[14] "The Boat Traffic of Bengal," Resolution, Financial Dept., Stats., Oct. 18, 1875, P.C. Gen. Basta no. 275; Tradeof Bengal1876-77 , pp. 22, 73. In the lower Gangetic delta, boat traffic continued virtually year-round. See B. Chaudhuri, "Eastern India," in TheCambridge EconomicHistoryofIndia , vol . 2, p. 271.

[15] Sir R. Temple, Minute "On Railway Projects for North Behar," July 9, 1874, Bengal Scarcity and Relief Procs., Aug. 1874; Jean Deloche, TransportandCommunicationsin IndiaPriortoSteamLocomotion , vol . 2:WaterTransport , trans. from the French by James Walker (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), PP. 18-19. To some extent, the Ganges served as a dividing line between north and south Bihar, especially during the colonial period, when it was unbridged.

[16] E. McDonell, Secy., Champaran Ferry Fund Committee, to W. Tayler, Offg. Commr., Patna, no. 16, June 26, 1855, in SelectionsfromtheRecordsofthe BengalGovernment , no. 24, Correspondence relatingtotheFerryFunds intheLowerProvinces (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 1856), p. 90; Bernstein, SteamboatsontheGanges , pp. 11, 17; CDG1938 , pp. 56-60; MSR , pp. x-xiii; SSR; p. 111. Also below, pp. 131-33, 225, regarding the regional calendar of agricultural harvests and trade.

Limitations notwithstanding, the Ganges and its affluents constituted the most effective and efficient network of transportation. "Nowhere in India," other than in Bihar and Bengal, as one report noted, "is internal traffic more active . . . when the rivers are full of water, when every river is turned into a highway for the country craft laden with merchandise, every stream into a pathway, and every creek into a harbour for boats."^[17] Indeed, rivers were the primary highways, a natural system of internal waterways, because roads were not well developed until the late nineteenth century (at the time when railways were built). Absent an efficient overland system of transportation, water transportation was not only cheaper but faster. Downstream boats generally could travel forty miles a day; upstream they managed ten miles a day. And they were more capacious than overland haulage.

Transportation costs reflected the comparative advantages enjoyed by water transportation. A mid-nineteenth-century source estimated that travel by country boats proceeding downriver in the Gangetic area cost the least; slightly more expensive were country boats moving upriver; and steamers ferried goods more expensively than even country boats carrying loads upriver. Introduced to the Ganges in the 1830s, steamboats greatly speeded up transportation but acquired "little of the ordinary traffic . . . . They get twice as much cargo on their up-stream as on their down-stream trips. They carry very little of the great staples, such as oil-seeds, rice, and salt; but carry much of the metals and machinery and much of the miscellaneous European goods which are sent up-country by river."^[18] The costliest way to transport goods was overland: almost double that of country boats heading upriver.^[19]

Local investigations bear out these figures. Rates in north Bihar were as follows: 8 pies or three-quarters of an anna ( 12 pies equals one anna) per ton per mile upstream by country boat, as opposed to 2 annas per ton per mile by country cart; downstream the price by river fell to 5 pies per ton per mile. In other words, the cost of transportation by boats ranged from approximately one-third to one-fifth the cost of

[17] TradeofBengal1876-77 , pp. 8-9

[18] C. Bernard, Offg. Secy., GOB, to Secy., GOI, Nov. 1, 1873, P. C. Basta 228, alphabet T and W, nos. 65-76. Seeds and cotton accounted for more than three-quarters of the downward steam freight and salt and metals for three-quarters of the upward steamer traffic. See "Resolution," Bernard, Offg. Secy., Nov. 18, 1872, P. C. Basta no. 227, Important Bundles, Rev. Dept., alphabet S, nos. 58-64.

[19] Bernstein, SteamboatsontheGanges , p. 100; I. D. Derbyshire, "Economic Change and the Railways in North India, 1860-1914," MAS 21 (1987): 526.

overland freight by carts, depending on whether they were moving upstream or downstream. The "miserable nature of the carts, which will not convey more than five or five and half maunds [less than five hundred pounds] at a time," as one local administrator explained, added to the costs, making "land carriage . . . the dearest mode of transport, returning no profit, and mostly inflicting loss, and . . . therefore avoided to the utmost."^[20] Land traffic therefore tended to seek out river outlets.

Traffic, furthermore, converged on the river outlets—especially the Ganges—because the principal highways paralleled the course of this great river until the early nineteenth century. Historically, an east-west highway alongside the Ganges has a long genealogy. A king's road from Pataliputra to the northwest of India via Banaras existed as early as the pre-Christian era.^[21] Under Sher Shah, and later under the Mughals, this route followed the Ganges, making a detour at Patna, where it turned southward along the Son, intersecting Arwal and Daudnagar before crossing over that river to head for Banaras via Sasaram and Jahanabad and then across the Karamnasa. A second route followed the line of the Ganges, intersecting Buxar at the westernmost point of Bihar, and then advanced on to Bhojpur and Arrah before entering Patna district, where it proceeded through Maner, Danapur, Patna, and Barh before heading east toward Murshidabad via Monghyr and Bhagalpur.^[22]

The historic road along the Ganges faded in importance, however, during the colonial period because the new focal point was Calcutta, which lay south of the major Mughal settlements in Bengal. Looking outward from Calcutta to its expanding frontier of interests in the north and northwest, the emerging colonial state recognized, as did its

[20] F. M. Bird, Magte., Gorakhpur, to Offg. Commr., no. 135, July 12, 1860, Bengal PWD Procs., Oct. 1860, no. 182; "Report on Gunduck," Bengal PWD Procs., Irrigation, Mar. 1869, nos. 4-5.

[21] M. M. Singh, "Social and Economic Conditions (600 B.C.-325 B.C.)," and H. K. Prasad, "Economic Condition of Bihar (c. 187 B.C.-319 A.D.)," in ComprehensiveHistoryofBihar , vol. 1, part 1 ed. Bindeshwari Prasad Sinha (Patna: Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute, 1974), pp. 403, 815

[22] Irfan Habib, AnAtlasoftheMughalEmpire (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), 8B, 10B and pp. 31, 41; Khan Mohammad Mohsin, ABengal DistrictinTransition:Murshidabad , 1765-1793 (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1973), pp. 12-13; Abul Khair Muhammad Farooque, Roadsand CommunicationsinMughalIndia (Delhi: Idarah-I Adabiyat-I Delli, 1977), chap. 2; Deloche, TransportinIndia , vol. 1, pp. 37-39. William Charles Macpherson, SoldieringinIndia , 1764-1787 (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1928), p. 97, suggests that the "southern" Mughal route across the Son and through Arwal was still in good condition in the 1770s.

Mughal predecessors, the urgency of building a highway across north India. Consequently, the routes that received the most government attention in Bihar were thoroughfares connecting Bengal to the North-Western Provinces, from which the highways continued on to Delhi.

From the outset, British policy regarding the construction and maintenance of roads was guided by "political and military objects."^[23] As early as the 1760s British engineers began mapping out a "New Road" (also called the "New Military Road"), which was completed in 1785. From Calcutta, the most expedient and direct connection through Bihar was to follow a more southerly course, a route that veered away from Hughli toward Burdwan and then across Hazaribagh, not paralleling the course of the Mughal main route until it crossed over the Son; from there it proceeded to Banaras along much the same trajectory as the Mughal route. In part, the new trajectory was also designed to extend British control into Chotanagpur, a region that had remained beyond the ken of the Mughals; in part, the southerly direction was aimed at enabling the new regime to meet and contain Maratha incursions that came through central India.

But this new east-west highway—it remained the primary road for some fifty years—never became a major thoroughfare because it was not kept in good repair and was prone to flooding. Writing in 1855 (almost prophetically because the subsequent events of the 1857 Mutiny/Rebellion in Bihar had their epicenter in Shahabad), the Patna commissioner expressed "surprise" at its "imperfect and ill-managed . . . condition. The first fall of rain renders it in parts quite impassable for wheeled conveyances, and nearly so for any other mode of transit, and if any emergency should require the presence of troops at Arrah during the rains, they would have great difficulty in reaching the station from Dinapore."^[24]

[23] Henry St. George Tucker, "Roads in Bengal," (1832) in Memorial ofIndianGovernment;Beinga SelectionfromthePapersof HenrySt . GeorgeTucker , ed. John William Kaye (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 424. See also Robert Gabriel Varady, "Rail and Road Transport in Nineteenth Century Awadh: Competition in a North Indian Province," Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 1981, pp. 28-29, on the relationship between road building and government policy in Awadh.

[24] Tayler, Offg. Commr., to W. Grey, Secy., GOB, July 10, 1855, in CorrespondencetoFerryFunds , p. 68; A. Welland, Colltr., Shahabad, to John Rawlins, Secy., BOR, Oct. 3 , 1794, Sh. C., vol. 22, 1794-95; Kalikinkar Datta, StudiesintheHistoryof theBengalSubah , 1740-70 , vol. 1: SocialandEconomic (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1936), p. 395; C. E. A. W. Oldham, "Routes, Old and New, from Lower Bengal 'Up the Country,"' BengalPast andPresent 28 (1924): 30-31.

Nor did the Grand Trunk Road, which superseded the more southerly "New Road" by the 1840s, emerge as a major highway for conveyance of goods.^[25] But it fulfilled its "paramount importance" as a road that tied Calcutta to government's "most important provinces and political interest together with the great proportion of its military force."^[26] Indeed, control of the Grand Trunk Road in the Mutiny/Rebellion of 1857 enabled the British to keep open the lines of communication and supplies between Calcutta and the areas of contention in north and central India. "British military formations moved along it with the sureness of destroyers passing over a dark and turbulent ocean." Access to this highway enabled the beleaguered colonial regime in 1857 to persist as "a fragile form of military occupation." To continue in the words of Eric Stokes, "It was not the last time a colonial power would find that so long as it could secure the key towns and connecting highways leading to the main military concentration of rebellion, it could afford from a narrow military viewpoint to ignore its own loss of control over the intermediate countryside."^[27]

Its strategic importance notwithstanding, the Grand Trunk Road was not in much better condition than the "New Road."^[28] In fact, its eastern segment acquired little of the majesty that Kipling saw in its northwestern portion in the late nineteenth century. Its "imperfect and ill-managed . . . condition" made it especially unsuited for supporting

[25] The Bihar segment, 244 miles in length, crossed over the thinly populated districts of Hazaribagh and Dhanbad before intersecting Shahabad and Gaya. Principal settlements on this route were Sherghati, Aurangabad, Sasaram, Jahanabad, and Dehri-on-Sone. Francis Buchanan, JournalofFrancisBuchananKeptduringtheSurveyof theDistrictofBhagalpurin 1810-1811 , ed. C. E. A. W. Oldham (Patna: Govt. Printing, 1930), p. 2; "Letters from Court," no. 9, Dec. 22, 1786, FortWilliam-IndiaHouseCorrespondence (Public Series), vol. 10:1786-88, ed. Raghubir Sinh (Delhi: Government of India, 1972), p. 705; C. E. A. W. Oldham, "Routes, Old and New, From Lower Bengal 'Up the Country,"' Bengal PastandPresent 30 (1926): 27-30; Sir John Houlton, Bihar:TheHeartof India (Bombay: Orient Longmans, 1949), pp. 174-80; PDG1924 , p. 130; ShDG1906 , pp. 98-99; Hunter, AccountofShahabad , pp. 112- 13.

[26] "Minute of the Governor General," Mar. 25, 1831, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Apr. 26 to June 7, 1831, May 3, no. 100.

[27] ThePeasantArmed:TheIndianRevoltof1857 , ed. C. A. Bayly (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 25; GDG 1957 , pp. 235-36.

[28] Nevertheless, it received a lion's share of the provincial funds for roads (sixteen thousand to twenty thousand rupees per annum on the Bengal portion alone). By contrast, the Mughal trunk road received little attention and maintenance and faded "into comparative insignificance." T. Sandys, Offg. Local Agent, Shahabad Local Agency, to E. C. Ravenshaw, Commr., no. 6, Feb. 27, 1841, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Oct. 3 to 24, 1842, Oct. 10, no. 49; "Minute of GG," Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., May 3, 1831, no. 100; ShDG1906 , p. 99; O'Malley, "Mechanism and Transport," p. 235; Tucker, Memorials , p. 425.

heavy traffic. Take the leg between Calcutta and the Karamnasa River, for instance. Level for the first 110 miles, then rising into hilly country for the next 165 miles before becoming "dead level" again, this stretch of 391 miles was the first road to be metaled—a process started in earnest after 1839. The quality of its metaling, however, varied from place to place, not only because of the different materials used but also because of the different techniques employed to harden the surface. In its hilly portion the tendency was to metal the road by lining it with stones or granite but without packing them down with a roller. Instead the expectation was that the traffic along the road would firm up this bedrock. The result, however, was not as anticipated, because carts and carriages left a rut that other wheeled traffic attempted to follow or that traffic sought to avoid by skirting the sides of the roads.

Rains, furthermore, wreaked havoc, narrowing a road that was only fourteen to fifteen feet wide under the best of conditions and washing away "large parts." Not until it was completely metaled in the late nineteenth century was this road finally usable year-round for all kinds of transport.

Unbridged rivers posed another hazard, as one traveler recounted on reaching the Son, noting that the river

is three miles across; a volume of water for four months in the year—a waste of sand with only one stream of any consequence for the remainder of the year. At present it takes three good hours to cross it and heavy bullock carts take nearly a day. A good sized carriage such as the one used by all passengers on the line is dragged by six bullocks over the waste of sand which reaches from the right bank of the river to the main stream running along the left bank. Two or three smaller streams are crossed about half way; but they do not compel passengers to embark their vehicles on boats. At the beginning of November the water in these minor streams was scarcely higher than the axles and by the commencement of February it will be quite dried up. The boats used for crossing the main stream are[,] however, of the most faulty and insecure description.^[29]

Familiar with these problems was the Inland Transit Company, whose "palanquin carriages," drawn by a horse or sometimes two horses, or "parcel [goods] carts" set off daily from Calcutta on the Grand Trunk Road. Only under optimum conditions could passenger carriages reach Banaras in three days and goods carts in forty hours. During the rainy

[29] "Note on the GTR," by W. Seton Karr, Jan. 5, 1854, Bengal Pub. Consltns., Mar. 9-23, 1854, Mar. 16, no. 56.

season, the company manager dissuaded passengers from traveling. The "difficulties and annoyances are so great," he explained, "owing to the obstacles . . . that we would rather lose the passengers than run the risk of being blamed for their disappointments." Included in his list of hazards were the "low level of the road between Hooghly and Burdwan which renders it always liable to inundation in the rains. [There is a] want of bridges over some of the principal streams and [a] general want of supervision along the whole line . . . [, and] proper means are not taken to keep it in repair."^[30]

Far worse off were the secondary roads, which were so critical to the effective functioning of the principal water or land highways. Like the tributaries from the north and the south that flowed into the Ganges, the most important secondary roads were needed as confluents linking up the countryside with the principal highways. Especially indispensable were north-south roads that could serve as feeder roads for the east-west water and overland highways. Few and far between were crossroads that cut laterally across localities along an east-west direction. As late as the 1870s, many areas reported, as did Shahabad, that not a single "cross-road" existed.^[31]

Moreover, secondary roads received little attention until the advent of the railway era because they were not considered to possess political or military significance.^[32] Essentially fair-weather tracks, these local roads were largely unpaved, as in the Mughal period, and mostly carved out of dirt surfaces and constructed without much benefit of en-

[30] "Statement of the Manager of the Inland Transit Company . . . ," Aug. 3, 1850, Bengal Pub. Consltns., 1850, Nov. 27, no. 148.

[31] "Report on the Agricultural Statistics of Shahabad . . . ," M. S. D. H. Ahamed, Deputy Colltr., Shahabad, Bengal Stats. Procs., June 1874-Dec. 1875, May 1875, app. B, nos. 19-20. Patna Division, however, had more roads than Bengal: one mile of road for every six square miles as opposed to one mile for every twenty square miles. H. Leonard, Offg Secy., PWD, to Offg Secy., GOB, no. 1494, Mar. 3, 1868, Bengal Gen. Procs., 1868, June, no. 37.

[32] At the local level, most efforts were aimed at connecting settlements of administrative and commercial salience, generally the district headquarters and the stations, if any, occupied by garrisons and battalions. The only other roads that were consistently maintained in the initial century of colonial rule were the short strips in the vicinity of the district headquarters. E.g., the highway from Bhagalpur to Calcutta was in poor condition but the roads around the towns of Bhagalpur and Monghyr were well maintained, apparently "to give the European ladies an opportunity of taking an evening ride." Montgomery Martin, EasternIndia , vol. 2, Bhagalpur , Gorakhpur (reprint, Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1976), pp. 286-87; J. Sanford, 3rd Judge, Patna Court of Circuit, to W. Dorin, Registrar, Nizt. Adt., Nov. 6, 1820, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Apr. 6 to 13, 1821, Apr. 13, no. 27.

gineering principles. As a result, they were beset by problems of drainage and design. They were, for one, prone to flooding in the level plains either because of rains or overflowing streams and rivulets. Furthermore, in the absence of metaling, during the dry season even the best of roads was easily damaged by wheeled traffic. Lacking bridges over the many streams and rivulets that formed barriers particularly during the rainy season, many were also not easily passable. Therefore in the wet months wheeled traffic came almost to a standstill. No wonder roads in this era could be maintained only at inordinate expense, costs that government was not willing to incur.^[33]

Their maintenance, moreover, depended on the initiative and interest of local administrators and on funds collected from local landholders. Such contingencies typically meant that most roads were in poor condition. For example, the principal road along the Ganges was difficult to negotiate because bridges on this road were not kept up. Zamindars and administrators were equally to blame, reported the local judge, because they considered the responsibility of maintaining roads "attended with considerable labour and trouble and . . . a subject of temporary or local expedient by the government, [and therefore] the Magistrates are [not] inclined nor encouraged to undertake the duty."^[34]

An assessment of the Patna-Gaya road, perhaps the most important north-south route in Bihar, is indicative of the low priority accorded, and the poor condition of, even the most significant of secondary roads in the prerailway era.^[35] Patna had long been connected to Gaya, the second most important town in Bihar and a major pilgrimage center; Bodh Gaya, six miles south of Gaya, known historically as the place where Buddha gained enlightenment, was another magnet for pilgrims. The Patna-Gaya road grew in importance during the colonial period

[33] A. Cotton, PublicWorksinIndia:Their Importance (London: W.H. Allen, 1854), PP. 5-7; Farooque, CommunicationsinMughalIndia , esp. chap. 2; Varady, "Rail and Road in Awadh," p. 23; O'Malley, "Mechanism and Transport," pp. 234-35.

[34] A. Welland, Senior Judge, Patna Court of Circuit, to M. H. Turnbull, Registrar, Nizt. Adlt., June 24, 1815, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Jan. 5 to 19, 1816, Jan. 5, no. 21; Francis Buchanan, An AccountoftheDistrictsof BiharandPatnain1811-1812 (Patna: Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 1928), pp. 442-43.

[35] During the colonial era the Patna-Gaya road followed a more westerly direction because the focal point was the western suburb of Bankipur, also the political center and residence of the British. The precolonial route intersected Islampur, Tilhara, and Hilsa before continuing to Patna. Welland to Turnbull, June 24, 1815, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Jan. 5, 1816, no. 21. By 1821 most travelers resorted to the road through Jahanabad rather than the route through Hilsa. See C. W. Smith, Magte., Behar, to H. Shakespeare, Suptd., Police, Dec. 22, 1821, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Jan. 2 to 25, 1822, Jan. 11, no. 36.

because it served as the link between Patna and the entire country south of the Ganges. It also tied together the two principal east-west highways, the Ganges and the Grand Trunk Road. And its extension beyond Gaya enabled the British to maintain a colonial presence far into the interior, into the Chotanagpur plateau.^[36]

The Patna-Gaya road was also an important trading route. Registration of traffic along this road in the late nineteenth century shows that rice, wheat, and other cereals were transported on it, going both ways, but mostly from Gaya to Patna; oilseeds from Gaya in substantial quantities and salt and tobacco in large amounts from Patna also traveled this road. In addition, Patna was the source of European cotton manufactures. During the pilgrimage season the road turned into "one of the most crowded thoroughfares" in the region as thousands of people converged on it to reach Gaya.^[37]

Although the Patna-Gaya road was the best maintained of the north-south roads in the region, its condition was not much better than that of most local roads. The first concerted efforts to ensure its upkeep as a principal road, or high road, were not made until 1811; by 1814 it was widened to twenty feet and raised throughout its length. By 1832, however, the road was reported to be in the "worst possible state," the result of poor maintenance, bad drainage, and unbridged rivers that eroded its course. Five years later in 1837, "all traces of the road were in many places completely washed away, while the drain bridges were so much injured as to be rendered unsafe, and impracticable." By then it was said to be "impassable even to foot travellers." At the prodding of postal authorities, orders were issued in 1850 to build up the road as a first-class imperial road: to broaden, raise, metal, and bridge it. But when cost estimates topped eleven lakhs of rupees for this road of 77.5 miles, authorization was not forthcoming. Consequently, an alternative plan to construct a more modest road was put forth.^[38]

[36] Capt. H. C. Dickens, late Suptd., Behar Irrigation to Chief Engineer, GOB, no. 226, Jan. 13, 1860, Bengal PWD Procs., Jan.-Feb. 1860, Jan., no. 288; Tucker, "Roads in Bengal," in Memorials , p. 425; Grierson, NotesonGaya , pp. 15-16.

[37] S. C. Bayley, Commr., Patna, to Secy., GOB, no. 601F, Jan. 27, 1875, Bengal PWD Procs., 1873-75, Nov. 1875, no. 13; "Road Traffic from Gya to Patna," Bengal Stats. Procs., 1876-77, Nov. 1875, no. 20; May 1876, no. 116; Singh, TransportGeography , pp. 53-54.

[38] Lt.-Col. C. B. Young, Secy., GOB, PWD, to GOI, PWD, no. 396, Jan. 28, 1860, Bengal PWD Procs., Jan.-Feb. 1860, Jan., no. 289; H. D. H. Fergusson, Commr., Patna, to Secy., GOB, no. 213, Aug. 16, 1859, Bengal Public Works and Railway Procs., Nov.-Dec. 1859, Dec., no. 16.

Details regarding other secondary roads add to this picture of their limited utility, selective range, and defective condition. In Patna and Gaya the Patna-Daudnagar road (formerly part of the Mughal highway and subsequently extended to the Grand Trunk Road) and the PatnaBihar road were the other local roads of importance in the late eighteenth century. (Daudnagar was then a commercial center, a place where the East India Company had both cloth and opium interests.) In the early nineteenth century a crossroad was constructed from Daudnagar to Gaya, and from there east to Nawada. Spanning a distance of more than seventy miles, this road too was used to carry goods between the towns on the Ganges and the south, and it became "much frequented by pilgrims from all parts of India."^[39] Additional roads linked Bihar to Gaya, although this route was in poor condition in the early nineteenth century, and Bihar to Nawada, from which the road continued on to Chotanagpur.^[40]

In Shahabad the primary local road was the north-south link between the two great military highways. Commenced in the 1780s, it was completed in 1793 with Arrah and Sasaram constituting the nodal points at the two ends of this road. Also completed in 1793 was the road linking Arrah to Nasriganj, an important manufacturing and trading center on the banks of the Son and across the river from Daudnagar. Additional north-south lines were formed in the early nineteenth century: Nasriganj was also the terminus of a road running north from Bhojpur to Dumraon, a road that cut through the heart of Shahabad and proceeded on to Gaya via Daudnagar. As a result, it supported "a large traffic for the transport of goods and grains of various kinds . . . and . . . during the greater part of the year [was filled] with travellers and pilgrims."^[41]

Other than these few links, however, most roads, as elsewhere in the region, were little better than common footpaths. And, as elsewhere, good roads were a result of the initiative of enterprising local administrators, or zamindars; similarly, neglect could quickly make the best of roads impassable. Familiar also is this list of problems responsible for

[39] A. E. Wilson, Offg. Secy., Behar Ferry Fund Committee, to Offg. Commr., Patna, July 14, 1855, CorrespondencetoFerryFunds , pp. 103-4; Buchanan, Biharand Patna , pp. 705-6; GDG 1957 , pp. 312-13.

[40] Singh, TransportGeography , p. 53; Smith to Shakespeare, Dec. 22, 1821, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Jan. 11, 1822, no. 36.

[41] Tayler to Grey, July 10, 1855, CorrespondencetoFerryFunds , p. 70; Welland to Rawlins, Oct. 3, 1794, Sh.C., vol. 22, 1794-95; Buchanan, Shahabad , p. 443.

the poor condition of roads: their location on "low ground [that] flooded during the rains, the badness of the soil at such places, . . . the total want of roads sufficiently raised and bridges adequate to meet every contingency of inundation, and last [but] not least, the poverty of the funds."^[42] Small wonder then that, as late as the 1840s, Shahabad was said to lack a "durable internal communication as centrically situated as possible, between the great southern Trunk Road . . . and the river transit . . . [and] a general communication to all the marts and stations in the centre of the District."^[43]

In contrast to south Bihar, north Bihar had no major thoroughfares spanning its entire breadth. But by the mid-nineteenth century it boasted a much more extensive and better network of roads than did the south. Its major roads headed toward the Ganges highway, to connect either with Patna or other trade and marketing settlements along the banks of the river. The neighboring areas were yet another focus: the North-Western Provinces, Bengal, and Nepal.

Typifying this pattern were the lines of communication in Saran. Its best road at the turn of the nineteenth century skirted its southeastern edge, a line defined by the Ganges and the headquarters town of Chapra. From Chapra the road continued toward the southeastern tip of the district, from which the city of Patna could be reached by crossing the river. Because Champaran was administered as part of Saran until 1866, its better roads also converged on this area. Of the three main arteries in the late eighteenth century, the high road linked Chapra with the commercial center of Revelganj and the old town of Chirand, from which a ferry crossed the Ganges to link up with the military road to Danapur and Patna and to Arrah. Heading northwest from Chapra, this road continued to Manjhi, from which a road crossed the Gogra into Ghazipur. Chapra was also a key locale along a second road that proceeded north through Mashrak and across the Gandak; from there it continued to Motihari, the principal town in Champaran. A third road linked Chapra to Muzaffarpur. But as in south Bihar in the prerailway era, these roads were little better than fair-weather tracks because they were impassable in the rains, with wa-

[42] Sandys to Ravenshaw, no. 6, Feb. 27, 1841, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Oct. 10 1842, no. 49. Buchanan, Shahabad , p. 443, states that Shahabad roads were not as good as those of Patna and Gaya.

[43] Sandys to Ravenshaw, no. 6, Feb. 27, 1841, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Oct. 10, 1842, no. 49.

ter waist high in some areas; nor were they adequately bridged over streams. Of these only the Chirand-Chapra-Manjhi road—repaired partly by zamindars and partly by convict labor—was said to be "well calculated for carriages of any description."^[44]

This high road through Chapra received the most administrative attention in the early nineteenth century. By 1830 it extended beyond Manjhi to Darauli and then across the Gogra. And from Chirand it extended to Sonepur—the site of the region's most important fair—from which it passed on over the Gandak to Hajipur. Apparently because most traffic—people and goods—from Chapra headed in the direction of Patna and Danapur, on the one hand, and Sonepur and Hajipur, on the other, the thirty-mile stretch between Chapra and Sonepur was kept "in excellent repair—and passable for wheeled carriages, nearly the whole year." The Chapra-Darauli stretch, however, was "wretchedly bad."^[45] In addition, crossroads, which began with Chapra at one end of the line and headed into Champaran and Muzaffarpur, were also built. One important connection was between Chapra and Siwan, the second largest town of Saran, from which the road continued through the military cantonment of Baragaon before branching out in opposite directions—toward Gorakhpur and Bettiah, the latter being Champaran's second most important settlement and the home of that district's premier landholder. Another road headed directly north from Chapra to Govindganj in Champaran; still other roads headed northeast and east into Muzaffarpur.^[46]

Whereas the Chapra high road provided Saran at least one good road in the late eighteenth century, Champaran had not a single effective road, according to its district collector. Within the first decades of the nineteenth century, however, this district developed many good lines of communication. Much of the impetus for road building in the area came from "military and political objects," specifically the outbreaks of war with Nepal. Thus, roads in the early nineteenth century were built to connect Chapra, Muzaffarpur, and Patna, as well as mili-

[44] N. Sturt, Colltr., Saran, to Wm. Cowper, President and Members, BOR, July 4, 1800, S.C., Letters sent 1799–1801, vol. 74; W. W. Hunter, AStatisticalAccountofBengal , vol. 11, DistrictsofPatnaand Saran (London: Trubner and Co., 1877), p. 317; Robert Rankine, NotesontheMedicalTopographyoftheDistrictofSaran (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 1839), pp. 7–9.

[45] Rankine, TopographyofSarun , pp. 8–9.

[46] W. A. Pringle, Magte., to R. H. Tulloh, Offg. Commr., Feb. 2, 1830, S.C., Letters issued from Saran Magte., 1–4–1828 to 14–3–1830, vol. 138 (also numbered vol. 19).

tary outposts, the cantonment of Mallai in Muzaffarpur, and the cantonments along the Nepal boundary. The growing presence of European indigo planters in the area also proved to be a boon, as planters took an active role in local road-building projects.^[47]

By the mid-nineteenth century a number of roads traversed a northsouth axis, from Champaran's border with Nepal to its boundary on the Gandak: one road to Chapra intersected Motihari; the ChapraGovindganj route headed into two directions, one to Motihari, and the other to Sugauli, a village halfway between Motihari and Bettiah, and the site of a military cantonment during the Nepalese war. Roads also branched out from Bettiah to Gorakhpur, to Bagaha, in the sparsely inhabited northwest, to Banjaria and to Sugauli. From there the road continued on through Motihari and became the link to Muzaffapur via Mehsi. The Mehsi-Motihari-Bettiah road, a stretch of almost fifty miles across the southeastern half of the district, was said to be in particularly good condition because of the large number of indigo plantations in the area. Planters apparently kept this road and a few others in this area in "excellent, and . . .in good and substantial repair . . .at their private expense."^[48]

The condition of roads in late-eighteenth-century Tirhut, which then comprised Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga, resembled that of Saran. As its district collector noted, they were "in very bad state." Even the basic road connecting Muzaffarpur to Patna—a route that would have passed through the important town of Hajipur—was not easily negotiable. The conditions existing on the road between Muzaffapur and Chapra—a route over which rice from the terai (jungly and marshy lands in the foothills of the Himalayas) traveled toward Chapra, along with tobacco, hides, horns, and saltpeter from Darbhanga—exemplify the difficulties faced in this era in using roads for conveying goods. Whereas the Saran portion of this road was kept in relatively good condition, the segment from the Gandak to Muzaffarpur required negotiating swollen streams during the rainy season. Over this twenty-three-mile stretch, a hackery (bullock cart) unloaded and reloaded five times, a process that added two days to the journey.

The impulse for developing a network of roads in Tirhut, as in the case of Champaran, came during the Nepalese war and was supported

[47] CDG1938 , pp. 102-3.

[48] Rankine, NotesonSaran , p . 9; Wyatt, StatisticsofSarunandChumparun , pp. 3, 2 (Chumparun).

by the indigo planters. Small wonder then that one road that attracted considerable official attention was the connection between Muzaffarpur and the cantonment of Mallai, located almost at the Nepal border. En route it intersected Sitamarhi, and from Mallai this road continued on to Kathmandu. By the mid-nineteenth century Muzaffarpur was also linked to Patna via Hajipur, a route that required crossing the Ganges at its confluence with the Gandak. Other roads connected Muzaffarpur to Chapra, to Motihari and Sugauli, to Darbhanga (a road that continued on to Purnia), and to Monghyr. Branch roads had also been built from these main roads to other important towns and villages and also to indigo factories.^[49]

According to one estimate, the roads in north Bihar were as good as, if not better than, those found anywhere else in Bengal.^[50] Better they may have been but they still were not good enough to function as major arteries of trade. Even the east-west highways were not consistently usable in this respect because they could not always support the two-or four-wheeled carts pulled by oxen and buffalo that were the primary vehicles of transport for goods and people on the subcontinent, or they were virtually impassable at least during the rainy season. Few loaded carts traveled on even the major east-west highways during the rainy season. The use of such vehicles was therefore restricted to the main east-west highways or to the short strips connecting the major towns, also generally the roads next best to the principal highways. Especially during the rainy season, when most roads were impassable, people and goods therefore resorted to the rivers because of their "facility and cheapness of transit." The absence or poor condition of connecting crossroads further curtailed the volume of cart traffic.

In the absence of cartable roads, goods were carried as "back loads" on oxen or as baggage conveyed by pack bullocks. Indeed, this was the situation in the early nineteenth century in pargana Bihar in Patna (pargana is a Mughal unit of revenue administration) and the adjoining pargana of Samai in Gaya. Surplus grain from this area was transported by pack bullocks because the local roads could not support

[49] Wyatt, StatisticalReportofTirhoot , pp. 2, 5; Capt. W. Sage, Executive Officer, to Col. R. Tickell, Superintending Engineer, no. 112, June 17, 1835, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Mar. 21 to Apr. 11, 1837, Apr. 4, no. 50; G. P. Ricketts, Colltr., Tirhut, to C. Buller, Secy., BOR, Apr. 20, 1801, and Ricketts to G. Dowdeswell, Secy., Jdcl., Feb. 12, 1802, T.C., Nov. 16, 1796 to Apr. 14, 1812, vol. 195 and Aug. 1800 to Feb. 13, 1802, vol. 197A.

[50] Geddes and MacDonnell report.

wheeled traffic.^[51] But this form of transportation reduced the cost efficiency of overland transportation: pack bullocks were capable of carrying only one-fourth or one-fifth of the load that a cart could handle and were capable of traveling only about half the distance covered by a cart. Conveyance by pack bullocks was, according to one estimate, twice as expensive as transportation by carts.^[52]

Human labor—whether one's own or that of coolies—was also widely used to carry goods to neighboring markets in the initial century of colonial rule. But this mode of transportation had obvious limitations. As one contemporary observer noted, "20 seers [about 44 lbs] is the utmost a man can carry, for any distance . . . not to mention the expenses they are put to, in disposing of the produce."^[53]

Thus, in the first century of British rule, the Ganges persisted as the primary highway of transportation because roads were uneven and largely in poor condition. No wonder the data for the traffic between Calcutta and Banaras show that the Ganges accounted for almost ten times as much tonnage of the trade between those two cities as did the Grand Trunk Road.^[54]

A different statistic shows up, however, if the count is of pedestrian traffic. An early nineteenth-century estimate indicates that the number of passengers on boats between Calcutta and Banaras totaled 58,378, whereas the number of "foot passengers" on the Grand Trunk Road

[51] NotesontheDistrictof Behar (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 184?), p. 2; Buchanan, Shahabad , pp. 441-43. Asses and mules were also used in some areas. Horses, generally not employed for conveying goods, were utilized by well-to-do Indian travelers; ponies were available for hire in some areas.

[52] Pack bullocks provided special opportunities to small traders who were willing to pursue this line of transportation. See below, chap. 5. GSR , p. 125; Buchanan, BiharandPatna , pp. 706-7. According to Buchanan, the carrying capacity of a back load was 250 lbs; the load cost five annas per day and could travel twelve miles. A cart, on the other hand, could take a load of 984 to 1,230 lbs; a cart with two oxen cost four to eight annas a day, with three to four oxen twelve annas a day. See also Amalendu Guha, "Raw Cotton of Western India, 1750-1850," IESHR9 (1972): 20-21, for comparable estimates.

[53] Rankine, TopographyofSaran , p. 10. Human muscle was also used to carry passenger loads. Ramgopal Singh Chowdhari, RamblesinBihar (Bankipur: Express Press, 1917), p. 37, writes of porters of Kahar caste lifting his dholi (litter) onto their heads as they waded through waist-deep water. European travelers generally preferred the river highway; some took to the Grand Trunk Road on carriages; and a few resorted to travel on horseback. Indians "travelers of some rank" often resorted to ekkas (carriages generally drawn by horse or pony or sometimes by two oxen). Grierson, Noteson Behar , p. 7; William Buyers, RecollectionsofNorthernIndia (London: John Snow, 1848), pp. 176, 85.

[54] This amounted to 181,000 tons annually, compared to only 19-22,000 tons along the "military road." By land the cost of freight was three to four pence per ton per mile, by water the cost was two pence per ton per mile. Sandys to Ravenshaw, no. 6, Feb. 27, 1841, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Oct. 10, 1842, no. 49; Andrew, Indian Railway , p. 34.

between those two towns added up to 435,000, or almost eight times as many. Another 30-40,000 passengers traveled by "conveyances of various kinds."^[55]

In other words, roads, their imperfections notwithstanding, were far better suited to accommodate foot traffic. And one group who relied on them—in particular, the Grand Trunk Road and the "New Road" before it—was the military. Generations of soldiers tramped these highways in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries en route "to the great military stations . . . principally situated in the north-western provinces, and especially towards the frontier."^[56]

Pilgrims were another conspicuous presence on these roads. Veeraswamy was one of many pilgrims in the prerailway age who stopped off in Patna en route to the holy city of Gaya. And for those traveling by the Grand Trunk Road, access to Gaya from either Banaras or Calcutta was via Sherghati, a town intersected by the highway twenty-one miles south of Gaya. Not surprisingly, Bholanauth Chunder encountered enterprising Gaya "scouts" at Sherghati whose purpose was to direct and entice pilgrim traffic. Beggars of every description also flocked there in order to take advantage of a "place through which there is not a day that some men or other have not occasion to pass on to Gaya, distributing alms in their progress, and moralizing to the world that the path to heaven lies through the gateway of charity."^[57]

Well into the late nineteenth century people from all walks of life joined soldiers and pilgrims on the roads. Ordinary people, especially the less well-off, were known to walk for days, even weeks, if necessary, to reach distant destinations. Pedestrians generally covered eight to ten miles a day, much less than the twenty or thirty miles a litter carried by a team of coolies could manage in a day.^[58] In fact, so many peo-

[55] An Old Indian Postmaster [Sir William Patrick Andrew], Indian RailwaysandTheirProbableResults (London: T. G. Newby, 1848), p. 35. An 1845 estimate of traffic on the Grand Trunk Road enumerated 663,644 foot passengers, 20,682 passengers on horseback, 14,106 cart ekkas , 177,770 pilgrims, 3,244 daks (mail carriers), 988 palkis (palanquins) 348 box wallahs, and 130 buggies. It also enumerated: 48,062 laden bullocks; 42,050 unladen bullocks, 3,194 laden camels, 75,682 laden hackeries, 3,420 unladen hackeries, 15,454 laden coolies, 182 elephants, 5,220 laden horses, 1,262 unladen horses, 3,982 banghis (bearers), and 164 empty buggies. W. Dampier, Suptd., to J. P. Grant, Secy., GOB Apr. 23, 1851, Bengal Jdcl. Consltns., Jan. 2-Mar. 27, 1852, Jan. 9, no. 5.

[56] Buyers, RecollectionsofIndia , p. 84.

[57] Chunder, TravelsofaHindoo , vol. 1, pp. 224-25; TheTravelsofPeter Mundy , vol. 2, TravelsinAsia , 1628-1634 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1914), pp. 182-83.

[58] Hagen, "Indigenous Society in Patna," pp. 71-72; Varady, "Rail and Road in Awadh," p. 26; Buchanan, BiharandPatna , p. 706; Buchanan, Shahabad , pp. 440-43. Seealso my "Peasants on the Move: A Study of Internal Migration in Colonial India," Journalof InterdisciplinaryHistory10 (1979): 53, on peasant migrants who walked from Bihar to Bengal in search of seasonal employment. Charitable establishments offered board and lodgings on well-traveled pilgrim roads. For instance, six miles south of Gaya, a monastery provided free food and a place to stay for weary and poor travelers for three consecutive days; its expenses were supported by its holdings in several villages. Grierson, NotesonBehar , p. 7; Buyers, RecollectionsofIndia , pp. 176, 85 .

ple walked to their destinations—the cheapest means of transportation—that British administrators often considered a better class of roads to be unnecessary. For "natives . . . any thing in the shape of a pathway beaten smooth by their naked feet suits them just as well, as a more costly one."^[59]

The development of railways changed both the modes of transportation and the circuits along which trade flowed. Introduced to the region in the late nineteenth century, railways rapidly became the most efficient and economical means of transportation. The highest priority in railroad construction, as in road building, was to develop a line of communication linking Calcutta to the rest of north India. The Grand Trunk Road of the railways, the East Indian Railway, was started in 1855, interrupted by the events of 1857, and finally completed in 1862. A second line was added in 1870.

Political and military considerations weighed heavily, as they did in the case of the Grand Trunk Road, in determining the location of the East Indian Railway. So did commercial factors, particularly in forming its Bihar segment. Although the shortest route would have been to follow a direct line between Calcutta and Banaras, a course roughly paralleling the path of the Grand Trunk Road, the initial alignment followed the course of the Ganges, that is, roughly the line of the old Mughal trunk route. From Banaras the East India Railway proceeded along the north of Shahabad and Patna, then continued on to Monghyr and Bhagalpur en route to Calcutta. And like the Banaras-Patna-Calcutta road along the Ganges its major stops were, from west to east, Buxar, Arrah, Danapur, Patna-Bankipur, Fatwa, Bakhtiyarpur, Barh, and Mokameh, before entering Monghyr.

This line conformed well with the pattern of settlements that had emerged to capitalize on the political and economic vitality of the Ganges. The rise of Pataliputra in the distant past was no doubt related to its location on the Ganges. The river also provided a link to the major

[59] Sandys to Ravenshaw, no. 6 , Feb. 27, 1841, Bengal Cr. Jdcl. Consltns., Oct. 10, 1842, no. 49.

settlement of Banaras to the west and the prominent town of Champa to the east. Both Banaras and Patna grew to commercial salience because of their strategic location on the river and because of their roles as outlets for maritime trade; so did the centers of trade and commerce in Bengal that stood on the Ganges or its riverine connections: Murshidabad, Hughli, Calcutta, Dacca, and Satgaon.^[60]

The administrative headquarters of virtually every district in the region also lay along the riverbanks or within easy access of the river. Patna, Monghyr, and Bhagalpur are cases in point. So too are the headquarters of Shahabad and Saran—Arrah and Chapra, respectively. (Arrah, although at a distance from the river in recent centuries, formerly overlooked the river when it followed a different course.) Before the rise of Patna, Hajipur, near the confluence of the Gandak and Ganges, was the political and commercial hub of the area as well as the seat of the governors of Bihar in the early Muslim period. The town of Muzaffapur, the administrative capital of Tirhut, stands on the banks of a Ganges tributary, the little Gandak. So does Darbhanga, the headquarters of the district of the same name, which was carved out of Tirhut in 1875.

The Ganges also endowed sites with commercial significance. A prime example is Revelganj (or Godna), which rivaled Patna in the nineteenth century and was a major commercial center in north Bihar in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. From its commanding location at the junction of the Gogra and the Ganges, it became the focal point of much of the trade in the north until the late nineteenth century, when the confluence of these two rivers shifted eastward. Buxar in Shahabad was another nodal point on the river, the site of the 1764 battle whereby British victory over the nawabs of Awadh and Bengal secured them the control of Bengal. It stood on the frontier of the East India Company's territories in the late eighteenth century. Until the early nineteenth century, a garrison of several hundred men was stationed there, the Buxar fort occupying a high bluff overlooking the river. In Patna district, other than the city of Patna the secondary centers along the river were Danapur, also the site of a military canton-

[60] Diwakar, BiharthroughtheAges , pp. 181, 244; Bernstein, SteamboatsontheGanges , pp. 13-14; Naqvi, UrbanCentresin India , pp. 97-98. See also below, chap. 2, regarding Patna's role as the central place of the region.

ment; Fatwa, a place known for its weaving industry; Barh, a center of country trade; and Mokameh.^[61]

Political and military interests, paramount in developing this "more northerly course" aimed at tying together the primary towns of south Bihar as well as providing ready access to north Bihar, therefore fitted in well with the commercial advantages so vital for the financial viability of the East Indian Railway: "[T]he first object of the railway from a commercial point of view, was to secure traffic, [and therefore] it was most desirable that these towns should be served. They were the marts for the disposal of the produce of the adjoining districts, including the trans-Ganges districts, which were then, of course, without railroads of any kind. It was more necessary to open out this part of the country."^[62] A second thoroughfare across south Bihar was developed in 1900, when the Grand Chord line between Mughalsarai (near Banaras) and Calcutta was inaugurated. Taking a more southerly route—almost paralleling the course of the Grand Trunk Road—it intersected Gaya, then proceeded over the Son to Dehri-on-Sone, and from there crossed the Karamnasa to connect with Mughalsarai.^[63]

Rail lines were also laid along a north-south axis. The Patna-Gaya Railway, completed in 1876, followed the pattern of road building in linking Patna to Gaya. Another such connection was forged between Arrah and Sasaram in the early twentieth century. In both instances these north-south lines were important, not only because they linked major towns but also because they tied together towns that were junctions on the primary rail highways, the East Indian Railway and the Grand Chord line. Another feature of the development of railways that paralleled the pattern of road building was their focus on Chotanagpur. In contrast to the earlier objectives of conquest and consolidation of control, however, the late-nineteenth-century convergence on the southern plateau was aimed at tapping the mineral wealth of the area.^[64]

[61] Havaladara Tripathi, BiharkiNadiyam (Patna: Bihar Hindi Granth Academy, 1977), pp. 1–118; SDG1930 , pp. 131–34, 149–51; PDG1924 , pp. 199–200, 207–9, 217; ShDG1906 , pp. 126–31; 133–35; GOBi, BiharDistrict Gazetteers , Purnea by P. C. Roy Chaudhury (Patna: Secretariat Press, 1963), pp. 754–59.

[62] G. Huddleston, HistoryoftheEast IndianRailway (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, and Co., 1906), p. 50; Nalinaksha Sanyal, Developmentof IndianRailways (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1930), p. 31 . Hurd, "Railways," p. 742, refers to "humanitarian" considerations in the placement of railway lines.

[63] GDG1957 , pp. 244–45; ShDG1906 , pp. 100–1; Huddleston, EastIndiaRailway , pp. 142–43; Andrew, IndianRailways .

[64] Singh, TransportGeography , pp. 55–75.

Railway links were also developed to tie major junctions on the rail highways to important settlements in the interior or to junctions on other rail lines. A branch line between Mokameh junction and Mokameh ghat fulfilled the latter function because it connected up with the Bengal and North-Western Railway running across north Bihar, as did the Bankipur-to-Digha-ghat branch line. The latter, however, required taking a ferry steamer to cross the Ganges and then linking up with the same railway. Branch lines in Patna tied Fatwa to Islampur, twenty-seven miles away, and Bakhtiyarpur to Bihar and Rajgir. The South Bihar Railway, completed in 1895, connected Gaya to Nawada, and the latter to Lakhisarai in Monghyr. Another line was constructed in 1909 between Barun, on the Son River, and Daltongaj in Palamau district; and yet another in 1906 between Gaya and Dhanbad. The Dehri-Rohtas Light Railway, a short line of twenty-four miles in Shahabad, ran between Dehri-on-Sone and Akbarpur.^[65]

Railways followed the routes established by roads in another respect as well: the lines spanning the breadth of the region came first. And because the great rail thoroughfares received priority—and their routes traversed south Bihar—railways, except for the Darbhanga State Railway, were not introduced to north Bihar until the 1880s. The line between Darbhanga and Bajitpur on the banks of the Ganges opposite Barh was built in 1874 at the prompting of the great estate of Darbhanga. Subsequently, under the sponsorship of the Bengal and North-Western Railway several additional lines were built linking all the north Bihar districts. One line, completed in 1883, connected Semaria Ghat on the Ganges with Bettiah. In between it cut across the southeastern part of Muzaffapur, intersecting the town of Muzaffapur before proceeding on to Mehsi, Motihari, Sugauli, Bettiah, and points farther north. Another line, which constituted the main line of the Bengal and NorthWestern Railway in Saran, entered from Gorakhpur into Mairwa, from which it continued to Siwan and Chapra and then on to Sonepur. From there it crossed the Gandak by bridge and continued to Haijipur, and from there to Katihar in Purnia. Tracks laid between Hajipur and Muzaffapur connected these two branches of the railway. Another line proceeded due north from Samastipur in Darbhanga and passed through Darbhanga on the way to Kamtaul and Sitamarhi, with the terminus in Bairagnia. In the early twentieth century this line was extended

[65] PDG 1924, pp. 131; GDG 1957, pp. 244–45; ShDG 1924, pp. 116–17.

from Bairagnia into Champaran, where it passed through Raxaul and Bagaha into Gorakhpur, a route that cut across the entire northern rim of that district. A short line between Sugauli to Raxaul linked two railway lines in Champaran; Raxaul, on the frontier of Nepal, became the junction for the railway coming down from that country.^[66]

Railroad construction had the effect of sparking a boom in road building. The impetus to improve the existing system was generated, as in the initial century, by the dynamo of "political and military objects," now stoked by the events of the Mutiny/Rebellion of 1857. And with railways regarded as the major mode of transportation, the late-nineteenth-century policy of constructing roads was driven by the urgency to lay feeder roads directing overland traffic to the stations of the rail lines.^[67]

The famines of 1874-75 and 1896-97 were critical moments in road building too: roads were constructed as a major project of famine relief activity. Also of significance was the Road Cess (tax) Act of 1875, which established a fund for the construction of roads, especially their metaling and bridging. A clear picture of these developments can be gained by comparing the 1861 roads with later descriptions. In 1861 Saran had 895 miles of roads, Champaran 477, Tirhut 1,078, Shahabad 495, Gaya 436, and Patna 316. Many lacked bridges, and almost all of them were unmetaled, except for the stretch of 54 miles of the Grand Trunk Road through Gaya, a short strip of 7 miles between Revelganj and Chapra, and two brief portions of 10 and 6 miles connecting Maner to the military station of Danapur and Patna to Fatwa, respectively.^[68]

Beginning slowly in the 1870s, when the better roads in Saran were still primarily confined to the vicinity of towns, the district gradually accumulated 1,150 miles of district roads and 1,419 miles of village roads by 1928-29. Of these, 234 miles were metaled. A similar spurt undertaken during the famines of the late nineteenth century eventuated in a total of 1,081 miles for Champaran by 1906, and more than 2,300 miles by the 1930s; 91.5 miles of these roads were metaled.

Equally impressive gains can be documented for other areas. By 1875 Muzaffapur, benefiting from the road building of 1874, already held 719 miles of roads. By the turn of the twentieth century its roads extended

[66] . W. W. Hunter, AStatisticalAccountof Bengal , vol. 13, TirhutandChamparan (London: Trubner and Co., 1877), pp. 121-24; CDG1938 , pp. 103-4; SDG1930 , p . 95; MDG1907 , pp. 108-9.

[67] Varady, "Rail and Road in Awadh," pp. 41-42.

[68] Suptd., Roads to Fergusson, Commr., Apr. 15, 1861, P. C. Basta 237, Important Bundles Jdcl. Dept., Alphabet S-Z; Lal, "Transport in Ghaghara Gandak," 14-34.

more than 1,769 miles, of which 82 were metaled, and 543 comprised village roads. Darbhanga's road building followed a similar trend. The 648 miles counted at its formation in 1875 increased more than threefold by 1905-6, when it had a total of 1,953 miles of unmetaled road, 52 miles of metaled road, and another 766 miles of village roads.^[69]

Statistics paint a comparable picture for south Bihar. By the first decade of the twentieth century Shahabad boasted 181 miles of metaled, 253 miles of unmetaled, and 882 miles of village roads. In addition to the Grand Trunk Road, which had been metaled in 1861-62, the other metaled roads included the Buxar-Arrah portion of the Banaras-Patna military road and the 61-mile-long Arrah-Sasaram road. By the 1920s the total mileage of the district's roads exceeded 2,000.

From a total length of 469 miles in the 1870s, Patna's roads in the early 1920s increased to 157 miles of metaled and 455 miles of unmetaled roads; another 756 miles were village roads. But, as in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, these lines of communication focused on the city of Patna. Therefore the western part of the district had a far better network of roads than the center or the eastern part.^[70]

Great strides in road building were also made in Gaya, particularly during the famine of 1874. By 1906 the district had acquired 30 metaled roads, 69 unmetaled roads, and 193 village roads, comprising 163, 715, and 628 miles, respectively. Another 67 miles of metaled and 168 miles of unmetaled roads were administered by the Public Works Department. Not only had the district acquired the most mileage in terms of metaled roads—much of this representing its 68-mile leg of the Grand Trunk Road—but it had also developed links between the major settlements in the interior. In addition to the roads extending from Gaya to the Grand Trunk Road, to Daudnagar, and to Sherghati, new lines of communication had been established both in the north and the south, between Jahanabad and Arwal, and between Rajauli and Nawada, respectively.^[71]

In the course of overcoming the long-reigning "tyranny of distance" in the region, the rise of railways, tied to a growing network of roads, also precipitated the decline of water transportation. Their speed and reliability, as well as their competitive prices, increasingly made them the prime mode of transportation. By the early 1870s they had already

[69] MDG1907 , p. 107; CDG1938 , p. 103; SDG1930 , pp. 96-97; DDG , pp. 109-11.

[70] PDG1924 , pp. 130-31; ShDG1906 , pp. 99-100; GOBi, BiharDistrictGazetteers , Shahabad by P.C. Roy Chaudhury (Patna: Secretariat Press, 1966), p. 365.

[71] GDG1957 , P . 237.

sharply curtailed the flow of goods along the roads, a trend that was evident in the rapidly declining traffic on the Grand Trunk Road.^[72] And by the end of that decade, railways accounted for 54 percent of the import and export trade of the region; river transportation, in comparison, carried 39 percent and roads the remaining 7 percent. Information gathered from traders themselves confirm this growing dependence on railroads. According to the wholesale dealers of Arrah a substantial portion of their trade in grains and piece goods was transacted by rail in 1883-84. Even those goods that were sent along the canals were destined for the railways. Similarly, spring wheat, grown in north Shahabad for export and formerly transported by boats, was increasingly shipped to Patna or other stations from which it was carried away by rail. Thus, by the early 1880s, the district's "exports and imports by road" were described as "not large" to "inappreciable. Some trade passes by the Grand Trunk Road . . . mainly in ghee and other supplies for the city [Banaras], and some between Sasseram and Chota Nagpore."^[73]

By the turn of the twentieth century, railways virtually monopolized the trade of the region. In the five years between 1900 and 1905, 99.9 percent of the imports and 99.5 percent of the exports of Gangetic Bihar were carried by rail; water transportation made up the remaining fraction. With the development of railways, Bihar was bypassed, a situation mirrored by the experiences of the city of Patna, which also owed its primacy to its strategic location on the river highway.^[74] The extent to which this city served as the central place of the region from the late-eighteenth-century age of "revolution" onward and maintained that position in the colonial period is the focus of the opening episode of the next section, which constitutes the heart of this bazaar narrative. Let us turn first to the Patna historian Sayyid Ghulam Husain Khan Tabatabai.

[72] Col. F. P. Layard, Superintending Engineer, Bihar, to Offg. Chief Engineer, Bengal, no. 354, Jan. 3 , 1872, Bengal PWD Procs., 1873-75, Jan. 1873, no. 63.

[73] AGRPD 1883-84, p. 45; ReportontheInternalTradeofBengalforthe Year1877-78 , pp. 72-91. By the mid-1880s, in the neighboring North-Western Provinces, "the last vestiges of competition from traditional transporters in long-distance commerce has [sic] been overcome and railway freight rates had fallen to low levels." By this date railways were exerting a considerable influence over economic changes in the province. Derbyshire, "Economic Change and Railways," p. 528. Contrast with Awadh, where a better system of roads existed and where railways apparently were not as successful in competing with roads. The evidence, however, is more compelling for the initial decades of the late nineteenth century and more persuasive regarding passengers than goods. See Varady, "Rail and Road in Awadh," chap. 4.

[74] AGRPD, 1892-93, p. 22; AGRPD, 1882-83, pp. 32-33; Sunil Kumar Munsi, GeographyofTransportationin EasternIndiaundertheBritish Raj (Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi and Co., 1980), pp. 108-11.