In
the kingdom of Mysore on the Deccan plateau of South India it was the ruler,
Tipu Sultan, who sponsored and organised sericultural development, possibly
following initiatives of his father, Hyder Ali. On the eastern side of the
peninsula, in Madras, the initiative came from an individual enthusiast, Dr
James Anderson, in the English East India Company’s medical service. The
Company’s Madras Government, its Board of Directors and officers in London were
soon involved and intermittently supportive. The Mysore and Madras initiatives
were separate and almost entirely independent. In the period from 1780 to the
end of the century, four Anglo-Mysore wars continued a series of cruel hostilities
which had started in the first half of the century, primarily between the
French and the British, with their varying allies. With sericulture being
attempted first on the Mysore side and then on the British, in Madras, there
was perhaps rivalry but certainly no scope for co-operation in sericulture or
anything else. The wars involved widespread destruction in both Mysore and
Madras. There was an assault on Bangalore, its capture and year-long occupation
by the British, and three attacks on Tipu's capital, Srirangapatna which was
also the seat of his sericultural experimentation. The last assault, in 1799,
ended in its and Tipu's destruction. The wars had resulted first in the ceding
of half his kingdom to the British and their Indian allies, and finally to the
effective elimination of Mysore as an independent power.
Well
before this final defeat, some slight evidence for the progress of the Mysore
sericultural project had begun to emerge in Madras from Anderson’s own project
and the connections and enquiries it produced. After the fall of Srirangapatna,
records of Tipu’s government fell into British hands and were sent to Calcutta
(Wilks 1810: xvii), though this failed to save most for posterity, while his
extensive libraries were from the beginning more widely scattered. The extent
to which his sericulture project itself was officially documented at the time
is unknown, but miscellaneous sources throw some limited light on it and its
progress.
A
story of Tipu’s first involvement, with interesting pointers at least, comes
from Abdul Quddus, a leading enthusiast of the early twentieth-century silk
trade. His family’s history went back to the beginning of the 19th century
and before. Their account of sericulture’s beginning starts with a Chinese
ambassador at Tipu's court presenting him with a silk cloth. This was, it is claimed,
quite new to Mysore[1]
and to have had the result of resolving Tipu to introduce its production into
his kingdom. He therefore sent off two deputations, one to Bengal, from which
it returned four years later, the other to China which took twelve years to
return. Both yielded cuttings of mulberry and these were sent to 'Dhungur',
probably Dhanaguru, a village 12 kilometres east of Malavalli town, and to
Kunigal, now in Tumkur District. Bengal also yielded silkworm eggs and the
cocoons produced went to Srirangapatna, or more exactly perhaps to Tipu's
nearby industrial village of Ganjam, for reeling and then for weaving (Quddus
1923: 6). He clearly had some success with such plans, though as evidence, this
story with its absence of dating is inevitably open to doubts at several points.
It is filled out to
some limited extent, however, by more definite evidence from fragments of
Tipu’s own government records in the form of letters obtained by the British
after the fall of Srirangapatna. Of these, about 35 boxes were carried away,
amounting to some 2,000 items sent via Fort St. George in Madras to Calcutta.
Amongst them, three relating to sericulture were identified and translated soon
afterwards. The earliest, numbered CCLVIII was addressed “To Meer Kâzim, Dâroga
at Muscat, 24th April1786.” This had instructions for several transactions,
including to “Get the Dullâl [broker] to
write to his agents in different places, to collect silkworms, and persons
acquainted with the manner of rearing them, and [having procured them] let them
be despatched to us.(5)” The English footnote entered here states that “The instructions of the Sultan to the
Meer-Asofs or revenue department (issued 1793) contain particular regulations
respecting the culture of the silkworm.”
It was followed up by a letter numbered
CCLXXII [272], of 6 May following, repeating requests for the silkworms,
amongst other things. The third and most substantial letter, numbered CCCLXXV
[375], was addressed “To Syed Mahommed, Kileadâr[2]
of Seringapatam”, and dated nearly five months later, 27 September 1786. It
read: “Buhâûddeen and Kustoory Runga, who were sent
[some time since] to Bengal, for the purpose of procuring silkworms, are
now on their return [to Seringapatam], by way of Sedhout. On their arrival, you
must ascertain from them the proper situation in which to keep the aforesaid
worms, and provide accordingly. You must, moreover, supply for their food
[leaves of] the wood or wild mulberry trees, which were formerly ordered to be
planted [for this purpose]. The number of silkworms brought from Bengal must
likewise be distinctly reported to us. We desire, also, to know, in what kind
of place it is recommended to keep them, and what means are to be pursued for
multiplying them.” It continued:”There is a vacant spot of ground
behind the old palace, lately used as a Tosheh-khâneh,or store-house, which was
purchased some time ago with a view to building upon it. Prepare a place
somewhere near that situation, for the [temporary] reception of the worms.”
(Kirkpatrick
1811: 418-19)
These letters show therefore that in 1786, in a period
when Tipu was at war with both his powerful northern neighbours, the Marathas
and the Nizam’s Hyderabad, between the Second and Third Anglo-Mysore Wars, and
when Anderson was starting his major campaign for the introduction of cochineal
production in Madras, ahead of his silk project, Tipu was already seeking
silkworms, mulberry and expertise from Muscat, the ancient port and link in the
long-distance east-west trade on the Arabian coast of the Gulf of Oman, and also
from Bengal. The September letter, with its directions to the Governor of the
Fort at Srirangapatna for receiving the worms, suggests that this was still
very near the beginning of his campaign to start sericulture there. Hardly any
knowledge of silkworms or sericulture was yet available and few plans yet made.
The precious footnote (5), its information drawn presumably from the end of the
period of the letters, and perhaps from
letters which were not included in Kirkpatrick’s translated and published
selection, then shows that, whatever the success or lack of it from the
initiatives of the ‘80s, by 1793 a new initiative was under way. It shows also
that it was the Revenue Department that was now in charge of it.
As
was standard practice for Tipu’s government, detailed regulations for that
essential department had been made and an elaborate set of those of 1793 were
amongst the documents to which Kirkpatrick’s requested procedure of translation
and publication was applied. The Mysorean Revenue Regulations of 1793[3] throw at least an indirect light on the context and
methods of the government in relation to development at the time. The
manuscript of these regulations was ‘procured’ in the course of the Coimbatore
campaign by a Colonel in the British army, John Murray. It was in Persian and
‘under the seal of Tippoo Sultaun’. In June 1792 it was lent to the British
authorities for translation into English and printing. A copy from this
printing then ended up as a spectacular quarto volume in the library of King
George III in London, beautifully bound in red leather with elaborate gold
tooling.[4] What the document shows is, amongst other things, the
vigorous policy for the development of the economy of his countryside and
kingdom that Tipu was pursuing at the period. Tax concessions for the
encouragement of planting and production of numerous crops were proclaimed:
e.g. for sandalwood, tamarind and sikakaubee (mimosa asperata)
used for washing the hair and body, for beetle leaf and ‘beetle nut tree
plantations’ (Articles 24-26). For this last, no tax would be due for 5 years,
to be followed by a half rate from the 6th year until they bore fruit. Then
they would pay full rate or a share of the produce ‘whatever is the custom’.[5] The 29th Article concerns the conduct of a census
detailing the houses and resources of the ‘ryuts throughout districts,
and aggregated systematically’. Instructions for carrying it out follow: “To obviate the ill consequence of apprehension being
excited in the minds of the Ryuts, it will be proper, when you commence the
numeration of the houses and inhabitants, to give it out that the purpose for
which you are come to their houses is to see whose expenses exceed their means,
and to assist such persons with Tuccavie[6]:
in this manner you are to get the numeration effected.”
There is no evidence here that by this date any such
methods had been extended to mulberry planting or to sericulture itself, but in
Bengal, the Company’s efforts to extend production with incentives have already
been noted. There is no evidence that they were not used by Tipu also.
Sericulture itself in its early stages is bound to have been highly localised
and may well not have yet been tried in the district to which the surviving
regulations belong. There is, however, as mentioned above, some passing
evidence from the publications of the Scottish enthusiast in Madras, Dr James
Anderson, which supports the achievement of sericulture at the earlier period.
One Robert Andrews, the British officer in charge at Trichinopoly, reported
meeting two men from 'Warriore' in Trichinopoly (Tiruchirappalli) in 1791, who
told him that they had been sent to Mysore under Hyder Ali’s regime and had
been employed there in silkworm rearing at Srirangapatna They apparently
returned home after the 2nd Anglo-Mysore War ended in 1784 (Andrews [1791(c):
70 & foll.]). Since Hyder died in the December of 1783, this suggests that
rearing at Srirangapatna must have begun before that date. Andrews seized the
opportunity to set them to work at rearing and was impressed to find them
constructing and using chandrikes. He reported: “Without any instruction from me, they have formed a frame for the worms
to spin on, which answers perfectly well. It is made as follows: they prepare a
split Bamboo Matt about five feet square upon which they place edgeways, a
fillet of split Bamboo about four inches in width as thus [a small sketch
apparently drawn in by hand]. This is of several yards long and is placed on
the Matt thus [again drawn in]. The worms work in the open squares and form
their cocoons in those spaces’ (Anderson [1791(a): 3]).[7]
Anderson
commented that this was proof that Tipu had the Bengal 'Chunderkee', which was
not surprising since his information was that he had had three hundred people
there from Bengal 'seven years ago', i.e. in about 1784. It was Bengalis
apparently who took care of the reeling at Srirangapatna. The Warriore men did
not know about it since, they said, Tipu had brought people from Bengal to
perform that part of the enterprise (Anderson [1791: 70; 1791(a): 5-6]). Later
Andrews acquired a third worker who claimed he had himself been sent to Bengal
by Tipu to perfect his knowledge of reeling. Progress is also suggested by the
claim in the same year, 1791, that silk cloth, understood as being from Mysore
raw silk, was being supplied from Srirangapatna.
The war of
1789-92, with heavy destruction along the route taken by the army to reach
Srirangapatna, and Cornwallis' assaults on it, cannot have helped, but
immediately after it, in 1793, we find provision for an expanded silk industry.
Kirkpatrick (1811: 419) writes that it was: “a
very favourite, though, I believe, an unsuccessful pursuit with the Sultan; who
actually established, or proposed to establish, no less than twenty-one
principal stations within his dominions, where the breeding of the silkworm was
directed to be attended to with the utmost care and diligence. These stations
were specified in one of the sections of the instructions issued to the Meer
Asof, or revenue department, in the year 1794.”
From
the sparse evidence so far assembled, it looks therefore as if there were two
phases, separated by war. A first in the mid 1780s, was probably chiefly at
Srirangapatna. This is not, climatically, amongst the areas of Mysore which
would subsequently be found so suitable for silkworm rearing. It depended
largely on Bengalis and, occasionally perhaps, people sent for training to Bengal,
as well as a few others with experience of silk like the weavers brought in
from Wariur. The second phase, in the 1790s, and probably aware of Anderson’s
initiative in Madras and lessons being learnt there, made an attempt to expand
across a range of localities with government silk farms.
The
main basis of the silkworm ultimately established in Mysore is likely to have
been a yellow bivoltine race, of Chinese origin but obtained from Bengal.
Losing its hibernating character in south Indian climatic conditions, and
perhaps by some happy genetic mixing over this difficult initial period, it
diverged from races known elsewhere. Adapting and breeding true, it became,
through various vicissitudes which will be investigated at later stages of the
story, the 'Pure Mysore Race' of the twentieth century. It is perhaps
significant that Kunigal and surrounding areas, said in Quddus’ origin story
above, to have been one of Tipu's first two centres, subsequently became known
as the prime source of reliable stock for breeding silkworms as well as
production of cocoons. The worms may well have survived in Mysore, that is to
say, in the short run and in occasional fortunate and climatically favourable
places.
Despite
the Third and Fourth Anglo-Mysore Wars which came, with considerable
destruction, to sieges of Srirangapatna itself, plans for more organised and
widely distributed centres for government-regulated silkworm breeding and
rearing were clearly attempted. It is only too likely that imported worms would
rarely have survived breeding through any considerable number of generations.
As can be seen from experience in Madras at much the same time, and from
generations of effort for sericultural development in southern India, and in
Bengal, loss of worms and uprooting of mulberry from time to time have been
only too common. What was doubtless a catastrophe for sericulture as for so
much else in Mysore in 1799, did not mean the total loss everywhere of mulberry
and silkworms, and rudiments of experience that had been acquired. From them in
the early nineteenth century a more than viable industry would again struggle
forward.
[1] Though
this seems unlikely, his father’s regime was not given to luxury and as a pious
Muslim, Tipu himself may have followed the religious tradition treating the use
of silk and gold for clothing haram
for men, exceptions being possible for
medical reasons. Worn by men, silk could be regarded as improperly luxurious
display, but it was not prohibited to women. See numerous online discussions and
sources, e.g. (accessed 30.7.2012) http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090703064133AAf6pIB
[3] This
was for a particular district or region: ‘to be observed by the present and
future Aumils and Serishtadars of the Second District of Aumloor, dependent on
the Cutchery of Awulputum’. A note for Article 22, p. 63, identifies
‘Akraunputtun’ as ‘Agran Puttum’, meaning the ‘Magazines of Seringapatam which
is frequently called Puttun by the natives’.
[4] Today to be found in the King’s Library
within the British Library in London.
[5]
The regulations need serious analysis,
at least to establish the articles that were relevant to concessions for
development. As it is, it looks as if it is not securing development but
revenue which is predominant. The other kinds of regulation need to be looked
at too: it was the inhumane ones which undoubtedly made the document’s appeal
for propaganda purposes. Here the purpose for which its evidence is being used
is quite different.
[6]
See Glossary: taccavi. It may look as if it must have been some kind of
official support for the impoverished, but more likely an ‘advance or loan for
agricultural production’ (Parthasarathi
2001).
