A ‘caste census' carried out in the kingdom of Marwar, two centuries before the British

Indian Express

2 days ago

Written by Shreya Saksena
After a much-heated political debate, the Union Cabinet earlier this year approved caste-based enumeration in the upcoming national census. This means that for the first time since 1931, India will officially count its citizens by caste.
Although the idea of a caste census in India is often attributed to colonial authorities, little is known about a similar caste-based counting of households that was carried out two centuries back in Rajasthan's Marwar kingdom. Conducted in 1664 under directions from the kingdom's 'home minister' Munhata Nainsi, the process of caste data collection is known to have shaped the first known colonial census of western Rajasthan undertaken by British administrator Alexander Boileau in 1835 in Marwar and the adjacent kingdoms of Bahawalpur, Bikaner and Jaisalmer.
Cambridge University's Norbert Peabody in his essay, 'Cents, sense, census: Human Inventories in Late Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial India' (2001) provides a detailed analysis of Nainsi's caste-based data enumeration and suggests that the implication has so far been to suggest that 'European colonisers alone were responsible for introducing new knowledge and practices that radically transformed indigenous societies.' The role of the colonised and indigenous forms of knowledge, his findings show, were important markers in the history of social institutions in India.
Marwar, Rajasthan in 1664
In 1664, the Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb held political control over much of Rajasthan. But Rajput kingdoms like Mewar, Amber, and Marwar continued to operate under their rulers, often as tributaries or vassals to the emperor.
Marwar was ruled by the Rathor clan, one of the 36 Rajput clans that had controlled large parts of western India since the 12th century. The king, Jaswant Singh of Marwar, was the head of the clan and its military.
For centuries, Marwar remained small. The idea of bhaibant, or 'sharing among brothers,' meant power was distributed among members of the clan, and the king was just first among equals.
Paradoxically, it was only after coming under the Mughal influence that the rulers of Marwar were able to consolidate power, expand their territories, and develop a more hierarchical system within the clan. A key change included the adoption of Mughal-style bureaucratic administration, which meant keeping detailed records.
Then came Munhata Nainsi, Marwar's 17th-century equivalent of a home minister. According to Peabody, Nainsi conducted the first systematic caste-wise enumeration of households between 1658 and 1664 across seven districts of Marwar, including the capital Jodhpur. At the time, Nainsi was not trying to classify society or create social hierarchies; he was attempting to solve a tax problem.
Marwar's urban households paid a hearth tax, and different castes paid different rates. Privileged castes got concessions while others paid more, especially if their occupations involved specialised tools or trade materials. Rural households were not even included as they were taxed on crops and livestock separately.
Thus, what Nainsi created was not a social survey but a revenue manual.
Around 175 years later, administrator Boileau would copy the same methods for his 1835 census of western Rajasthan.
Findings of Nainsi's survey
Most of Nainsi's career coincided with the long reign of Maharaja Jaswant Singh Rathor of Marwar (1638-1678). Early in his professional life, Nainsi was successively appointed as the administrative head (hakim) of various administrative districts (parganas) throughout the kingdom.
His household lists were part of a much larger document titled Marwar ra Parganan ri Vigat (An Account of the Districts of Marwar). 'While the household lists lacked the universalizing thrust of later colonial censuses, they nonetheless clearly used caste as the basis for differentiating population data,' Peabody notes in his research.
Nainsi's records divided castes into broad groups: low-ranking 'purifying castes' and higher, unnamed ones. But the order varied from place to place. Officials usually listed Mahajans, especially the Oswals, first, which is not surprising since Nainsi was an Oswal himself.
These lists were not rigid or codified but, instead, varied from town to town. The way officials recorded castes seemed to depend on local politics and practical concerns rather than any overarching ideology. Caste mattered economically, and officials recorded identity because it affected tax. Thus, Nainsi's lists focused less on caste and more on state revenue.
Subsequent colonial surveys
The colonial connection becomes clear when you look at what happened almost 200 years later.
In 1835, Boileau conducted a census in Marwar and neighbouring kingdoms like Bikaner and Jaisalmer. His methods were remarkably similar to Nainsi's. 'Many British administrators didn't build these surveys from scratch,' Peabody says. 'They copied existing systems, relying on Indian informants and scribes who used earlier methods like Nainsi's to gather data.'
Even before the famous 1871-72 all-India census, British officials were conducting smaller, localised caste-based surveys. But instead of inventing new systems, they relied on local administrators who were already familiar with indigenous enumeration practices. 'The urge to minutely classify the population in terms of numerous castes did not typically emanate from higher-ranking officials in the colonial bureaucracy, but from lower-level administrative officials who were actually collecting the data in the field,' writes Peabody.
While the British may not have introduced caste-based enumeration to India, they certainly systematised and amplified it to serve colonial administrative needs. What had been a flexible, locally-adapted tax tool became an empire-wide system of social classification.
Peabody suggests that by shifting focus to pre-colonial trends and events which influenced colonial feats, we are able to appreciate that the colonial process arose out of an encounter between European and non-European societies, and not out of an inherited sense of superiority.