Kapil Parasher’s 10x10 foot office room near Kusha ghat in Haridwar is lined with steel almirahs weighed down with rolls of leather-bound record books. He opens a cupboard, its glass frontage showing the many piles stacked within, and takes out a ledger. On the floor, sits a middle-aged couple waiting to find out about their ancestors. The 40-year-old Mr. Parasher, who wears a dhoti-kurta, opens the bahi (book), and leafs through what could be hundreds of pages.
In a sonorous voice, he declares that they belong to the Kahloor Riyasat, the royal family of Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh. The couple are pleasantly surprised, and the session takes barely 10 minutes.
Mr. Parasher is a genealogy priest called a Panda, one of about 2,500 in Haridwar. The community holds records of families going back 15 to 20 generations, with details like place of origin, names, births, deaths, reason of death, place of residence, grants made to temples, caste, and clan.
People’s history
Now, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) is looking to tap them to fill “gaps” in Indian history. “These records are invaluable sources of the social and economic conditions of the times. They remain largely untapped because they could not reach the respective archives of States, as the British in particular had no interest in such records,” ICHR chairperson Raghuvendra Tanwar said.
The ICHR, which has embarked on a mission to tell history from a people’s perspective, plans to help make these records available to researchers, scholars, and historians.
Historians say the records can be a rich source to understand past famines, epidemics, migration, movement of people, as well as social history on how clans and communities were organised. For instance, the records provide details about grants made to local temples and villages, which are an indication of the wealth of communities.
Just in Haridwar lies information of important figures of Indian history, such as Maharana Pratap, the 16th century ruler of Mewar; Raja Man Singh of Amber, one of Akbar’s navratans (nine gems); and Sikh warrior Hari Singh Nalwa, to name a few.
While individual scholars have accessed these records for research before, now the ICHR will systemise the process. For example, the Haridwar records are written in a locally script called “Landi-Mundi”, and they will develop a mechanism for translating this.
A social visit
Many Hindu families undertake a pilgrimage to Haridwar upon the death of a family member, when they also visit their family priest to register the death as well as other family developments. If people forget the whereabouts of the priest, there are members stationed at every one of the 12 ghats to help locate the Panda, depending on the village the person originally belonged to. The priests have organised themselves into so-called ‘firms’ based on States, districts, and villages they handle.
Mr. Parasher’s firm for example has records from Bengal, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu, Himachal Pradesh, and Punjab, stretching up to Multan and Gujranwala in Pakistan.
“In some cases, people from Pakistan who converted to Islam also come to us,” says Devendra Shukla, Mr. Parasher’s elder brother who runs a separate seat or gaddi. The brothers have divided various districts of the States between themselves.
Apart from Haridwar, such records are available in other Hindu religious centres like Ujjain, Nasik, Gaya, Gangotri, and Rameshwaram where people go to perform the last rites of family members, or simply visit on pilgrimage. Then there are places like Pehowa in Haryana where people go to register unnatural deaths like an accident, suicide, or murder.
Historian Gyaneshwar Khurana, former professor at the Kurukshetra University, gives the example of the third battle of Panipat in 1761, when the Maratha army had been accompanied by their families and had registered the details of their families in Pehowa. Families from India’s south mostly visit Rameshwaram and Varanasi.
According to historian Mridula Mukherjee, former director of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, the records can be a rich source for the history of migration. “I have known Indian families who are settled in London at present. They come and find out how they were originally from Odisha and subsequently travelled to Punjab, Kenya, and then to their present residence in UK.”
Historian Irfan Habib, a former chairperson of ICHR himself, points out though that these records span only about four centuries.
Another challenge is the tight hold of the Hindu caste system on record keeping. While most of the older firms captured details of brahmins, khastriyas, and vaishyas, another set of priests has records for Scheduled Castes.
“Our records are relatively recent, maybe just 150 years old. This is because caste Hindus would not allow SC people to leave their villages and come to pilgrimage centres,” says Gangaram, of Har Ki Pauri ghat, who deals exclusively with family histories of SCs.
“It is only in the last 100-150 years that people from communities like Meghwals and Regars have started coming here,” he says, adding that poverty is another reason they don’t travel.
