Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Amazing tales of power
|
R.V. Smith recalls the days when the phenomenon called Kotwal used to hold sway
|
The Kotwali came into being in Delhi in the 13th Century, when a systematic police system began to emerge, and it continued to hold sway till the end of the 20th Century. The Kotwali in Chandni Chowk, now part of Gurdwara Sisganj, was one of those places, which had been in the thick of the fray since the 17th Century.
The Kotwali was an important institution in the Moghul administration and it remained so under the British and later too. But of late the Kotwali has lost its importance, especially in the metropolitan cities, where the police commissioner system has come into force.
The man heading it was the Kotwal, who exercises extraordinary powers, so much so that when an Urdu journalist, Betab Akbarabadi, quoted the couplet "Jab Saiyan Bhaye Kotwal To Dar Kahe Ka" (when the Kotwal is your lover then where is the need for fear), the infuriated Kotwal of riot-hit Firozabad had him promptly arrested for sedition.
Harassing Ghalib
A fat Kotwal harassed Ghalib because of rivalry over a dancing girl. The Saiyan in this case tried to get even with the great shair by having him arrested every now and then on charges of gambling and unpaid debts. Finally, the magistrate lost his patience and remarked: "Kotwal Sahib aap ko kya Mirza Ghalib hi milte hain jua khelte hue" (You manage to find only Ghalib indulging in gambling?). So the poet didn't have to face the Kotwal's wrath any more.
The popular saying after Aurangzeb's death was "the fatter the Kotwal, the greedier he is." How important his post was can be gauged from the fact that besides maintaining law and order, the Kotwal also had to keep track of spies and strangers and report them to the emperor in person. Later he did so to the SSP and the District Magistrate.
The book, "Delhi Police, its History And Heritage", lists some famous Kotwals of Delhi. Among them was Malikul Umra Faqruddin. Born in 1237, this son of a personal attendant of Sultan Ulugh Khan Balban is supposed to be the first Kotwal of Delhi. Before him there was no Kotwal as such and his functions were part of the duties of the Shahar Qazi.
Hence the saying "Qazi ji kyun patle/shehar ke andeshe se" (why is the qazi so thin, because of the anxiety over some perceived threat to the city). Incidentally, the Shahar Qazi finds mention even in the tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". The leader of the thieves was a respectable Qazi during the day and leader of the thieves at night.
Malikul Umra Faqruddin died in harness in 1294. Malik Abdul Mulk took over as Kotwal three years later, in 1297 at the time of Sultan Alauddin, who felt that Abdul was fit to be the prime minister, but for the fact that he was very fat. It was the same Kotwal who advised the Sultan to give up his dreams of conquering the world and becoming a second Alexander.
The Nehru connection
Jawaharlal Nehru's grandfather Pandit Gangadhar Nehru after a humble beginning, became the Kotwal of Bahadur Shah Zafar, but when the Mutiny broke out, he had to leave Delhi with his family for Agra, where his third son, Motilal, was born.
Ram Manohar Lohia, who missed no opportunity to criticise Nehru, sarcastically remarked in Parliament that he could prove that the Prime Minister's father was once a peon in the Moghul court. To which Nehru replied he had all along maintained that his family had always been connected to the pulse of the populace. In his "Discovery of India" Nehru remarked that there was a picture of his grandfather armed with a sword, though his typical Kashmiri features were all too evident even in the Moghul uniform.
The Delhi Police book informs us that the earliest Kotwali was situated in Qila Rai Pithora, Mehrauli. During the reign of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq it moved to Tughlaqabad and at the time of his cousin Feroze Tughlaq, the Kotwali was located in Ferozeshah Kotla.
But where was the Kotwali of the Sayyed and Lodhi rulers? Though the book is silent on it, the conjecture is that it was in Kotla Mubarakpur (Kherpur Village) for some time and later in the Chirag Delhi area, before Nizam Khan Sikandar Lodhi moved his capital to Agra and built a Kotwali in Sikandra. Babar's Kotwali was also in Agra and so were Akbar's, Jahangir's and Shah Jahan's, until the latter brought it back to Delhi.
How a Kotwal of Agra (a slim one this time) came to the aid of his counterpart in Delhi in the 1920s is worth narrating. Kotwal Philip had heard that some seths of Agra went to gamble in Delhi every weekend. Dressed as a seth in malmal kurta and malmal pyjamas, he barged into their gambling room like a drunkard and held the seths at gunpoint until the Delhi Kotwal came with a police party to round up the gamblers. Kotwal Philip used to relate this tale in his nasal tone right up to his death in the 1960s. But now both the Kotwal and Kotwali have disappeared and one has to turn the pages of the book to resurrect them.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
|
