Chapter PINANG to PINDARRY of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

y argument requires two thin gs to make it irrefutable: (1) a very early connection between Pandhar and the Pindharis; (2) that the Pindharis had no early home or settlement outside Pandhar. As to the first point, the recorded evidence seems to go no further back than 1794, when Sendhiah granted them lands in Nimar; whereas before that time the name had become fixed, and had even crept into Anglo-Indian vocabularies. As to the second point, Grant Duff says, and he if anybody must have known, that “there were a number of Pindharis about the borders of Maharashtra and the Carnatic. …” Unless these men emigrated from Khandesh about 1726 (that is a hundred years before 1826, the date of Grant Duff’s book), their presence in the South with the same name tends to disprove any special connection between their name, Pindhari, and a place, Pindhar, several hundred miles from their country. On the other hand, it is a very singular coincidence that men known as Pindharis should have been newly settled about 1794 in a country which had been known as Pandhar at least ninety years before they thus occupied it. Such a mere fortuitous connection between Pandhar and the Pindharis is so extraordinary that we may call it an impossibility. A fair inference is that the region Pandhar was the original home of the Pindharis, that they took their name from it, and that grants of land between Burhanpur and Handiya were made to them in what had always been their home-country, namely Pandhar.”]

The Pindaris seem to have grown up in the wars of the l ate Mahommedan dynasties in t he Deccan, and in the latter part of the 17th century attached themselves t o the Mahrattas in their r ev olt against Aurangzib; the first mention which we have seen of the name occurs at this time. For some particulars regarding them we refer to the extract from Prinsep below. During and after the Mahratta wars of Lord Wellesley’s time many of the Pindari leaders obtained grants of land in Central India from Sindia and Holkar, and in the chaos which reigned at that time outside the British territory their raids in all directions, attended by the most savage atrocities, became more and more intolerable; these outrages extended fr om Bundelkhand on the N.E., Kadapa on the S., and Orissa on the S.E., to Guzerat on the W., and at last repea tedly violated British territory. In a raid made upon the coast extending from Masulipatam northward, the Pindaris in ten days plundered 339 villages, burning many, killing and wounding 682 persons, torturing 3600, and carrying off or destroying property to the amount of £250,000. It was not, however, till 1817 that the Governor - General, the Marquis of Hastings, found himself armed with permission from home, and in a position to strike at them effectually, and with the most extensive strategic combinations ever brought into action in India. The Pindaris were completely crushed, and those of the native princes who supported them compelled to submit, whilst the British power for the first time was rendered truly paramount throughout India.

1706–7.—“Zoolfecar Khan, after the rains pursued Dhunnah, who fled to the Beejapore country, and the Khan followed him to the banks of the Kistnah. The Pinderrehs took Velore, which however was soon retaken. … A great caravan, coming from Aurungabad, was totally plundered and everything carried off, by a body of Mharattas, at only 12 coss distance from

the imperial camp.”—Narrative of a Bondeela Officer, app. to Scott’s Tr. of Firishta’s H. of Deccan, ii. 122. [On this see Malcolm, Central India, 2nd ed. i. 426. Mr. Irvine in the paper quoted above shows that it is doubtful if the author really used the word. “By a strange coincidence the very copy used by J. Scott is now in the British Museum. On turning to the passage I find ‘Peda Badar,’ a well-known man of the period, and not Pindara or Pinderreh at all.”] 1762.—“Siwaee Madhoo Rao … began to collect troops, stores, and heavy artillery, so that he at length assembled near 100,000 horse, 60,000 Pindarehs, and 50,000 matchlock foot. … In reference to the Pindarehs, it is not unknown that they are a low tribe of robbers entertained by some of the princes of the Dakhan, to plunder and lay waste the territories of their enemies, and to serve for guides.”—H. of Hydur Naik, by Meer Hassan Ali Khan, 1 49. [Mr. Irvine suspects that this may be based on a misreading as in the former quotation. The earliest undoubted mention of the name in native historians is by Ram Singh (1748). There is a doubtful reference in the Tarikh-i-Muhammadi (1722–23)].

1784.—“Bindarras, who receive no pay, but give a certain monthly sum to the commander-in-chief for permission to maraud, or plunder, under sanction of his banners.”—Indian Vocabulary, s.v.

1803.—“Depend upon it that no Pindarries or straggling horse will venture to your rear, so long as you can keep the enemy in check, and your detachment well in advance.”—Wellington, ii. 219.

1823.—“On asking an intelligent old Pindarry, who came to me on the part of Kurreem Khan, the reason of this absence of high character, he gave me a short and shrewd answer: ‘Our occupation’ (said he) ‘was incompatible with the fine virtues and qualities you state; and I suppose if any of our people ever had them, the first effect of such good feeling would be to make him leave our community.’ ”—Sir John Malcolm, Central India, i. 436.

[„ “He had ascended on horseback … being mounted on a Pindaree pony, an animal accustomed to climbing.”—Hoole, Personal Narrative, 292.]

1825.—“The name of Pindara is coeval with the earliest invasion of Hindoostan by the Mahrattas. … The designation was applied to a sort of sorry cavalry that accompanied the Pêshwa’s armies in their expeditions, rendering them much the same service as the Cossacks perform for the armies of Russia. … The several leaders went over with their bands from one chief to another, as best suited their private interests, or those of their followers. … The rivers generally became fordable by the close of the Dussera. The horses then were shod, and a leader of tried courage and conduct having been chosen as Luhbureea, all that were inclined set forth on a foray or Luhbur, as it was called in the Pindaree nomenclature; all were mounted, though not equally well. Out of a thousand, the proportion of good cavalry might be 400: the favourite weapon was a bamboo spear … but … it was a rule that every 15th or