Mixed-Caste, Illegitimate Interloper, or Virtuous King? A Case for a Vernacular History of State-Making in Colonial Banaras, Northern India, 1770–81

In 1770, the East India Company, led by the Governor-General Warren Hastings, orchestrated the succession of Chait Singh, son of the deceased Banaras ruler, Balwant Singh, to the throne. In return, it expected access to principality’s vast resources. But in 1781, Chait Singh rebelled against his patrons. His rebellion featured prominently in Warren Hastings’ impeachment trial in the British parliament from 1787-1795. Hastings, who was, among other things, accused of extorting large sums of money from Chait Singh, challenged these charges by arguing that the latter was “not an independent Prince,” and hence subject to such demands. The imperial history of Chait Singh’s place in the “scandal” of the impeachment which, scholars have argued, ultimately played a key role in the legitimation of empire, is well known. However, it does not illustrate much of the social complexities involved in colonial extractions of wealth. Nor does it enable us to consider the contexts in which, and the innovative political practices through which, indigenous rulers persevered in state-making during this early colonial period. 

This paper thus makes a case for an engagement with vernacular history. It examines an 18^th century Brajbhasha panegyrical text which was commissioned by Chait Singh, reading it against other Persian and colonial sources, to draw attention to the place of  certain practices and discourses of caste and gender in the making of an extractive colonial state. It further demonstrates that rebellion was only one of the various measures undertaken by Chait Singh to claim power. British officials characterized him as an “inexperienced youth”, a mixed-caste, and “illegitimate” interloper to suit colonial exigencies. Yet, as the paper shows, the ruler marked his court’s independence from colonial patrons-turned-detractors through vernacular literary productions that resuscitated his caste and familial status and cast him as a virtuous king.