The name Kutch comes from the word kachhua or tortoise, the shape of which one sees when the map of Kutch is inverted. Kutch lies in the westernmost part of India bordering Pakistan’s Sindh province. It is about 160 miles in length, in its broadest parts, 95 miles in width and covers approximately 14,000 sq miles – the largest district in India. Today it is a part of the state of Gujarat but until 1948 Kutch was a princely state ruled by the Rajput Jadejas. Kutch is one of the least populated parts of India and one of the most environmentally challenged.
Kutch and Sindh form part of that great swathe of land that extends from Uzbekistan, through Afghanistan, Punjab and Baluchistan into this region. Linked as they are by a shared geography, Sindh and Kutch constitute a distinctive cultural entity and their histories are intimately related. Kutchi culture has been greatly influenced by that of neighbouring Sindh, as a result of both trade and conquest. This influence is evident in food, language, architecture, embroidery, textile design, wood-carving and more.
The story of Kutch in many ways is the story of India. It is the story of many communities that migrated from abroad as well as from places in the Gangetic Plain, Gujarat and Rajasthan, and made Kutch their home. While settlements in the Kutch region date back more than three millennia, as evident from excavated Harappan sites at Dholavira, Kanmer, Nani Ryan and others, the rich syncretic culture of Kutch may be dated to its emergence as a political entity a millennium ago. The spread of Sufism and the establishment of trading networks with peoples across lands and seas have contributed significantly to its making. This syncretic culture is cherished by many Kutchis as their most precious possession, though the spread of communal politics seriously threatens it today. It is one of the important themes explored in this work.
The other theme examined in this book is the consequences of the Kutch’s fractured polity and its consequences. The right to collect revenue and exercise judicial authority remained a contested domain between the Kutch Darbar and the Jadeja bhayad all through the period under review. The lack of a centralized authority made effective governance difficult British dominance over Kutch from the early years of the nineteenth century aggravated an already cleaved political system.
While the book’s focus is on the indomitable spirit of the Kutchi people and the manner in which they not merely survived, but excelled in an exceptionally challenged land, there is also the recognition of Kutchi culture’s deep, dark underside. The brilliant, vibrant colours of Kutch also include many shades of grey. The practices of female infanticide and sati or widow-burning, common among the Jadeja Rajputs run as a blackened vein through its history.
Among the earliest efforts to ban these inhuman practices by the Bombay Government were those initiated by Jonathan Duncan, Governor of Bombay and Major General Alexander Walker, Resident at Baroda, in the early 19th century. Walker termed female infanticide an “unnatural and hideous … practice [in which all] the] ‘sentiments of nature and humanity [had been] supplanted by the passions of avarice and pride, for the right of destroying their daughters grew into a privilege which they [the Jadejas of Kutch, Kathiawar and Rajasthan] regarded as a distinction and honour peculiar to their caste’.”
Substantial profits made in the African slave trade by members of the Bania, Bhatia, Khoja and Memon trading communities of Kutch reveal yet another dark aspect of Kutch history. The determination to establish successful business ventures overrode all human considerations. States Chhaya Goswami: Kutchis, “functioned as slave owners, slave dealers and organisers of slave caravans, who transported slaves to ports in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, Kutch and Kathiawar. In the 1830s it was reported that more than 200 slaves were brought to Mandvi annually. These were procured from places as distant as Zanzibar, Jeddah, Yemen and Mozambique.”
In sum, the book examines what made Kutchis receptive to the world and explores the nature and extent of their interaction with people and places both in India and abroad. It locates what made Kutch distinctive and what it shared – what made it Kutch. It also identifies what in more recent times threatens Kutch’s mil and mithas culture, as Kutch is incorporated into the state of Gujarat. It recognises that, despite its dark underside, there is a great deal which is precious that needs to be cherished and protected. It is by recognising the unique wealth of regional cultures and histories that we will be in a better position to appreciate the beauty and varied colours of India and deal with its many challenges.
Given the dark forces at work that seek to undermine or erase all that is special, different and multi-cultural about India and Kutch, the need to conserve and protect diversity is greater than ever before. Kutch’s distinctive features are in danger of being levelled, lost. It is not Kutch and Kutchis alone who would lose, but all would be poorer having lost the opportunity to be enriched by difference.
Excerpted with permission from Flowers of the Sun: The People and Land of Kutch, c. 1740–2020, Mariam Dossal, Primus Books.
