Author: nadeemrezavi

William Finch and F. Pelsaert on the other hand describe the two-vat system which prevailed in the Bayana-Agra-Kol region during the seventeenth Century. According to their description, there were pairs of a rectangular and circular tanks or vats in which the indigo was processed to extract the dye.

The stems and leaves of the indigo plant were first placed in a rectangular vat, the ‘long cisterne’ of Finch and the ‘put’of Pelsaert, where they were covered with water and steeped for a period of time: 16 or 17 hours according to Pelsaert; 24 hours according to Francis Fettiplace; 48 hours according to Mundy; or ‘for certaine dayes’ according to Finch.

This tank was ‘well plastered’ with lime to check any seepage and had a depth of ‘the height of an ordinary man’. According to Pelsaert the yield of one bigha or ‘12 or 20 ser according to the yield’ could be held by each of these ‘put’ or vats. The pressing of the steeped leaves and stalks of the indigo plant in these rectangular tanks was done by pressing the material ‘with many stones’. It was due to this that these rectangular tanks were also known as the ‘steeping tanks’.

These steeping vats were connected to circular tanks or cisterns which were situated at a somewhat lower level. After the ‘substance of the herbe be gone into the water’ as a result of steeping and stone-pressing, the mixture was transferred into these circular vats or tanks, which according to both Finch and Pelsaert had a small ‘bowl-shaped’ receptacle at its base. Once transferred, two or three men standing inside the vat, either stirred the liquid with ‘back and forth movement of their arms’ or stirred it with ‘great staves, like batter or white starch’. This beating and stirring continued from around 6 hours to 16 hours, all the while mixing ‘a little oil’ before letting it stand for a day or so to allow the heavy matter and pigments in the resultant blue water to settle below in the bowl-shaped receptacles.

Lucas Antheunis, writing about indigo processing at Masulipatam on the other hand, informs about mixing of a particular fruit to bring the required thickness and hue:

Here is some very fine and good and may make it generally so but that in seething they mingle with it the rinds of certain fruit like green Spanish figs, which makes it heavy and takes away his colour more or less, according as they put thereof in.

The clear water which was left at the top was then drawn out either manually or by ‘opening holes made round the tank’.

The process of beating, stirring and settling was repeated till ‘only a thicke substance’ remained. According to Pelsaert there was ‘an outlet at the level of the bottom’ of the circular beating vat through which the remaining water was drained.

The wet pure indigo which had sunk to the bowl-shaped receptacle was now collected and taken out to be dried. According to Pelsaert, the bottom of the put was spread with ashes ‘to form a crust’ and probably help in easy removal of the indigo.

The drying of the indigo was in two stages: first the substance was poured on a cotton cloth spread on the ground so that the extra water was soaked by the soil; and then the semi-dry indigo was then shaped by hand or cut into balls or cakes and kept for further drying on the sand. Ultimately the dry balls of indigo were then kept in earthen vessels which were closed tightly to prevent further drying sue to sun and winds.

The popular method employed in all the indigo tracts appears to be the ‘wet-leaf’ method in which the stalks and leaves of the indigo plant were soaked to extract the dye. However this method had two variants: the single vat system and the two-vat technique. We have the testimony of Pelsaert that the first technique was prevalent in the regions of Mewat and Sarkhej, while the second prevailed in the Bayana and the Kol-Khurja tracts:

The method of manufacture [in Mewat] is that of Sarkhej rather than Bayana; the steeping of the plant, and the working back and forward to extract the dye from the leaves are done in a single put, whereas in Bayana or Gorsa [Khurja] two are used…

Tavernier is much more detailed when he explains this single-vat system in Gujarat. According to him:

The tanks are generally from 80 to 100 paces in circuit, and when half-full of water, or a little more, they are filled up with the cut plant. The Indians mix it and stir it up with the water every day until the leaf – for the stem is of no account – becomes reduced into slime or greasy earth. This done, they allow it to rest for some days, and when they see that all has sunk to the bottom and that the water is clear above, they open the holes made round the tank to allow the water to escape. The water having been drawn off, they then fill baskets with the slime, after which, in a level field, each man sits near his basket, takes this paste in his fingers, and moulds it into pieces of the shape and size of a hen’s egg cut in two – that is to say, flat below and pointed above. But the indigo of Ahmadabad is flattened and made into the shape of a small cake…

From the account of Peter Mundy it appears that the steeping and stirring of the stalks and leaves to extract indigo pigment took around 48 hours before the ‘water receaves the Coulour’.

This single-vat technique of manufacturing indigo was ‘inferior’ and resulted in a low quality of dye. This is specifically mentioned by a factor at Surat, who in

1648 wrote to Bayana:

…this sort will not come up to expectations as regards goodness; for it, being to my knowledge, made in one chebecha [chāhbacha] can not compare with what is made in Coriah [Khurja] itself.

Thus from these descriptions to appears that in this system there were single circular vats called chāhbachas (artificial wells; lit. sons of wells) which were used both for steeping and beating purposes to extract the indigo dye from the plant.

A perusal of the sources indicates that there was more than one method to extract indigo from the plants.

Linschoten is one of the first to describe the making of indigo at Cambay.

Writing about 1594-96 he remarks:

[it] is sown like other hearbes, and when [time and] season serveth, pulled and dryed, and then is made welle and beaten, and so certayne dayes after dryed againe, and then prepared. At first it is a fine greene, but after it is a fayre blew…

This ‘dry leaf’ method however is referred to in the context of indigo manufacture in the Sarkhej region only and is also mentioned by Mandelslo and Geleynssen de Jongh. According to de Jongh, as per this method, the leaves were sun-dried and then shaken off from the twigs and kept in a vat for 4 to 5 days.

The soaking of the colour in water within the vat was further facilitated through repeated stirrings and beatings. The rotting leaves and the dye-soaked water were then shifted to another tank where it was let to remain for one or two days to let the heavy pigments of the dye to settle down. The clear water from the top was removed and the residue with the pigments was then strained and let to dry in the sun and ultimately

cut into pieces.

Joseph Salbancke visited Bayana in 1609 and his is the earliest eye-witness description of the technique of manufacturing and extracting indigo at Bayana. According to him, in the ‘Indico milles’ the plants after being cut

…lyeth on heapes for halfe a yeere to rot, and then by oxen it is trodden out from the stalkes, and after wards is ground very fine, and then boiled in furnaces, and so sorted out into severall sorts.

This ‘dry-leaf method’ is significantly not mentioned by any other contemporary traveller as far as North India is concerned.

These are the days when attempts to see everything as a monochrome are being made: this is saffron, that is green. By doing this we are committing the folly of not appreciating the variety and explosion of colour in a garden! Remember the vibrancy of a polychrome as compared to the dullness of a monotony! Riot of colour symbolises to gaiety, while opposite is implied by a single black or white!

Let’s look at my alma mater: it represents almost all colours of the rainbow: the green of Islam, the saffron of Hinduism, red of communism, the mustard of Sikhism and so on and so forth! It’s a Garden with myriads of flowers of every shade and colour….

Do you know that Ishwari Prasad was the first graduate from Aligarh Muslim University? [Incidentally he is not the famous historian of that name!]

And that the famous Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (31 July 1907 – 29 June 1966) was initially a lecturer of Mathematics there (from 1931-34)?

Jadav Chandra Chakravarti (1855 – 26 November 1920) who was a famous mathematician and author of books like Arithmetic and Algebra taught at AMU? He joined MAO College in 1888 and retired in 1916.

Or Piara Singh Gill (28 October 1911 – 23 March 2002) a nuclear physicist who was a pioneer in Cosmic Ray Nuclear Physics was Professor and head of the Department of Physics at AMU from 1949 to 1963.

Or that Satish Chandra (20 November 1922 – 13 October 2017) spent most of his academic career at Aligarh?

Or that the Atranjikhera site which definitively brought the association of PGW culture (I.e. Vedic Culture) with iron, was excavated by Professor RC Gaur (1929-89), who taught at AMU?

Did you know that the first VC of AMU was a Shia and the first Chancellor, a woman?

Maharaja Sir Mohammad Ali Mohammad Khan, Khan Bahadur, KCSI, KCIE (4 June 1878 – 23 March 1931) was the Vice Chancellor of AMU between 1920-23

Nawab Sultan Jahan Begum (9 July 1858 – 12 May 1930) was the Chancellor from 1920 to her death in 1930.

Another Shia, Allama Saiyid Sibtul Hasan (1908-78) helped establish the world renowned Manuscript Section of the Maulana Azad Library where he served as its Incharge between 1958-71. His Minhāj i Nahjul Balāghah was amongst the first works to challenge those doubting the authenticity of Nahjul Balaghah the word of Imām Ali.

Further that AMU is the only University in India which has an independent Department of Shia Theology where such world renowned Shia theologians and scholars like Allāma Saiyid Ali Naqi Naqavi, (1905-88): undoubtedly the most influential 20th Century Shia scholar of India; Allāma Mujtaba Hasan Kamoonpuri (d. c 1973) and Allāma Saiyid Kalbe Abid (1923-86) taught and served.

Allāma Saiyid Ali Naqi Naqavi

Allāma Saiyid Kalbe Abid Naqvi

Did you know that Sir Syed himself collected a large number of sculptures? Both Hindu and Jain? And that they are still proudly displayed at the Central University Museum at AMU?

And that at the time when he founded the MAO College, he ordained that the University Jami Masjid would hold two congregations five times a day: one led by a Sunni Imām and another by a Shia! And that even on Fridays and Eids the Shias and Sunnis both will pray in the same mosque?

My Garden even has a common graveyard where Muslims of all sects find their resting place!

Not only this, but my garden boasts of many illustrious scholars known for their secular and non-religious ideology: Thus we had Professor Mohammad Habib (1895-71), a scholar with mystical approach who founded and shaped the Marxist Historiographical traditions, especially in the field of Medieval India. His book Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni laid the foundation of secular, scientific and Marxian approach to writing Medieval Indian history. DD Kosambi, the first Indian Marxist historian has already been mentioned earlier.

Another such person was Professor Kunwar Pal Singh (1937-2009). He considered illiteracy and communalism as a national threat and dedicated his life for the eradication of the scourge. He was an advocate of composite culture and organized several symposium and workshops to promote Urdu language and literature as well. The great ideals and traditional values of Aligarh Muslim University lived in his persona and he remained to be an epitome of the Aligarianism that an Aligarian is known for the world over.

One such individual who in fact is an institution in himself is Professor Irfan Habib (b. 1931), one of the living legends of History and a Marxist historian. He is well known for his strong stance against Hindutva and Muslim communalists. His Agrarian System of Mughal India published initially in 1963 is considered the Bible of Medieval Indian History.

And this is the beauty of my garden which was laid down by Sir Syed and that is why it is a beacon of hope in these conflicting times!

• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi

The Kacchā-Pakkā Divide: Material, Space and Architecture in the Military Cantonments of British India (1765-1889)
Christopher Cowell
— Read on journals.openedition.org/abe/3224