Settlement of unpaid
debts – an old tradition in Malabar
Today you have enforcers who are wandering round, looking
for debtors on the run. There are collection agents who come and seize cars
which are not being paid for with agreed regularity, and we see musclemen on
the prowl these days, as depicted in the movies, to provide some firm
persuasion. You also see ad’s like the one below in newspapers for debt
collection executives, promising a handsome salary.
Needed – executive to help collect over-dues and discuss
with customers on best possible payment plans, should possess strong and firm verbal
communication and negotiation Skills, a good amount of Intelligence, be persistent
and Firm, and persuasive in reasoning. Unsaid requirement – be of muscular
build and capable of depicting an aggressive demeanor
But things were a little different some 500 -900 years ago
and this peculiar custom in Malabar was first brought to light by Al Idrisi in
1154AD. He explained – If one man owes another some money and the creditor
locates him, he draws a circle around him. The creditor also enters the ring
and the debtor cannot go outside the ring till the creditor is satisfied or
forgives him.
From this arose an old Malayalam idiom ‘vattathil akkuka’
(being put into a circle) which is somewhat colloquial for harassment. Whether
‘vattam chutti’ (going in circles) also falls in the same category is not
clear, but I hope you get the idea.
Varthema wrote of a custom he found in the Malabar ports by
which the administration of civil justice was considerably simplified. The king had 100 scribes, and in case of debts
evidenced by deeds in the handwriting of these scribes, the law provided a
summary remedy. "If the debtor promising many times, fails to pay, the
creditor not willing to wait any longer nor give him any indulgence, takes a
green branch (of a palm) in his hand, goes softly behind the debtor, and with
the said branch draws a circle on the ground surrounding him, and if he
encloses the debtor within the circle, says to him these words three times '
Brahmananane rajavinane purath pokalle, i.e., I command you in the name of the
Brahmins and in the name of the king, not to leave the circle (until you have
paid the debt). If the debtor left the circle without paying the debt, he was
liable to the penalty of death."
Archibald Williams adds a twist in his memoir - In order to secure payment from a persistent
debtor, the creditor tries to draw a circle round him on the ground, saying
three times, “ By the head of the Brahmins and of the King, you shall pay me
what you owe before you quit the circle.” The debtor thus encircled must either
pay or die of starvation; for nobody may give him food; and death is the
penalty for crossing the line without payment.
The green branch of a palm, says Ibn Batuta, was also used
by the officers of the king to help the collection of the royal dues from the
merchants. If the merchants did not pay the royal dues, an officer of the king
came with the green branch of a palm and suspended it in front of the shop. No
person could buy or sell from the merchant until the branch was removed.
The rule was applicable both to nobility as well as to the
common man and Marco Polo visiting Ma’abar emphatically claims he was an eye
witness where the king was harassed so. Marco Polo states (Cordier -Yule)- They
have the following rule about debts. If a debtor shall have been several times
asked by his creditor for payment, and shall have put him off from day to day
with promises, then if the creditor can once meet the debtor and succeed in
drawing a circle round him, the latter must not pass out of this circle until
he shall have satisfied the claim, or given security for its discharge. If he
in any other case presume to pass the circle he is punished with death as a
transgressor against right and justice. And the said Messer Marco, when in this
kingdom on his return home, did himself witness a case of this. It was the
King, who owed a foreign merchant a certain sum of money, and though the claim
had often been presented, he always put it off with promises. Now, one day when
the King was riding through the city, the merchant found his opportunity, and
drew a circle round both King and horse. The King, on seeing this, halted, and
would ride no further; nor did he stir from the spot until the merchant was satisfied.
And when the bystanders saw this they marveled greatly, saying that the King
was a most just King indeed, having thus submitted to justice
Yule adds as a foot note - This custom is described in much the same way by the Arabo-Persian
Zakariah Kazwini, by Ludovico Varthema, and by Alexander Hamilton. Kazwini
ascribes it to Ceylon. "If a debtor does not pay, the King sends to him a
person who draws a line round him, wheresoever he chance to be; and beyond that
circle he dares not to move until he shall have paid what he owes, or come to
an agreement with his creditor. For if he should pass the circle the King fines
him three times the amount of his debt; one-third of this tine goes to the
creditor and two-thirds to the King." Pere Bouchet describes the strict
regard paid to the arrest, but does not notice the symbolic circle. (Gildem.
197; Varthema, 147; Ham. I. 318; Lett. Edif. XIV. 370.)
Rev. Dr. Caldwell adds a footnote "The custom undoubtedly prevailed in this part of India at a
former time. It is said that it still survives amongst the poorer classes in
out-of-the-way parts of the country, but it is kept up by schoolboys in a
serio-comic spirit as vigorously as ever. Marco does not mention a very
essential part of the ceremony. The person who draws a circle round another
imprecates upon him the name of a particular divinity, whose curse is to fall
upon him if he breaks through the circle without satisfying the claim."
Forbes wiring his oriental memoirs provides details of a
version that has become stringent as times went by - For debts, and non-payment of fines, inflicted as a punishment, they
are confined by the caricar (Kariakar), or-chief of the district; who draws a
circle round the prisoner, from which he dare not move; then, gently laying a
sharp stone on the crown of his head, demands payment of the sum required: on a
refusal, he places a large flat stone over the other, and ties it firmly on;
additional weights are gradually accumulated, with a repetition of the demand,
until the sharp stone-penetrating the head, either insures payment, or causes a
painful death.
Vissicher provides details of differing methods from Dutch
Cochin - For laying the property of
another in arrest, the warrant of a magistrate is not required ; any private
individual may do it ; so that a man of low caste has it in his power to harass
and annoy a Brahmin or a Caimal, through his lands and properties. The Rajahs
possess the same power over each other. However, although license is not
required for the performance of this embargo, the Rajah’s authority is
necessary to settle the affair; both parties must appear before him, and after
duly weighing the merits of the case, and receiving a sum of money, he gives
judgment. When Rajahs thus arrest each other’s property, it is a fruitful
ground for wars and dissensions: mediators are sometimes called in to arrange
the matter.
The token of this
embargo or arrest, is the leaf of a cashew nut or other tree which is tied on
the article thus arrested, or if it be land, it is stuck up on a stick, the
party exercising this privilege announcing, “this is the Rama, or arrest of the
Rajah.” After this no one may gather the fruits off the lands or remove the
token; such act would be considered crimes of lese majesty. The East India
Company exercises the same right, and on such occasions they plant their flag
on the spot: but this is only done by order of the Commandant or the proper
authorities. In the lands subject to the Company, the Commandant may remove any
rama, placed by a native. The residents in the small outlying stations, are
obliged to suffer the ramas of the Malabars, and are allowed to exercise the
same privilege on their side.
The Resident of Porcad
told me an entertaining anecdote on this subject. He had once caused a rafter
to be brought to the station for the repair of the factory; when it was close
to the building, a Nair came and fastened a rama, to it, upon which the coolies
who were carrying it, ran away, as it was illegal for them to touch it any
longer. The Resident being informed of what had occurred immediately planted
the Company’s rama on the spot, so that the parties who were so ready with
their arrest, were themselves arrested; and compelled to stand without stirring
a foot in the heat of the sun, until such time as the first rama was removed by
order of the Rajah, then the Resident released them.
In a similar manner,
when the Rajah owes money to a Brahmin who can adduce satisfactory proof of the
debt, the creditor can demand the money of the Rajah, three distinct times, and
if the Rajah still delays payment, the Brahmin brings a rama from a pagoda,
when the Rajah may neither eat, sleep or bathe till the dispute is settled and
the rama removed. Such cases however do not often happen, for the people know
that monarchs have long arms.
I am however not sure what this ‘rama’ is – perhaps some
kind of flag…
Hamilton writing in 1723 continues in the previous vein…They have a good way of arresting people for
Debt, viz. There is a proper person with small stick from the Judge, who is
generally a Brahman and when that person finds the debtor, he draws a circle
round him with that stick, and charges him, in the King and Judge's Name, not
to stir out of it till the creditor is satisfied either by Payment or Surety;
and it is no less than death for the debtor to break Prison by going out of the
circle.
Now that we have talked about the Debtor’s circle, let us
take a look at another system that is still practiced by protesters in India,
called the Dharna. What was that? We hear about the Dharna method as early as
1615 from Roger Hawkes. In fact he says he had to use the method himself to get
his debt with the Zamorin settled.
The 20th December, a
Malabar captain brought in a prize he had taken from the Portuguese, and would
have traded with us; but we could not get in any of our money, due long before.
We also heard that day of four English ships being at Surat. The governor and
people continued their wonted perfidiousness; the former being more careful in
taking and the latter in giving bribes, than in paying our debts. We used a
strange contrivance of policy to get in some of these; for, when we went to
their houses, demanding payment, and could get none, we threatened not to leave
their house till they paid us. We had heard it reported, that, according to
their customs, they could neither eat nor wash while we were in their houses;
and by this device we sometimes got fifty fanos from one, and an hundred from
another. They would on no account permit us to sleep in their houses, except
one person, with whom we remained three days and nights, with three or four
nayres.
So as we can generalize, it is the medieval and modern
practice of sitting in dharna, once used against debtors, by literally 'holding
up' a defaulting debtor with a threat to commit suicide at his door by
starvation. This ‘door sitting’ practice has its origins from the laws of Manu
and we also note a looser form of dharna, called takaza, which permits the
creditor to institute by proxy, a regular siege of the debtor's house.
Westlky details it - The
creditor would sit dharna at the debtor's door or gate, until some arrangement
or instalment was extorted by his importunity. Lord Teignmouth gives us an
interesting description of the process of sitting dharna, and the principle
involved. The Brahmin creditor proceeds to the door of his debtor and there
squats himself, holding in his hand some poison, a dagger, or other instrument
of suicide, which he threatens to use if his debtor should attempt to molest
him or pass by him; and as the inviolability of a Brahmin is a fixed principle
with the Hindoos, and to deprive him of life, either by direct violence or by
causing his death in any way, is a crime which admits of no expiation, it will
readily be seen that the debtor is practically under arrest in his own house.
"In this situation," concludes Lord Teignmouth, "the Brahmin
fasts, and by the rigor of etiquette the unfortunate object of his arrest ought
to fast also, and thus they both remain till the institutor of the dharna
obtains satisfaction. In this, as he seldom makes the attempt without the
resolution to persevere, he rarely fails; for if the party thus arrested were
to suffer the Brahmin sitting in dharna
to perish by hunger, the sin would forever lie upon his head." It became
a popular tool for Gandhi during the independence movement and is sadly used to
date in India for various protests.
To lend much higher gravity, a Brahmin was employed as proxy to execute the dharna at the debtor’s house.
Fink summarizes - A faint trace of the origin of the practice will be found in the fact that the creditor who resorted to dharna, often found it necessary to hire a Brahmin to starve himself vicariously… At this juncture, it is more than probable that the creditor arrested the arm of the debtor by hiring a Brahmin whose person was always held sacred, and who could not be resisted with violence. The Brahmin thus retained, adopted his own peculiar method of fasting at the door, and even put the debtor under immediate fear by providing himself with some instrument of suicide…To permit a man to starve or fast at your door without relieving his wants, was always looked upon as an act which, in the next world, placed the beggar in enjoyment of heaven, and reversed the condition of the rich man to that of deplorable misery. It was a dread of this supernatural retribution which, in India, made fasting at the door such a powerful instrument in extorting charitable donations to the Brahminical priesthood. And it will be observed that sitting dharna was always undertaken where the debtor was a man of wealth or of superior caste to the creditor.
Was this kind of circle drawing noticed elsewhere in the
world? William Ian Miller explains - The
Talmud tells of a certain Honi HaMe'aggel (Honi the Circle Drawer) 1st century
CE who was asked to pray for rain to relieve the community from drought. In an
incident that could have been lifted from an Irish saint's life or from Hindu
debt-collection rituals, he drew a circle around himself.
The Chinese practiced
a much more sensible variety of dharna than the Hindoos. Instead of starving
themselves to death, and broiling in the sun or shivering in the rain,
creditors simply quartered themselves and their families upon their debtors,
and the latter were generally glad to get rid of their unwelcome guests by
scraping together and paying off the amount due. A debtor who was unable to
meet his obligations could be compelled to wear a yoke round his neck in
public, the hope of the creditors being that the man's friends or relatives
would pay off his debt in order to save him from a prolongation of this
terrible disgrace.
Sitting dharna was
said to be practiced in Persia as well in those days. A man intending to
enforce payment of a demand by fasting, begins by sowing some barley at his
debtor's door, and sitting down in the middle. The idea that the creditor means
to convey to his debtor by this is, that he will stay where he is without food,
either until he is paid, or until the barley-seed grows up and gives him bread
to eat. Something similar to this dharna was known in ancient Ireland. One of
the Brehon laws enacted that a notice of five days was to be served on a debtor
of inferior grade, and then distress was to be taken from him. But if the
defendant was a chieftain, a flaith, a bard, or a bishop, the plaintiff was
obliged to "fast upon him" in addition. The Troscead, or fasting upon
one, consisted in going to the debtor's house and waiting at his door a certain
time without food. The law ran: "He who refuses to cede what should be
accorded to fasting, the judgment on him is that he pay double the thing for
which he was fasted upon." If, however, the debtor offered a pledge or security
for his debt, and the creditor stubbornly refused to accept it, he, the
creditor, forfeited his entire claim.
But well, these kind of things are no longer workable
methods to collect debt, life has changed, crooks care not a hoot, though
Dharna is still a popular method of protest in India. Humorous scenes of the
starving politician sipping lemonade under cover can be seen in movies. So also
can be seen movies where the Chinese method of moving into the debtors home are
practiced in Kerala, exemplified by Mohanlal’s and Priyadarshan’s great movie
of yesteryears – Sanmanassulavarkku Samadhanam.
References
Essays from Travancore – Ulloor S Parameswara Iyer
The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition:
By Marco Polo
Oriental Memoirs – James Forbes
OLD LAWS CONCERNING DEBT. By Georgk H. Westlky.
The Romance of Early Exploration - Archibald Williams
A New Account of the East Indies – Alexander Hamilton
THE HINDU CUSTOM OF 'SITTING DHARNA.' By H. R. Fink. (THE
CALCUTTA REVIEW)
Letters from Malabar - Jacob Canter Visscher, Heber Drur
pics – Person in circle
