Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.55

v3.c43.55

The discussions regarding Hinta were consequently very warm: the renunciation of ten valuable townships by the Maharaja Zorawar Singh of Bhindar, the head of the Saktawat clans, did not annoy the Bhindar chief so much as his failure to retain Hinta as one of his minor feuds: nay, the surrender of Arja, the price of blood, a far more important castle and domain, by his own brother Fateh Singh (the original acquisition of which sealed the conclusion of a long-standing feud), excited less irritation than the demand that Hinta should revert to the fisc. "It is the key of Bhindar," said the head of the clan. "It was a Saktawat allotment from the first," exclaimed his brother. "The Ranawat was an interloper," cried another. "It is my *bapota*, the abode of my fathers," was the more feeling expression of the occupant. It was no light task to deal with such arguments; especially when an appeal to the dictates of reason and justice was thwarted by the stronger impulse of self-interest. But in a matter involving so important a stipulation of the treaty, which required "that all fiscal possessions which, since S. 1822 (A.D. 1766), the commencement of the civil wars, had, by whatever means, passed from the Rana to the chieftains, should be reclaimed," firmness was essential to the success of a measure on which [605] depended the restoration of order. The Saktawats behaved nobly, and with a purely patriotic spirit throughout the scene, when almost all had to relinquish important possessions. The issue was, that Hinta, with its domain, after remaining twelve months incorporated with the fisc, was restored to Zorawar, but curtailed of Dundia and its twelve hundred acres, which, though united to Hinta, was a distinct township in the old records. Having paid ten thousand rupees as the fine of relief, the chief was girt with the sword, and re-established in his bapota, to the great joy of the whole clan.