Bhāmta or Bhāmtya
1. Occupation
Bhāmta or Bhāmtya.1—A caste numbering 4000 persons in the Central Provinces, nearly all of whom reside in the Wardha, Nāgpur and Chānda Districts of the Nāgpur Division. The Bhāmtas are also found in Bombay, Berār and Hyderābād. In Bombay they are known by the names of Uchla or ‘Lifter’ and Ganthachor or ‘Bundle-thief.’2 The Bhāmtas were and still are notorious thieves, but many of the caste are now engaged in the cultivation of hemp, from which they make ropes, mats and gunny-bags. Formerly it was said in Wardha that a Bhāmta girl would not marry unless her suitor had been arrested not less than fourteen times by the police, when she considered that he had qualified as a man. The following description of their methods does not necessarily apply to the whole caste, though the bulk of them are believed to have criminal tendencies. But some colonies of Bhāmtas who have taken to the manufacture of sacking and gunny-bags from hemp-fibre may perhaps be excepted. They steal only during the daytime, and divide that part of the Province which they frequent into regular beats or ranges. They adopt many disguises. Even in their own cottages one dresses as a Mārwāri Bania, another as a Gujarāt Jain, a third as a Brāhman and a fourth as a Rājpūt. They keep to some particular disguise for years and often travel hundreds of miles, entering and stealing from the houses of the classes of persons whose dress they adopt, or taking service with a merchant or trader, and having gained their employer’s confidence, seizing an opportunity to abscond with some valuable property. Sometimes two or three Bhāmtas visit a large fair, and one of them dressed as a Brāhman mingles with the crowd of bathers and worshippers. The false Brāhman notices some ornament deposited by a bather, and while himself entering the water and repeating sacred verses, watches his opportunity and spreads out his cloth near the ornament, which he then catches with his toes, and dragging it with him to a distance as he walks away buries it in the sand. The accomplices meanwhile loiter near, and when the owner discovers his loss the Brāhman sympathises with him and points out the accomplices as likely thieves, thus diverting suspicion from himself. The victim follows the accomplices, who make off, and the real thief meanwhile digs the ornament out of the sand and escapes at his leisure. Women often tie their ornaments in bundles at such bathing-fairs, and in that case two Bhāmtas will go up to her, one on each side, and while one distracts her attention the other makes off with the bundle and buries it in the sand. A Bhāmta rarely retains the stolen property on his person while there is a chance of his being searched, and is therefore not detected. They show considerable loyalty to one another, and never steal from or give information against a member of the caste. If stolen property is found in a Bhāmta’s house, and it has merely been deposited there for security, the real thief comes forward. An escaped prisoner does not come back to his friends lest he should get them into trouble. A Bhāmta is never guilty of house-breaking or gang-robbery, and if he takes part in this offence he is put out of caste. He does not steal from the body of a person asleep. He is, however, expert at the theft of ornaments from the person. He never steals from a house in his own village, and the villagers frequently share directly or indirectly in his gains. The Bhāmtas are now expert railway thieves.3 Two of them will get into a carriage, and, engaging the other passengers in conversation, find out where they are going, so as to know the time available for action. When it gets dark and the travellers go to sleep, one of the Bhāmtas lies down on the floor and covers himself with a large cloth. He begins feeling some bag under the seat, and if he cannot open it with his hands, takes from his mouth the small curved knife which all Bhāmtas carry concealed between their gum and upper lip, and with this he rips up the seams of the bag and takes out what he finds; or they exchange bags, according to a favourite device of English railway thieves, and then quickly either leave the train or get into another carriage. If attention is aroused they throw the stolen property out of the window, marking the place and afterwards going back to recover it. Another device is to split open and pick the pockets of people in a crowd. Besides the knife they often have a needle and thread and an iron nut-cutter.
2. Subdivisions and Marriage Customs
Members of other castes, as Chhatri, Kanjar, Rāwat and others, who have taken to stealing, are frequently known as Bhāmtas, but unless they have been specially initiated do not belong to the caste. The Bhāmtas proper have two main divisions, the Chhatri Bhāmtas, who are usually immigrants from Gujarāt, and those of the Marātha country, who are often known as Bhāmtis. The former have a dialect which is a mixture of Hindi, Marāthi and Gujarāti, while the latter speak the local form of Marāthi. The sections of the Chhatri Bhāmtas are named after Rājpūt septs, as Badgūjar, Chauhān, Gahlot, Bhatti, Kachhwāha and others. They may be partly of Rājpūt descent, as they have regular and pleasing features and a fair complexion, and are well built and sturdy. The sections of the Bhāmtis are called by Marātha surnames, as Gudekar, Kaothi, Bailkhade, Sātbhaia and others. The Chhatri Bhāmtas have northern customs, and the Bhāmtis those of the Marātha country. Marriage between persons of the same gotra or surname is prohibited. The Chhatris avoid marriage between relations having a common greatgrandparent, but among the Bhāmtis the custom of Mehunchār is prevalent, by which the brother’s daughter is married to the sister’s son. Girls are usually married at ten and eleven years of age or later. The betrothal and marriage customs of the two subcastes differ, the Chhatris following the ceremonial of the northern Districts and the Bhāmtis that of the Marātha country. The Chhatris do not pay a bride-price, but the Bhāmtis usually do. Widow-marriage is allowed, and while the Chhatris expect the widow to marry her deceased husband’s brother, the Bhāmtis do not permit this. Among both subdivisions a price is paid for the widow to her parents. Divorce is only permitted for immoral conduct on the part of the wife. A divorced woman may remarry after giving a feast to the caste panchāyat or committee, and obtaining their consent.
3. Religion and Social Customs
The goddess Devi is the tutelary deity of the caste, as of all those who ply a disreputable profession. Animals are sacrificed to her or let loose to wander in her name. The offerings are appropriated by the village washerman. In Bombay the rendezvous of the Bhāmtis is the temple of Devi at Konali, in Akalkot State, near Sholapur, and here the gangs frequently assemble before and after their raids to ask the goddess that luck may attend them and to thank her for success obtained.4 They worship their rope-making implements on the Dasahra day. They both bury and burn the dead. Ghosts and spirits are worshipped. If a man takes a second wife after the death of his first, the new wife wears a putli or image of the first wife on a piece of silver on her neck, and offers it the hom sacrifice by placing some ghī on the fire before taking a meal. In cases of doubt and difficulty she often consults the putli by speaking to it, while any chance stir of the image due to the movement of her body is interpreted as approval or disapproval. In the Central Provinces the Bhāmtis say that they do not admit outsiders into the caste, but this is almost certainly untrue. In Bombay they are said to admit all Hindus5 except the very lowest castes, and also Muhammadans. The candidate must pass through the two ceremonies of admission into the caste and adoption into a particular family. For the first he pays an admission fee, is bathed and dressed in new clothes, and one of the elders drops turmeric and sugar into his mouth. A feast follows, during which some elders of the caste eat out of the same plate with him. This completes the admission ceremony, but in order to marry in the caste a candidate must also be adopted into a particular family. The Bhāmta who has agreed to adopt him invites the caste people to his house, and there takes the candidate on his knee while the guests drop turmeric and sugar into his mouth. The Bhāmtas eat fish and fowl but not pork or beef, and drink liquor. This last practice is, however, frequently made a caste offence by the Bhāmtis. They take cooked food from Brāhmans and Kunbis and water from Gonds. The keeping of concubines is also an offence entailing temporary excommunication. The morality of the caste is somewhat low and their women are addicted to prostitution. The occupation of the Bhāmta is also looked down on, and it is said, Bhāmta ka kām sub se nikām, or ‘The Bhāmta’s work is the worst of all.’ This may apply either to his habits of stealing or to the fact that he supplies a bier made of twine and bamboo sticks at a death. In Bombay the showy dress of the Bhāmta is proverbial. Women are tattooed before marriage on the forehead and lower lip, and on other parts of the body for purposes of adornment. The men have the head shaved for three inches above the top of the forehead in front and an inch higher behind, and they wear the scalp-lock much thicker than Brāhmans do. They usually have red head-cloths.
Notes
1 This article is mainly compiled from a paper by Pyāre Lāl Misra, Ethnographic Clerk.
2 Bombay Gazetteer (Campbell), xviii. p. 464.
3 The following particulars are taken from Colonel Portman’s Report on the Bhāmtas of the Deccan (Bombay, 1887).
4 Portman, loc. cit.
5 Bombay Gazetteer (Campbell), xviii. p. 465.