Broach City
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Broach City
{Bhariikachha, or Bharuch). — Head-quarters of the Dis- trict. of the same name in Gujarat, Bombay, situated in 21° 42' N. and 72° 59' E., on the right bank of the Narbada river, about 30 miles from its mouth, and on the Bombay, Baroda, and Central India Railway. The area, including suburbs, is 2^ square miles. In 1777 the city is said to have contained 50,000 inhabitants; in 1812, 37,716.
The Census of 1S72 returned 36,932 ; that of i88i, 37,281 ; that of 1891, 40,168; and that of 1901, 42,896, comprising 26,852 Hindus, 12,022 Muhammadans, and 2,153 Parsis. The only classes calling for special notice are, among Hindus, the Bhargav Brahmans, who claim to be descendants of the sage Bhrigu. The Parsis, from the number and antiquity of their ' towers of silence,' are supposed to have settled at Broach as far back as the eleventh century. Formerly ship-builders and skilled weavers, they have suffered from the decay of both trades. Many of them migrated to Bombay to improve their circumstances ; and the frugality of those that are left enables them to keep out of pauperism. The Musalmans are for the most part in a condition of poverty.
Seen from the southern bank of the Narbada, or approached by the railway bridge from the south, the massive stone wall, rising from the water's edge and lining the river bank for about a mile, and the buildings standing out from the high ground behind, give the city a marked and picturesque appearance. The fortifications, though by local tradition ascribed to Siddha Raja Jayasingha of Anhilvada (twelfth century), were, according to the author of the Mirdt-i- Sikandari, built in 1526 under the orders of Sultan Bahadur, king of Ahmadabad. In the middle of the seventeenth century (1660) the walls are said to have been destroyed by the emperor Aurangzeb, and about twenty-five years later to have been rebuilt by the same monarch as a protection against the attacks of the Marathas.
Of late years the fortifications on the land side have been allowed to fall into disrepair, and in some places almost every trace of them has dis- appeared. On the southern side, where protection is required against the floods of the river, the city wall is kept in good order. Built of large blocks of stone, the river face of the wall, raised from 30 to 40 feet high, stretches along the bank for about a mile. It is provided with five gates, and the top forms a broad pathway. The circuit of the wall includes an area of three-eighths of a square mile, which in the centre rises to a height of from 60 to 80 feet above the surrounding country. This mound, from the broken bricks and other debris dug out of it, shows signs of being, in part at least, of artificial construction.
At the same time the presence of one or two small hillocks to the north of the city favours the opinion that it may have been the rising ground on the river bank which led the early settlers to choose Broach as the site for a city. Within the walls the streets are narrow, and in some places steep. The houses are generally two storeys high, with walls of brick and tiled roofs. In the eastern part of the city are some large family mansions, said to have been built in 1790. In the suburbs the houses have a meaner appearance, many of them being not more than one storey high, with walls of wattle and daub.
With the exception of a stone mosque constructed out of an older Hindu temple, the city contains no buildings of interest. To the west are the groves of the well-wooded suburbs of Vejalpur, and northwards two lofty mounds with Muhammadan tombs relieve the line of the level plain, while on the north-east rows of tamarind-trees mark where a hundred years ago was the Nawab's garden with 'summer pavilions, fountains, and canals.' To the east are the spots that, to a Hindu, give Broach a special interest, the site of king Bali's sacrifice and the temple of Bhrigu Rishi. About 200 yards from the bastion, at the north-west corner of the fort, is the tomb of Brigadier David Wedder- burn, who was killed at the siege of Broach on November 14, 1772. Two miles west of the fort are a few large and massive tombs, raised to members of the Dutch factory. Beyond the Dutch tombs are the five ParsI ' towers of silence ' : four being old and disused, and the fifth built lately by a rich merchant of Bombay.
The city of Broach was, according to local legend, originally founded by the sage Bhrigu, and called Bhrigupur or Bhrigu's city. In the first century of the Christian era the sage's settlement had given its name Barugaza to a large province, and had itself become one of the chief ports in ^\'estern India. In the early part of the seventh century, according to the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang, it contained ten Buddhist convents, with 300 monks and 10 temples. Half a century later Broach was a place of sufficient importance to attract some of the earliest Musalman expeditions against Western India.
Under the Rajput dynasties of Anhilvada (a.d. 750-1300) Broach was a flourish- ing seaport. During the troubles that followed the overthrow of the Anhilvada kings, the city would seem to have changed hands on more than one occasion. But with the exception of two years (1534-6), during which it was held by the officers of the emperor Humayun, Broach remained (1391 to 1572) under the Musalman dynasty of Ahmadabad.
About this time the city was twice (1536 and 1546) plundered by the Portuguese, who, except for its streets ' so narrow most of them that two horsemen could not pass at the same time,' admired the city ' with its magnificent and lofty houses, with their costly lattices, the famous ivory and black-wood workshops, and its townsmen well skilled in mechanics — chiefly weavers, who make the finest cloth in the world' {Decadas de Couio, v. 325). In 1573 Broach was surrendered to Akbar by Muzaffar Shah III, the last of the line of Ahmadabad kings. Ten years later Muzaffar Shah recovered the city, but held it only for a few months, when it again fell into the hands of the emperor of Delhi. In 16 16 a British factory, and about 1620 a Dutch factory, were established at Broach. In 1660 some of the fortifications of the city were razed to the ground by the order of Aurangzeb.
In this defenceless state it was twice, in 1675 and 1686, plundered by the Maralhas. After the second attack Aurangzeb ordered that the walls should be rebuilt and the city named Sukhabad. In 1736 the Musalman commandant of the port was raised by Nizam- ul-mulk to the rank of Navvab. In April, 1 771, an attempt on the part of the English to take Broach failed; but in November, 1772, a second force was sent against the city, and this time it was stormed and captured. In 1783 it was handed over to Sindhia, but was retaken in 1803 by the British, and since that time it has remained in their possession.
Broach has a high school with an attendance of 212, a middle school with 186 pupils, and 19 vernacular schools, 11 for boys with 1,636 pupils and 8 for girls with 761, The municipality, established in 1852, had an average income of a lakh during the decade ending 1901. In 1903-4 the income was Rs. 91,000, chiefly derived from octroi (Rs. 50,000). Besides the ordinary Government revenue offices, the city contains a Sub-Judge's court;, a civil hospital, a library, and a railway dispensary.
The city has been surveyed, with a view to protect the rights of both the Crovernment and the public. The drinking-water used by the inhabitants of the intramural quarters conies in part from the Narbada. There are also many good wells in the city ; and, unlike Surat and Ahmadabad, the custom of having cisterns in dwelling-houses for the storage of rain-water is not general.
Broach is one of the oldest seaports in Western India. Eighteen hundred years ago it was a chief seat of the trade then carried on between India and the ports of ^Vestern Asia. In more recent times, though the trade of Gujarat has never again centred in the harbours of this District, Broach so far maintained its position that in the seven- teenth century it sent ships eastward to Java and Sumatra, and west- \\ard to Aden and the Red Sea. Later on the foreign trade of Gujarat collected in Surat, until from Surat it was transferred to Bombay.
The cotton formerly exported from Broach to China and Bengal was sent through Surat and Bombay ; and as far back as 181 5 the Broach ports ceased to have any foreign commerce. They now possess only a coasting trade south to Bombay and the intermediate ports, and north as far as Mandvi in Cutch. The total value of the sea-borne trade of Broach in 1903-4 was 31 lakhs, of which 18 lakhs represented imports and 13 lakhs exports. The chief articles of trade with the south are, exports — flowers of the mahi/d tree, wheat, and cotton; imports — molasses, rice, betel-nuts, timber, coal, iron, and coco-nuts. To the west and north the exports are grain, cotton seed, mahud flowers, tiles, and firewood : the imports, chiefly stone for building.
In ancient times cloth is mentioned as one of the chief articles of export from Broach ; and in the seventeenth century, when the English and Dutch first settled in Gujarat, it was the fame of its cloth manu- factures that led them to establish factories at Broach. The kinds of cloth for which Broach was specially known at that time would seem to have been Imftas, broad and narrow dimities, and other fine calicoes. The gain to the European trader of having a factory at Broach was that he might ' oversee the weavers, buying up the cotton yarn to employ them all the rains, when he sets on foot his investments, that they may be ready against the season for the ships.'
About the middle of the seventeenth century the District is said to have produced more manu- factures, and those of the finest fabrics, than the same extent of country in any other part of the world, not excepting Bengal. In consequence of the increasing competition of the produce of steam factories in Bombay, Ahniadabad, and Broach itself, hand-loom weaving in Broach has greatly declined. There are four cotton-spinning and weaving- mills, with a nominal capital (in 1904) of 14 lakhs, and containing 859 looms and 62,000 spindles. The out-turn of yarn and cloth is 5-4 and 3-1 million pounds, and 2,212 persons are empolyed.
