Shekhawati Region
¤ The Picturesque Beauty of Shekhawati Region
Shekhawati is simply beautiful. Every street, house and wall has the
stamp of an artist's imagination in paint. Wherever you cast an eye,
frescoes smile back. The plethora of these murals comes rather as a
surprise in a land which is traditionally known as an 'impoverished
corner of an arid land'. But then the whole of Rajasthan, which is
partly sandy and partly rugged and blessed only in a few places with a
lake or a patch of green, is an exercise in colour. Colour which is
the everyday life of the people. Colour which the people live in to
counter that of the semi-arid scrub. Colour that people give to their
surroundings… You just have to visit Shekhawati to believe what a
riot colour and imagination can create together, the Shekhawati which
is Rajasthan's very own Open Air Art Gallery.
¤ Shekhawati Lists on Tourist Itinerary
In spite of being this exotic visual treat, Shekhawati, for some
strange reason, did not figure in the tourist itinerary until the
early 80s. Important guide books like Eustace Reyolds-Ball’s The
Tourist’s India (1907) and Nagel’s more ambitious India:
Encyclopaedia-Guide (1977) conveniently left out this paradise of
paintings. It was only after Francis Wacziarg’s and Aman Nath’s
discovery that Shekhawati began to be taken seriously. Wacziarg is a
French businessman and an Indophile, while his friend Aman Nath a
writer and graphic designer. In their peregrinations through the
country, the two young men had stumbled upon the Shekhawati frescoes
and decided to expose them in a photographic essay, The Painted Walls
of Shekhawati (1982). It was only after that Shekhawati began getting
the attention it so much deserves.
¤ Formation of The Region
Shekhawati is a blanket name to describe the three districts of
Churu, Jhunjhunu and Sikar, the mural rich areas. The name derives
from Rao Shekha, a member of the Kachhawaha family of Rajputs who
ruled Jaipur for centuries. In the 15th century, Shekha conquered a
considerable territory in this northeastern part of Rajasthan. This,
retained and extended by his heirs, the Shekhawats, came to be known
as Shekhawati, literally the 'Garden of Shekha'. The region came under
the purview of the larger Jaipur State. The allegiance, however, was
not always a peaceful arrangement, and the later generations fought
against their cousins to break away.
¤ Main Attractions
Shekhawati has the greatest concentration of painted forts, chhatris
(cenotaphs), temples and havelis (mansions) in the country. In fact,
this is also the largest collection of murals in the whole world. The
earlier frescoes in this colourful fantasy world were financed by the
Shekhawat Rajputs and later the wealthy business class of the Marwar
region – the marwaris – patronized the art. Apart from
adding vitality to the flat landscape, the frescoes are an interesting
documentation of the history of the region. Some of the flourishing
towns were Sikar, Ramgarh, Fatehpur, Lachhmangarh, Churu, Mandawa,
Jhunjhunu, Nawalgarh and others. Although the idea of frescoes might
have been imported from the splendid Fort-Palace of Amber, which was
in turn influenced by those of the Mughal courts, it reached a
completely new form in the hands of the artists of Shekhawati, where
the west fuses with the east and mythology is at peace with cars,
aeroplanes and balloons.
After the reign of Rajputs, came the British. The latter patronized
their own kind of trade which required the marwaris to rush to fresh
pastures like Calcutta and Bombay. Thus the beautiful Shekhawati towns
gradually came to be abandoned. It is only in the last two decades
that the Shekhawati region acquired a fillip, with its art being the
central focus. and the children of the house of Shekha are now back,
opening their dusty family castles and turning them into hotels.
¤ History
 In
the 16th-17th centuries, Rajasthan stood divided into five large and
several smaller kingdoms. The five were Amber (Jaipur), Bikaner,
Jaisalmer, Jodhpur (Marwar) and Udaipur (Mewar). The first two
kingdoms shared the region which was destined to become so rich in
murals. The founder of this beauteous Shekhawati was the Rajput, Rao
Shekha, a descendent of the illustrious Kachhawaha family who held
Amber-Jaipur for centuries. The chieftains of Shekhawati were the
descendants of Baloji, the third son of Raja Udaikaran, who succeeded
to the throne of Amber in 1389.
¤ The Founder Is Born
The story of Shekha’s birth is rather interesting. Mokul Singh
was a 15th century chieftain in the Amber territory who was much
troubled because he had no son. In those days, it was almost sinful
for a ruler to die without an heir, for who would sit on the throne
after his death? So having heard a lot about the miraculous powers of
the Muslim saint Sheikh Burhan, Mokul and his wife decided to pay the
man a visit. James Tod, the noted historian, records the event in his
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: "The Shekh in one of his
peregrinations had reached the confines of Amrutsir [Amritsar], and
was passing over an extensive meadow, in which was Mokulji. The Mangta
[mendicant] approached him with the usual salutation, "Have you
anything for me?" "Whatever you please to have, Babaji
[sire]," was the courteous reply. The request was limited to a
draught of milk, and if our faith were equal to the Shekhawut’s,
we should believe that Shekh Boorhan drew a copious stream from the
exhausted udder of female buffalo. This was sufficient to convince the
old chief that the Shekh could work other miracles; and he prayed
that, through his means, he might no longer be childless."
and true enough, with the blessings of the Sheikh, a son was born to
the couple. Mokul christened his boy Shekha, who was to become the
founder of Shekhawati or the ‘Garden of Shekha’, an
important portion of the surface of Rajputana.
Rao Shekha (ruled 1433-88) was the chieftain of Amarsar in Amber when
he refused to pay tribute to the Kachhawaha rulers. Thus breaking
away, he laid his garden in 1471 and proclaimed sovereignty. In the
following years Shekhawati comprised of a disparate sequence of small
fiefdoms locally known as thikanas, the notable of which were Sikar,
Nawalgarh, Dunlod, Mandawa, Chirawa, Parsurampura and Khetri. However,
the chieftains of Shekhawati retained a nominal loyalty to the Amber
(Jaipur) State, who in turn honoured them with hereditary titles. It
was more like they were in alliance with, rather than subservient to
the Amber throne. and it was probably due to this exposure to the
beautiful courts of Amber-Jaipur that Shekhawati’s forts and
havelis (mansions) came to be decorated gloriously with murals.
Anyway, the Shekhawati-Amber power equation is best expressed in James
Tod’s words: "The history of the Shekhawut confederation,
which springing from the redundant feodality of Amber, through the
influence of age and circumstances, has attained a power and
consideration almost equalling that of the parent state; and although
it posses neither written laws, a permanent congress, nor any visible
or recognized head, subsists by a sense of common interest."
¤ The Expensions of The Shekhawati Thakurs.
Till the end of the 17th century, Shekhawati was restricted to the
east of the Aravalli Range which cuts through the present district of
Sikar and forms an eastern border to Jhunjhunu. To the west of the
Aravallis lay the desert state of Bikaner, Churu being subservient to
it. As the Mughal Empire fell into decline after the death of
Aurangzeb in 1707, the descendants of Rao Shekha, who had already
spread themselves in the east of the Aravallis, began to encroach the
west and north through the Udaipurwati and Sikar gaps in the hills.
Before the Shekhawat Rajputs could properly establish their fiefdoms
on a large scale, the land had to be wrested from the ruling Muslim
nawabs (governors). The latter had secured their estates with the help
of the Delhi sultans who were in the country until 1526 when Babur
came and routed them (see History of Delhi for more). Anyway, the
Shekhawats were there to announce their arrival on the scene. In 1730
Jhunjhunu was seized by Sardul Singh (ruled 1730-52) in a bloodless
coup, when the ruling nawab, Rohella Khan, died on a journey to Delhi.
Sardul was a diwan (minister) in the latter’s court and getting
the reins of Jhunjhunu was thus easy. The following year he allied
with Sheo Singh (ruled from 1721), the powerful ruler of Sikar and
evicted the nawab of Fatehpur, Sardar Khan. Rohella and Sardar,
descendents of one Kaim Khan and therefore called Kaimkhanis, were the
most powerful of the nawabs of the region. With their defeat,
important portions of territory thus got added to Shekhawati. By 1732,
these two Shekhawati thakurs (chieftains), Sardul Singh and Sheo
Singh, had carved a big niche for themselves. They grew very powerful
and many of the other thakurs looked up to them for help.
Shekhawati was flourishing, and the signs were obvious. The wealthy
thakurs got their forts and palaces covered with murals. But they
financed only a small portion of the murals, and in the 19th century
they were overshadowed by the merchants’.
In the meantime, Jai Singh II (ruled 1699-1744) of Amber founded his
new capital, Jaipur. The powerful diplomat that he was, he soon
imposed his sovereignty over this expanded Shekhawati, making the
latter a tributary. Then the whole of this new region became the
administrative nizamat of Shekhawati under the government of Amber
State. It was quite an achievement for Jai, for out of the total area
of the Dhundar or Jaipur confederation, about a third was Shekhawati.
¤ Jhunjhunu Takes Centrestage
 Jhunjhunu,
lorded over by Sardul Singh, was richest and the most happening
thikana of the painted region. It served as the capital of the new and
extended Shekhawati. After Sardul’s death in 1752, the estate was
divided equally among his five sons – Zorawar Singh, Kishan
Singh, Akhey Singh, Nawal Singh and Keshri Singh. Jhunjhunu thus came
to be known as the Panchpana – the five estates. But it did not
stay so for long, because Akhey died without leaving an heir. His
share was to be redistributed among the other four. Sardul had made
for himself quite a big empire, for even at the end of it all, the
sons got big chunks and ruled autonomously. Zorawar inherited Taen,
Gangiyasar and Malsisar; Kishan got Khetri and Alsisar; Nawal founded
Nawalgarh and Mandawa; and Keshri Bissau and Dunlod. The thakurs of
every village in the region covered by the Panchpana were all
descended from one or other of these men.
In course of time, the cake that Jhunjhunu was got cut further. The
most prosperous region remained Mandawa and Nawalgarh, because of the
excellent relations they shared between them. On the other extreme was
Bissau, which in the hands of Keshri’s grandson, Shyam Singh,
dashed down to economic doom.
¤ Turbulent Times
The parent state of Jaipur suffered several major invasions during
the latter half of the 18th century. Naturally this affected
Shekhawati, too, directly or indirectly. In 1767, the Jat Maharaja of
Bharatpur, as an act of bravado, crossed the land east of the hills,
only to be defeated in the hands of the Jaipur army in the Battle of
Maonda. But the Jats managed to inflict heavy losses on the Jaipur
nobility. In 1775, the Rao of Rewari (of Haryana) attacked Jaipur, but
was repulsed. The mighty Marathas invaded several times, most notably
in 1792, when they plundered Udaipurwati and Singhana. Next the
Marathas came attacking Fatehpur with an Irish freebooter, George
Thomas, in 1799. The Maharaja of Jaipur quickly came to the rescue,
but lost to the enemies. However, the forces from Jaipur did manage to
force Thomas to call off the siege and retreat to Haryana.
Such strife gave employment to a large number of mercenary troops,
who for the most part of their lives, thrived on banditry. A good many
foreign freebooters also found their way into Rajasthan, who are duly
depicted on the painted walls of Shekhawati, wearing hats and bearing
muskets. It was also around this time that Thakur Shyam Singh of
Bissau took to banditry, and often raided the regions across the
border into Bikaner. Shyam even extracted huge sums of money from the
merchants, which often led to their emigration from the town.
¤ Shekhawati- grooming up for the reign of the British
By the early 19th century, life was becoming increasingly difficult
for the princes of Rajasthan. Lack of funds weakened the authority of
the rajas, which encouraged individual chieftains to ignore their
decrees. Shekhawati, however, had its successful cross-desert caravan
trade going on, thanks to the industrious marwaris of the region. But
over all, the time was ripe for the British. The efficacy of the
European infantry had long been recognized, and now the demand for a
central authority was felt more than ever. The whole of India was
grooming up for the reign of the British and Shekhawati was no
exception.
In 1808, Mountstuart Elphinstone, who later became known as one of
British India’s greatest administrators, led an embassy through
Shekhawati and Churu on his way to Afghanistan. When he reached
Bikaner, the raja there, Surat Singh, tried to present him with the
keys to the fort. Hard pressed by enemies from all sides, Surat saw in
the British the ultimate saviour. But Elphinstone politely refused,
only to sign a treaty in 1818. This was the result of Bikaner’s
series of conflicts with Churu. The thakur of Churu, Sheo singh (not
to be confused with the Sheo Singh of Sikar who lived about a century
back), was acting with increasing independence. He was the senior most
thakur in the Bikaner State, and Surat was scared that his sector of
the kingdom might be lost. Anyway, the new bond that was singed with
the British pledged "perpetual friendship, alliance and unity of
interests." This naturally amounted to accepting British
paramountcy in the long run. In other places, bonds were signed
against marauding parties like the Pindaris and Pathans. Jaipur was
also among those to shake hands with the British. The raja’s
treasury was almost empty and his thakurs rebellious.
Back home in Shekhawati, only Sikar and Khetri had managed to keep
themselves intact because the rulers didn’t have too many heirs
who would break up the estate into tiny bits! Elsewhere the land had
been divided into many, many small holdings. Anarchy reigned. A
century after Sardul had taken Jhunjhunu, there were no fewer than 169
surviving male heirs to his sons! and of these, 102 owed their descent
to Zorawar Singh alone! This, combined with rampant activities of
dacoits, made Shekhawati quite a mess. Complaints came in bagfuls,
both from neighbouring Bikaner and within and without Shekhawati. It
was the handiwork of a band of robbers from Shyam Singh’s Bissau
which was the last straw. The British came and based their Shekhawati
Brigade in Jhunjhunu in the 1830s. The brigade was funded by the
rulers of Jaipur and Bikaner as well as by some of the local thakurs.
It was a small body of local cavalry under the command of Major
Forster. Forster became quite a popular figure with the people of
Jhunjhunu.
¤ A Quick End
In the 1830s and 40s, the Shekhawati Brigade force was actively doing
its duty. The worst offenders among the thakurs were captured and
their forts destroyed. Peace returned. Shekhawati was reverted to the
control of the Maharaja of Jaipur, and it continued uninterrupted till
the Uprising of 1857, for which some of the thakurs even sent troops
to support the British. What happened after that, of course, is well
known. The British became the absolute lords of India.
But the biggest loser in the whole game was Rajasthan’s caravan
trade. of course, the hardworking marwaris shifted their business to
the colonial cities of the country.
¤ Trade Routes Open
 This
semi-desert area of Shekhawati covering about 30,000 square kilometers
lies in the triangular mass of land between Delhi, Jaipur and Bikaner.
The Aravalli Range divides the area into two unequal halves wherein
the eastern fringes are comparatively well watered and fertile while
the larger western bit is a classic desert region with rolling,
drifting dunes interspersed with poor millet fields and grazing
grounds. How then did the unpromising region become dotted with these
extravagant havelis?
As the Mughal power declined and the British rose in the 18th
century, the first fine paintings in Shekhawati appeared. It was
around this time that the nawabs (governors in the Mughal Empire) of
Fatehpur and Jhunjhunu had been evicted and the two Shekhawat
chieftains Sardul Singh and his cousin Sheo Singh spread themselves
over the place. But they were not completely autonomous, for they had
to acknowledge the supremacy of the larger Jaipur State. However, they
could take minor internal decisions at least – for example,
summon muralists to decorate their forts and palaces with figurative
paintings.
In the turbulent 18th century, the princely states found it rather
difficult to sustain themselves, and were looking out for new methods
of filling their treasury. For the Shekhawat chieftains there were two
means of making money. The first was to extract more and more revenue
from the poor farmers who had an ever poorer harvest. and second,
through trade. Camel-borne trade was an important feature of
Rajasthan's economy, and fortunately, Shekhawati was on the caravan
route from the Gujarat ports and from central India to Delhi. Here the
Shekhawati chieftains acted cleverly. The neighbouring rajas of Jaipur
and Bikaner increased their trade taxes heavily, while Shekhawati did
not. This made Shekhawati a narrow lane, albeit a long detour, for
trading caravans to pass by by paying a lesser amount of tax.
¤ A Period of Prosperity
From the turn of the 19th century till about 1822, a vast amount of
trade was diverted through Shekhawati and more and more merchants got
attracted into the region. This was the meeting point of the camel
caravans from the Middle East, China and India. Trade in opium, cotton
and spices flourished. The merchant community that grew then is still
a prominent class in the Indian society today – the marwaris. The
huge sums of money that they dished out was to pay for the sheer
volume of artistic expression that adorns the walls of Shekhawati.
These marwaris and banias (traders by profession, not necessarily
belonging to any particular region) built palatial havelis for
themselves and memorials for their ancestors. For, the haveli was to a
bania what the fort was to a Rajput. These havelis were like fortified
houses which walled in the lives of the women, who spent most of their
days in the zenana (women's apartments) built around an inner
courtyard. The men conducted their business on the white cotton
mattresses of their sitting rooms. The marwaris also financed many
temples, gardens, baolis (step wells) and dharamshalas (caravansaries)
for the people. It was obvious that Shekhawati was growing prosperous,
thanks to the industrious trading classes. But greater wealth was yet
to flow into Shekhawati.
The flourishing cross-desert commerce wilted away as the British
political set up grew stronger. More and more stress was being laid on
the ports of Bombay and Calcutta instead, to establish monopolies for
the East India Company. By the 1820s and 30s, it became more than
clear that the future of trading did not lie in the sands of
Rajasthan. But the marwaris of Shekhawati would not be so easily put
down. Leaving their native land, the menfolk migrated all the way to
the upcoming eastern colonial capital to put their trading genius to
good use. Here too, they flourished which inspired more of their
brethren to join them in an alien land. and by the end of the 19th
century, the marwaris had carved a pretty big niche for themselves in
the economic sphere in Calcutta. Similarly, they took position in
Bombay, Surat and Hyderabad too.
Nothing in the history of India compares with the successful
migration of the Shekhawati merchants. According to an American
sociologist "it is estimated that more than half the assets in
the modern sector of the Indian economy are controlled by the trading
castes originating in the northern half of Rajasthan". and of
these, a majority originates in just a dozen little towns of
Shekhawati.
So how did that help the murals of Shekhawati? Well, the NRRs (Non
Resident Rajasthanis) poured in the dough for it, of course. They
simply opened the floodgates to a torrent of murals. This served two
purposes for them. First, they were proud to outdo the contribution of
the Shekhawat Rajput chieftains, and secondly, it eased their homesick
hearts greatly to think that their hard-earned money was being used to
beautify dear old homeland. It was as if their triumph was being
written all over the walls.
¤ Postscript
Little was painted after the 1940s. The merchants had taken their
families with them to their adopted cities.
¤ Murals That Make the Land
Although it was the Mughal kings who made murals fashionable, their
religious indictments forbade them from having man or animal as motif;
they were allowed only floral and abstract designs. To an extent this
posed as an obstacle, and mural painting in Shekhawati boomed only
after Mughal power declined. For the early corpus, the artists
depended heavily on traditional Indian subjects. This consisted of
scenes from mythology, especially of Krishna, local legends, animals
and plants, daily lives of men and women, towns and the Shekhawati
rulers.
The fresco painters were called chiteras, who belonged to the caste
of kumhars (potters). They were also called chejaras (masons) since
they worked both as painters and builders. The paintings were depicted
in bright two-dimensional paintings. The chiteras used only natural
colours for their art, like kajal (lamp black) for black, safeda
(lime) for white, neel (indigo) for blue, geru (red stone powder) for
red, kesar (saffron) for orange, pevri (yellow clay) for yellow ochre
and so on. Mixed in limewater and beaten into plaster, they remained
vibrant for almost as long as the building lasted.
But things changed with the coming of the British with whom came
their idiom. The paintings began to be a mix and match of everything.
At best, the murals were a fine hash of the vast repertoire of
existing motifs and the 'modern' ones brought in by the British. and
with the combination of the great wealth of the indulgent marwaris,
readily accessible lithographs and receptive painters, Shekhawati was
groomed into what it is.
So by the 20th century, the mural scene had changed dramatically. The
British element and the impact of technology were clearly discernable.
Muralists found nothing too trivial to draw, be it motor cars, trains,
gramophones or a foreigner in a hat! The painters took a delight in
drawing practically every subject under the sun. A new technique of
painting also surfaced – oleography. By this, an oil mural was
produced by a series of impressions of stone or metal plates (the
lithographic process), the impression from each plate being in a
different colour. The finished product resembled that of an oil
painting on canvas. Photography, which popped its head in India in
1840 also played a major role, and painters drew freely from this
medium too. They picked up the three-dimensional aspect too by the use
of shadow. Thus looking around him everywhere, the artist saw
inspiration for the pictures he would paint. In the case of colours
too, natural dyes started being replaced by chemical ones imported
from Germany and England. Much finer work was possible as these paints
were meant to be used on dry plaster (unlike the old ones which had to
be applied on wet plaster). This fusion of styles gave birth to
Shekhawati's most unique school of art, seen at its best on the walls
of the turn of the century mansions. and today, the world comes to
this storybook town to see its colourful frescoes.
Major Circuits
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