pindarries

Updated: May 17, 2025

The brilliant successes of Wellesley, however, were not appreciated by the Board of Directors, who wanted dividends rather than glory, and he was recalled. There were no new conquests until 1817, under the government of the Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquis of Hastings. He made war on the Pindarries, who were bands of freebooters in Central India.

John Lord - A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon: For the Use of Schools and Colleges

This was expedient because undoubtedly our restrictions led to the most hostile feelings on the part both of princes and people, to the injury of the traders, to violent and offensive interference on our part in the internal policy of foreign States, and to smuggling protected by large bodies of armed men. The smugglers would soon have been Pindarries. This system began only in 1825.

Earl of Edward Law Ellenborough - A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II

They always figure on a background of red chuprassies. Such officials are what Lord Lytton calls White Baboos. Whitley Stokes, in his own artless way, once proposed legislating against chuprassies, I am told. A great Maharaja once told me that it was the tyranny of the Government chuprassies that made him take to drink. He spoke of them as "the Pindarries of modern India."

George Robert Aberigh-Mackay - Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series