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\ THE INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL! ECONOMICS (Organ of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics) • Vol. I July 1946 No. CONTENTS PAGE. The Journal . • • • • • • •. • • 5 The Land System of Bihar—Gyan Chand .. • • 01, Agricultural Statistics of India—N. S. R. Sastry • • 28 Land Management and Economic Planning—Tarlok Singh 36 Future of Indian Agriculture—S. Kesava Iyengar • • • • 42 Government and \AgTiculturc—E. R. Dhongde • • • • 56 Book Reviews :— Royal Institute of International Affairs—A Food Plan for India—M.L.D. • • • • • • 65 N. Gangulee—The Battle of the Land—M.L.D. • • 66 P. N. Agarwala—Economic Planning and Agriculture— D.T.L. • • • • • • 67 Dr. Baljit Singh—Whither Agriculture in India S.M.J. 69 M. N. Desai—Rural Karnatak—S.M.J. V. Liversage—Land Tenures in the Colonies—S.M.J. V. Balsubramanian—A Policy for Agriculture—M.B.D. • • 72 Government of India—Blue Books on Agricultural Econo- mics—M.L.D. •. • • • • • • • • 74 R • 3/- per Copy. Rs..12j- per annum. THE INDIAN SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS BOMBAY AIMS .4ND OBJECTS To promote the investigation, study and improvement of the economic and social conditions of agriculture and rural life through (a) periodical conferences for the discussion of problems; (b) the publication of papers or summaries of papers, eithc— separately or collectively; or in a periodical which may be issued under the auspices of the society; (c) co-operation• with other institutions having similar objects, • such as the International Conference of Agricultural Eco- nomists and the Indian Economic Association; etc. THE LAND SYSTEM OF pIHAR • BY GYAN CHAND Professor. of Economics and the Head of the Department of Economics, Patna College, Patna University. The land system of Bihar, as it exists today, has given rise to extremely complicated agrarian-relations and has developed under the provisions of the permanent settlement introduced by Lord Cornwallis in 1793 in Bengal, Bihar and a part of Orissa. The Per- manent Settlement was, as is well known, originally a measure de- signed to ensure the prompt and punctual payment of revenue which was fixed in perpetuity. The State has, by this measure, foregone the right to increase its revenue by enhancement of its fiscal demand and suffered a considerable loss. Fiscal stability has been secured but the price which the community has had to pay for it is measured not merely by the loss of revenues to the exchequer. The loss which the community has suffered is far greater almost incalculable, and is due to the growth of an agrarian economy in which land—the most important asset of the community—is being cultivated under a sys- tem which is exceedingly wasteful and inefficient and has become a source of enormous amount of human suffering and social conflict. In this system, there are four principal elements i.e. the State, the landlords (including the classes who do not bear that name but are in effect rent-receivers), the cultivators and agricultural labour- ers. A detailed statement of the existing position of these various classes, may be given here in order to show the complicated charac- ter of the system and its inhibitory effects. Estates Held Directly By The State The estates held directly by the Government are either man- aged by it for proprietors or as proprietors. The former are estates with regard to which Government is in the position of a trustee owing to the proprietors' inability to manage them for various rea- sons. The reasons generally are: minority of proprietors, disputes of titles, the estates being encumbered by debts or general lack of ability of the proprietors. The management of these estates is restor- ed to the proprietors when they come of age or are otherwise in a 7 position to resume their management. Estates of the other type are permanently held by Government and have been acquired by it by forfeiture, escheat, or purchase of proprietary rights. The total number of both varieties of estates directly managed by the State in 1941-42 was 368 and their rental value Rs. 13.56 lakhs. These estates are held by the State, but in their management no new principles of land administration or utilization are introduced. Most of the land in these estates, as all over the province, is in the hands of the protected tenants; the unit of cultivation is in most cases small and uneconomic and holdings are fragmented. In the estates held permanently by Government, over which it exercises absolute proprietary rights, there are in several cases also tenure holders or sub-proprietors, who realise rents from tenants, exercise landlord's powers over them and have to pay fixed amounts to Gov- ernment as their superior landlord. The state management of these estates has therefore no special significance from the economic stand- point. A certain amount of these incomes of these estates is spent upon improvements and to that extent the state management is bene- ficial. In 1941-42 Rs. 1.45 lacs out of the total realization of Rs. 14.28 lacs (Rs. 7.76 lacs current + Rs. 6.52 arrears) or little less than 10 per cent was provided for improvements. This is a higher percent- age than what is spent by private landlords on the improvement of their estates for the latter hardly spend anything for the purpose. But the standard of cultivation and the average yield from land in Government estates are about the same as in other estates. The per- centage of collection in these estates is lower than in private estates and also much lower than the percentage of revenue collections. In 1941-42 only Rs. 7.76 lacs out of the total current demand of Rs. 13.56 lacs or nearly 57 per cent was realized. For the same year per- centage collection of revenue was nearly 90. In the collection of revenue, promptness of payment has, ever since the introduction of the Permanent Settlement, been insisted upon and enforced, but per- centage of rent collection in these estates is known to be lower than in private estates and may be;taken as an index of the greater ineffi- ciency of Government management of landed estates or partially of greater consideration in the realization of dues in hard cases. The general impression is that though petty exactions by Gov- ernment agents in these estates are as common as in other public de- partments, tenants are relatively better off on Government estates than on private estates, i.e., they are treated with less lack of con- sideration than by private landlords or their agents. 8 Management by Government of private estates in certain cases is unavoidable in the existing circumstances when proprietors are too ,young to manage their estates or the title over them is in dis- pute and being adjudicated upon by courts. But Government also take over management of heavily encumbered estates or when the proprietors are likely to lose their estates by their extravagance or reckless dissipation. In such cases Government policy has been to save the landlords from the consequences of their own folly and pro-- tea them against bankruptcy or alienation of their properties to their creditors who in a number of cases" belong to classes with very slender traditional connection with land or agriculture. The Government solicitude for landed gentry is intelligible and is based Upon the assumption that it is in the interests of the tenants in parti- cular and agrarian economy in general that landed aristocracy should be preserved and the growing influence and power of the newly rising classes checked. But experience is showing increasingly that confidence in the traditional position of the landed aristocracy is mis- Oaced and attempt to save them from themselves a waste of effort. In Chota Nagpur, special measures have been taken to preserve indi- genous chieftainships and the estate exempted from ordinary Sale Law; and when their estates get heavily encumbered, they are taken under protective management by Government to prevent them from passing into the hands of the money-lending classes. The result has been that "many of the Zarnindars regard" to quote from the Settle- ment. Report of Mr. B. K. Gokhale, I.C.S., of the Manbhum district, "protective management of their estates, varied with brief intervals Of dissipation, as their'natural condition." Mr. Gokhale is of opinion that -struggle for existence should be given free play in these cases and the Zarnindars allowed to succumb if they cannot look after themselves under modern conditions. Protective management of estates is common throughout the Province and many estates have been preserved which otherwise would have been broken by the struggle for existence. There is really not much to choose between the old and the new landlords so far as the interests of the commu- nity and tenants are concerned, but the artificial preservation of a decaying class in a disintegrating economy only increases its stresses and heightens the contrast between the needs of to-day and the con- ception of the proprietors of land of their place and importance in the rural economy. Landlords—Their Origin - The estates held by Government are a very small proportion of the total area of the province and their rental value is, as stated 9 above, about 13 lacs while the total- estimated gross rental of private estates is Rs. 12.78 crores for 1941-42 for the Province as a whole. That means that the private landlords' rental is nearly hundred times the rental of estates held by Government. In a sense it is true that these landlords were created by Permanent Settlement. There were no landlords in the Province who held absolute proprietary rights over their land and could do whatever they liked with it.

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