The Indian Empire
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Presented to the LIBRARIES of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by THOMAS F. McILWRAITH I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/indianempireitsh05mart 0 IP =5 * f ; VILLAGE REPUBLICS OR MUNICIPALITIES IN INDIA. 573 chase, according to the invariable rules of and, in a few days, everything was settled the country."* as if the internal relations of the community Sir Thomas Munro, in a report dated had never been disturbed. 15th of May, 1806, says—" Every village is Rightly to understand the full bearings a little republic with the Potail at the head of the question, the circumstances must be of it, and India a mass of such republics. understood which led to the formation of The inhabitants, during war, look chiefly to what is vaguely termed the their own Potail. They give themselves no Zemindar System in Bengal and trouble about the breaking up and division Bahar.—When the E. I. Company suc- of kingdoms ; while the village remains ceeded the usurping servants of the Great entire, they care not to what power it is Mogul in the possession of these provinces, ! transferred. Wherever it goes, the internal the Village system had ceased to exist ; the management remains unaltered. The Po- land was parcelled out among Moslem tax- tail is still the collector, magistrate, and gatherers, who plundered the people, hin- head farmer." — dered tillage, and annihilated the proprietary Lord Metcalfe observes " Village com- rights of small cultivators : these, in many munities are little republics, having every- cases, fled from the oppressors, who forced thing they want within themselves, and them to cultivate, not for themselves, but almost independent of any foreign rela- for the state. The very extent of the evil tions. They seem to last where nothing deterred the representatives of the Com- else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles pany from grappling with it ; and they all down, revolution succeeds revolution, Hin- temporised and theorised until the appoint- doo, Patan, Mogul, Mahratta, Sikh, Eng- ment of a governor-general, whose inde- lish, all are masters in turn ; but the vil- pendence of position and character enabled lage communities remain the same. This him to form sounder opinions regarding union of village communities, each one the great interests committed to his charge, forming a separate state in itself, has, I and gave him courage to act upon them. conceive, contributed more than any other Lord Cornwallis did not, as Warren Hast- to the preservation of the people of India ings said his predecessors had done, regard throughout all the revolutions and changes the highest seat in the council-chamber as which they have suffered, and is in a high "a nest to hatch fortunes in." Neither degree conducive to their happiness, and to did he consider the exaction of the largest the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom possible immediate revenue as an advantage and independence." to be procured at any cost. He saw a The natale solum principle is very strong crisis was at hand, and that some decided among the Hindoos, and they resemble, in measure was needed to avert it : ruin this respect, their alleged Scythic or Celtic seemed approaching from many quarters ancestors. During the ravages of the Pin- there was no capital—no fixity of tenure darrees, numerous villages in the Nerbudda the annual and capricious assessments districts had been laid waste, and were involved endless detail and general con- tenantless for more than thirty years ; but fusion, with the invariable consequence the Potails, and other hereditary village —wrong, injustice, and plunder to the pea- officers, though scattered, and residing santry. many hundred miles from their native Hopeless of disentangling so complex a homes, maintained a constant communica- subject, the governor-general cut the Gor- tion with each other, strengthened their dian knot by resolving on the elevation of a links of attachment by intermarriage, and landed proprietary to an independent posi- kept alive the hope of restoration to the tion. He was told that no persons of this home of their youth. When tranquillity class remained : he answered that it was was restored, they flocked to the ruined necessary, then, to create them. The villages, bearing sometimes the infant materials which he chose for the formation Potails (second or third in descent from of territorial gentry, consisted of the official the expelled) at their head, amid songs and functionaries, whether Mohammedan or Hin- rejoicings; the roofless houses were soon doo, employed under the Mogul government, reoccupied by the former proprietors, or in connection with the land revenues. In their heirs ; each field was taken possession Bengal these officials were termed zemindars; of without dispute by the rightful owner; but, as has been stated, they existed under * History of the Mahrattas, vol. i., p. 461. f Malcolm's Central India, vol. ii., p. 21. 4 E 5 574 ZEMINDAR SYSTEM ESTABLISHED IN BENGAL— 1 792- 3. other names in various parts of India. Their the recovery of his stipulated tax, by sum- elevation to the rank of proprietors, as an mary process ; and in default of payment, intermediate class hetween the government not only was the estate liable to confisca- and the actual cultivators, was certainly tion and sale by the government, but the not based on any inherent claim, for zemindar was subject to imprisonment, and centuries of Mohammedan exactions had forfeiture of any property he might possess. nearly obliterated all individual title to On the other hand, the zemindar could property in the soil : but the measure was only proceed against his tenants or ryots one of sound policy, and has contributed (to whom he might sub-let the land) by to the stability of British dominion by a regular, expensive, and tedious process, benefiting a large portion of the popula- in the zillah or local court, presided tion of India.* In accordance with the over by an European judge, in the dis- views of the governor-general, the lands of trict wherein the estate was situated. In Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, were divided 1794, the law against the zemindar was into estates of various dimensions, and modified by the abolition of the power of vested hereditarily in the zemindars; the imprisonment, but the government assumed produce was divided into fifths ; and it was the right to confiscate and sell the estate estimated that, after deducting the expenses immediately, if the tax were not paid each of cultivation, two-fifths would be left to the month. cultivator, and the remainder would consti- The country was then only partially tute the rent of the estate : of this, ten- recovering from centuries of desolating rule elevenths were taken as tax by government, and repeated famines : it had been drained and one-eleventh went to the zemindar. of specie by Moslem conquerors, Mahratta Mr. Rickards says, that if the rent were 60 plunderers, and European tax-gatherers; the per cent, of the produce, the share of the price of grain was low, the interest of money zemindar would be 5^ per cent.f exorbitant ; and there was little or no foreign The assessment was ordered, by the Court demand for agricultural produce: added of Directors, to he equal to the average to this, the waste lands attached to each collection of a certain period ; it was fixed at zemindarree or estate, were so ill-defined, this rate for ten years, and then declared that litigation soon commenced, and added to be permanent,! t ne government pledging to the expense of the proprietors. Many ze- itself never to exact any higher land-tax mindars found themselves unable to comply from the territories thus settled : but no with the stringent terms under which they remissions were to be made; in bad or became landlords, and the Gazette abounded good seasons, the same amount of tax was with notices for the sale of confiscated es- to be paid—one year must balance another; tates. Several ancient families were ruined; and government was freed from all pecu- and in about fifteen years, few of the original niary liability for public works available for zemindars, with whom the permanent set- irrigation, maintaining the banks of rivers, tlement had been made, retained their &c. It was therefore an excellent bargain properties ; which were sold and resold to for the state. Such a project could not native merchants and others, who brought have succeeded if waste or uncultivated capital into productive employment. But lands had not been attached to each estate, the misfortunes of the original proprietors on which no future tax was to be levied, cannot be charged on the plan itself, the and unless the proprietors had been left result of which is shown in the experience perfectly free to grow any description of of half a century. No famines have occurred ; produce, without having to pay an enhanced other sources of revenue have been created; revenue on every acre redeemed from land has become a saleable commodity waste, as was the case under the Mogul rule. worth ten years' purchase, which it is not Moreover, the collection of the revenue in any other part of India; and an influ- was much simplified and facilitated for the ential class are bound, by the tie of self- government : if the zemindar failed in his interest, to support the British government, yearly obligations, the European collector which guarantees them tranquil possession received power to proceed against him for of their paternal acres. * Malcolm, writing in 1802, expatiates on the tachment of their subjects."—Kaye's Life of Sir John happy operation of Lord Cornwallis's system of re- Malcolm, i., 176.