LECTURE a farmer of the officers of Government, the settlement was sometimes made with the cultivators direct; or the revenue was farmed in theka (farm) or ijarah (lease) for a year or sometimes for a term of three or even five years; and the headman was assessed for the lands cultivated by him like the rest of the villagers.3 in some party hears. Is now Meráttér. The headman was not generally a farmer of the revenue, Headman not or a contractor for it like the Mahomedan zemindars. In settling the amount to be charged to the village he acted chiefly in the interests of the village; and when the amount was settled, he collected that amount in money or kind from the villagers chiefly in his capacity of revenue officer. He was responsible for its collection; but does not appear to have been so otherwise than as a representative at once of the Government and the village. The assessment, as I have said, was upon the cultivators individually; but the whole village, and the headman as its representative, was But he and the responsible for its collection. Probably in still earlier times sible. when the village may have been the political and fiscal unit, the assessment may have been simply upon the village in a single sum, as was the practice since the British rule in the South of India. The various rates paid by the various classes of ryots would seem to point to a time when the village was assessed in a single sum, and the distribution of that sum amongst the ryots was made by the village and was a matter of indifference to the State. Afterwards, when the State came into more direct relations Directions for Revenue Officers, 4, 173. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 353, 575. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 60. 3 Ib. 'See Freeman's Growth of the English Constitution (London: Macmillan & Co., 1872), pp. 9, 10. village respon I. Assessment vidual cultiva tor. LECTURE with the cultivators, the assessment would still follow the established usages, and would become an assessment upon the indi- of the individual through the headman of the village, and with reference to the position of the individual in the village. As early as the time of Menu, the individual appears to have been recognised in connexion. with the revenue. On this subject the following extract from the Fifth Report is deserving of attention:-" It is represented by the Board of Revenue, in their report in favour of the village system of rent, that it was at least as old as the age of Menu; but if by this be meant that such a mode of settlement was in conformity to the general and settled practice of the Hindoo Governments, the fact appears to be at variance with such information as the Committee have been able to collect in their enquiries upon that subject. The usual course pursued by them for the realization of their territorial revenue appears to have been to collect it from those having an interest in the cultivation of the soil, either in proprietary right or as tenants, through the medium of their own officers. They may have farmed out the revenues of a whole village or more to the head inhabitants on terms of specific contract; but when this occurred this Committee believe it to have been a deviation from the general rule. In the latter periods of the Mahomedan dominion the system of farming the revenues by degrees came into very general use; and to this, it is believed, may be traced the origin of most of the zemindars in the Bengal provinces and in the Northern Circars. They were, as it is now pretty clearly ascertained, in general no other than the revenue servants of districts or sub-divisions of a province; who, as the Committee have formerly explained, were obliged by the conditions on which they held their office to account for the collections they made, or the share of the crop they received from the ryots, to the governing power in whose service they were employed; and for which service they were in the enjoyment of certain remuneratory advantages, regulated on the principle of a percentage or commission on the revenues within the limits of their local charge; but having, in the process of time and during periods of revolution or of weakness in the sovereign authority, acquired an influence and ascendancy which it was difficult to keep within the confines of official duty, it was found convenient to treat with them as contractors for the revenues of their respective districts; that is, they were allowed, on stipulating to pay the State a certain sum for such advantage for a given period, to appropriate the revenues to their own use and profit: the amount of the sum for which they engaged depended on the relative strength or weakness of the parties; the ability of the government to enforce or of the zemindar to resist. In this situation of things, the practice of sub-renting naturally ensued; and the detail of the farming system would extend itself to several villages. In the Carnatic territory, where large tracts were leased by the Nabob Mahomed Ally to individuals for a greater or lesser number of years under engagements entered into at the seat of his residency, it was found, on that territory being annexed to the British possessions, that the revenues of each village were generally sub-rented to the potails. But in the districts ceded by the Nizam, and in the Mysore country, which also passed from the rule of Mahomedan Princes to that of the East India Company, sub-renting by villages was by no means universal; though it existed to a considerable extent. Whole districts were still under ryot LECTURE LECTURE I. Headman long recognised. The putwarry and canoongoe. war rents; rents not farmed to the potails of villages, but which were collected by the potails in the name and for the use of Government, in their natural and constitutional character, as the agents or superintendents of the villages to which they belonged, agreeably to the ancient practice of the Hindoos; and as your Committee may add, according to the institutions of their native rulers; for, according to those institutions as they have been explained in a foregoing part of this Report, the potail, in the character abovementioned, and also the curnum or village accountant, has, from the earliest times, been in the possession of a rent-free portion of land, and in the enjoyment of regular and established perquisites attached to their offices." I shall dwell upon the growth of the zemindars, which is referred to in the above passage when I come to deal with the Mahomedan period. The headmen retained their position under Hindoo rule; but the Mahomedans ejected many of them, giving them however an allowance. Even under British rule the settlements were made and revenue collected through the headman as we have seen; this was also done in the Havellies, and substantially the same course was followed in the jageer.3 There are two other officers whose functions are important, both in connexion with the village and the general administration of the revenue,-the putwarry, or village registrar and accountant, and the canoongoe or pergunnah registrar; but, as these offices were not superseded during the Mahomedan rule to the same extent as the headman's, ' Fifth Report, Vol. II, 113, 114. 3 Fifth Report, Vol. II, 32, 43, THE CHOWDHRY. = 37 LECTURE The zemindar. I shall give some account of them in describing the Mahomedan land system. Again there were the rudiments of the zemindar in the Hindoo system; but this too will be more conveniently dealt with in the Mahomedan system. It remains to notice the machinery for revenue collection above the headman. The officer to whom the headmen paid the revenue, when they paid it direct, was the fiscal head of the pergunnah or bisi, a division consisting of a number of villages (gaong or gram mouzah). He was called a Chowdhry, Bissoi, Khand-adipati or Desmookh; The chowdhry. and, with the assistance of a military force of khandaits or pykes under a military commander, preserved the peace and collected the revenue of the pergunnah and transmitted it to the treasury. He retained ten per cent. of the collections as his remuneration; but was frequently paid by an assignment of the revenue of a certain portion of land. Such assignments are known as jageers. The zemindars of Mahomedan times grew in many cases out of the Hindoo chowdhries. The king's share, with the collection of which the Chow- The amount of the king's dhry was ultimately charged, was generally paid in kind, but share. sometimes in money, especially in the case of garden ground. As we have seen this share theoretically varied from one-eighth to one-twelfth, and might be as much as one-fourth. With regard to the proportion taken in practice, there is consider Patton's Asiatic Monarchies, 166. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 7. 2 Patton's Asiatic Monarchies, 79. Orissa, Vol. II, 216. 3 Patton's Asiatic Monarchies, 81. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 7. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 21. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 8, 9, 41, 59. Great Rent Case, B. L. R., Sup. Vol., 209. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 128. |