LECTURE III. seen that in Hindoo times the pergunnah or bisi was the smallest official fiscal division, consisting of a number of grams or villages, afterwards called mouzahs. This division was administered by a chowdhry assisted by a military force under a separate command. It is not easy to discover whether there were any or what divisions above these; or whether in Hindoo times, when the country was divided into smaller states than in the days of the Mahomedan Emperors, these officers were directly responsible to the rajah. But in Mahomedan times there came to be a much more elaborate division. In the first place all the revenue- Khalsa and jageer lands. paying land, or land assessed for revenue, was divided into two classes, the khalsa lands paying revenue into the khalsa shereefa or royal treasury itself; and the jageer lands, the revenue of which was assigned, and was either remitted to the holder of the land, or paid under the orders of the authorities to military commanders and others for their support. The khalsa lands were the most central Khalsa lands. and the richest ;3 the jageer lands being the less cultivated and less manageable portions of the country, border territory and other tracts in which probably the revenue could be less easily collected through the ordinary civil officers. The Jageer lands. jageer lands, called also paibakee, as assessed by Todar Mull, comprised as much as two-fifths of the whole. The necessity for this mode of collecting revenue tended to diminish as the Mahomedan rule became more firmly settled, while its disadvantages must have been great in the Fifth Report, Vol. II, 166, 167. 2 Ib., Vol. I, 103. 'Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 415. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 166. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 415. LECTURE eyes of a government jealous of independent authority. We consequently find Jaffier Khan reducing this proportion to one-fourth. The division into khalsa and jageer lands is said to have been derived from the Hindoos; but in truth it arose from the necessities of the case, and was therefore, in one form or another, adopted in many countries. For instance the same division is said to have prevailed in Persia; and if the Mahomedans found it existing in India, it is probably another instance of the similarity of the land system they brought with them to that which they found existing. The khalsa lands furnished the revenue from which such of the expenses of government as were paid direct were defrayed. As I have said troops were supported and other establishments provided for by jageers or assignments of revenue of a particular district. Havilly lands. The khalsa lands included the havilly or household lands, the revenue of which was especially appropriated to the expenses of the Court and the chief officers of State. havilly lands were generally near the principal place of the district or in the neighbourhood of the capital; and were usually, at least in the Northern Circars, not included in zemindaries, but held khas as it is called;5 that is, the revenue was collected from the cultivators by the direct agency of officers of the Government without the intervention of the zemindars. In fact with respect to those lands, over which the State would naturally have a greater control, the collectors of revenue still remained mere officials. These 'Fifth Report, Vol. I, 237. 2 Orissa, Vol. II, 222. 3 Patton's Asiatic Monarchies, 64. LECTURE Again, the whole country was divided into fifteen Soubahs in Akbar's time, and the Soubah of Bengal was divided into circars or sircars; the circars into pergunnahs; and the The Soubah. pergunnahs into turfs, kismuts, and villages or mouzahs.2 A division similar to that of the circar existed in Orissa in Hindoo times under the name of dandput: it included a The circar. large number of pergunnahs; but this division became obsolete there under Mahomedan rule.3 In later times, The chucklah. under Jaffier Khan, the Soubah was divided into thirteen chucklahs, each containing more than one circar, of which latter there were then 32. The larger division superseded the smaller, and the chucklah became the next division below the Soubah.5 of fiscal Three periods are spoken of with respect to the divi- Three stages sions adopted for fiscal purposes. In Todar Mull's time division. (1582 A.D.) there were 19 circars and 682 pergunnahs. In 1658 at the end of Shah Jehan's reign there were 34 circars and 1350 pergunnahs, including some portions of the country not included in Todar Mull's scheme; and in the time of Mahomed Shah and Jaffier Khan (1722) there were 13 chucklahs and 1660 pergunnahs. It was upon the footing of this last arrangement that the assul toomar jumma, as it came down to British times, was based; which, although derived from the assessment of Todar Mull, was considerably modified before it reached the ultimate form in which it survived so long as the standard of revenue. III. Zemindaries. LECTURE The khalsa lands were subdivided into zemindaries, which were settled for with the zemindars.1 Jageer lands are spoken of also as being parts of zemindaries, and as thus paying malikana to the zemindar; but this was probably true only of those jageers which consisted of assignments of the revenue of lands which had once been khalsa lands, or of lands as to which the zemindars had already acquired the right to collect the revenue. Those jageers which consisted of assignments of the whole revenue, or of the land with the revenue, of districts imperfectly subdued or previously under tribute, and which had therefore probably never paid revenue into the treasury either with or without the intervention of a zemindar, would most likely not come within the jurisdiction of any zemindar; except when the jageerdar might choose to collect his revenue through the agency of zemindars, or in cases in which zemindars had grown up in the jageer in course of time. But the khalsa lands were necessarily divided into zemindaries, when the mode of collection through those officers became general. And a zemindary was sometimes found to include portions of several chucklahs, just as the ryot's lands came to be split up amongst several zemindaries. Thus the zemindary of Rajshahy was scattered over eight chucklahs. It was customary, however, to settle for the whole zemindary in the chucklah in which its head or sudder station was situated. The village (gaong, deh, gram or mouzah) was in theory the ultimate unit for fiscal purposes; except at those periods when the State, desiring to supplant all intermediate interests, endeavoured to deal with the ryots direct. Several of these villages formed 1 Fifth Report, Vol. I, 237. 2 Ib., Vol. I, 389. LECTURE III. attached to of the zemin a turf (or turriff) or dhee; and several of these were included in a pergunnah. Each of these divisions, as well as the zemindary, had a separate zemindar's cutcherry which A cutcherry was both office and court; the head office of the zemindary each division being called the sudder cutcherry. In these cutcherries dary. all the zemindary records were kept and the zemindary affairs managed.' The jumma, or total revenue payable, was also, in the zemindary accounts, distributed according to these divisions of the zemindary under the heads of dheehatee jumma and pergunnatee jumma; being the revenue derived by the zemindar from the dhee and pergunnah respectively. The zemindar's jumma which he paid to the superior revenue authorities for transmission to the treasury was called the sudder (or head) jumma, to distinguish it from the mofussil (or branch) jumma paid by the subdivisions of the zemindary. Attached to each of these subdivisions was a regular establishment, and the whole formed a complete organisation which was theoretically of the most centralised kind; at least until the growing power of the zemindars induced them to strive after and obtain an almost independent position. sation above Above the zemindar was the fiscal organisation maintained Fiscal organiby the State. The circar of the Mahomedan times in another the zemindar. form, but perhaps on a smaller scale, corresponded, as before mentioned, to the dandputs of some parts of the country.3 The pergunnah was in Hindoo times administered Fifth Report, Vol. I, 132; Vol. II, 12, 158. Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 68, 69, 70. Evidence of Lieut.-Col. Sykes before the Select Committee of the House of Commons (1832), 2173. ' Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 69, 70. ' Orissa, Vol. II, 216. |