Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[blocks in formation]

revenues of whole villages and even whole pergunnahs as their nankar in some instances.'

LECTURE
IV.

In absorbing the other emoluments of the village headmen, The purjote. the zemindar also appropriated, as part of his perquisites, the purjote or mohturfa, the fees paid by the non-agricultural members of the village community; and also the Julkur, bunkur, ghasskur, and rights known as julkur (water and fishery dues), bunkur phulkur. (forest dues), ghasskur (pasturage dues), and phulkur (dues from fruit trees and orchards); he had also a preferential right to the use of the tanks, commons, and pasture lands of the village. He claimed also the services of the village officers of all classes, and the gratuitous labour of some of the village labourers: claims derived from the State on the one hand, and the village headman on the other. He took a seer on each maund of grain; and an anna and a half or two annas on a kutcha beegah, or half beegah, of other produce. He also took half an anna in the rupee of money revenue, which was paid by each cultivator to him as his zemindarana or malikana.5 These dues were collected by the zemindar direct from the ryots as his perquisites, over and above the amount paid as the Government share; and he derived his right to them from the ancient headmen and malgoozars. These sums did not in consequence appear in his accounts with the Government, but appeared in his accounts with the cultivators or

Fifth Report, Vol. II, 15. Compare the similar proceedings of the Poligars in Southern India; Fifth Report, Vol. II, 90, 91, 96, 97. " Land Tenure by a Civilian, 60, 69.

3 Ib

Orissa, Vol. I, 56, 57; Vol. II, 235.

• Land Tenure by a Civilian, 60, 69, 70. Orissa, Vol. I, 56, 57; Vol. II, 235. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 9.

5 Land Tenure by a Civilian, 60, 86.

• Ib.

LECTURE

IV.

Cesses.

[blocks in formation]

the village under the head of sewaee. They were originally allowances for the risk and trouble of collection,2 although the zemindars added to these many other sources of remuneration.

The zemindar's allowance for collection was nominally five per cent.,3 and his whole allowance ten per cent. ; but his profits in some cases were altogether from twelve to twenty-five per cent. of the gross collections.5

Akbar had strictly forbidden all exactions beyond the assessed revenue, but the prohibition had been ineffectual; the exaction and payment of cesses being too congenial to native ideas to be uprooted. Indeed, in spite of continued prohibitions, from the time of Akbar to the present day, the same system still flourishes. The zemindars in Bengal levied cesses on every domestic event occurring in their families, as well as on many other occasions and on various pretexts. Amongst these were mangun, a contribution to assist the zemindar when in embarrassed circumstances; parbonee, to enable him to celebrate festivals ;7 najay, an assessment upon the actual tenants to make up the loss arising from other tenants dying or absconding. On births, marriages, and deaths in his family, on his being fined or incurring any extra

Land Tenure by a Civilian, 70.

2 Ib., 60, 61, 70.

3 Fifth Report, Vol. I, 367.

✦ Ib., 274. Orissa, Vol. I, 53, 54; Vol. II, 232. Patton's Asiatic Monarchies, 161. Evidence of Mr. Tucker before the Select Committee of the House of Commons (1832), 1817, 1818, 2037.

5 Orissa, Vol. II, 231 to 236.

Ayeen Akbery, Vol. I, 383.

7 Fifth Report, Vol. I, 141. Orissa, Vol. I, 56, 57; Vol. II, 235. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 60, 70.

8

Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 7.

1

.CESSES.

3

121

expense for building or through contributing to any Government project, he exacted a cess from the ryots: if he constructed an embankment, the ryots had to contribute to pay for it; and he demanded a fee to defray his travelling expenses. Many of these exactions, although rigorously forbidden, are still levied with little resistance. Such exactions are probably of very ancient origin; and submission to them had become a habit in very early times, and one which it has been found impossible to uproot. For instance, the zemindars used also to collect the sayer duties, being the revenue derived from other sources than land: and these collections they accounted for separately from the mal or land-revenue. Amongst these sayer duties were rents or dues for roads, and for stalls at markets, When the sayer was abolished by the English Government, the zemindars were compensated for the loss of their profit on the road dues and stall rents as well as on the collections generally. But according to an inveterate habit in India, the abolished imposts reappeared as extra cesses. The zemindar, like the State in Mahomedan times, by thus imposing special taxes, avoided as much as possible the appearance of increasing the assessment, wisely preferring to attain his object in an indirect way, and one congenial to the habits of the people. Sir George Campbell complains, that although in Orissa the respective rights of the zemindar and the ryot have been carefully ascertained and recorded, yet these illegal cesses are still in full vigour. The zemindar does not attempt to raise the rent to a rack-rent, but

Rouse's Dissertations, 293, 294.

2 Whinfield's Landlord and Tenant, 77. Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 226 to 232.

Land Tenure by a Civilian, 70, 112. Orissa, Vol, I, 53; Vol. II, 231 to 236.

LECTURE
IV.

LECTURE

IV.

[blocks in formation]

revives the old taxes on stalls and transit, for the abolition of which he has received compensation.' And he gives a list of twenty-seven illegal cesses still levied in the district of the Twenty-four Pergunnahs. The following remarks of his may usefully be quoted:"The agricultural cesses consist of various dues and charges levied from the ryots in addition to the regular rent and generally in proportion to the rent. The Permanent Settlement Regulations positively prohibited all such duties, strictly confining the zemindars to the customary rent proper, but in this as in other things these laws have been wholly set at defiance in modern times. The modern zemindar taxes his ryots for every extravagance or necessity that circumstances may suggest, as his predecessors taxed them in the past. He will tax them for the support of his agents of various kinds and degrees, for the payment of his income tax and his postal cess, for the purchase of an elephant for his own use, for the cost of the stationery of his establishment, for the cost of printing the forms of his rent receipts, for the payment of his lawyers. The milkman gives his milk, the oilman his oil, the weaver his clothes, the confectioner his sweetmeats, the fisherman his fish. The zemindar levies benevolences from his ryots for a festival, for a religious ceremony, for a birth, for a marriage; he exacts fees from them on all changes of their holdings, on the exchange of leases and agreements, and on all transfers and sales; he imposes a fine on them when he settles their petty disputes, and when the police or when the magistrate visit his estates; he levies blackmail on them when social scandals transpire; or when an offence or

Administration Report, for 1872-73; Introduction, p. 16. 2 Ib., The Report, p. 23.

ALLOWANCES TO THE ZEMINDAR.

123

IV.

an affray is committed. He establishes his private pound LECTURE near his cutcherry, and realizes a fine for every head of cattle that is caught trespassing on the ryot's crops. The abwabs, as these illegal cesses are called, pervade the whole zemindari system. In every zemindari there is a naib; under the naib there are gomastahs; under the gomastah there are piyadas or peons. The naib exacts a 'hisabana' or perquisite for adjusting accounts annually. The naibs and gomastahs take their share in the regular abwabs; they have their little abwabs of their own. The naib occasionally indulges in an ominous raid in the mofussil: one rupee is exacted from every ryot who has a rental, as he comes to proffer his respects. Collecting peons, when they are sent to summon ryots to the landholder's cutcherry, exact from them daily four or five annas as summons fees."

the zemindar.

The expenses incurred in keeping up establishments, Allowances to cutcherries, &c., for the realization of the revenue, were allowed for in the accounts between the zemindar and the Government; and a sufficient amount of revenue was appropriated to the payment of such expenses: the balance, after deducting these expenses, with the nankar and other allowances under the head of muzkoorat, was the net revenue which the zemindar bound himself to pay to the State.1 The details of these deductions will be more conveniently dealt with when I come to describe the mode of settlement for the revenue.

emoluments

The emoluments and privileges enjoyed by the zemindars The zemindar's have been shown to be attached to the office, and to be official in their origin. enjoyed by virtue of their "official connexion with the ruling power through a contract for the payment of the

Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 321.

« ПредишнаНапред »