IV. LECTURE land revenue;" and they consequently lost such rights when they were dismissed. If the zemindar declined to agree to the terms proposed by the State, or to pay the amount of revenue required, the revenue was farmed out in theeka or ijarah, and the zemindar reverted to his former position; paying revenue like other cultivators for any land occupied by him in the zemindary district. Dismissal of the zemiudar. It has been questioned whether a zemindar could be ousted. If my account of the origin and growth of his rights is well-founded, the zemindar would cherish a notion that he could not, under ordinary circumstances, be ousted; while the State, regarding him as an officer, would claim to dismiss him like any other officer, and would sometimes assert its right; and according to the course of events as already witnessed, the zemindar's claim would be likely to prevail in the end. And this is very much what we find actually taking place; the zemindar being theoretically liable to dismissal at pleasure, but practically scarcely ever dismissed. Thus Sir W. Boughton Rouse, a staunch advocate of the proprietary rights of the zemindars, says they could only be dispossessed on account of crime, failure to pay the stipulated revenue, rebellion, public robbery, or other flagrant misconduct. This however shows that the zemindar's position was not quite that of an English proprietor. Another authority says that in the Northern Circars the ancient zemindary families were in 'Land Tenure by a Civilian, 72. Evidence of Mr. Fortescue before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, (1832), 2283 to 2285, 2288, 2289. 2 Land Tenure by a Civilian, 60, 71, 86. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 176. * Rouse's Dissertations, 78. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 242. practice scarcely ever removed except for rebellion.' On the other hand, Mr. Grant says that the sunnud, spécifying no term of office, was of indefinite duration, and could be revoked at pleasure. And other authorities assert that the zemindar could be dismissed, like any other officer,3 at the will of the Sovereign. And it is further alleged that the zemindars were sometimes ejected; but apparently mainly on the grounds specified by Sir W. Boughton Rouse, and which were usually stated in the new sunnud;5 and that, even when the occupant was ejected, the permanent and hereditary character of the office was so much regarded in practice that one of the family of the ejected zemindar was usually allowed to succeed ; and that it was only when no fit person could be found in the ejected zemindar's family that a stranger was appointed; but that even then the new zemindar was considered bound to make a provision by malikana or otherwise for the family of the former occupant.? Sometimes, moreover, the State took the zemindary into its own or khas management. It was however probably only in later times, when the zemindar's rights were at their highest pitch, that dismissal was so rare; for we know that, during the vigorous times of Mahomedan rule, the 8 'Evidence of Mr. Campbell before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, (1832), 2358. 2 Fifth Report, Vol. I, 360. 3 Evidence of Mr. Fortescue before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, (1832), 2288, 2289. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 33, 72. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 572. 5 Land Tenure by a Civilian, 72. 242, 355. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, Land Tenure by a Civilian, 72. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 320, 343, 355. LECTURE Ib. LECTURE Allowances to displaced zemindars. zemindars were often expelled; and so late as the 18th century the Nizam's Government expelled the great majority of them throughout his dominions.' Jaffier Khan also expelled the old zemindars and introduced new ones. The claims of the ancient zemindars and village headman, when thus displaced, were usually recognized to the extent of giving them an allowance for subsistence; and sometimes they continued to receive this allowance in the shape of payments from the new occupants called russoom-izemindaree. This practice probably accounts for the payment, to a displaced zemindar by his successor, of malikana for the subsistence of his family. When the zemindar was finally ejected, he ordinarily retained only his own lands and paid revenue for them ; but when only temporarily displaced he retained his nankar according to Mr. Shore.5 Sometimes, when the zemindar was incompetent, Government appointed an officer to take khas possession of the zemindary; and in such cases, as also when the revenues were farmed, it was usual in the later Mahomedan and British periods to allow the zemindar malikana, at least in Behar, at the rate of ten per cent. on the revenue, although the zemindar performed none of the functions of the office. And without dismissing the zemindar the State sometimes appointed an aumil or sezawul to check and control him, or to collect Fifth Report, Vol. II, 8. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 348. "Land Tenures by a Civilian, 61. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 150, 161, 3 Land Tenures by a Civilian, 76. 4 Ib., 33. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 321, 322, 345, 432. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 161, 176. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 161. 6 Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 243, 321, 344. the revenue when there was danger of default being made.' If the heirs of the zemindar failed the Government disposed of the zemindary. A zemindary so disposed of was called a jutekaly zemindary. LECTURE The zemindars grew to abuse their power to an oppressive Under-renting. extent. As the Government had delegated its authority to them, and created interests between itself and the cultivators without vigilantly maintaining the ancient checks and restrictions, the zemindars in turn delegated their authority to under-renters and farmers, and inaugurated the system of subtenancy which has developed, under the fostering influences of peace and a perpetual settlement, to its present dimensions. The zemindars and their mercenary under-farmers and renters had become very oppressive to the ryots in Mahomedan times. If the crop turned out abundant they exacted the revenue in kind, although they had previously contracted for it in money; and conversely. If the ryots were remiss in paying, they quartered their sezawuls and other officers upon them.5 They removed ryots from lands which those ryots had rendered fertile in order to bestow the lands upon their friends and favourites. Of their illegal exactions I have already spoken. ings of Jaffier Khan. In the description I have given of the zemindars I have The proceednot attempted to distinguish between the various periods of Mahomedan rule, or the various stages of the zemindar's growth, except in a general way. The materials are not 1 Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 351. 'Rouse's Dissertations, 52. Fifth Report, Vol. II, 59, 60, 76. Compare the Poligars of Southern India; Fifth Report, Vol. II, 90, 91, 96, 97. LECTURE IV. His attempt to reduce the zemindar's power. forthcoming which would enable us satisfactorily to do this. But I must give some account of the radical changes which Jaffier Khan attempted to introduce, and to which I have often referred. A consideration of these changes will suggest such modification of the foregoing description as can be safely made without fuller information. Up to this period the zemindars who had developed out of the ancient system had continued to a great extent their old functions under a new name and with greatly increased and increasing power. The headmen, desmookhs, chowdhries and rajahs, as well as the Mahomedan revenue officers, tended to become zemindars; and the zemindar gradually absorbed all the functions and emoluments of those officers, and occupied their place in relation to the Government. But Jaffier Khan (otherwise called Moorshid Kooly Khan) who governed Bengal from 1711 to 1726, effected for the time a revolution in the position of the zemindars.' As I have before suggested, his aim was, besides an increase of revenue, greater centralisation and the destruction of the hereditary element in the zemindar's claims. He aimed at superseding the zemindar except as a paid official. With this view, as well as with a view to increase the revenue, he sought to appropriate for the use of the State the whole of the zemindar's emoluments and even more; and as one mode of effecting this he was the first to impose on a large scale those variable assessments known as abwabs." He also sought to obtain greater centralisation by making the fiscal divisions 1 Land Tenure by a Civilian, 41, 43, 50. * Land Tenure by a Civilian, 41, 43, 50. III, 235, 236. 3 Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 236. Baillie's Land Tax, xli. |