larger, and therefore formed the Soubah into chucklahs which gradually superseded the circars. As the old chowdhries and crories, and the zemindars who had grown out of the old system, were refractory, he re-arranged Bengal into official zemindaries, increasing their extent and diminishing their number. Thus the large zemindaries of Rajshahy, Nuddea, and others were formed. He abolished the military functions of the zemindars, and consequently allowed no charge against the revenue for sebundy or revenue peons or for a militia of any kind; the only army kept up consisting of 2,000 horse and 4,000 foot.3 A similar revolution had been effected in Behar in 1685; but it was not carried so far, and the zemindars and village maliks were not so generally dispossessed.5 In Bengal the headmen and ancient zemindars were reduced to be dependent talookdars, under-renters, and middlemen or kutkinadars; and generally the headmen sunk to be mere head ryots, without any share in the collection of the revenue, except as servants of the zemindars; as the munduls are at present wherever employed. They were still however sufficiently prominent to be made the medium of communication between the zemindar and the villagers; and, in return for their connivance at the zemindar's exactions, they were allowed to escape with a lower rate of revenue;7 LECTURE Fifth Report, Vol. I, 236, 389. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 41, 43, 50, 63. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 104, 258. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 273. Baillie's Land Tax, xli. * Ib. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 66. • Land Tenure by a Civilian, 64. 7 Ib., 64, 65. and they still had the charge of directing and improving cultivation as servants of the zemindar.1 This violent change was brought about by violent means. Jaffier Khan resorted to great cruelties in order to break the power of the zemindars. He put them into a pit filled with filth, or tied them up in bags with cats and other animals, and committed other atrocities upon which it is unnecessary to dwell here. He imprisoned the mutseddies, aumils, and canoongoes; and forced defaulting zemindars to turn Mahomedans; which shows that there were many Hindoos among them. Unable to bring the zemindars to forward his views, he ordered them to be imprisoned, and put the collection of the revenue into the hands of aumils, who were still Bengalees, it being probably difficult to find any others competent to undertake the office. These aumils executed tahuds and muchulkas and paid the collections into the treasury direct. He proceeded to measure all the land in cultivation together with the bunjer or fallow. And he advanced, direct from the treasury, loans or tuccavy, to enable the cultivators to buy implements or seed. These proceedings seem to have completed the process of destruction of the ancient system. It was a vigorous attempt to cut down the zemindar's power. The zemindar seems already to have assumed in many Fifth Report, Vol. I, 19, 142. * Stewart's History of Bengal, 232 to 236. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 104, 260. Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 355. Robinson's Land Tenures, 23. * Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 353; Vol. III, 273. 5 Fifth Report, Vol. I, 104. Ib. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 272. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 41. LECTURE IV. The zemindars power. instances a right to the headman's emoluments;1 and certainly after this date we cannot find that any rights of value were left to any of the ancient officials. The zemin- regained their dar's power was only temporarily affected by Jaffier Khan's proceedings and soon revived again. Sujah Khan the successor of Jaffier Khan restored many of the zemindars; and the result of the blow struck by Jaffier Khan was that the zemindar, at whom it was aimed, was the only one that survived it. And after this period the hereditary claims of the zemindars were recognised, and their acts became more oppressive than before, especially as the Mahomedan power was fast declining. It was after this that under-farming began to prevail so largely: the under-renters again underletting and so on. Exactions were heavier than ever, and the ryot was squeezed to the utmost. One favourite mode of exaction was by threatening to measure the ryot's lands; since most ryots held more land than they were assessed for, this being probably their only barrier against utter ruin. Moreover the land could be made to appear upon measurement more than it was, by raising the middle of the measuring pole, or withholding the rope. 4 the zemindar's I shall conclude my account of the zemindar by compar- Discussion of ing the accounts given of his position by various authorities. position. Mr. Grant says in his Political Survey of the Northern Circars:5 'Land Tenure by a Civilian, 76. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 105. Harington's Analysis, Vol. III, 274 Stewart's History of Bengal, 261. 3 Fifth Report, Vol. I, 132; Vol. II, 8, 9. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 64, 65. Harington's Analysis, Vol. II, 68. Fifth Report, Vol. I, 141. Land Tenure by a Civilian, 65. Colebrooke's Husbandry in Bengal, 57. 5 Fifth Report, Vol. II, 237. LECTURE "It hath been asserted, and we presume to think on grounds admitting of political demonstration, that no one tribe of Hindoo landholders, jointly or severally within the circars, or the whole of them collectively, under whatever denomination (excepting the ancient rajahs of the country, which have been particularized as descendants of the Royal family of Orissa or Gajeputty), have in right, form, or fact, the smallest pretensions to any territorial property beyond the extent of their specified official domains called saverum, making scarcely one-twentieth part of the local civil jurisdiction committed to their management by the sovereign proprietary Government. First.-The private right of a more extensive landholding could only be acquired by conquest, royal grant, hereditary or prescriptive tenure of free or feudal possession, while it is notorious that every zemindary title is the most limited and precarious in its nature, depending on the arbitrary will of the lowest provincial delegate; equivalent to a simple lease in tenancy subject to annual renewals, and to be traced to the same base and recent origin, within the period of British rule, as generally distinguishes the spurious claims of the farmers-occupant themselves;-to family pre-eminence from birth, or the enjoyment of large territorial income in prejudice of the prince's necessary undisputed regal dues. Second.-The form of such sunnuds or dewanny patents as constitute the desmookhs or zemindars official collectors of the revenue with inferior civil powers, at the same time that it ascertains the extent of their petty freehold estates appropriated for family subsistence with each local jurisdiction, determines specifically or comparatively, if we may be allowed to make use of an European term, the unqualified villainage to the sovereign or his feudal representative of the great IV. portion of land in occupancy; as well as the slavish depend- LECTURE ence of the Hindoo landholder, for the whole of his uncertain tenure, on the lordly Mussulman jageerdar or aumil. That the possessors of such inferior grants should be reluctant now in producing their respective deeds, under the prevalence of a delusive idea which magnifies their relative importance, is perfectly natural; but that the rights and privileges of subjects as derived from Government should so frequently be agitated, and to this day acknowledged to be matters wholly undefined, or of the greatest doubt; and that yet the only sure, easy, and simple mode of discovering the truth, by a critical examination of sunnuds, should be neglected, appears altogether extraordinary and unaccountable. Third. In point of fact, the most conclusive evidence offers itself of the sovereign's claim to the landholder's share of yearly territorial produce, that the whole body of zemindars were from the beginning and are still to be considered simply as intermediate agents for the State to realize the stipulated rent of the peasantry. This doctrine forms incontrovertibly the ground-work of the past and actual system of finance throughout all the dissevered members of the Mogul empire. It is practically enforced everywhere by the prince; acknowledged or acquiesced in by the ryots universally, as the foundation of their Magna Charta; stating the proportions to be invariably drawn of the produce of the soil, assisted by their labour, for the public service. Accordingly it may be clearly traced in the letter and spirit of the original instruments conferring investiture; describing the nature, local extent, with the powers of zemindary officers, as well as the annual cowle bestowing the temporary management of the revenue on the same generally permanent agents. It is manifested in the ever customary |