CHAPTER V.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE LAND-REVENUE SYSTEMS

OF BRITISH INDIA.

SECTION L-INTRODUCTORY.

THIS chapter, in which I have endeavoured to present an outline of the various LAND-REVENUE SYSTEMS OF BRITISH INDIA, and to show how they originated and how they are connected together, will contain much that is already familiar to every Indian official; and readers in India may therefore regard as unnecessary many of the statements and explanations offered. It seemed, however, desirable to deal with the subject from the point of view of the general reader, and accordingly to avoid assuming that he possesses a fund of knowledge to start with. It is necessary, then, to begin from the beginning, and not plunge in medias res, or at once make use of terms of revenue-law, familiar enough to officials, but certain, until duly explained, to appear mysterious, if not repulsive, to others.

I may, however, assume, to start with, a single item of knowledge, which, indeed, has been to some extent explained in the last chapter. The rulers, Rájás, and emperors of the successive governments in all parts of India, have at all times raised the greater part of their State income, by levying a charge on the land. Whether this was an Aryan institution, or was learned from the Dravidians, or was a natural method, adopted independently, I leave the reader to form the opinion which best satisfies him. But, as a matter of fact, it came to be an universally-acknowledged principle, that the king, Rájá, or chief of a territory, had

a right to a SHARE IN THE PRODuce of all culTIVATED LAND. In time, as might be expected, this revenue came to be no longer taken in kind, but in the form of a money payment, made at certain seasons when the harvests had been realized.

I have to remark on this generally, that the early authorities are naturally concerned only with discussing whether the king's share shall be a sixth, a fourth, &c. Nothing else was needed. It was early recognized that the share might be increased in time of war or special necessity, but that is all. As a matter of fact, while the early Rájás are supposed to have taken no more than the sixth, it is quite certain that all or many of the later ones demanded the half. So tenaciously is old custom clung to in India, that in many native states the ruler still takes his revenue in kind. On the whole, he is not a loser; for there has been a steady rise in the value of grain; and this, perhaps, compensates him to some extent for the want of any regular system of periodical revision of assessment.

But when the time came for the Government (it hap pened under the Mughal rule) to change the grain-revenue into cash, the first idea was to roughly estimate the standard share as yielding so many 'maunds' of grain1 for each crop on each kind of soil, and then to value it at an average price. The early methods of fixing the grain-value were, however, so rough, that practically it was but an arbitrary process, effected with moderation, and with reference to the ability of the cultivators to pay easily. The change from a grain-revenue to a cash-payment had one important consequence from that time forward it has been recognized as a general rule-certainly it was so by the Muhammadan governments-that the money-payment needed to be revised from time to time, i.e. after the lapse of a suitable term of

It

'The 'Maund' (man) is the usual weight for reckoning solids. varies in different places; but the general standard is 80 lbs. I maund. The maund is divided into forty seers (sir) of two lbs. each, and the

sír into sixteen chhatank (chittack) of five tolás each. The tolá is the weight of the current silver rupee; approximately two and a half of them go to the ounce aroirdupois.

years. In the days of the later Mughal rule, the revenue was revised, not by any regular process of re-valuation, but by the expedient of adding on 'cesses' to the existing totals. These cesses were called by various names, which indicated either the name of the governor who imposed them, or the pretence under which they were levied. In the Bengal chapters we shall hear a great deal about 'cesses.'

But under our own Government such a device was not likely to be followed-at least, not as a means of enhancing the land-revenue1. It became necessary, then, to devise some plan of fairly assessing the land-revenue.

The process by which the Government officials determine the amount of land-revenue payable, is called a SETTLEMENT (of land-revenue); and the person or the body whom Government recognizes as entitled to be proprietor, subject to the revenue-payment, is said to be 'settled with,' or to 'hold the Settlement.' Who the 'proprietors' were and are, we have discussed in general terms in the last chapter.

Our first experiment was made in the province which first came under our rule-viz. the 'Bengal, Bihár, and Orissa,' of A. D. 1765. Here the plan was to find out what lump-sums the several local revenue contractors had been paying, or were, in the accounts, shown as bound to pay. Such corrections and adjustments as were possible were then made in the totals, and the persons responsible were told to pay that amount; and by law it was declared that they should never have it enhanced.

So in Bengal, the process of fixing the revenue-payment having been gone through once for all, under pledge that no future increase would be demanded, it was called the 'PERMANENT SETTLEMENT.' We shall, of course, have much more to say about this

I shall afterwards explain that by law the Government levies certain local rates or cesses' for special purposes, distinct from the land revenue, which is Imperial or general. The district roads and district schools are so provided for ;

hereafter.

and Government levies a rate to enable it better to meet the expense of periodical famines-a rate which gives rise to very mistaken notions about what people are pleased to call a Famine Insurance Fund.'

But when we began to administer other provinces-like the North-Western Provinces, or the districts of Madras (with exception of the northern part)-it was found, as we have seen, that the land-tenures were wholly different, and that there were no Zamíndárs' to hold the Settlement. Moreover the inconvenience, and injustice to the public, of fixing the revenue for all time, regardless of changes in the value of produce, or the rise and fall of agricultural incomes, were soon recognized. Therefore different plans of making a Settlement were devised and worked out for the different provinces, according to the requirements and local conditions of each.

These plans have been gradually modified and improved up to the present day. They retain certain general distinctive features, but all have a certain common basis. Speaking generally, all the methods commence with a careful survey, and with a classification of the soil; and then begins the Settlement-Officer's difficult task, viz. to find out money-rates per acre which Government can fairly charge, as its cash revenue, on the 'proprietors' for each kind or class of soil.

According to the system in force, the Revenue is either assessed in a lump sum on a whole estate-which may be a considerable area, or a whole group of villages, or a single village (or parts of villages), or it is assessed on single fields or holdings surveyed, numbered, and marked out on the ground. When the estate is in the hands of a great landlord, like the Zamíndár of Bengal or North Madras, we call it a ZAMÍNDÁRÍ SETTLEMENT; and in these two instances it is also a PERMANENT SETTLEMENT.

In Oudh we have a TALUQDÁRÍ SETTLEMENT, with great Taluqdár landlords, but under peculiar conditions, and not 'permanent.'

When it is a single village (or some part or parts of villages) settled with a landlord body or community, we

The Northern part was in some respects conditioned like Bengal, and a Permanent Settlement was

made for it with Zamíndárs very much on the Bengal lines,

call it a VILLAGE (or rather a 'Mahálwár') SETTLEMENT'. And as this system is prevalent in North-Western India (and the Central Provinces) it is frequently spoken of as the 'North-West System'-for it was devised in the NorthWestern Provinces.

In the Central Provinces, we have seen that in each village, Government conferred the proprietary right on a person called the 'Málguzár'; this Settlement is therefore often spoken of as the MÁLGUZÁRÍ SETTLEMENT of the Central Provinces, though in all essentials it is a Settlement on the North-West model.

Wherever the system assesses each field separately (as in Bombay and Madras, and parts of the Central Provinces, and in Berár) we have a RAIYATWÁRÍ SETTLEMENT.

That is the very briefest outline of what we are now going to look into a little more in detail. But let me add one thing more of this general character.

The theory of the land-revenue being, that it is a share in the produce, that share to be fixed by the State itself, it might be supposed that all modern systems of assessment would aim at finding out the average weight or quantity yielded by the share (of each principal crop on each class of soil), whatever the share might be,-one-half, one-third, or two-thirds, and then valuing it in money at a price which would (naturally) be the average harvest price of a series of years. In fact, in our very first Settlements (putting aside the case of the Bengal Zamíndárs), something like this was actually attempted. But it was too difficult and uncertain; and they next tried to make a calculation of the 'assets' of the estate. They counted up the total produce in gross, and tried to find out the costs of cultivation, wages of labour, profits of stock, &c., and, deducting the latter from the former, they took a fraction of the balance as the revenue or share of the assets.' But this also proved impracticable, and so they gradually perfected other methods

1 See remarks on this in Chap. IV. p. 170. The village is very often the unit, but the group of land held under one title, assessed to

one sum of revenue, is, in revenue language, the Mahal' for assessment purposes.