These were the early results of a policy which had ignored Village Communities, and had prescribed the collection of an impossible land revenue directly from each petty tenant. It is painful to add that the use of torture was almost universal in the Province for the prompt realisation of the assessed revenue from the miserable cultivators. Rumours of this baneful practice were heard in England; and in 1854, Mr. Blackett, M.P. for the town of Newcastle, brought on a debate upon a Motion for a Commission to inquire into the - land system of Madras. He described the system as the vilest that could be devised, and asserted that the exorbitant revenue demand could only be realised by torture. The fearless John Bright took a part in the debate, and his eloquent description of the condition of the Madras cultivator, and of the treatment he received, roused indignation in the country.

The Indian Government, slow to move in the path of reform, was forced to take some action after this debate. A Commission was appointed to take evidence; and an Act was passed to enable the Commission to proceed with their task. Elliot, a judge of the Madras Small Cause Court, Norton, a Madras barrister, and Stokes, a pronounced supporter of the Ryotwari System, were appointed Commissioners. A Commission, so constituted, submitted a guarded report. They found, that the practice of torture for the realisation of the Government revenue existed in the Province; and they also found that injured parties could not obtain any redress. But they were careful not to cast any imputation on the European Officers of the Government, and they saw nothing to impress them with the belief that the people at large entertained the idea that their maltreatment is countenanced or tolerated by the European officers of Government." 1

The kinds of torture which were most common were:

1 Report of the Commission, dated April 16, 1855, par. 70.

keeping a man in the sun; preventing his going to meals or other calls of nature; confinement; preventing his cattle from going to pasture; quartering a peon on him; the use of Kittee Anundal, i.e., tying a man down in a bent position; squeezing the crossed fingers; pinches, slaps, blows with fist or whip, running up and down; twisting the ears, making a man sit with brickbats behind his knees; putting a low caste man on his back; striking two defaulters' heads, or tying them by the back hair; placing in the stocks; tying by the hair to a donkey's or a buffalo's tail; placing a necklace of bones or other degrading or disgusting materials round the necks; and occasionally, though rarely, more severe discipline." 1

One thing which came out very clearly during this inquiry was that where the land was severely assessed, the cases of torture were frequent. "In Canara and Malabar," the Commission wrote, "we learn that the Land Tax is generally light, that the people are flourishing, the assessment easily and even cheerfully paid, the struggle more often being who shall be allowed than who shall be made to pay the Government dues. Land has acquired a saleable value, and allotments of waste are eagerly contended for. Who can be surprised then at hearing one and all the European dwellers in those favoured spots declare that there torture for revenue purposes is comparatively unknown?" 2

9

And Bourdillon, the Collector of North Arcot, recorded his opinion that torture for the purposes of revenue "might have ceased entirely by this time, but for the exorbitant demand on the land, and some particular incidents of the revenue system in these Provinces. With a moderate assessment; land would have become a valuable property; and a man would not only have taken care not to incur the loss of it, but in case of adversity would have in itself the means of satisfying

1 Report of the Commission, par. 61.

2 Ibid., par. 58.

the Government demands upon it. Further, had the assessment been moderate, that circumstance alone would have powerfully tended to raise the character of the people; for when men begin to possess property, they also acquire self-respect and the knowledge how to make themselves respected, and will no longer submit to personal indignities."1

All the evils of the Ryotwari System, attended with over-assessment of the soil, as it prevailed in Madras, were known to the Indian Government. And protests were made against a system which compared so unfavourably with the system of Northern India. As stated in the last chapter, the Sadar Board of Revenue addressed a strong letter to the Governor-General of India, in which they condemned the Madras System. They pointed out the fraud and oppression practised by every low-paid officer of the State, and deprecated the harassing and inquisitorial searches made into the means of every cultivator. The system, they said, was found in connection with the lowest state of pauperism and dependence. "Every man must be degraded in his own opinion and relegated to a state of perpetual pupilage. The honest manly bearing of one accustomed to rely on his own exertions, can never be his-he can never show forth the erect and dignified independence of a man indifferent to the favour or frown of his superior." But neither the censure of the Sadar Board, nor the melancholy reports continually received from District Collectors, induced the Madras Government to reform its wretched land administration. It is remarkable that while sweeping reforms were effected in other Provinces by men like Bird and Wingate, no large acts of reform, no great remedial measures, no statesmanlike policy to improve the condition of the people, emanated from the authorities of Madras. Madras has often been called the Benighted Province of India, and never was this opprobrious term 1 Report of the Commission, Appendix C. Letter dated March 20, 1838.

more richly deserved than during the, first half of the nineteenth century. The light that slowly dawned elsewhere in India failed to penetrate the thick gloom which hung over the Coromandel Coast; and in the vast array of official documents which have been handed down to us from those times, we seek in vain for any great ideas of reform, any sweeping measures of improvement, in Madras.

Madras officials still adhered to their system, and, indeed, extended it from time to time, as permanently settled estates were sold up for inability to pay the revenue. The eagerness with which this policy was pursued in the middle of the nineteenth century has been described by an official of the time.

"Meet a

Ryotwari Collector in his own house, at his hospitable board, he will admit that the sale of a great Zemindari which he had just achieved was brought about by dexterous management; that the owner had been purposely permitted to get into the meshes of the Collector's net beyond his power of extrication; that the sale could easily have been obviated, nay, perhaps was uncalled for." And instances are cited by the same writer which are painful to read in these days.1

Thomas Munro, the real author of the Ryotwari System, never anticipated the methods which came into operation under that system. He had said before the

1 Madras, its Civil Administration, by P. B. Smollett, London, 1858. In Tinnevelly District, the proprietor of the ancient Chocumpati estate came to the Collector to arrange a settlement of the arrear due from his estate; but he was seized as a disaffected and dangerous character; was kept in confinement as a political offender without any specific charges being preferred against him; and his estate was confiscated. In Nellore District the Mahomedan Jaigirder of Udaigiri was similarly confined for life for alleged treason, without a trial; and his estate was also confiscated. In Gantur District the great Vassy-Reddy possessions, yielding a revenue of £60,000 a year, were sold for £500 for arrears which had accrued during the management of the estate by Government Officers as trustees. In Masalipatam District the Nedadavole estates, worth £3000 a year, were sold for £1200. In Vizagapatam District the ancient Zemindari of Golgonda, worth £1000 a year, was sold for £10. And as these and other estates were sold one by one, the Ryotwari System was introduced in the lands.

House of Commons in 1813: "The principle of the Ryotwari System is to fix an assessment upon the whole land of the country; the assessment is permanent; every Ryot who is also a cultivating proprietor of the land which he holds is permitted to hold that land at a fixed assessment as long as he pleases; he holds it for ever without any additional assessment."

But the assessment was fixed too high; and the consequence was that the State-demand had to be lowered, raised, and lowered again, according to the variation of the seasons, and the condition of the people. The history of the Province during thirty years was thus a history of varying assessments-new Hukm-namas, or orders being continuously issued, altering the assessments. Famine or distress led to a reduction; the first signs of prosperity caused a rise! Modern history scarcely furnishes a parallel to such an arrangement, under which a large, industrious, and civilised population were rendered incapable of improving their condition or acquiring agricultural wealth, by a system of assessments which was kept up to the highest paying capacity of the country from year to year.

The evils of the system were fully exposed during the Parliamentary inquiries of 1852 and 1853, preceding a fresh renewal of the East India Company's charter. Madras officials were examined in course of those inquiries, and they spoke in no uncertain voice.

Malcolm Lewen, who had served twenty-five years in India as Collector, Judge, and Member of Council, stated before the Select Committee of the House of Commons: "I think that the system of revenue has a great connection with the morality of the country; I think there are systems of revenue in Madras now which tend very greatly to sap the morality of the country as well as to impoverish it." "The Tahsildars," he added, "who go about to make inquiries, have almost entirely under their control the amount of assessment which is raised