Abstract –

As a colonial instrument of exploitation the British under East India Company invented and experimented different land revenue settlements in colonized India. Historically, this becomes a major issue of discussion among the scholars in the context of exploitation versus progressive mission in British India. Here, in this paper an attempt has been made to scrutinize and to interpret the prototype, methods, magnitudes, and far-reaching effects of the three major (Zamindari, Ryotwari and Mahalwari) land revenue settlements in a comparative way. And eventually this paper has tried to show the cause-effects relationship of different modes of revenue assessments, which in turn, how it facilitated Englishmen to provide huge economic vertebrae to the Imperial Home Country, and how it succour in altering Indian traditional society and economic set up.

Keywords: Diwani (revenue collection right), Mahal (estate), Patta (lease), Raiyat (peasant), Zamindar (landlord)

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INTRODUCTION

(PERMANENT SETTLEMENT)

Today, more than 60% of people are employed in the Agricultural sector. The sector has always been strength and the number one source of income for India. Even when the East India Company entered the country, they had come with the motive to gain as much money as possible, and the best area do so was the agriculture sector, they wanted to collect as much tax as possible. They wished to get maximum tax from land every year and gain maximum profit.

To full fill the motive, Permanent settlement was introduced; it was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land. The agreement was concluded in 1793, under Lord Cornwallis and was introduced first in Bengal and Bihar and then subsequently under different governor generals, extending to Northern Madras and Varanasi. The system was that the peasants will pay the tax which will be collected by zamindars that will pay it to the state. Lord Cornwallis wanted to create the concept of private property in land.

Earlier, zamindars collected revenue which was monitored by the Mughal Diwans, the zamindars had up to 400 villages under them and collected revenues from the villagers but when the company got the Diwani they were unable to administer the zamindars, therefore there was a need for change due to improper revenue collection system, especially after the [1]1770 famine of Bengal.

• The concept of Permanent settlement was first introduced in 1786
• In 1790 court of directors issued a ten-year settlement which was made Permanent Settlement in 1793 (Permanent settlement Act 1793)

The power of the zamindars to keep the armies and administer justice was abolished, and they were left with only the power of collecting the revenue.

Some of the features that were incorporated in the Permanent Settlement was that the rate of the revenue was never increased and was fixed in perpetuity, which meant that the British government would have an assured amount of income, proving it to be good for the Britishers. The position of the Zamindars changed, the zamindars were earlier the administrators of the villages but now they became [2]hereditary land owners in practice and were supposed to invest in their lands in order to maximize the productivity and keep the profits. If a peasant fails to pay the tax, he was replaced by another peasant on the land. The system worked with the hope that as the zamindars were kept in such a profitable position they would become much more loyal to the British. It was easy for the Britishers to collect revenue from few zamindars rather than millions of peasants.

Zamindars were made owners to those lands in which they had been previously collecting revenue, they could transfer, lend and mortgage their land and no rights were given to the peasants just to gain the loyalty and support of the zamindars. The revenue had to be deposited by the evening of pre-determined day to the company, else the land was taken by the company, and this was also known as “Sunset Law”. The rule was that the company could not claim above the amount that was already decided. The realized amount would be divided into 11 parts from which,1/11 of share would belong to the zamindar and 10/11 of share would belong to the East India Company.

A COMPARITIVE STUDY OF ZAMINDARI, RYOTWARI AND MAHALWARI LAND REVENUE SETTLEMENTS

The Zamindari, Ryotwari and Mahalwari Land Revenue Settlements were introduced by the Britishers to collect land revenue. The comparison between these settlements is made on the basis of their territorial distribution, implementation and their impact on the society.

Ryotwari system was introduced by Captain Alexander Reid in 1792 which was later improvised by Thomas Munro in 1820, the major areas where it was implemented was Madras, Bombay and parts of Assam, Sind and Berar. In this system the ownership right was handed over to the peasants and the British government directly collected taxes from the peasants also known as Raiyts, the revenue could be revised after 20 to 30 years and increased unlike the permanent settlement. It was implemented in 51% of British areas. The major problem that was seen in this system was the excessive tax. There was usually no middleman between the government and the peasant.[3] He is at liberty to sublet his property, or to transfer it by gift, sale, or mortgage. He cannot be ejected by Government so long as he pays the fixed assessment, and has the option annually of increasing or diminishing his holding, or of entirely abandoning it. The peasants under this system is virtually a Proprietor on a simple and perfect title, and has all the benefits of a perpetual lease without its responsibilities, inasmuch as he can at any time throw up his lands, but cannot be ejected so long as he pays his dues; he receives assistance in difficult seasons, and is irresponsible for the payment of his neighbours.[4] The levy was not based on actual revenues from the produce of the land, but instead on an estimate of the potential of the soil; in some cases more than 50% of the gross revenue was demanded.[5]

           The core of the utilitarian philosophy of political economy developed by Ricardo professed a scientific foundation for the land revenue system. James Mill played a master role in the institution of new land revenue system. He was from 1819 until1830 immediately responsible for drafting the revenue dispatches to India for following liberal land revenue assessment. Utilitarian’s hopes of inaugurating a comparative society, based on individual rights in the soil, depended as much upon the revenue assessment, and the registration of landholdings which accompanied it, as upon the superstructure of judicial cods and establishment.[6]In this context Stocks has argued, in a well-known study that the ideological distaste for landlordism, born of utilitarian philosophy, was a major force behind the development of Ryotwari and Mahalwari settlements, with the implication that policy may have ruined traditionally powerful landlord groups. Possible example here is the “Talukdars‟ of northern India, whose previous control over the revenue settlements of many villages was frequently set aside by Mahalwari arrangements. In the mind of such as Munro and Wingate- the leading figures behind respectively the Madras and Bombay systems- utilitarian dislike of landlordism was doubtless reinforced by political experience of regions where cultivating peasants typically controlled the land.[7]^.Without any doubt, the ideas in vogue in Great Britain at the time also played certain role in choosing the pattern of settlement. They echoed in effect the growing intellectual influence of utilitarian philosopher like James Mill, Bentham, Stuart Mil etc., whose aversion to landlordism was markedly asserted. Perhaps it also reflected at the dawn of the European Romanticism, the idealization of rustic values that had currency in the home country.[8]

Mahalwari system was introduced by Holt Mackenzie and Robert Merttins Bird in 1822, it covered the areas of Punjab, central india and western U.P which comprised of 30% of british India. The Mahalwari system lied somewhere between the Zamindari system and Ryotwari system, under this system several villages were grouped together and the group was known as “Mahal”, one person was chosen as a representative of the “Mahal” and had the duty to pay the revenue from the “Mahal.” The revenue could be revised after every 20 to 30 years and was in some form similar to the Permanent settlement and was also known as Temporary Zamindari settlement. According to J. S. Mill, „the peasant proprietors compound with the state for a fixed period. The proprietors did not engage themselves individually with the government, but by villages.[9]

When William Bentinck assumed the governorship of India, he made a thorough review of the scheme of 1822 by which Mahalwari system had been introduced. The government of Bentinck came to the conclusion that the Regulation of 1822 had caused a widespread misery. After a prolonged consultation and discussion he passed the Regulation IX of 1833. This regulation made the terms and conditions of the Mahalwari system more flexible. The new scheme worked under the supervision of Martins Bird. The new system started a new scheme of land revenue assessment and given the right of internal adjustments. Unfortunately, the system not worked successfully because the settlement officers, who were the carrier of the settlement, turned corrupt and evaded the actual rules and collected the revenue at his own discretion. As a result the system proved miserable to the agricultural classes. This created widespread discontent and finally the Mahalwari System failed to create any extensive effect.[10]

IMPACT

The British revenue policies proved to be exploitative for the peasants, the government tax demand was inflexible and the British East India Company’s collectors refused to make allowances for times of drought, flood or other natural disaster and the land was taken away, making the peasants landless. Land became a commodity which could be easily bought and sold in the market. The land revenue was kept very high.

Historian Bernhard Cohn and others have argued that the Permanent Settlement led firstly to a commercialization of land which previously did not exist in Bengal. And secondly, as a consequence of this, it led to a change in the social background of the ruling class from “lineages and local chiefs” to “under civil servants and their descendants, and to merchants and bankers”.

In the places where permanent settlement was implemented, zamindars transferred land to other people who lead to the emergence of many middleman and lead to further exploitation of the farmers, this is known as Absentee landlordism or Sub-infeudation.

POSITION OF TENANTS

Mr. Dutt in his latter to Lord Curzon pointed out the condition and actual position of tenants in these settlement areas. He asserted the Bengal peasants were more prosperous, more resource full and better able to help themselves in years of bad harvests than cultivators in any other part of India. Therefore apparently means because of the permanent settlement coupled with the restrictions on enhancement of rent by the Zamindars.[11]The Zamindar settlement turned the entire peasantry formally into the Zamindars‟ tenants, liable for rent payment. The principle problem with the position of the tenants in the early years was that the government left open the question of whether or not the Zamindar could raise rent. And in this game, the dominant and large tenants were often bribed into collusion or a silent acceptance so that the weaker tenants had no option but to pay.[12]RatnaLekha Ray argued that taking advantage of the Zamindars‟ own distance from land and unstable economic condition, wealthy peasants with superior tenancy rights extended their landholdings, so much so that they put limit.[13]

Ryotwari system weakened the middle tier and strengthened peasant rights. However, the Raiyat in question differed in character between regions. One particular variation of this principle occurred in parts of Northern India, where joints peasant rights were strengthened. In the upper Doab and Rohilkhand, talukdars were suppressed and the „village republics‟ were recognized as the proprietary body. The joint landlords of village land were collectively responsible for the revenue. Agriculture were unsecured and population too thin here to generate large rents. Therefore joint rights cemented by clan or kingship were possible. By and large, in southern and western India, “mirasdars” were granted proprietary rights. The Mirasdars being technically holders of shares in village land, the system and the joint-landlord type of assessment could become in many cases indistinct. The political prelude to this system in the south was the suppression of poligars in 1799-1800. They were partly like the northern Zamindars. A few of them did become Zamindars under British rule.[14]

In Ryotwari area the proprietary right is perfect, and as long he pays affixed assessment on his land, he can be ousted by no one; there is no principle of Ryotwari management more fixed or better known than this, and the government denied that any right can be stronger. It is thus abundantly clear that the distinguishing feature of Ryotwari is the limitation is perpetuity of the demand of the state on the land, the Raiyat have thus all the advantages of the Zamindari tenure, while the state has a valuable reserve of waste land whence, as cultivation extends, its resource will be augmented so as to meet the increasing demand on its finances which the progress of the country will entitle.[15] In deciding who gained and who lost through this process, we need to note first of all that the answered varied by regions because the precise mix between colonial ideologies and practice varied too. In Zamindari area the older elite on the whole gained. But some of this gained faded away as the nineteenth century wore on and groups of rich farmers consolidated their economic power by participating in the market, something that the Zamindars never could do. The general character of land transfers in colonial India was not only from the poor to the rich, but contained a significant element of rich-to-poor as well. In the process, asset inequality remained broadly unchanged .

MAGNITUTE OF ASSESSMENTS

In the Zamindari settlements, the land tax was fixed forever. In the Ryotwari areas, the land tax was fixed sublet to periodic revision like northern India. It generally believed that the first round of settlements set taxes too high, possible causing peasant distress and an agrarian depression. The idea of an agrarian depression sometime in the second quarter of the nineteenth century has been articulated in regional histories of the Bombay-Deccan and Madras.[16] Therefore second round of settlements in the 1840s moderated the tax burden considerably.

The institutional reforms were a curious mix of old practices and new ideas. Many element and custom were suppressed. Chief among these was the authority of local officials to punish the defaulting tax collectors or peasant. Suppression of this right made it possible for land to change hands faster and more easily when default occurred. By the permanent settlement and the Ryotwari settlement to follow in Madras and Bombay, the new regime of the East India Company made public sale of ownership rights mandatory when tax default occurred. The revenue officials after 1816 combined in themselves both revenue collection and police duties in the countryside. This enhancement of power inevitably resulted in coercion, bribery and corruption by the subordinate officials of the collectors who were revelled in abundant and gory details in Madras Torture Commission Report in 1855.[17]

The people of Bengal and of northern India gradually obtained some relief from the heavy land assessment of the early years of the British rule. In Bengal the assessment was made permanent; and it has not been raised with the extension of cultivation, it now bears a ratio of about 35 percent, on the rental. In northern India the assessment was not made permanent, but it was reduced to slightly over 50 percent, including all „cesses‟, in 1885. But new “cesses” were added; calculations were made, not on the current, but on the prospective rental, until the tax rose to close upon 60 percent on the rental. The first fifteen years of the permanent settlement saw a burst of distress- driven auction of Zamindari estate in greater Bengal induced by sharply raised effective revenue collection, a series of minor or large agrarian crisis, and the „proverbial incompetence‟ of Zamindars in managing their estates.[18]We need to remember that many among these groups were never cultivators themselves and were unable to meet the increased demand by improving their cultivation practices. The distress sale declined thereafter as the rental value of and exceeded the revenue burden that had been fixed in money terms. The auction sales tended to large estates into smaller lots. Those who brought these lots included adventure s and outsider, who were equally rapacious towards the peasants as some of the Zamindars. The peasants mockingly called these new people “lotdas”, or owners of lots. The frequent sale of Zamindari estates caused poverty highly. Between 1794 and 1807 land yielding about 41% of the revenue in Bengal and Bihar was sold out in auction; in Orissa between 1804 and 1818 about 51% of the original Zamindars were wiped off.[19]

In Madras and Bombay things are worse. There the land tax is paid generally by the cultivators of the soil, there being, in most parts of those provinces, no intervening landlords. The British government declared its intention in 1864 of releasing as land tax about one half of the economic rent. But what the British government does take as land tax at the present day sometimes approximates to the whole of the economic rent, leaving the cultivators little beyond the wages of their labour and the profit of their agricultural stock. The land tax is revised once every thirty years; the cultivators does not know on what grounds it is enhanced; he has to submit to each renewed assessment, or to his ancestral fields and perish. This uncertainty of land tax paralyses agriculture, prevents savings, and keeps the tiller of the soil in a state of poverty and indebtedness.[20]

After a period of inactivity, the government of east India Company fixed the rent charged by the Zamindars to their tenants. Bitter complaints about Zamindari exploitation of cultivators continued, however. A series of tenancy Acts (1859-1928) recognized and strengthen the occupancy rights of the tenants settled on a land for many generations. This is a process that later writers called “sub-infeudation”.[21] Mr. Dutt asked for the protection as possible under the land system of each province against frequent reassessments and undue enhancements be granted to the cultivators all over India. This precisely represents the policy pursued by the government of India. During the Viceroyalty of Lord Ripon and subsequently Viceroyalties several measures followed in the context on the relations of land lord and tenant. As a result the Bengal, North-Western provinces and Oudh, the Punjab and Central Provinces ere all equipped with tenancy Acts, the main object of which was to strengthen the position of the actual cultivators and afford him that protection which Mr. Dutt desires to see established.[22]

In all the British territories under the Ryotwari or Mahalwari system, codified methods and specialized administration gradually put in place for the registration of land and for the registration of land rights, of rents and charges. The same work had to be under the Zamindari system, not for the assessment of tax but for the protection of rights of tenants and for the requirements of justice. As earlier in the countries of permanent settlement, land revenue in these provinces was generally fixed too high in order to meet the tax demand of the East India Company, and its integral and punctual payment was enforced with inflexible rigor. There followed many regions, in the course of the first few decades of the nineteenth century, an important trend of alienations, as the farmers, especially in the times of crisis, were forced to sell due to excessive indebtedness, or their land were confiscated and sold by auction on the ground of a tax default.[23]

In practice the British land revenue policies may have been most disruptive, not through their adjudication of land tenure, but at the simple level of financial demands they made. Many of the early British settlements- notably the “permanent settlement” of Bengal of 1793 and Pringle’s in Bombay during the 1820s and the 1830s were marked by considerable over assessment. The in their zeal for funds, often accepted the most optimistic inherited estimates of agriculture’s capacity to pay, claims which were excessive in the depressed conditions of the first third of the nineteenth century. Finally it terms of political consequences, Stokes’s recent work has undermined the notion of the mutiny conflagration of 1857-8 as a simple outburst by the victims of British agrarian policy, particularly in Mahalwari regions. On the other side several peasant uprising occurred in nineteenth century both in Zamindari and Ryotwari regions, and a number of grim famines appeared in these settlement area.[24]

In concluding paragraph I would like to draw the final assessment of aftermath of various land settlements in together. The process of “Drain of Wealth”, that started by the advent of the British colonial power in India, hastened through accumulating primary capital based on landed revenue. The important channel of draining wealth from India to England was trade, but the main source of moving wealth was land tax. This is the British government which first realized to keep up a constant relation with the native people in regard to became a financially healthy ruler of India. As a result they first concentrated into economic reforms in India specially the land reforms missions. Not only the government officials but also the English people of home engaged themselves to launch several land settlement, in modified shape equipped with statistical methods under the influences of modern liberal and economic thoughts. The British East India Company was the pioneer of three major land settlements in India, viz., Permanent, Ryotwari and, Mahalwari, were introduced in various regions of India on the basis of contemporary circumstances and colonial requirements. Basically these were the modern way of extracting maximum revenues from the peasants and, an absolute plan to plunder Indian resources constantly. The land tax was the major source of revenue for the British Government; amounting in 1858-59, to Rs 18.12 corers or 50.3 percent of total its revenues.[25] It is true that the British land reform programs no-doubt provided a great zenith to the process of agrarian transformation from medieval to modern time and, brought several changes both in agricultural methods and its patterns and, revolutionaries several rural and urban areas. But in other sense these process had been indulged the process of sever stratification of Indian society on the basis of occupational position and, paved an era of future secondary contradiction between the rich and poor in Indian political, economic, and social history, along with impoverishing a considerable portion of Indian mass (agricultural population), leading towards human inequality.

TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION UNDER THREE SETTLEMENTS

Permanent Zamindari settlements were made in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Banares division of U.P. This settlement was further extended in 1800 to Northern Carnatic (north-eastern part of Madras) and North-Western Provinces (eastern U.P.). It roughly covered 19 percent of total area of British India. The Mahalwari tenure was introduced in major portion of U.P., the Central Provinces, the Punjab (with variations) and the central providences;-while in Oudh villages are placed under taluqdar or middlemen with whom the government deals directly. This system covered nearly 30 percent of the British controlling area. The Ryotwari settlements were made in major portions of Bombay, Madras and Sindh Province. The principles of this system are also applied to Assam and Burma. A few hilly tracts in Bengal and the coast strip of Orissa have been temporally settled. This system covered roughly 51 percent of the total British Indian territory.[26] One fifth of the total area of the British India has been permanently settled, viz., about 5/6 of Bengal and Bihar, 1/8 of Assam, 1/10 of U.P., ¼ of Madras. Of the total land revenue 53 p.c. comes from the first two classes of land, and 47 p.c. from Ryotwari tracts.

All these major areas were subdivided into many tracts for the better management of land assessment. The three settlements region has been distributed under the in charge of several British officials and native landlord to look after the function of Land Revenue System. For example; initially Bengal territories were distributed among twelve major and many other small Zamindars that not only played the impotent role in land assessment process but also in local administration. The Madras territories were sub divided into several tracts of Nellore, Trichinoply, Coimbatore, Tanjore, Arcot etc. The Mahalwari settlement region like Central Province was distributed through several divisions of Meerut, Agra, Rohilkhand, Allahabad, Bundelkhand, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Faizabad, Kumaun etc.[27]

The important of landlord group in land settlement area are: (a) Under Permanent settlement the Zamindars were recognized as proprietors of the soil with rights of free hereditary succession, sale and mortgage, but subject to the loss of their property on failure to the revenue on a fixed date. (B)Settlement limited forever the state demand to a fixed revenue and certain duties or services. (C) System stipulated that the Zamindar should safe-guard the rights of their tenants by granting those pattas or documents stating the area and rent of their respective holdings. (D) The Zamindars were made „subject to such rules as might be enacted by the government for securing the rights and privileges of the tenants in their respective tenures and for protecting them against undue or oppression‟. All abwabs, or cesses levied by the Zamindars in addition to the rent, were abolished. The transit duties and road and ferry tolls were taken over by the government, but the market tools and profits from fisheries, trees and waste land were left entirely to the Zamindars. (E) The talukdars of Bengal were raised to the position of Zamindars and allowed to pay fixed revenue directly to the government. (f) In Madras and Orissa many petty tributary chiefs have been deprived of their ruling powers and reduced to rank of Zamindars, subject to the payment of fixed revenue. Basically the Zamindari system was so-called creator of private property in land.[28]

Under the village settlement (Mahalwari) the revenue is settled for a limited period (30 years in U.P. and 20 years in Punjab and C.P.), with the entire body of villagers who were jointly and separately responsible for the revenue of the whole village. Their head called the Lambardar[29], sign the agreement with the government to pay the revenue on behalf of the villagers. The assessment of the revenue by the village council is supervised by the settlement officer of the government, and the village maps and records of rights are carefully preserved and brought up to date. The government demand is estimated by a careful calculation of the value of the land, the price of the crops, and the recorded actual produce of the field. In the Mahalwari settlement, the government deals only with the middlemen, whether individuals or group of villagers, who were held responsible for the revenue. Nearly half of the area thus settled is cultivated by these middlemen themselves, and the other half by inferior tenants subject to the middlemen. The government demand was formally 90 p.c. of the net assets, but it was now been reduced to 50 p.c., or even less, except in Bombay, where there was no limit of to the maximum. The net asset is taken to be the economic rent which the actual cultivators pays to the superior proprietors, where there is subletting. In other places, the net assets is arrived at by deducting from the assume price of the crops the approximate cost of production, and little extra for his luxurious. In the province of Oudh, the government settled the revenue of a group of villages with a Talukdar or chief. These Talukdars differ from the Zamindars of Bengal in two respects: (1) the settlement with the former is temporary, and they have no absolute right over their estates such as the Bengal Zamindars possess.[30]

Under the Ryotwari settlement the government deals directly with the cultivators and recognizes no middlemen. Each village is carefully surveyed, and every cultivator’s holding or plot of land in it was marked and separately numbered. Village maps with accurate boundary lines, classification of the soil, and the names of the occupants, are carefully compiled and preserved, and the revenue was assessed on each occupant. This right of occupancy can be inherited and transferred by the peasants; hence there was some amount of sub-letting even in the Ryotwari provinces. In other respects the method of assessment was the same as in the Mahalwari settlement.[31]

Under permanent settlement the protection of right of the cultivators for which government had stipulated with the Zamindars in 1793, was long neglected, and has been secured by later legislation. The occupancy tenants of Bengal and the cultivating village owner of Bihar, now practically occupy the position of the peasant-proprietors of Europe, and are subject to the magic of property. The first named class enjoys the entire fruits of their labour and capital and always a certain position at least, in practice the whole, of the unearned increment. They have every interest in improving their lands, and agriculture flourishing under them. Where illegal cesses are still levied by the Zamindars, it is due to the corruption or weakness of the police, but cannot be necessary consequences of the Permanent Settlement. Though the settlement was pro-Zamindar, they too hard to face a number of difficulties. As Daniel Thorner had argued, creation of private property in land was a misnomer, as the absolute ownership was retained by imperial authority.[32] The vigilant care of Magistrates is rendering such unauthorized extortion less frequent, in the same way as it is putting down dacoities. Where a royt is non-occupancy he cannot spent his capital on improvements, and industry is discouraged. But the Zamindari system is theoretically favorable to agricultural improvement at the cost of the Zamindar, because he is the permanent owner can recover his outlay from the land. Moreover Zamindari estate being large in area, if a Zamindar betakes himself to farming, he can derive all the advantages of production on a large scale, which is impossible in the small plots of the Mahalwari and Ryotwari areas.

The permanent settlement by creating a rich and leisured class has fostered the accumulation of capital, and large industries may be rendered possible in eastern India by the financial banking of Zamindars, and acts as a body of middleman between the state and cultivator, who have identified themselves with British rule, and have always given loyal help in the cause of good administration.[33] Other hand under the Mahalwari and Ryotwari settlement, state is a landowner with all the advantages of a monopolist. The competition among landlords for tenants which Ricardo’s theory of rent[34] presupposes, is wanting here, because there is only one landlord that is the government. The Raiyat was at the mercy of the state-proprietors and the rent here being a monopoly rent must theoretically be an element in the price of agricultural produce.³³The government lets the land only in very small plots, averaging 5 acres each, so that agriculture on a large scale is impossible, even when a capitalist is ready to undertake it. The chance of enhancement of the revenue at every periodical settlement discourages industry and the investment of the Raiyaty’s capital in land. The Raiyat, having no right of property in his holding, has no inducement to become a developed agriculturalist. Capital cannot accumulate from the pursuit of agriculture, because the bare subsistence is left to the Raiyats, and the surplus produce of the land is „swept into the coffer of the state „. A revenue system administrated by petty government servants according to fixed rules is sure to be inelastic, and the Raiyats are likely to be ruined by the strict enforcement of the state dues in the years of famine, unless remission of revenue is promptly ordered by the head of the government.

Before we briefly consider each variety of settlement by itself, we will take notice of some features which all verities of modern revenue-settlement have in common.[35] A complete survey of the land, involving a preliminary demarcation of the necessary boundary lines is essential. There must be a correct list of the revenue payers and their holdings, and a schedule accounting every plot and land in each village. Lastly there must be a valuation of the land, the ascertainment of revenue rates, the totalling up the adjusting of them to give the sum payable by the estate or holding.

The permanent settlement which was the first system to be tried, was the only one made without any demarcation of boundaries. It will be found that the settlements with great landlords in Bengal and Madras come under the first‟; and those with Oudh Talukdars under the second: and all the settlement system of the Agra, Central Province, Punjab, etc., as well as the system called Ryotwari, is all „temporary‟ and have the demarcation, survey, and records of rights carried out.[36]

The Middleman- in writing relating to the land settlement we so often find reference to the “middleman” proprietors. In Permanent and Mahalwari settlement, there was some kind of middleman between the actual cultivator and the Government; and this middleman is more or less fully, the proprietors and holds the settlement. In Ryotwari system, there was ordinarily no such pension; the pays direct to the state, the revenue assessed on the particular fields he holds. (Munro strongly urge for the new departure – the Ryotwari method with no middleman).[37]

In the Zamindari settlement the landlord has a legal proprietary title, but also a fixed responsibility. He is bound to the land and to the payment of revenue on it for the whole term of settlement; he cannot at his option relinquish the estate. Hence the early settlements especially, he always signed an agreement for the term; and there is in fact a contract between him and the state. In Ryotwari system the occupant is held by no lease and signs no agreement. He cannot indeed have the revenue rate assessed on his holding raised during the period of settlement; but he can at the close of any year or before the next cultivating season begins, relinquish his holding and so free himself from responsibility whenever he pleases.[38]

In the permanent settlement area the assessment was on the whole estate, but it was for a period of years only. If the villages in the estate had preserved their constitution and were not bodies of contract tenants, a “sub-settlement” would be made, which fixed what the village was to pay to the landlord; only that in that case it would be fixed at a higher figure to allow for the overlord’s profit. In case where the talukdari or double tenure was found, the villages held the settlement direct, but the talukdari allowance was proved by for making the assessment so much higher as to include the amount. This was payable through the treasure and was not collected by the overlord.[39] Under Mahalwari settlement the village itself was landlord, the section on village tenures will have made the form of ownership intelligibly; so that it need here only to briefly stated that the entire body was settled with a jointly and severally responsible unit; and that for each village or each patti or section, a sharer of standing and respectability undertook the primary liability and signed the revenue agreement on behalf of the whole body. Such a person was called ‘lambardar’. The burden of the revenue is distributed among the co-sharers according to the principle of sharing and constitution of the estate. This process called the bachh. In the case of the mahal settlement the assessment are based on more or less directly, on the actual rental value of the lands in the village unlike permanent settlement.

Munros’ Ryotwari settlement commences with an accurate survey and a methodology of dealing with separate holding, and of laying a rate on the land rather than arranging a payment for the individual. The Ryotwari system does not profess to determine rights in the way that the Mahalwari system does; dealing with the actual occupant of each field, there is no need to do more than value and assess the field correctly. Like village settlement area the Ryotwari region properly classified the land and soil and assessed the rent correctly. The basis of the assessment is in theory at any rate that is not to exceed 50 percent of the net produce. To find out this the gross produce is first ascertained and valued at average price, the costs of cultivation etc. are than deducted, half the balance is taken as the revenue. In this context the Bombay settlement unlike Madras possesses a complete revenue code (Bombay Act V of 1879) which include4 all power of survey, assessment, and other matters, connected with settlement.[40]

Methods of collection of land revenue in the three distinguished settlements were different. In permanent settlement area naturally the collector collected the revenue from the Zamindar on a fixed date. The Zamindar were bound to submit the fixed amount on due date punctually under threat of the immediate sale of the estate. In Eastern India, the permanent settlement gave proprietary rights to the middle tire, the formally powerful tax collectors, in exchange for a sum of money that was fixed in perpetuity^.[41] In Madras there is some difference: the Act (II of 1864) says the recovery shall be according to the terms of the title deed. The land revenue Acts of the provinces where village-estate settlements prevail, have a different procedure for the recovery of arrears of the land revenue and other public dues that are provided by law to be recoverable as if they were arrears of land revenue. Briefly, instead of sale being the first and ordinary procedure, it is only adopted as the last report. There were a series of measures, beginning with a simple notice of demand; and only if the others fail can the sale of the estate be ordered. The revenue in village settlement is made payable by certain instalments, and if these are not paid up in full at due date, the responsible party became a defaulter.

In Mahalwari region basically the headman are primarily and personally liable as defaulter for the land revenue arrears of their village or section of a village (Patti). These headmen were regulated by the government official called Tahsildar. In Ryotwari provinces, in each year before the collections are closed, an account is prepared, village by village by the village officers and under supervision of the Assistant collector of the land actually held, and the correct total dues for the year. This necessitated by the fact that the Rayiyats may have relinquished some of his land, or taken up new field on application. In Ryotwari provinces also there were various items of revenue account to be gone into; certain remissions which was always allowed for spoiled crops, and certain adjustment with reference to water rate, this process known as Jamabandi. As regard the actual process of recovery in arrears, in Madras, the law provides for the attachment and sale of movable and immovable property, and the imprisonment of the defaulter. Immovable property is not sold without first issuing a write of demand seeing whether the defaulter can make some arrangement for payment. The property moreover, need not be sold outright, but may be taken under management. As to the conditions under which personal arrest are allowed.[42]

ABOLITION OF ZAMINDARI SYSTEM

After the independence, the government had realised that if you don’t handover the land to poor and poor does not get a hand, we cannot eradicate poverty and certain lands had to be distributed among them, so that they become owners and farmers and cultivate in their own land which can help in reducing the poverty. In order to bring this change, government in 1950 banned the zamindari system which was introduced by the Britishers. Due to the provision of seizing the land from the peasants in case they were unable to provide revenue and the complete ownership of the land to zamindars made zamindars very powerful and more and more peasants were losing their land, leading to poverty. As time passed zamindars became very important hierarchy, they started to influence actions of the britishers. The government of India also became very clear about the system of Begar and Vetti which refers to working without payments. There were three suitable landlord controls

• Collection of land revenue
• Control over cultivated land: This was further sub-divided into cultivated by recognised tenant direct cultivation
• Control over forest and waste lands

CONCLUSION

           The government brought up plan for redistribution of the land, the government would buy the lands from the farmers for lump sum amount of 30-40 times and after buying the land the government called all the recognized tenants and changed the property to their names, in this way 2 to 2.4 crore people were benefitted and turned as owners of the land.

           The government took the cultivable land and redistributed them; however there was no clarity of how much land can be owned by a person. The government brought the compulsion that the tenant had to pay certain amount in order to insure they get the lands on their name. It was later known that the land was still under the hold of zamindars but under different name, such as a family member.

           The next alternative was the forest and waste land which were cut down by the zamindars and they sold the forest wealth and utilised that land for other purposes and government could get control over waste land.

            This process of abolition of the zamindari system, brought a very effective change by abolishing the zamindari system in 1950 and most of severe problems of people such as poverty.

REFRENCES

Primary:

• From the private secretary to his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor General in India, Dated 14^th May 1900, Transfer for Disposal, A Memorial from Mr. R. C., Dutt Regarding Land Settlement, in Bengal Proceedings No. 22, Serial No. 4.

• C. Dutt‟s Letter to Lord Curzon on the subject of Land Revenue Settlements in Madras, dated 20^th February 1900, Proceedings No. 20, Serial No. 2

• Amelia (Shipley) Heber, Life of Reginald Heber, D.D., The Lord Bishop of Calcutta by his Widow with Selections, Correspondence, Unpublished Poems, and Private Papers, 1830,Vol -II

Secondary:

• Karl Marx, The Future Result of British in India, New York Daily Tribune, June 1853. No.3840, in Marx and Angles; OnColonialism, Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1960

• R Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1948

• Sekhar Bandyopadhayay; From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2004

• Romesh C. Dutt, The Economic History of India: In the Victorian Age, Vol -II, Ministry of information and Broadcasting, govt. of India, New Delhi, 1963

• Irfan Habib; Essays in Indian History, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 1995

• Henry Cotton; India in Transition, B. R. Publishing Corporation, Delhi, 1885

• Dutt, R. C., The Economic History of India: Under Early British Rule, Vol. II, Routledge & Kegan Ltd., London, 1882, First Indian Edition 1960, Publication division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India Press, New Delhi, Reprinted 1963

• “Munro and the Ryotwari Settlement in Madras, 1820-27”, in R. C. Dutt, The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule.

[1]Karl Marx, The Future Result of British in India, New York Daily Tribune, June 1853. No.3840, in Marx and Angles; On Colonialism Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1960, p. 85

[2] Sekhar Bandyopadhayay;  From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 2004, p. 82

[3] Henry Cotton; India in Transition, B. R. Publishing Corporation, Delhi, 1885, p. 80-81

[4] R. C. Dutt‟s Letter to Lord Curzon on the subject of Land Revenue Settlements in Madras, dated 20^th February 1900, Proceedings No. 20, Serial No. 2. p

[5] Munro and the Ryotwari Settlement in Madras, 1820-27″, in R. C. Dutt, The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule.

[6] Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India, Oxford at Clarendon Press, London, 1959, p. 81

[7] Neil Charlesworth, British Rule and the Indian Economy, 1800-1914, Macmillan Press Ltd., London, 1982 p.17

[8] Markovits, op. cit., p.303

[9] Gohit, Rohit Kumar, Social and Economic History of Modern India, Murari Lal & Son Publication, Meerut, 2007, p.138

[10] R. C Dutt‟s Letters to Lord Curzon; Dated the 12^th May 1900, Remarks on the Land Settlements in Northern-India, Proceeding No. 23, Serial No. 5, p. 29

[11] From the private secretary to his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor General in India, Dated 14^th May 1900, transfer for disposal a memorial from Mr. R. C., Dutt regarding land settlement in Bengal, Prof. No. 22, Serial No. 4, p. 21

[12] Roy, T., op. cit., ,p. 49

[13] Ratna Lekha Ray, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society c.1760-1850, Delhi: Manohar, 1979 and Rajat Datta, ‘Agricultural Production, Social Participation and Domination in late Eighteenth Century Bengal: Towards an Alternative Explanation’, Journal of Peasant Studies,17(1), 1989, pp.68-113

[14] Roy;  op. cit., p. 50-51

[15] Dutt’s letter to Curzon, Dated 20^th February 1900, op. cit., Prof ceeding No. 20, Serial No. 2, p. 2

[16] Readings: Fukazawa, H., ’Agrarian Relations: Western India’, CEHI 2, pp.177-206. An older discussion of the theme can be found in P.J. Thomson and Natarajan, B., ‘Economic Depression in the Madras Presidency, 1825-54’, HER, vol-7(1), 1936, pp. 67-75

[17] David Arnold,  Police Power and Colonial Rule in Madras, 1859-1947, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1986, p. 20

[18] S. Chaudhari, „Agrarian Relation: Eastern India’, in Kumar (ed.), op. cit., p. 94.

[19] B. B Chaudhari,  The Land Market in Eastern India, 1793-1940, Indian Economic and Social Review, New Delhi, 1975, 12 (1):1-42, p.5-

[20] Dutt, Vol –I, op. cit., p. xxiv

[21] C. Bates; Regional Dependence and Rural Development in Central India: the Pivotal role of Migrant Labour, in David Ludden (ed.), Agricultural Production in Indian History, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1994, p. 324

[22] From the private secretary to his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor General in India, Dated 14^th May 1900, transfer for disposal a memorial from Mr. R. C., Dutt regarding land settlement in Bengal. Prof. No. 22 and Serial No. 4, p. 26

[23] Sarkar; op. cit., pp. 33-36

[24] Ibid., pp.19-20

[25] Irfan Habib; Indian Economy, 1858-1914, People‟s Series, No. 28, Tulika Books, 2006, p. 61

[26] Jadu Nath Sarkar, Economics of British India, Kuntaline Press, M.C Sarkar and Sons, Calcutta,1909 , p.100

[27] Bandyopadhayay;  op. cit., pp. 82-9

[28] P. D Shrimali, Agrarian Structure, Movements and Peasant Organization in Uttar.Pradesh, V.V. Giri National Academy, Manak Publication, New Delhi, 2004, pp. 33-35

[29] See For Detail: Maine, H. S., Village Community in the East and West, B. R Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, First Published 1913, Reprinted 1985.

[30] Bandopadhayay, S., op. cit., pp. 92-96

[31] Sarkar, J., op. cit., pp.100-105

[32] D. N Dhanagre,  Peasant movements in India, 1920-1950, Oxford university press, New Delhi, 1983 (cited in)

[33] Cotton; op. cit., p.79

[34] For Detail see: Ricardo, David. ‘ Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’ (1817)

[35] B .H Baden Powell; Administration of Land Revenue and Tenure in British India, Ess Ess Publication, New Delhi, 1907, pp.147-8.

[36] Ibid., p. 149; Also see: B .H Baden Powell , A Short Account of Land Revenue and its Administration in British India; With a Sketch of the Land Tenure, Clarendon Press, London, 1894.

[37] Powell, op.cit., p.150

[38] Cotton; op. cit., p.81

[39] Sumit Sarkar; Modern India, 1885-1947, Macmillan India Ltd., New Delhi, 1983, p.33-35

[40] Ibid, p. 200-201

[41] Tirthankar Roy; The Economic History of India (1857 -1947),Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006, p. 48

[42] Baden Powell; Op. cit, p. 238-244

Disclaimer: This article has been published in Legal Desire International Journal on Law, ISSN 2347-3525, Issue 22 ,Vol. 7

PRENITA RANJAN

Student of Law

Amity Law School, Noida, Amity University Uttar Pradesh