by Rekha Bandyopadhyay
Economic and Political Weekly
Vol. 28, No. 52, pp. A149-A155 (7 pages)
Dec. 25, 1993
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Owing to the cold season I could not observe the condition of the wheat actually growing in the fields, but I learned at the above village that in that locality the wheat crop was considered ordinary when it was at the rate of two bushels from two pecks of seeds, and unusually abundant when the rate reached three bushels. In the neighborhood of Lhasa four or five bushels are obtained from two pecks of seeds, if the weather proves favorable, but three bushels are passed as fair.
This testifies to the primitiveness of the methods of farming obtaining in Tibet. One cannot but be surprised at the ill-kept condition of the fields which, with their ‘rich’ deposits of pebbles, cannot be termed cultivated land in the proper sense of the word. I do not mean to speak ill of the Tibetans, but this curious neglect of cleaning the land is a fact; indeed, it is a universal feature of the country. I once suggested to a native farmer the advisability of removing the pebbles, but the reply was simply that such practices were not endorsed by tradition. Tradition is to the Tibetans a heavenly dictate, and controls all social arrangements. Those residing in more civilised parts of the country, however, entertain somewhat more progressive ideas, and have learned to utilise the products of modern ingenuity from the West. The case is quite different with the mass of the people, who are still laboring under a thousand and one forms of conservatism...
In Tibet, as in other countries, taxes are assessed on cultivated fields, but, as the Tibetans are practically strangers to mathematics, as stated in a preceding chapter, a very curious and primitive method is adopted with regard to the land-measuring which forms the basis of the assessment.
The method consists in setting two yaks, drawing a plough, to work upon a given area, the assessment being made according to the time taken in the tillage. In other words, the different plots of cultivated lands are classified as lands of half a day’s tillage, or a day’s tillage, and so on, as the case may be, and assessed accordingly....
The nation is so credulous in the matter of religion that they indiscriminately believe whatever is told to them by their religious teachers, the lamas. Thus for instance they believe that there are eight kinds of evil spirits which delight in afflicting people and send hail to hurt the crops. Some priests therefore maintain that they must fight against and destroy these evil demons in order to keep them off, and the old school profess that in order to combat these spirits effectually they must know when the demons are preparing the hail. During the winter when there is much snow, these spirits, according to the priests, gather themselves at a certain place, where they make large quantities of hail out of snow. They then store the hail somewhere in heaven, and go to rest, until in the summer when the crops are nearly ripe they throw down the hail from the air. Hence the Tibetans must make sharp weapons to keep off the hail, and consequently, while the spirits are preparing their hail, the Tibetans hold a secret meeting in some ravine where they prepare ‘hail-proof shells,’ which are pieces of mud about the size of a sparrow’s egg. These are made by a priest, who works with a servant or two in some lonely ravine, where by some secret method he makes many shells, chanting words of incantation the while, whereby he lays a spell on each shell he makes. These pellets are afterwards used as missiles when hail falls in the summer, and are supposed to drive it back. None but priests of good family may devote themselves to this work. Every village has at least one priest called Ngak-pa (the chanters of incantations of the old school) and during the winter these Ngak-pas offer prayers, perform charms, or pray for blessings for others. But the Tibetans have a general belief that the Ngak-pas sometimes curse others. I was often told that such and such person had offended a Ngak-pa and was cursed to death.
Having spent the winter in this way, the Ngak-pas during the summer prepare to fight against the devils. Let me remark, in passing, that Tibet has not four seasons, as we have, but the year is divided into summer and winter. The four seasons are indeed mentioned in Tibetan books, but there are in reality only two.
The summer there is from about the 15th of March to the 15th of September and all the rest of the year is winter. As early as March or April the ploughing of the fields and sowing of wheat begins, and then the Ngak-pa proceeds to the Hail-Subduing-Temple, erected on the top of one of the high mountains. This kind of temple is always built on the most elevated place in the whole district, for the reason that the greatest advantage is thus obtained for ascertaining the direction from which the clouds containing hail issue forth. From the time that the ears of the wheat begin to shoot, the priest continues to reside in the temple, though from time to time, it is said, he visits his own house, as he has not very much to do in the earlier part of his service. About June, however, when the wheat has grown larger, the protection of the crop from injury by hail becomes more urgent, so that the priest never leaves the temple, and his time is fully taken up with making offerings and sending up prayers for protection to various deities. The service is gone through three times each day and night, and numberless incantations are pronounced. What is more strange is that the great hail storms generally occur when the larger part of the crops are becoming ripe, and then it is the time for the priest on service to bend his whole energies to the work of preventing the attack of hail.
When it happens that big masses of clouds are gathering overhead, the Ngak-pa first assumes a solemn and stern aspect, drawing himself up on the brink of the precipice as firm as the rock itself, and then pronounces an enchantment with many flourishes of his rosary much in the same manner as our warrior of old did with his baton. In a wild attempt to drive away the hail clouds, he fights against the mountain, but it often happens that the overwhelming host comes gloomily upon him with thunders roaring and flashes of lightning that seem to shake the ground under him and rend the sky above, and the volleys of big hailstones follow, pouring down thick and fast, like arrows flying in the thick of battle. The priest then, all in a frenzy, dances in fight against the air, displaying a fury quite like a madman in a rage. With charms uttered at the top of his voice he cuts the air right and left, up and down, with his fist clenched and finger pointed. If in spite of all his efforts, the volleys of hail thicken and strike the fields beneath, the priest grows madder in his wrath, quickly snatches handfuls of the bullets aforementioned which he carries about him, and throws them violently against the clouds as if to strike them. If all this avail nothing, he rends his garment to pieces, and throws the rags up in the air, so perfectly mad is he in his attempt to put a stop to the falling hailstones. When, as sometimes happens, the hail goes drifting away and leaves the place unharmed, the priest is puffed up with pride at the victory he has gained, and the people come to congratulate him with a great show of gratitude. But when, unluckily for him, the hail falls so heavily as to do much harm to the crops, his reverence has to be punished with a fine, apportioned to the amount of injury done by the hail, as provided by the law of the land.
To make up for the loss the Ngak-pa thus sustains, he is entitled at other times, when the year passes with little or no hail, to obtain an income under the name of “hail-prevention-tax;” a strange kind of impost, is it not? The “hail-prevention-tax” is levied in kind, rated at about two sho of wheat per tan of land, which is to be paid to the Ngak-pa. In a plentiful year this rate may be increased to two and a half sho. This is, indeed a heavy tax for the farmers in Tibet, for it is an extra, in addition to the regular amount which they have to pay to their Government...
Most priests have some landed property, and some of them breed yaks, horses, sheep and goats in the provinces, though it would be rare for one of the middle-class to have more than some fifty yaks and ten horses. These animals are also employed in ploughing the fields, but no more than ten lots of land may be ploughed by two yaks in a day. The priests can hardly lead a well-to-do life without such property or some private business, for what they are given from their temples and by the believers is not sufficient for them.
Few priests are without some private business or other—indeed, most of them are engaged in trade. Agriculture comes next to trade, and then cattle-breeding. Manufacturers of Buḍḍhist articles, painters of Buḍḍhist pictures, tailors, carpenters, masons, shoemakers and stone-layers are found among the priests; there is hardly any kind of business in Tibet, but some of the priests are engaged in it. There are, besides, many kinds of business in which none but priests engage. The lower class of priests as well as the middle-class engage in trade, but some rich priests have as many as from five hundred to four thousand yaks and from one to six hundred horses. They have from one to six hundred lots of land, each lot being as large as will take two yaks to cultivate in a day...
The Tibetan administration is of an anomalous description—a hybrid partaking of feudalism on the one hand and of the modern system of Local Government on the other.
The relation between Peers and commoners apparently resembles feudalism. The first recipient of the title was granted a certain tract of land in recognition of his service, and there at once sprung up between this lord of the manor, as it were, and the inhabitants of that particular place a relationship akin to that between sovereign and subject. This lord is an absolute master of his people, both in regard to their rights and even their lives.
The lord levies a poll-tax on the inhabitants, and even the poorest are not exempted from this obligation. The levy varies considerably according to the means of the payer, from say one tanka paid by a poor inhabitant to even a hundred paid by a wealthier member of the community. Besides, every freeholder must pay land tax, the land held by him being understood theoretically to belong to the lord. However heavy the burden of the poll-tax may be, each person is obliged to pay it, for if he neglects to do so he is liable to be punished with flogging and the confiscation of his property to boot. The only means of escape from this obligation consists in becoming a monk, and there must be in the Tibetan priesthood a large number of men who have turned priests solely with this object of avoiding the payment of taxes....
However, when it is remembered how heavy are the burdens imposed on the shoulders of the people, it is not strange that they should try to evade them by entering the Order. The condition of even the poorest priest presents a great contrast to that of other poor people, for the priest is at least sure to obtain every month a regular allowance, small as it is, from the Hierarchical Government, while he can expect more or less of extra allowances in the shape of occasional presents from charitable people. But a poor layman cannot expect any help from those quarters, and he has to support his family with his own labor and to pay the poll-tax besides. Very often therefore he is hardly able to drive the wolf of hunger from his door, and in such case his only hope of succor lies in a loan from his landlord, or the lord of the manor wherein he resides. But hope of repayment there is none, and so the poor farmer gets that loan under a strange contract, that is to say, by binding himself to offer his son or daughter as a servant to the creditor when he or she attains a certain age. And so his child when he has reached the age of (say) ten years is surrendered to the creditor, who is entitled to employ him as a servant for fifteen or twenty years, and for a loan which does not generally exceed ten yen. The lives of the children of poor people may therefore be considered as being foreclosed by their parents. Those pitiable children grow up to be practically slaves of the Peers.
The relationship existing between the Peers and the people residing on their estates, therefore, partakes of the nature of feudalism in some essential respects, but it cannot be said that feudalism reigns alone in Tibet to the exclusion of other systems of Government. On the contrary a centralised form of Government prevails more or less at the same time. The Peers, it must be remembered, do not generally reside on their own estates; they reside in Lhasa and leave their estates in charge of their stewards. And they are not unfrequently appointed by the Central Government as Governors of certain districts.
Consequently the Tibetans may be said to be divided into two classes of people, one being subject to the control of the lords of the manors and other to that of the Central Government. Not unfrequently the two overlap, and the same people are obliged to pay poll-tax to their lords and other taxes to the Central Government.
The work of revenue collection is entrusted to two or three Commissioners appointed from among the clerical or lay officials of higher rank, and these, invested with judicial and executive powers, are despatched every year to the provinces to collect revenue, consisting of taxes, imposts and import duties, these being paid either in money or kind...
The classes who are entitled to enter the Government institutions are only four:
1. Ger-pa, Peers; 2. Ngak-pa, the manṭra clan, 3. Bon-bo, the Old Sect clan; 4. Shal-ngo, families of former chieftains...
The fourth class is “Shal-ngo” and is composed of the descendants of ancient families who acquired power in the locality on account of their wealth in either money or land. The Tibetans are in general a highly conservative race, and therefore they succeed in most cases in keeping intact their hereditary property. Their polyandrous custom too must be conducive to that result, preventing as it does the splitting up of family property among brothers. By far the great majority of the Shal-ngo people possess therefore more or less property; and even a poor Shal-ngo commands the same respect from the public as his richer confrère.
Common people are divided into two grades, one called tong-ba and the other tong-du. The former is superior, and includes all those common people who possess some means and have not fallen into an ignoble state of slavery. Tong-du means etymologically “petty people,” and their rank being one grade lower than that of others, the people of this class are engaged in menial service. Still they are not strictly speaking slaves; they should more properly be considered as poor tenant-farmers, for formerly these people used to stand in the relation of tenant-farmers to land-owners, though such relation no longer exists....
Peers are also traders, mostly by proxy, though some of them refrain from making investments and are content to subsist on the income derived from their land....
I shall next briefly describe the finance of the Tibetan Government. It must be remembered, however, that this subject is extremely complicated and hardly admits of accurate explanation even by financial experts, for nobody except the Revenue Officials can form an approximate idea of the revenue and expenditure of the Government. All that I could get from the Minister of Finance was that a considerable margin of difference existed according to the year. This must partly come from the fact that taxes are paid in kind, and as the market is necessarily subject to fluctuation even in such an exclusive place as Tibet, the Government cannot always realise the same amount of money from the sale of grain and other commodities collected by the Revenue authorities. Of course anything like statistical returns are unknown in Tibet, and my task being hampered by such serious drawbacks, I can only give here a short account of how the taxes are collected, how they are paid and by what portion of the people, and how the revenue thus collected is disbursed, and such matters, which lie on the surface so that I could easily observe and investigate them.
The Treasury Department of the Papal Government is called Labrang Chenbo, which means the large Kitchen of the Lama. It is so-called, because various kinds of staples are carried in there as duty from the land under his direct jurisdiction, and from landlords holding under a sort of feudal tenure. As there are no such conveniences as drafts or money orders, these staples have to be transported directly from each district to the central treasury, whatever the distance. But the taxpayer has one solace: he can easily obtain, on his way to the treasury, the service of post-horses, such service on such occasions being compulsory. The articles thus collected consist of barley, wheat, beans, buck-wheat, meal and butter. But from districts in which custom-houses are established various other things, such as coral gems, cotton, woollen and silk goods, raisins and peaches are accepted. Other districts pay animal-skins, and thus the large Kitchen is an ‘omnium gatherum.’ Truly a strange method of collecting taxes!
One peculiarity in Tibet is the use of an abundant variety of weights and measures; there are twenty scales for weighing meal, and thirty-two boxes for measuring grain. Bo-chik is the name given to a box of the average size, and it measures about half a bushel. But tax-collectors use, when necessity arises, measures half as large or half as small as these, so that the largest measure holds three quarters of a bushel, while the smallest holds a quarter. The small ones are generally used to measure the staples from provinces such as the native place of the Dalai Lama, or such as have personal relations to some high officials of the Government. Thus, though a favored district is supposed to pay the same number of bushels as the others, it pays in reality only one-half of what the most unfortunate district has to pay. Nor is the measure used for one district a fixed one; it may change from year to year. Suppose one of the most favored districts has produced a great rascal, or rebel, or has done anything that displeases the Government. The whole people of that district are responsible for it; they are obliged to pay by the largest measure, that is, twice as much as they did in the preceding year. Thus the various kinds of offences make it necessary to have thirty-two varieties of measures and twenty of weight. It is to be noted however that when the Government has to dispose of those stuffs, it never uses the larger measures, though if too small ones are used, it certainly causes complaints on the part of the buyers; hence the middle-sized ones are mostly used. All expenses of Government, such as salaries for priests and officers and wages for mechanics and tradesmen in its service are paid with an average measure...
In each province there are two places where the collection of taxes is made for the Government, one of which is the temple, and the other the Local Government office; for the people are divided into two classes: (1) those who are governed by the temple and (2) those who are governed by the Local Government. They pay their taxes to the Central Government through their respective Governors. In each local district, there is what is called a Zong. This was originally a castle built for warlike purposes, but in time of peace it serves as a Government office, where all the functions of Government are carried on, so taxes are also collected there. The Zong is almost always found standing on the top of a hillock of about three hundred feet and a Zongpon (chief of the castle), generally a layman, lives in it. He is the chief Governor of the district and collects taxes and sends the things or money he has gathered to the Central Government. The Zongpon is not paid by the Central Government directly, but subtracts the equivalent of his pay from the taxes he has collected. The Central Government does not send goods or money to the Local Government except on such few occasions as need special help from the national Treasury. The people under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Government are sometimes made to pay a poll-tax. The people who belong to the nobility and the higher class of priests are of course assessed by their landowners, but there is no definite regulation as to their payment to the Central Government; the people of some districts pay, while others are exempt....
Officers and priests in Tibet can each borrow fifteen hundred dollars from the Government at an interest of five per cent a year and they can lend it again at fifteen per cent, which is the current rate of interest in Tibet, though usurers sometimes charge over thirty per cent. Thus any officer can make at least ten per cent on fifteen hundred dollars without running much risk. If an officer or priest fails to repay the loan the amount is not subtracted from his next year’s loan. Compound interest is unknown in Tibet however long the debtor may prolong his payment; it is forbidden by the law....
The supplementary resources of the Pope’s revenue are subscriptions from the members and laymen, the leases from meadow-lands in his personal possession, and profits acquired by his own trading, which is carried on by his own caravans. The Pope’s caravans must be distinguished from those of the Treasury Department....
The property of the Grand Lama, after his death, is divided in the following way: One-half of the property (in fact a little more than half) has to be divided among his relatives in his native place, and the remaining half is distributed as gifts among the priests of the Great Temples and those of the New Sect. In the case of an ordinary priest, if he leaves property worth five thousand dollars about four thousand is used in gifts to the priests and for the expense of lights, and almost all the remaining thousand is used for his funeral expenses, leaving perhaps three hundred to his disciples. In cases when a priest leaves very little money, his disciples are obliged to borrow money to supply the want of gifts and money for lights in his honor—a custom entirely foreign to the laity.
-- Three Years in Tibet, by Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi
II. Pre-Independence Era
Ancient India
Ancient India depicts a complex set of land relations involving private ownership, royal administration and communal rule of villages. This multiple structure is a complete whole comprising three different layers [Powelson 1988]. Land tenure in one layer or level would be completely different from the other. Hence quite often we find conflicting pictures from authors who stress on only one type of relationship. A brief discussion about three formations will clarify the issue. Private ownership finds justification in the writings of Manu [Burnell 1884]. According to him land belongs to the person who clears it. This refers to the age of abundance and free possession. Later, geographical constraint of demographic factors made good quality land comparatively scarce. At this stage private ownership was acquired through land grants or assignments. Reference to land grants is found in vedic literature where grants to brahmins were revenue free with right of alienation [Majumdar 1977]. During the Maurya period [322-180 BCE] private land transfers were marked by public ceremonies [Kautilya]. By this time private ownership had acquired a stronghold in the social structure. The ruler, though having an overlordship, was unable to abolish private purchase, sale or donation [Nigam 1975]. All these evidences show that private owners possessed the right to alienate land owned by them. But this kind of absolute ownership was exercised by religious grantees only. The case was different with others. These landholders were closely watched by village officers of the king. Their land was liable to confiscation for improper use or partial use. Though land transfer was theoretically possible, the following constraints were present on the right of transfer: (a) Sale was to be made within the same group or sect only, and (b) any proposal of alienation needed to be sanctioned by the elders of the group.
Such a constrained ownership cannot be termed private in the modern sense of the term. The overlordship of these private lands belonged to the king or the supreme ruler. From time immemorial, the ruler (whether indigenous or foreign) was the sole owner of land in India [Blunt 1936]. The homogeneity of products, urban planning and the nature of dwellings of the Harrappan period also show the existence of a centralised authority [Rafique 1973]. The reign of a sovereign continued over the ages. The epic period refers to the supremacy of the ruler and is mentioned in the writings of Megasthenes. From the vedic times India had a stratified social structure. The village evolved as a self sufficient unit of society based on the caste system. It developed its own support system. The complementary relationship between groups of dominant peasant castes on the one hand and artisan and peasant classes on the other, was a special characteristic of Indian rural economy. In essence this oft-quoted system centred round the organisation of production and distribution of the hereditary occupational castes. The non-agricultural castes were compensated by traditionally fixed shares of village produce and in some cases by small plots of land. But these castes always retained some measure of freedom to sell their goods and services for extra income. The payment made by the village was meant to assure them of their minimal subsistence [Dharmakumar 1982].
The village structure was quite organised. Reference to village organisations and councils is found in old inscriptions. Village organisations were very powerful during the Hindu period. All land belonged to the village community. The king exercised minimal influence. At times since the village was inhabited by a particular tribe, village authority was akin to tribal authority. The land distribution was not completely static. Migration and demographic changes brought about alterations in the distribution pattern of the village land. Village organisations became the centre of power after the Gupta period when central authority was comparatively weak and emerged as "nuclear areas of corporate institutions" [Stein 1969].
In the south two types of village organisations predominated: (a) 'Brahmadeya' (a group of villages controlled by a brahmin organisation) and (b) 'Periyandu' an extended locality by organisations of commoners. The decentralisation of authority and emerging role of the village organisations started during the Gupta period. The process started in the south and gradually extended over the sub-continent.
These village organisations were considered as the embryo form of future feudal structure. The king or his intermediary claimed a part of the produce of the land. The revenue was collected from village individuals and deposited in a common pool. Some common expenses of the village were paid out of this pool. The share of the overlord was given by the village committee (as representative of the village people) [Desai 1954]. Thus land as a thing of value was regarded as being part of an aggregate wealth of the community rather than belonging to a single person [Neale 1969]. But the system was not free from exploitation and class differentiation. The contribution to the pool differed among different people. The headman enjoyed some revenue free allotments. The persons controlling the pool and the class favoured by the dominant group paid lower rates of revenue. To compensate, the lower strata of peasants had to pay more. Growth of hierarchical structure and evolution of the position of intermediaries with landed estates were considered as feudalistic features by some [Tod 1984]. But others [Desai 1954] have refuted the notion. According to them those types of societies, though bearing a close resemblance to feudal type, had a striking difference. The intermediaries were the kins of the ruling authority. Nowhere had the military tenure entirely obliterated the original tenure by blood and birthright. This has generated a controversy about Indian feudalism amongst the academics. The Encyclopedia Britanica (CBM: 9: 363) alludes this comparison as follows: "There is considerable controversy among historians as to whether the feudatory pattern (in India) can be accurately described as feudalism. Some argue that, although it was not identical to the classical example of feudalism of western Europe, there are sufficient similarities to allow the use of the term. The counter argument is that the emphasis on the economic contract, essential to the western European feudalism, was absent in India or was at least not clearly stated. But whether the trend indicated feudalisation or not, it created considerable change of land relations, politics and culture and the major characteristics of that change was decentralisation [Powelson 1988].
Medieval India
The medieval period exercised considerable influence in the evolution of intermediaries. The Muslim rulers engaged the military personnel and paid them with a ;lot of land for their services. Over a period of time by a process of commendation these free proprietors lost their independence and therewith their allodial tenure became feudal.
Early jagirs could not be inherited or transferred. But they could be confiscated by the sovereign if the intermediary left his service. In the following centuries, these rules were modified as the intermediaries (jagirdars and zamindars) established local power enabling them to retain their status and pass this on to their sons. When zamindari rights became alienable, the land belonging to the zamindar was divided among his sons on his death. Thus zamindari rights became scattered through inheritance. As a result, two type of landowners emerged.
Each lineage was divided into the more powerful branch which held the fort and other less powerful branch who held lesser village privileges. The former were termed intermediary or secondary zamindars who might collect revenue from their less affluent kinsmen (who were known as the village or primary zamindars). These primary zamindars were sometimes also called pattidars. The intermediary zamindar's rights solely extended to land revenue collection at a superior level or fiscal overlordship of lower landowners. The primary zamindar was the landholder having immediately proprietary dominion over the soil, including a restricted power of mortgage and alienation as well as the right to locate cultivators, control the waste, sink wells and plant groves. They were generally found to be settled as dominant lineages in a number of contiguous villages. The important aspect was not only the territorial extent but also the depth of penetration of the lineage groups over the agricultural community. Their grip was most tenacious where the primary owners were identical with the cultivators [Dharmakumar 1982]. The division of land rights continued further. The small landowners ceded their rights to the large landowners and became their dependents, on condition that they retained the heridatary use of their land. The continuous extension of land made it impossible for the large landowners to collect revenue without the help of others. Thus sub-infeudation evolved creating differentiation of land control rights over land under direct or indirect supervision. The land cultivated directly by the zamindar was termed "Siror Khas" land to distinguish it from land which was allotted to sub-intermediaries for cultivation. From this allotted land zamindar used to take a portion of the produce as his due for overlordship.
The identification of different levels of land rights in India has been long ridden by the confused use of terms. The term zamindar became predominant in the 17th century replacing or altering with a large number of local terms signifying the same or similar land owning right as 'khoti', and 'maqqadam' in Doab Satarabi and 'biswi' in Awath, 'bhomi' in Rajasthan, 'bhant' or 'vanth' in Gujarat. The zamindar in Persian language means keeper or holder of land. The suffix 'dar' implies a degree of control or attachment, but not necessarily ownership. The ownership right originated during the Mughal period when the term implied hereditary claim to a direct share in the produce of land under his possession. The peasant group was called 'muzari,' 'asami' or 'raya.' Application of similar terms to denote different land rights in different regions added to this confusion. The term taluqdar (for example) in northern India meant a big zamindar engaged on behalf of a few smaller zamindars to pay revenue to the government. His rights were hereditary but not transferable. In Bengal the same term was used to denote a person of a lower status than zamindar.
The supreme overlordship of land rested upon the ruler. Variety in land relations originated from the revenue exactions. The land close to the capital was kept under direct control of the ruler. Hence these khas lands had wage tenancy. But land extending to the furthest corner of the kingdom was difficult to control directly and representatives were appointed, thus giving rise to three-tier relationship in land [Irfan Habib 1963].
Revenue rates were also not uniform. Of course varying revenue rates accounted for various types of land (according to inscriptions in earlier days). During Nizamsahi period, land was divided into irrigated and unirrigated types and again both types were subdivided into four groups and revenue was charged giving due importance to these differences. Land revenue accounted for the larger part of the agricultural surplus.
Mughal tax was not proper rent or even land tax as it was a tax on the crop. Though the system reduced expenses of collection and vexation of revenue collecting authorities, it kept the peasants ignorant about the amount they had to pay. To reduce the chance of exploitation of the peasantry, annual assessment was made on the basis of area statistics. Measures were adopted to curb the power of the intermediaries by keeping their possession of land as temporary by transferring them yearly or every two or three years. Also there was a provision of award of promotion or demotion by changing the size of their territory on the basis of their performance. To prevent the intermediary from charging more than the authorised taxes -- a copy of the revenue paper was kept with the permanent local official (kanungo). But the short-term arrangement only enhanced the desire for maximal unauthorised exaction. In its cumulative effort, such pressure not only inhibited extension of cultivation, but also involved the Mughal ruling class in a deepening conflict with the major agrarian classes (the zamindars and the peasantry). By early 1850 there was growing official restiveness that land control was passing steadily into the hands of the non-agricultural classes. The majority of the intermediaries were finding it difficult to afford to maintain the requisite contingents and farmed out their assignment to bankers and speculators from the cities who emerged as rapacious absentee landlords. The board of revenue observed that the nature of transfer was far more complex than could be explained by the crude categorisation of landlords and tenants or of agriculturist or non-agriculturist classes.
Till this time estate was unit of account in the revenue records and brought under one head the lands for which a particular person or group had revenue paying responsibility. Extension of land control rights of the larger intermediaries and the consequent sub-leasing created constant dualism between the proprietary and cultivating rights -- the former yielding rental income and the later agricultural surplus. Thus a distinction was created between the unit of account and unit of cultivation. The transfer of proprietary rights, however, mostly left the cultivating units undisturbed. Hence the village and the peasantry remained passive in the face of agricultural conflict involving change of ownership.
British Period
The British realised that land was the key factor in the process of Indian economic development and they must control land in order to stabilise their rule over the continent. But they found the prevailing land systems quite perplexing. With a multitude of claims upon land by numerous people at various levels of hierarchies, it was difficult to attribute a particular land to a particular person. Nor did the system appear similar to the British system of feudalism although it was termed feudal or semi-feudal.
Their first effort was to fix the legal owner of the land. In 1769, the company divided parganas into 15 lots each and auctioned them with revenue to be paid to the company. Till this time rent had to be negotiated and adjusted to the ability to pay. But the British emphasis in legality and consistency resulted in dispossessing farmers who could not pay fixed amounts of revenue. Again auction sales placed the ownership of land beyond the reach of the poor persons attached to the soil and created a new aristocracy who were originally moneylenders or traders. The new owners squeezed the peasants to pay the speculative land revenue. Famines, land abandonment and decline in revenue made the government understand the failure of the scheme but they attributed the failure to the short period of land settlement. The government expected that lengthening the period of lease would create an incentive to invest and make the landlords innovative. But the extension of period of tenure did not bring the desired change. Land revenue increased four-fold (compared to the level before the assessment). The zamindars were so heavily taxed that they kept themselves busy in shifting the burden to the ryots. The dispossession of zamindars due to non-payment continued.
The British East India Company, super-imposing 18th century western concepts of private property on a very different indigenous land system, assumed that the 'revenue farmers' in fact owned the land, even though they neither worked on it nor invested in it. Ignoring any rights of the actual tillers, the permanent settlement of Bengal in 1793 gave the zamindars the right to fix their terms with the cultivators in return for a fixed land revenue from the zamindars to the state. The latter was payable in cash while the rents to be paid by actual cultivators to the zamindars were not. By this single piece of legislation, actual tillers of the soil became tenants, while a class of revenue farms became de facto owners of the land though they did not cultivate. An exorbitant increase in revenue demand weakened the position of the zamindars. Appointment of active revenue farmers (jagirdars) and collectors (amils) disrupted the patron-client relationship of landlord and tenants which served as insurance against natural calamities. The confiscation of estates by British government for non-payment of revenue added to the disruption of the rural sector. The labour force was set adrift creating labour shortage. Because nobility was getting dispossessed of land therefore capital provided by the nobility for improvement of land was sharply reduced. As a result of all these, by the middle of the 19th century the whole agrarian sector was in a decaying condition. Rural inhabitants dependent on agriculture were emigrating. The villages deteriorated and their revenues declined.
The case of Oudh and northern India was quite different. The taluqdars of Oudh were owners of large estates and had complete control over the resources of these areas. The British policy was to curb the strength of the taluqdars. From 1764 to 1801 the British government gradually tightened the noose on Oudh. They installed British troop in Oudh under the pretext of helping the nawab to keep the taluqdars under control. Payment for these troops was made by handing over half of Oudh to British in 1801 and the other half in 1856. They acquired the adjacent provinces. The British, however, extended the contract of the taluqdars by a period of five years after which the lease was terminated.
British government faced a dilemma in changing the land relations of Oudh and the northern parts. This region had a tradition of communal village proprietorship and the taluqdars still had considerable influence over the area. Hence a system of mahalwari settlement involving mostly the original taluqdars was introduced. But the assessment was quite high. A number of properties went out into arrears. Inexperienced management, depression and frequent occurrence of natural calamities made the situation worse. Distress sales increased during 1839-59 [Metcalf 1979]. To ease the situation and prevent the speculative rise in land prices the government started leasing property in arrears and wanted to restore the original landholder by accepting payment of the arrears through rent. When the owner failed to pay the arrears even after this arrangement, auction sale was the only option left to the government. As a result land relations changed considerably and there was a shift from old landholding class to new commercial class.
Tanjore Committee criticised zamindari and ryotwari forms and suggested the introduction of mahalwari system in Madras. But southern India had a long tradition of ryotwari settlements. Zamindari or mahalwari system was considered unacceptable in this region. The government introduced mahalwari for a short period but soon changed to ryotwari system in Madras. It was considered successful and extended to other regions. The changeover from mahalwari to ryotwari was necessitated to eliminate the village officers. These officers were suspected on concealing the exact amount of village resources and thus usurping part of the revenue. Changeover to ryotwari system, however, did not solve the problem. Even after the change revenue gain was negligible. The company-appointed intermediaries quickly perceived the opportunity for advancing their social and economic interests under the canopy of company protection. Within a short period they established themselves as a complex layer of adept and influential manipulators between the company and the ryots [Stein 1969]. By the middle of the 19th century, the land revenue systems and consequent tenurial structures exhibited a pattern of striking provincial variations. Zamindari system in Bengal, ryotwari and peasant proprietorship in Bombay and Madras, and a hybrid system of mahalwari (where esffective ownership of most land was vested in cultivators but revenue was rendered communally by the village) prevailed in Punjab, north-west provinces and Oudh. It seems ideological distaste for landlordism born of utilitarian philosophy was a major foce behind the development of ryotwari and mahalwari settlements [Stokes 1978].
Substantial land transfers and sub-infeudation occurred as creditors supported by the westernised legal system attempted to secure peasant debtors' land by foreclosing mortgages. It led to the creation of a large agrarian proletariat. The beneficiaries of this change were the moneylenders and traders. They had a parasitical attitude to agriculture. They did not typically dispossess peasant debtors from the land; used the forms of land mortgage as methods of coercion, thus exercising substantial control over agricultural activities and production. They occupied the position of the rich peasants having an established figure in the village, intensifying their wealth and power through more subtle measures of market control. This group appropriated the economic surplus which was the prerequisite for development.
After 1870 constructive efforts were made to improve agrarian conditions. In the estates under the direct control of the government, new crops and new methods of cultivation were introduced. To encourage dissemination of new technologies the government gave monetary assistance to those landowners who had initiative. Thus the commercial process was initiated in several pockets but could not penetrate the traditional sector. As a result dualism evolved in the agrarian sector.
The modernised parts worked on commercial lines with fully developed modern technology and know-how. A new type of commodity production was taking shape here. It was marked by a fundamentally new (as compared to the traditional) structure of the production process, in which modernised labour played an increasingly important role on the basis of expanding intersectoral commodity exchange. The traditional sector with low income and consequent low rural demand for producer goods, extensive arrears in debt and subsistency continued to hold back the revolutionary influence created by the modernised sector. Hence restructuring of the agrarian economy was the essential precondition for accelerated development of the economy. A built-in depressor characterised by exploitation of the peasantry, low capital intensity and traditional methods of production were operating all over the country which resulted in virtual stagnation of the economy as a whole.
After independence, the primary task was to remove the stagnation and provide initiative to the mass of poor cultivators. The need for agrarian reform to change the prevailing structure and build on egalitarian distribution pattern was earnestly felt. From the modest approach of abolition of intermediaries and provision of security of tenure, the programme included numerous issues which reduce disparities and contradictions in social and economic spheres and thus facilitate economic development.