CHAPTER 7
Legislation of Zālim Singh.
Fortunately for his subjects, and for his own reputation, his sense of gratitude and friendship for the family of Inglia—whose head, Bala Rao, was then a prisoner in Mewar—involved him, in the attempt to obtain his release, in personal conflict with the Rana, and he was compelled to abandon for ever that long-cherished object of his ambition. It was then he perceived he had sacrificed the welfare of all classes to a phantom, and his vigorous understanding suggested a remedy, which was instantly adopted.
Superstition of Zālim Singh.
His Permanent Camp.
The situation selected was most judicious, being nearly equidistant from the two principal entrances to Haraoti from the south, and touching the most insubordinate part of the Bhil population; while he was close to the strong castles of Shirgarh and Gagraun, which he strengthened with the utmost care, making the latter the depot of his treasures and his arsenal. He formed an army; adopted the European arms and discipline; appointed officers with the title of captain to his battalions, which had a regular nomenclature, and his ‘royals’ (Raj Paltan) have done as gallant service as any that ever bore the name. These were ready at a moment’s warning to move to any point, against any foe. Moreover, by this change, he was extricated from many perplexities and delays which a residence in a capital necessarily engenders [531].
Land Revenue Collections.
Having made himself master of the complicated details of the batai, and sifted every act of chicanery by the most inquisitorial process, he convoked all the Patels of the country, and took their depositions as to the extent of each pateli, their modes of collection, their credit, character, and individual means; and being thus enabled to form a rough computation of the size and revenues of each, he recommenced his tour, made a chakbandi, or measurement of the lands of each township, and classified them, according to soil and fertility, as piwal, or irrigated; gorma, or good soil, but dependent on the heavens; and mormi, including pasturage and mountain-tracts. He then, having formed an average from the accounts of many years, instituted a fixed money-rent, and declared that the batai system, or that of payment in kind, was at an end. But even in this he showed severity; for he reduced the jarib,[[3]] or standard measure, by a third, and added a fourth to his averages. Doubtless he argued that the profit which the Patels looked forward to would admit of this increase, and determined that his vigilance should be more than a match for their ingenuity.
Having thus adjusted the rents of the fisc, the dues of the Patel were fixed at one and a half annas per bigha, on all the lands constituting a pateli; and as his personal lands were on a favoured footing and paid a much smaller rate than the ryot’s, he was led to understand that any exaction beyond what was authorized would subject him to confiscation. Thus the dues on collection would realize to the Patel from five to fifteen thousand rupees annually. The anxiety of these men to be reinstated in their trusts [532] was evinced by the immense offers they made, of ten, twenty, and even fifty thousand rupees. At one stroke he put ten lakhs, or £100,000 sterling, into his exhausted treasury, by the amount of nazaranas, or fines of relief on their reinduction into office. The ryot hoped for better days; for notwithstanding the assessment was heavy, he saw the limit of exaction, and that the door was closed to all subordinate oppression. Besides the spur of hope, he had that of fear, to quicken his exertions; for with the promulgation of the edict substituting money-rent for batai, the ryot was given to understand that 'no account of the seasons’ would alter or lessen the established dues of the State, and that uncultivated lands would be made over by the Patel to those who would cultivate them; or if none would take them, they would be incorporated with the khas or personal farms of the regent. In all cases the Patels were declared responsible for deficiencies of revenue.
Hitherto this body of men had an incentive, if not a licence, to plunder, being subject to an annual or triennial tax termed patel-barar. This was annulled; and it was added, that if they fulfilled their contract with the State without oppressing the subject, they should be protected and honoured. Thus these Patels, the elected representatives of the village and the shields of the ryot, became the direct officers of the crown. It was the regent’s interest to conciliate a body of men on whose exertions the prosperity of the State mainly depended; and they gladly and unanimously entered into his views. Golden bracelets and turbans, the signs of inauguration, were given, with a “grant of office,” to each Patel, and they departed to their several trusts.
Possibility of Representative Government.
A Revenue Board.
Such was the Patel system of Kotah. A system so rigid had its alloy of evil; the veil of secrecy, so essential to commercial pursuits, was rudely drawn aside; every transaction was exposed to the regent, and no man felt safe from the inquisitorial visits of the spies of this council. A lucky speculation was immediately reported, and the regent hastened to share in the success of the speculator. Alarm and disgust were the consequence; the spirit of trade was damped; none were assured of the just returns of their industry; but there was no security elsewhere, and at Kotah only the Protector dared to injure them.
The council of Venice was not more arbitrary than the Patel board of Kotah; even the ministers saw the sword suspended over their heads, while they were hated as much as feared by all but the individual who recognized their utility.
It would be imagined that with a council so vigilant the regent would feel perfectly secure. Not so: he had spies over them. In short, to use the phrase of one of his ministers—a man of acute perception and powerful understanding, when talking of the vigour of his mental vision—when his physical organs had failed, pani pina, aur mut tolna, which we will not translate.
The Bohra.
The Bohra of Rajputana is the Métayer of the ancient system of France. He furnishes the cultivator with whatever he requires for his pursuits, whether cattle, implements, or seed; and supports him and his family throughout the season until the crop is ready for the sickle, when a settlement of accounts takes place. This is done in two ways: either by a cash payment, with stipulated interest according to the risk previously agreed upon; or, more commonly, by a specified share of the crop, in which the Bohra takes the risk of bad seasons with the husbandman. The utility of such a person under an oppressive government, where the ryot can store up nothing for the future, may readily be conceived; he is, in fact, indispensable. Mutual honesty is required; for extortion on the part of the Bohra would lose him his clients, and dishonesty on that of the peasant would deprive him of his only resource against the sequestration of his patrimony. Accordingly, this monied middleman enjoyed great consideration, being regarded as the patron of the husbandman. Every peasant had his particular Bohra, and not unfrequently from the adjacent village in preference to his own.
Such was the state of things when the old system of lattha batai was commuted for bighoti, a specific money-rent apportioned to the area of the land. The Patel, now tied down to the simple duties of collection, could touch nothing but his dues, unless he leagued with or overturned the Bohra; and in either case there was risk from the lynx-eyed scrutiny of the regent. They, accordingly, adopted the middle course of alarming his cupidity, which the following expedient effected. When the crop was ripe, the peasant would demand permission to cut it. “Pay your rent first,” was the reply. The Bohra was applied to; but his fears had been awakened by a caution not to lend money to one on whom the government had claims. There was no alternative but to mortgage to the harpy Patel a portion of the produce of his fields. This was the precise point at which he aimed; he took the crop at his own valuation, and gave his receipt that the dues of government were satisfied; demanding a certificate to the effect “that having no funds forthcoming [535] when the rent was required, and being unable to raise it, the mortgager voluntarily assigned, at a fair valuation, a share of the produce.” In this manner did the Patels hoard immense quantities of grain, and as Kotah became the granary of Rajputana, they accumulated great wealth, while the peasant, never able to reckon on the fruits of his industry, was depressed and impoverished. The regent could not long be kept in ignorance of these extortions; but the treasury overflowed, and he did not sufficiently heed the miseries occasioned by a system which added fresh lands by sequestration to the home farms, now the object of his especial solicitude.
Suppression of the Patel System.
It is to be inferred that the regent must have well weighed the present good against the evil he incurred, in destroying in one moment the credit and efficacy of such an engine of power as the Pateli system he had established. The Council of Four maintained their post, notwithstanding the humiliated condition of their compeers; though their influence could not fail to be weakened by the discredit attached to the body. The system Zalim had so artfully introduced being thus entirely disorganized, he was induced to push still further the resources of his energetic mind, by the extension of his personal farms. In describing the formation and management of these, we shall better portray the character of the regent than by the most laboured summary; the acts will paint the man.
Before, however, we enter upon this singular part of his history, it is necessary to develop the ancient agricultural system of Haraoti, to which he returned when the pateli was broken up. In the execution of this design, we must speak both of the soil and the occupants, whose moral estimation in the minds of their rulers must materially influence their legislative conduct.
The ryot of India, like the progenitor of all tillers of the earth, bears the brand of vengeance on his forehead; for as Cain was cursed by the Almighty, so were the cultivators of India by Ramachandra, as a class whom no lenity could render honest or [536] contented. When the hero of Ayodhya left his kingdom for Lanka, he enjoined his minister to foster the ryots, that he might hear no complaints on his return. Aware of the fruitlessness of the attempt, yet determined to guard against all just cause of complaint, the minister reversed the mauna, or grain measure, taking the share of the crown from the smaller end, exactly one-half of what was sanctioned by immemorial usage. When Rama returned, the cultivators assembled in bodies at each stage of his journey, and complained of the innovations of the minister. “What had he done?” “Reversed the mauna.” The monarch dismissed them with his curse, as “a race whom no favour could conciliate, and who belonged to no one”; a phrase which to this hour is proverbial, 'ryot kisi ka nahin hai'; and the sentence is confirmed by the historians of Alexander, who tell us that they lived unmolested amidst all intestine wars; that “they only till the ground and pay tribute to the king,” enjoying an amnesty from danger when the commonwealth suffered, which must tend to engender a love of soil more than patriotism.[[5]] It would appear as if the regent of Kotah had availed himself of the anathema of Rama in his estimation of the moral virtues of his subjects, who were Helots in condition if not in name.
Modes of realizing Land-Rent.
Batai, or ‘division in kind,’ varies with the seasons and their products:
1st. The unalu, or ‘summer harvest,’ when wheat, barley, and a variety of pulses, as gram, moth, mung, til,[[7]] are raised. The share of the State in these varies with the fertility of the soil, from one-fourth, one-third, and two-fifths, to one-half—the extreme fractions being the maximum and minimum; those of one-third and two-fifths [537] are the most universally admitted as the share of the crown. But besides this, there are dues to the artificers and mechanics, whose labour to the village is compensated by a share of the harvest from each cultivator; which allowances reduce the portion of the latter to one-half of the gross produce of his industry, which if he realize, he is contented and thrives.
The second harvest is the siyalu, or ‘autumnal,’ and consists of makkai or bhutta (Indian corn), of juar, bajra, the two chief kinds of maize,[[8]] and til or sesamum, with other small seeds, such as kangni,[[9]] with many of the pulses. Of all these, one-half is exacted by the State.
Such is the system of batai; let us describe that of kut.[[10]] Kut[[11]] is the conjectural estimate of the quantity of the standing crop on a measured surface, by the officers of the government in conjunction with the proprietors, when the share of the State is converted into cash at the average rate of the day, and the peasant is debited the amount. So exactly can those habitually exercised in this method estimate the quantity of grain produced on a given surface, that they seldom err beyond one-twentieth part of the crop. Should, however, the cultivator deem his crop over-estimated, he has the power to cut and weigh it; and this is termed lattha.
The third is a tax in money, according to admeasurement of the field, assessed previously to cultivation.
The fourth is a mixed tax, of both money and produce.
None of these modes is free from objection. That of kut, or conjectural estimate of the standing crop, is, however, liable to much greater abuse than lattha, or measurement of the grain. In the first case, it is well known that by a bribe to the officer, he will kut a field at ten maunds, which may realize twice the quantity; for the chief guarantees to honesty are fear of detection, and instinctive morality; feeble safeguards, even in more civilized States than Rajwara. If he be so closely watched that he must make a fair kut, or estimate, he will still find means to extort money from the ryot, one of which is, by procrastinating the estimate when the ear is ripe, and when every day’s delay is a certain loss. In short, a celebrated superintendent of a district, of great credit both for zeal and honesty [538], confessed, “We are like tailors; we can cheat you to your face, and you cannot perceive it.” The ryot prefers the kut; the process is soon over, and he has done with the government; but in lattha, the means are varied to perplex and cheat it; beginning with the reaping, when, with a liberal hand, they leave something for the gleaner; then, a “tithe for the khurpi, or 'sickle'”; then, the thrashing; and though they muzzle the ox who treads out the corn, they do not their own mouths, or those of their family. Again, if not convertible into coin, they are debited and allowed to store it up, and “the rats are sure to get into the pits.” In both cases the shahnahs, or field-watchmen, are appointed to watch the crops, as soon as the ear begins to fill; yet all is insufficient to check the system of pillage; for the ryot and his family begin to feed upon the heads of Indian corn and millet the moment they afford the least nourishment. The shahnah, receiving his emoluments from the husbandman as well as from the crown, inclines more to his fellow-citizen; and it is asserted that one-fourth of the crop, and even a third, is frequently made away with before the share of the government can be fixed.
Yet the system of lattha was pursued by the regent before he commenced that of pateli, which has no slight analogy to the permanent system of Bengal,[[12]] and was attended with similar results,—distress, confiscation, and sale, to the utter exclusion of the hereditary principle, the very corner-stone of Hindu society.
[2]. [Lattha, literally a ‘measuring pole’; batāi, division of crop between landlord and tenant.]
[3]. [In the United Provinces the jarīb is 55 yards, and one square jarīb = 1 bīgha. The standard bīgha is five-eighths of an acre (Wilson, Glossary of Indian Terms, s.v.).]
[4]. [On the prospects of representative government, in Rājputāna see the statement of the Mahārāja of Bīkaner—The Times, 10th May 1917.]
[5]. [McCrindle, Megasthenes, 41.]
[6]. [Āl, Morinda citrifolia, from which a dye is made; kusumbha, safflower, Carthamus tinctorius, also a dye (Watt, Econ. Prod. 783 f., 276 ff.).]
[7]. [Moth, Phaseolus aconitifolius; mūng, P. mungo; til, Sesamum indicum.]
[8]. [Juār and bājra are millets; makkai is maize.]
[9]. Panicum Italicum [Setaria italica], produced abundantly in the valley of the Rhine, as well as makkai, there called Velsh corn; doubtless the maizes would alike grow in perfection. [Watt, Comm. Prod. 988.]
[10]. It would be more correct to say that batai, or ‘payment in kind,’ is divided into two branches, namely, kut and lattha; the first being a portion of the standing crop by conjectural estimate; the other by actual measure, after reaping and thrashing.
[11]. [Kūt means ‘valuation, appraisement.’]
[12]. The patel of Haraoti, like the zemindar of Bengal, was answerable for the revenues; the one, however, was hereditary only during pleasure; the other perpetually so. The extent of their authorities was equal.