[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.
CHAPTER 8
The Farming Monopoly.
In S. 1840 (A.D. 1784), Zalim possessed only two or three hundred ploughs, which in a few years increased to eight hundred. At the commencement of what they term the new era (naya samvat) in the history of landed property of Kotah, the introduction of the pateli system, the number was doubled; and at the present time[[1]] no less than four thousand ploughs, of double yoke, employing sixteen thousand oxen, are used in the farming system of this extraordinary man; to which may be added one thousand more ploughs and four thousand oxen employed on the estates of the prince and the different members of his family.
This is the secret of the Raj Rana’s power and reputation; and to the wealth extracted from her soil, Kotah owes her preservation from the ruin which befell the States around her during the convulsions of the last half-century, when one after another sank into decay. But although sagacity marks the plan, and unexampled energy superintends its details, we must, on examining the foundations of the system either morally or politically, pronounce its effects a mere paroxysm of prosperity, arising from stimulating causes which present no guarantee of permanence. Despotism has wrought this magic effect: there is not one, from the noble to the peasant, who has not felt, and who does not still feel, its presence. When the arm of the octogenarian Protector shall be withdrawn, and the authority transferred to his son, who possesses none of the father’s energies, then will the impolicy of the system become apparent. It [540] was from the sequestrated estates of the valiant Hara chieftain, and that grinding oppression which thinned Haraoti of its agricultural population, and left the lands waste, that the regent found scope for his genius. The fields, which had descended from father to son through the lapse of ages, the unalienable right of the peasant, were seized, in spite of law, custom, or tradition, on every defalcation; and it is even affirmed that he sought pretexts to obtain such lands as from their contiguity or fertility he coveted, and that hundreds were thus deprived of their inheritance. In vain we look for the peaceful hamlets which once studded Haraoti: we discern instead the ori, or farmhouse of the regent, which would be beautiful were it not erected on the property of the subject; but when we inquire the ratio which the cultivators bear to the cultivation, and the means of enjoyment this artificial system has left them, and find that the once independent proprietor, who claimed a sacred right of inheritance,[[2]] now ploughs like a serf the fields formerly his own, all our perceptions of moral justice are shocked.
The love of country and the passion for possessing land are strong throughout Rajputana: while there is a hope of existence the cultivator clings to the bapota, and in Haraoti this amor patriae is so invincible, that, to use their homely phrase, “he would rather fill his pet in slavery there, than live in luxury abroad.” But where could they fly to escape oppression? All around was desolation; armies perambulated the country, with rapid strides, in each other’s train, “one to another still succeeding.” To this evil Kotah was comparatively a stranger; the Protector was the only plunderer within his domains. Indeed, the inhabitants of the surrounding States, from the year 1865, when rapine was at its height, flocked into Kotah, and filled up the chasm which oppression had produced in the population. But with the banishment of predatory war, and the return of industry to its own field of exertion, this panacea for the wounds which the ruler has inflicted will disappear; and although the vast resources of the regent’s mind may check the appearance of decay, while his faculties survive to superintend this vast and complicated system, it must ultimately, from the want of a principle of permanence, fall into rapid disorganization. We proceed to the details [541] of the system, which will afford fresh proofs of the talent, industry, and vigilance of this singular character.