Land Revenue and Land Policy
1858-1947 - I
Selection by Amir Ali Kadri
1. EUROPEAN COLONIZATION AND SETTLEMENT IN INDIA, 1858
Your committee think it proper to commence their Report by a restriction, obvious almost to everyone, of the sense in which Colonization must be applied to India. Though sanctioned in its application to that country by modern usage, and by such high authority as that of Lord Metcalfe, the term ’Colonization’ must, in this instance, clearly be limited to a class of superior settlers; who may, by their enterprise, capital, and science, set in motion the labour, and develop the resources of India. The inducements to a settlement of the working classes of the British Isles are not generally to be found in India. Those inducements are, high wages, the facility of obtaining land at an easy rate, the enjoyment of a constitution framed after that of the mother country, a temperate climate, and the prospect of forming a part of a community speaking our language and conforming to our manners and customs. The settlement of India took place at a period of remote antiquity. Its lands have mostly been appropriated; the wages of labour are low; its Government is absolute; its climate is generally unfavourable to the permanent residence and increase of the British race, and to labour in the open air; and its usages, languages, and religions are strange, and repulsive to the English labourer. For these reasons, and in accordance with the testimony laid before them, your committee are of the opinion that India cannot compete with the boundless regions of America or Australia, as a home for the labouring emigrant.
Nothing more strongly impresses an inquirer into the foundation and progress of our Indian Empire than the contrast which, as regards British residence, it presents to our other dependencies. While free settlement, as in the neighbouring Island of Ceylon, has formed the basis of our colonial system, and the cause of its prosperity, the exclusion of free settlers has marked the origin and the progress of our Indian Government. Statesmen, indeed, like Lord William Bentinck and Lord Metcalfe saw, in the future increase of British settlers, the only permanent prosperity of British India; and English, and even Indian opinion, has gradually followed in the track of those more observant and profounder minds. Even now, although the principle of free settlement has been recognized by British Legislation, traces of the old exclusive system are said to linger still. Though they may be removed in fact, they are stated to exist in feeling. Thus we are told by a very competent witness, that a ’cold shade is thrown over European adventurers in India’, and by another, that a feeling of ’dislike to settlers’ exists among civilians; that the civilians, as distinguished from the settlers, are ’too much of a caste’; and that the covenanted service is ’as it were, the nobility of India’.
It appears even now to be doubted by legal authorities whether Europeans can enter, without a licence, those parts of India which have been acquired within the present century. Your Committee recommend the removal of this doubt by legislative enactment.
It is stated by witnesses generally, that ’wherever Europeans have settled, a marked improvement in the country has followed’; the various products of the land have been developed. Settlers have taken the lead in introducing steam navigation, and in discovering its indispensable auxiliaries, coal and iron; in the extension of roads, and in generally lowering the cost of production.
It is justly observed by Mr. Marsham that from their intercourse with the people, settlers must naturally ’know more what is passing in their minds’ than the agents of the Government; the position of the settlers rendering them vigilant and interested observers of the tendency of native opinion.
Where they reside, the rate of interest, often exorbitantly high, becomes reduced. The circulation of ready money is extended, and a steady rise takes place in the rate of wages.
Another good effect of settlement is its tendency to promote the maintenance of order. A large extension of the number of settlers over India would be a considerable guarantee against any future insurrection, and would tend to lessen the necessity for maintaining our expensive army.
An objection to British settlement in India has been raised, on the ground of climate. It appears to your committee that the dangerous effect of the climate of India has been considerably exaggerated. The planters from Lower Bengal, especially in Behar, are described as a ’healthy and hearty’ race of men. Such of them as attended before your Committee resembled English farmers rather than residents in a climate far distant and different from their own. Statements, tending considerably to modify pre-conceived opinions as to the dangers of an Indian climate, proceeded from settlers in various parts of India.
One of the special branches of the subject referred to the consideration of your Committee was the fitness of the hill-districts of India for the reception of European settlers. ’There is hardly a province throughout India,’ states an eminent medical man, Mr. Martin, ’where there are not mountain-ranges available for civil and military residence.’ Mr. Martin’s attention was first called to this circumstance with reference to the army; and he has long since submitted to the Government of India a report on the necessity, for the preservation of the European army, of the permanent removal of a portion of it to the hills. ’The monotony of a barrack life on the plains of India’, ’without congenial employment or resource’, is stated, by several witnesses, to be ’destructive both to mind and body of the soldier’.
It is said that settlement in the hills will tend more than any other circumstance to attach European families to India. The capitalist living himself in a higher climate, may direct the progress of labour in the plain. Railways will give a great facility to residence in the hills. One is already contemplated to Darjeeling. It is stated that these ’hill-climates’ have not been sufficiently explored. Many . reports have been written upon them; but it is desirable that agents on the spot should more closely examine them, and that their researches should be made public. So far as your Committee have enquired, climates favourable to Europeans’ health may be found at a due elevation on the Himalayas, on the Neilgherries, and on other hill ranges yet incompletely explored, especially in the South of India. At about 4,000 feet above the sea level the Himalayas offer an European climate. On the eastward portion, indeed, of that extensive range, the prevalence of rain may be frequently a serious objection; though not so formidable as is generally supposed. Further to the westward the rainfall sensibly diminishes. It has been suggested that asylums, like those originated by the lamented Sir Henry Lawrence, might be advantageously formed on the hills; where, in a climate like that of our own country, the children of soldiers and of other persons might be trained, with a special view to the practical improvement of India, and to the acquisition of a knowledge of the people and the country. Mechanics, and practical agriculturists, are greatly wanted in India. The planters state that young men acquainted with the native languages are much required for their establishments. Thus educated, they might also be employed, as commercial travelers are in this country, for extending the commerce and manufactures of Great Britain and of Europe in the East.
2. BENGAL TENANCY ACT OF 29 APRIL 1859
Whereas it is expedient to re-enact with certain modifications the provisions of the existing law relative to the rights of ryots with respect to the delivery of pottahs and the occupancy of land, to the prevention of illegal exaction and extortion in connection with demands of rent, and to other questions connected with the same; to extend the jurisdiction of Collectors, and to prescribe rules for the trial of such questions, as well as of suits for the recovery of arrears of rent, and of suits arising out of the distrait of property for such arrears; and to amend the law relating to distrait; It is enacted as follows:
II. Every ryot is entitled to receive from the person to whom the rent of the land held or cultivated by him is payable, a pottah containing the following particulars:
The quantity of land; and where fields have been numbered in a Government survey, the number of each field. The amount of annual rent. The installments in which the same is to be paid. And any special conditions of the lease. If the rent is payable in kind, the proportion of produce to be delivered, and the time and manner of delivery.
III. Ryots who, in the Provinces of Bengal, Behar, Orissa, and Benares, hold lands at fixed rates of rent, which have not been changed from the time of the permanent settlement, are entitled to receive pottahs at those rates.
IV. Whenever, in any suit under this Act, it shall be proved that the rent at which land is held by a ryot in the said Provinces has not been changed for a period of twenty years before the commencement of the suit, it shall be presumed that the land has been held at that rent from the time of the permanent settlement, unless the contrary be shown, or unless it be proved that such rent was fixed at some later period.
V. Ryots having rights of occupancy, but not holding at fixed rates as described in the two preceding Sections, are entitled to receive pottahs at fair and equitable rates. In case of dispute, the rate previously paid by the ryot shall be deemed to be fair and equitable, unless the contrary be shown in a suit by either party under the provisions of this Act.
VI. Every ryot, who has cultivated or held land for a period of twelve years, has a right of occupancy in the land so cultivated or held by him, whether it he held under pottah or not, so long as he pays the rent payable on account of the same; but this rule does not apply to khomar, neejjote, or seer land belonging to the proprietor of the estate or tenure and let by him on lease for a term or year by year, nor (as respects the actual cultivator) to lands sublet for a term or year by year by a ryot having a right of occupancy. The holding of the father, or other person from whom a ryot inherits, shall be deemed to be the holding of the ryot within the meaning of this Section.
VII. Nothing contained in the last preceding Section shall be held to affect the terms of any written contract for the cultivation of land entered into between a landholder and a ryot when it contains any express stipulation contrary thereto.
VIII. Ryots not having rights of occupancy are entitled to pottahs only at such rates as may be agreed on between them and the persons to whom the rent is payable.
IX. Every person who grants a pottah is entitled to receive from the person to whom the pottah is granted a kubooliyet or counterpart engagement in conformity with the terms of the pottah. The tender to any ryot of a pottah such as the ryot is entitled to receive shall be held to entitle the person to whom the rent is payable to receive a kubooliyet from such ryot.
X. Every under-tenant or ryot, from whom any sum is exacted in excess of the rent specified in his pottah, or payable under the provisions of this Act, whether as abwab or under any other pretext, and every under-tenant, ryot, or cultivator from whom a receipt is withheld for any sum of money paid by him as rent, shall be entitled to recover from the person receiving such rent, damages not exceeding double the amount so exacted or paid. Receipts for rent shall specify the year or years on account of which the rent is acknowledged to have been paid; and any refusal to make such specification shall be held to be a withholding of a receipt.
XI. The power heretofore vested in Zamindars and other landholders of compelling the attendance of their tenants for the adjustment of their rents or for any other purpose is withdrawn, and all such persons are prohibited from adopting any means of compulsion for enforcing payment of the rents due to them other than are authorized by the provisions of this Act.
XII. If payment of rent, whether the same be legally due or not, is extorted from any under-tenant or ryot by illegal confinement or other duress, such under tenant or ryot shall be entitled to recover such damages, not exceeding in any case the sum of two hundred Rupees, as may be deemed a reasonable compensation for the injury done him by such extortion. An award of compensation under this Section shall not bar or affect any penalty or punishment to which the person practicing such extortion may be subject by law.
XIII. No under-tenant or ryot, who holds or cultivates land without a written engagement, or under a written engagement not specifying the period of such engagement, or whose engagement has expired, or has become cancelled in consequence of the sale for arrears of rent or revenue of the tenure or estate in which the land held or cultivated by him is situate, and has not been renewed, shall be liable to pay any higher rent for such land than the rent payable for the previous year, unless a written notice shall have been served on such under-tenant or ryot, in or before the month of Cheit, specifying the rent to which he will be subject for the ensuing year, and the ground on which an enhancement of rent is claimed. Such notice shall be served by order of the Collector on the application (which may be on plain paper) of the person to whom the rent is payable, and shall, if practicable, be served personally on the under-tenant or ryot. If for any reason the notice cannot be served personally upon the under-tenant or ryot, it shall be affixed at his usual place of residence, or if he have no such place of residence in the District in which the land is situate, the mode of service of such notice shall be by affixing it at the Mal cutcherry of such land or other conspicuous place thereon, or at the village Chowree or Chowpal or at some other conspicuous place in the village in which the land is situate.
XIV. Any under-tenant or ryot, on whom such notice as aforesaid has been served, may contest his liability to pay the enhanced rent demanded of him, either by complaint of excessive demand of rent as hereinafter provided, or in answer to any suit preferred against him for recovery of arrears of the enhanced rent.
XV. No dependent talookdar or other person possessing a permanent transferable interest in land, intermediate between the proprietor of an estate and the ryots, who, in the Provinces of Bengal, Behar, Orissa, and Benares, holds his talook or tenure (otherwise than under a terminable lease) at a fixed rent which has not been changed from the time of the permanent settlement, shall be liable to any enhancement of such rent, anything in Section LI Regulation VIII. 1793, or in any other law, to the contrary notwithstanding.
XVI. Whenever, in any suit under this Act, it shall be proved that the rent at which a talook or other tenure is held in the said Provinces has not been changed for a period of twenty years before the commencement of the suit, it shall be presumed that such talook or tenure has been held at that rent from the time of the permanent settlement, unless the contrary be shown, or it be proved that such rent was fixed at some later period.
XVII. No ryot having a right of occupancy shall be liable to an enhancement of the rent previously paid by him except on some one of the following grounds, namely:
That the rate of rent paid by such ryot is below the prevailing rate payable by the same class of ryots for land of a similar description and with similar advantages in the places adjacent.
That the value of the produce or the productive powers of the land have been increased otherwise than by the agency or at the expense of the ryot.
That the quantity of land held by the ryot has been proved by measurement to be greater than the quantity for which rent has been previously paid by him.
XVIII. Every ryot having a right of occupany shall be entitled to claim an abatement of the rent previously paid by him, if the area of the land has been diminished by dilution or otherwise, or if the value of the produce or the productive powers of the land have been decreased by any cause beyond the power of the ryot, or if the quantity of land held by the ryot has been proved by measurement to be less than the quantity for which rent has been previously paid by him.
XIX. Any ryot, who desires to relinquish the land held or cultivated by him, shall be at liberty to do so provided he gives notice of his intention in writing to the person entitled to the rent of the land or his authorized agent in or before the month of Cheit of the year preceding that in which the relinquishment is to have effect. If he fails to give such notice, and the land is not let to any other person, he shall continue liable for the rent of the land. If the person entitled to the rent of the land or his agent refuse to receive any such notice and to sign a receipt for the same, the ryot may make an application on plain paper to the Collector who shall thereupon cause the notice to be served on such person or his agent in the manner provided in Section XIII.
XX. Any instalment of rent which is not paid on or before the day when the same is payable according to the pottah or engagement, or, if there be no written specification of the time of payment, at or before the time when such instalment is payable according to established usage, shall be held to be an arrear of rent under this Act, and unless otherwise provided by written agreement, shall be liable to interest at twelve per centum per annum.
XXI. When an arrear of rent remains due from any ryot at the end of the Bengal year, or at the end of the month of Jeth of the Fusly or Willayutee year, as the case may be, such ryot shall be liable to be ejected from the land in respect of which the arrear is due. Provided that no ryot, having a right of occupancy or holding under a pottah the term of which has not expired, shall be ejected otherwise than in execution of a decree or order under the provisions of this Act.
XXII. When an arrear of rent shall be adjudged to be due from any farmer or other lease-holder not having a permanent or transferable interest in the land, the lease of such lease-holder shall be liable to be cancelled, and the lease-holder to be ejected. Provided that no such lease shall be cancelled nor the lease-holder ejected otherwise than in execution of a decree or order under the provisions of this Act.
3. THE PERMANENT SETTLEMENT POLICY, 9 JULY 1862
43. By many persons great advantages have been anticipated from what is usually called a permanent settlement; that is, by the State fixing, once and for ever, the demand on the produce of the land, and foregoing all prospect of any future increase from that source. It has been urged that not only would a general feeling of contentment be diffused among the landholders, but that they would thereby become attached, by the strongest ties of personal interest, to the Government by which that permanency is guaranteed. It is further alleged that by this means only can sufficient inducement be afforded to the proprietors to lay out capital on the land, and to introduce improvements by which the wealth and prosperity of the country would be increased.
45. On the other hand, it has been urged that the consequence of a permanent settlement of the land revenue is to preclude the Government from ever obtaining any future augmentation of income from this source; and, considering that the experience of all countries advancing in civilization demonstrates that the cost of administration is constantly tending to increase, it follows that the additional charge which will fall on the Government must of necessity be met by taxation in some shape, such as customs, excise, salt, stamp, or income duties. Colonel Baird Smith, in the able paper already referred to, admits that this result will take place, but he argues that any sacrifice of public revenue involved in the concession of a demand fixed in perpetuity would be more than compensated by the increased ability of the people generally to bear taxation direct or indirect which would necessarily follow on the improvement in their social condition. An ’intelligent and powerful Government,’ he says, ’could not fail to participate in these advantages. Its intelligence would direct it to the least offensive and most effective means of sharing in the general prosperity, and its power would ensure the fair trial and ultimate success of those means.’
48. It is also most desirable that facilities should be given for the gradual growth of a middle class connected with the land, without dispossessing the peasant proprietors and occupiers. It is believed that among the latter may be found many men of great intelligence, public spirit, and social influence, although individually in comparative poverty. To give to the intelligent, the thrifty, and the enterprising the means of improving their condition, by opening to them the opportunity of exercising these qualities, can be best accomplished by limiting the public demand on their lands. When such men acquire property, and find themselves in a thriving condition, they are certain to be well affected towards the Government under which they live. It is on the contentment of the agricultural classes, who form the great bulk of the population, that the security of the Government mainly depends. If they are prosperous, any casual outbreak on the part of other classes or bodies of men is much less likely to become an element of danger, and the military force, and its consequent expense, may be regulated accordingly.
50. It is indispensable, of course, that, whether with a view to redemption, even to the extent of one-tenth of the revenue, or to a permanent settlement, the preliminary step of a revision of the present assessment must be taken. In the first instance, whichever course may be finally adopted, a full, fair, and equable rent must be imposed on all lands now under temporary settlement; and, when that has been accomplished Her Majesty’s Government are of opinion that a permanent settlement may be safely applied. This was the course recommended by one of the ablest and most distinguished men who ever was called on to bear a part in the administration of British India. In his celebrated Minute of the 31st December 1824, Sir Thomas Munro, then Governor of the Presidency of Madras, several times refers to this subject, and particularly in the following passage: ’No survey assessment of a great province,’ he says, ’can ever at once be made so correct as not to require future alteration; when, therefore it has been completed with as much care as possible, a trial should always be made of it for six or seven years. This period will be sufficient to discover all defects in the assessment. A general revision of it should then be made, and wherever it might be found too high it should be lowered, and it may then, with safety to the revenue and benefit to the people, be made permanent.’
51. When once the rent has been properly fixed, any increase consequent on the natural progress of society will in all probability take place but slowly, and reach no great amount until after a considerable interval. It must be remembered that, in all the revisions of settlement which have taken place of late years, the tendency has been towards a reduction in the rates of assessment. Wherever the settlements have been carefully made, and the capabilities of the country have been well ascertained, the probability of any considerable increase of land revenue appears to be but slight.
55. It must also be remembered that all revisions of assessment, although occurring only at intervals of 30 years, nevertheless demand, for a considerable time previous to their expiration, much of the attention of the most experienced civil officers, whose services can be ill spared from their regular administrative duties. Under the best arrangements, the operation cannot fail to be harassing, vexatious, and, perhaps, even oppressive to the people affected by it. The work can only be accomplished by the aid of large establishments of native ministerial officers, who must, of necessity, have great opportunities for speculation, extortion, and abuse of power. Moreover, as the period for resettlement approaches, the agricultural classes, with the view of evading a true estimate of the actual value of their lands, contract their cultivation, cease to grow the most profitable crops, and allow wells and watercourses to fall into decay. These practices are certainly more detrimental to themselves than to the Government, but there can be no question that they prevail extensively. The remedy for these evils, the needless occupation of the valuable time of the public officers employed in the revision, the extortion of the subordinate officials, and the loss of wealth to the community from the deterioration of cultivation, lies in a permanent settlement of the land revenue.
58. After the most careful review of all these considerations, Her Majesty’s Government are of opinion that the advantages which may reasonably be expected to accrue not only to those immediately connected with the land, but to the community generally, are sufficiently great to justify them in incurring the risk of some prospective loss of land revenue in order to attain them, and that a settlement in perpetuity in all districts in which the conditions absolutely required as preliminary to such a measure are, or may hereafter be, fulfilled, is a measure dictated by sound policy; and calculated to accelerate the development of the resources of India, and to ensure, in the highest degree, the welfare and contentment of all classes of Her Majesty’s subjects in that country.
59. They consider that the direct mode of making a permanent settlement is preferable to the indirect one of obtaining a similar result by conceding to the landholders the right to redeem their assessment. They do not believe that the power to redeem the land revenue is necessary to induce the landholders to incur expenditure in the improvement of their property. What is really required, in order to call into effective action their enterprise and capital, is not an exemption from all payments to the Government on account of their estates, but the fixing those payments in perpetuity, at a moderate and certain amount. In Bengal, where a permanent settlement was made with the Zemindars seventy years ago, the general progress of the country in wealth and prosperity, notwithstanding the depressed condition of the peasantry, caused by errors and omissions in the mode of making the settlement, has been most remarkable. Such errors in the existing state of our knowledge regarding the rights and interests of the subordinate occupants of the soil would not be permitted to recur.
63. Her Majesty’s Government have, therefore, determined to limit the power of redeeming the land revenue to such cases as are referred to above in paragraph 26; but they have resolved to sanction a permanent settlement of the land revenue throughout India. It will, however, still remain to be determined how far any particular district is in a condition to warrant the practical application of the measure at the present time.
72. I have therefore to announce to your Excellency in Council, as the result of the foregoing considerations, that, as regards all districts or parts of districts in which no considerable increase is to be expected in the land revenue, and where its equitable apportionment has already been, or may hereafter be, ascertained to your satisfaction, Her Majesty’s Government will be ready to sanction, on your recommendation, or that of the local government supported by you, the settlement in perpetuity of the assessment at the present or the revised rates.
4. THE CULTIVATORS’ RIGHTS, 1880
24. We can, however, feel no doubt that in all the provinces of Northern India, and particularly in Bengal, it is the duty of the Government to make the provisions of the law more effectual for the protection of the cultivators’ rights. This opinion is primarily based on the historical ground that they have a claim as a matter of strict justice to be replaced as far as possible in the position they have gradually lost; but it may also be supported on the economical ground that in the case of these large cultivating classes security of tenure must have its usual beneficial effect; and that as a rule the cultivators with occupancy rights are better off than the tenants-at-will. Wherever inquiry has been made it has been found that in all matters relating to material prosperity, such as the possession of more cattle, better houses, and better clothes, the superiority lies on the side of the occupancy-tenants, and the figures in the preceding paragraphs also show that as a rule they hold larger areas of land. Where the subdivision of land among tenants-at-will is extreme, and in a country where agriculture is almost the only possible employment for large classes of the people, the competition is so keen that rents can be forced up to a ruinous height, and men will crowd each other till the space left to each is barely sufficient to support a family; any security of tenure which defends a part of the population from that competition must necessarily be to them a source of material comfort and of peace of mind, such as can hardly be conceived by a community where a diversity of occupations exists, and where those who cannot find a living on the land are able to betake themselves to other employments.
25. It is only under such tenures as convey permanency of holding, protection from arbitrary enhancement of rent, and security for improvements, that we can expect to see property accumulated, credit grow up, and improvements effected in the system of cultivation. There could be no greater misfortune to the country than that the numbers of the occupancy class should decrease, and that such tenants should be merged in the crowd of rack-rented tenants-at-will, who owning no permanent connection with the land, have no incentive to thrift or to improvement. It is desirable for all parties that measures should be framed to secure the consolidation of occupancy-rights, the enlargement of the numbers of those who hold under secure tenures, and the widening the limits of that security, together with the protection of the tenant-at-will in his just rights and the strengthening of his position by any measure that may seem wise and, equitable. The suggestions which we now proceed to make for alterations in the existing law, or in the system of administering it, are based on this view, and have for their object the ends thus indicated.
5. SECRETARY OF STATE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, 17 AUGUST 1882
4. Without entering upon the debated question of what were the precise intentions of the Government of Lord Cornwallis, I consider it fully established that the reservations made at the time of the Permanent Settlement give you the full right of interposition for the amelioration of the condition of the Bengal peasantry, and that legislative interposition at this time is justified by the facts disclosed:
I. By the existence of prevalent discontent with some of the provisions of the present law on the part of both zemindars and ryots, which has caused successive Governments of Bengal and of India for some time past to conclude that an amendment of the law is imperative.
II. By the fact that Act. X. of 1859 has failed to ensure to the ryots that security of tenure which it was intended to secure to them.
III. By the fact that the Courts have proved unequal to discharge the duty of determining rents thrown upon them by the existing law.
5. Concurring, then, with the view of your Excellency’s Government, and of the Government of Bengal, that an amendment of the present law is necessary, I proceed to communicate to you my opinion on the proposals summarized under thirteen heads in the 108th paragraph 0f your letter. You will understand that I accede to those proposals which are not noticed.
8. The Rent Commission proposed to maintain the existing rule that 12 years’ continuous possession of any land is required to give its holder a right of occupancy in it, but to guard against the failure of that rule in the future, as it has failed in the past, to promote security of tenure, by imposing a penalty on eviction. This proposal, you state, has met with no support. The Lieutenant Governor, still adhering to the principle that occupancy right shall depend upon the status of the ryot, proposed to confer it on all resident ryots, under the provisions of Section 19 of his Bill. You have fully considered this and other schemes, and you have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to apply effectually the principle on which they are based. You, therefore, propose to take a classification of lands instead of the status of the tenant as the basis on which the recognition of the occupancy right shall be effected, and to attach that right to all ’ryotti’ lands, as far as the interest in them of all but nomad cultivators and sub-tenants of occupancy ryots is concerned.
9. After careful consideration of your arguments, I am not satisfied that a measure is advisable which appears to me to make so great and so entirely novel a departure from both the ancient custom and the existing law of Bengal.
10. Your proposal, in the first place, annuls the distinction, deeply rooted in the feelings and customs of the people not only in Bengal but in most parts of India, between the resident or permanent and the non-resident or temporary cultivator. This, when your avowed intention is to restore to the ryots their original position and rights, appears to me anomalous and undesirable. In the next place, it abandons a principle on which the statute law has been based for nearly a quarter of a century, and which was adopted in 1859 by the Legislature on rational and intelligible grounds. And, thirdly, the present papers show that the failure of the law of 1859 has arisen from an error, not in the principle itself, but in the provisions for its application. The provision that accrual of the occupancy right depends on proof, not of the ryot’s having been a cultivator for 12 years, but of his having held the same land continuously for that period, has enabled the landlord t0 prevent the tenant from acquiring the right, either by shifting his fields within the 12 years, by inducing him to enter into a written contract barring the right, or merely by destroying his evidence of continuous possession. This error it appears to me may be guarded against, without abandoning the principle.
11. I would therefore suggest for your consideration whether, in place of adopting the principle you recommend as the basis of the proposed legislation, it would not be desirable to introduce into the Bill provisions somewhat to the effect that every resident ryot shall have a right of occupancy in the land which he occupies and pays rent for, and that a resident ryot shall be one who, or whose ancestor, has occupied any land in the village or estate for 12 years.
You will observe that the object aimed at is that a ryot shall be deemed to have an occupancy right in all the land which he holds in a village or estate, if he has occupied for 12 years any land whatever in such village or estate. It will be necessary in actual legislation to provide that this right is not forfeited by any subdivision of estates or alteration of village boundaries.
These provisions will, you remark, have practically almost as wide an effect as your own proposals. They will, at the same time, avoid the abandonment of a principle which is with reason strongly insisted upon by the zemindars, and to which I attach much importance.
6. THE BENGAL RENT BILL, 14 FEBRUARY 1885
There has probably never been a document laid 0n the Council table subject to so many dissents as the Report of the Select Committee on the Bengal Tenancy Bill presented yesterday. The Select Committee was exceptionally large, its deliberations have been protracted over an almost unprecedented number 0f sittings, and each member seems quite determined to have his own way. When members failed in any particular to get their own way, they appear to have stored up their failures for a dissent, with a view to fighting their battles over again in council. From a personal point of view this may be very edifying, as a disclosure of the reality 0f the conflict which has been going on behind locked doors during the past two years, and of the tenacity with which each member has clung to what he believed to be essential points in the settlement of the land-law. The main interest which attaches t0 the dissents is not, however, a personal one. It consists rather in the revelation which they afford as to the diametrical opposition of the two parties in the Council on the great issues involved; and as to a conflict on general principles as strongly waged within the Select Committee as it has been waged outside in the Press. The dissents, although printed, are not yet officially published, but it is a matter of notoriety that the landholders consider the measure as essentially a Tenants Bill, while the tenants’ representatives regard it as essentially a Landlords Act. In questions of detail this conflict of view is said to come out in the shape of propositions directly contradictory to one another. Thus the landlords’ representatives declare that the provisions in regard to the non-occupancy tenant most improperly raise him to the status of an occupancy cultivator, while the tenants’ friends assert that the same provisions most improperly leave him at the mercy 0f the landlord. Between the two extreme parties there appears to have been a third intermediate section in the Committee, which held the scales between the two, and was open to conviction by either. The result is that while most of the Committee have dissented on one ground or another, their dissents, like their votes, tend to counterbalance each other, and there is a majority for the specific course recommended in each section of the Bill.
The first point suggested by the revised Bill and by the Report of the Select Committee, is that they give no colour to the exaggerated statements by which the original proposers of the measure were guided, when they assumed the existence of a general system of rack-renting in Bengal. Of the heroic remedies which the Bengal Government proposed for this alleged evil, not one survives in the Bill now finally presented to the Council. What ever may be the case in regard to Bihar, the Select Committee seems to have put quietly aside, after due discussion, the more drastic suggestions of Sir Rivers Thompson’s letter of September last, and to have chiefly confined its attention to efforts to make the existing law more effective in the hands of both landlords and tenants. We propose very briefly to enumerate the chief provisions of the Bill in this direction, and to indicate some others in which a new departure is involved. First, as regards the landholders, the Bill endeavours to create out of the unworkable grounds of enhancement in the old law, more simple and practicable facilities for enhancing rents, when such enhancement can be equitably claimed. Thus, for the old, impracticable ground of the general prevailing scale, it gives a specific ground of enhancement if the rent paid by the tenant is below the prevailing rate in the same village. This change may of course cut two ways, but, at any rate, it simplifies the burden of proof to the landlord, a burden which under the old law was usually too heavy for him to support, In the same way the Bill substitutes for the old unworkable ground of enhancement, due to the rise in the value of the produce a distinct and easily ascertainable ground of enhancement in consequence of a rise in prices. The landlord will here also have a much easier task, for he will have only to establish a specific group of facts connected with prices, in place of a large and indefinite number of groups of facts connected with the alleged general rise in the value of the produce. The Bill further assists him in the task of proof by directing the Local Government to publish price lists which are to be deemed presumptive evidence by the Courts. Both these provisions in favour of the landlord have, as is well known, been strongly objected to by the tenants’ friends. The ground of enhancement on the prevailing rate they proposed to strike out altogether; while they consider that the new facilities for enhancement on the ground of rise in prices is fraught with serious danger in many parts of Bengal and throughout all Bihar. In regard to facilities for settling and realising rents the Bill provides for the appointment of a revenue officer, on the application of the landlord or of a large proportion of the tenants. An officer so appointed shall have the power to raise rents but not to lower them. The procedure thus created for fixing rents is new in Lower Bengal.
(Continued)
This is a fourth part of the series of historical record pertaining to Sindh’s past political history. Prof. Amir Ali Kadri, an avid lover of collecting and collating archival record, will keep on contributing for these columns. We expect similar response from our esteemed readers and their contribution would also be accommodated in these columns.
- Editor