The agrarian system of Moslem India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1804119261

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-188010

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Moreland, William Harrison http://d-nb.info/gnd/172263670

Title:: The agrarian system of Moslem India

Edition:: 2. ed. Reissue (d. Ausg. Cambridge) 1929; [Reprint]

Place of publication:: Delhi

Publisher:: Oriental Books, Munshiram Manoharlal

Year of publication:: 1968

Scope:: XVII, 296 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VI. The last phase in Northern India

Collection:: Economics Books

THE LAST PHASE IN NORTHERN INDIA 165 country West of the Jumna. He recorded that, prior to British rule, ‘the predicament of the moquddums was frequently very trying and involved much personal suffering. If the moquddums acquiesced in the payment of a sum which the proprietors disapproved, they were sure to load them with abuse and reproach. Unless they had displayed the most devoted zeal for the village by undergoing imprison- ment, stripes, starvation, etc., and had been reduced to the last extremity before yielding, the sharers were not satisfied.” Here we have the Headman as genuine representative of the Brotherhood, and held strictly to his duties. On the other hand the position enabled the Headmen “often to outwit their brethren and the ruling power for their own aggran- lisement. Thus, as I have before said, they would impose a higher jumma [revenue] than they had agreed for with the public officers and enjoy the difference, or they would agree with each sharer to receive from him a certain proportion only, by buttie [batdi, Sharing] of his crops, and take upon themselves all the trouble and responsibility of paying and satisfying the Government, by which means they secured a large profit.” Thus, in effect, ‘they became a little aristocracy; but in general they were the safeguards of the community, and had its welfare at heart.” While then many of the Headmen were faithful agents, in some cases there might be a disintegrating force at work within the Brotherhood, which, out of the original organisa- tion, might produce a village Chitf and a body of peasants holding their land from him at favourable rates. Disinte- gration could occur also as the result of external causes, for drought, or intolerable oppression, might drive the residents of a village to abscond en masse. There was a general understanding to the effect that the survivors, or their descendants, could claim to re-occupy the village at any time; but, in the case of famine at least, there might be no survivors to exercise the claim, and the village would then remain derelict until new peasants were introduced by someone anxious to draw a revenue from it. On the other hand, there are indications that repopulation of a derelict village might bring a new Brotherhood into existence in place of that which had disintegrated, so that it would

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