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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

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

Collection:: Economics Books

THE LAST PHASE IN NORTHERN INDIA 173 some similar line of action, one can only sympathise with villages which were thus forced into the growing Depen- dency. The nucleus of a Dependency having been acquired, the farm of its revenue could be secured, and the Farmer could then set himself to consolidate and extend his position. The tradition of short-term farms and frequent changes had by now given way. Farms were commonly retained for life, and might in favourable conditions be renewed to the heir, so that in English eyes they appeared to be hereditary tenures; and at any rate it is reasonable to say that such Farmers were on the way to becoming Chiefs, or possibly even Kings, on the assumption of a continuance of the period of anarchy. On the other hand, the Chiefs, who, though they may have had centuries of history behind them, had all along been in the position of Farmers from the strict fiscal stand- point, were as eager as the new men to extend their De- pendencies; and we find cases where titular Rajas had taken large farms in addition to their traditional areas. Thus the first English administrators had to deal with Chiefs who were also Farmers, as well as with Farmers on the way to become Chiefs, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that for a time the two classes were treated as one. In point of fact, the early records of the period tell us very little about the distinctive features of the Chief's position, and the only approach to a precise description that I have found relates to the Doab country just north of Agra, which formed part of the district then known as Saidibad.! In this district, the country along the Jumna comprised mainly Brotherhood-villages, but, further East, Brother- hoods were exceedingly rare, and the tenures of the Thakurs, or Chiefs, were described as of ““infinitely higher antiquity” than those of any of the peasants in their villages. The relation between the Chief and the peasants was ‘nearly that which in European countries subsists between the landlord and his tenantry”; the peasants did not usually form a Brotherhood, but were a heterogeneous body of various castes and tribes; and the Chief contracted for the revenue with one or more of their number, or else with a | Rev. Sel., ii. 328 fi.

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