The agrarian system of Moslem India

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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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. Antecedents

Collection:: Economics Books

ANTECEDENTS 1 is available! The Peasant is the man who, whatever the incidents of his tenure may be, cultivates a holding entirely or mainly by his family labour, for his own profit, and at his own risk. He must be distinguished on the one hand from the Intermediary, who claims a share of the produce, but does not himself take an active part in production, and on the other hand from the serf whom he feeds, or the hired labourer to whom he pays wages. The Sacred Law? presents King and Peasant in a bilateral relation, which is defined more precisely in regard to duties than to rights. The duty of the Peasant is, firstly, to raise produce, and, secondly, to pay a share of his produce to the King. Performing these duties, he can expect the King’s protection, and he can enjoy the balance of his produce, subject, of course, to any rules for its expenditure contained in the Law. The King’s paramount duty is to protect his subjects; and, while he does so, he is entitled to claim a share of the Peasant’s produce, to be expended in accordance with the Law. In this statement the word “produce” is used in its natural meaning as the gross yield of the land, without deducting anything on account of the cost of production; in a later period we shall meet with a few cases where some allowance was made for exceptional expense, but I cannot trace any suggestion of assessing revenue formally on the net income further back than the period of British rule.® It may be well to point out that the statement which has just been given is not concerned with rights to occupy 1 The possible alternatives are farmer, cultivator, ryot. ‘' Farmer" is too ambiguous in a country like India, where farming the revenue was for so long a prominent feature of the agrarian system. ‘‘ Cultivator,” the usual term in India, suggests to most English-speaking communities a modern implement of tillage. ‘‘Ryot’’ has changed its meaning in some parts of India since the Moslem period, and now connotes a particular form of tenure, while in others it has a more general signification, and it is thus ambiguous. } The statements in the text are based on the following volumes of the translations published in the series Sacred Books of the East: Manu (XXV): Vishnu (VII); Apastamba and Gautama (II); Vasishtha and Baudhavana (XIV); Narada and Brihaspati (XXXIII). # Since this paragraph was written, Dr. Bal Krishna has argued, in the Indian Journal of Ecomomics, July, 1927, that in the Hindu system, assessment was made on the net income. His argument does not appear to me to be convincing, but I must leave its examination to students of the period

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