The agrarian system of Moslem India

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Multivolume work

Identifikator:: 1896404200

Document type:: Multivolume work

Title:: Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft

Place of publication:: Leipzig

Publisher:: Duncker & Humblot [u.a.]

Year of publication:: 1904-

Collection:: Economics Books

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Volume

Identifikator:: 1896404219

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-236878

Document type:: Volume

Title:: Encyklopädie der Rechtswissenschaft

Volume count:: Bd. 1

Place of publication:: Leipzig

Publisher:: Duncker & Humblot [u.a.]

Year of publication:: 1904

Scope:: 1114 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Multivolume work

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: II. Zivilrecht

Collection:: Economics Books

THE LAST PHASE IN NORTHERN INDIA 159 The peasants, on the other hand, were slow to come for- ward, deterred partly by ignorance, partly by the require- ment that they should engage for a term of years to pay a ~ash-revenue based on the existing standards, which left no margin for unfavourable seasons. At first, many dubious claims were recognised, but the new ‘‘owners” frequently failed to pay the revenue for which they had engaged, and were summarily displaced; and for a short time the whole position was unstable. The details of this period, and of the gradual approach to stability lie beyond the scope of this essay; my only reason for referring to these topics is that they explain why it is impossible to present anything like a quantitative account of the position at the end of the Moslem period, to say with precision what districts or parganas were held in what tenure, or what portions of agricultural land were liable to what burdens. Leaving quantity aside, it is possible to describe the position at the beginning of the period of British rule; but the records available for this purpose are, as 1 have said, treacherous, and make it very easy for the student to go seriously wrong. As usual, the main difficulty is the ter- minology. The earliest administrators brought with them the technical vocabulary of Bengal, so far as they had succeeded in acquiring it, and applied the terms to things which looked like the originals; but appearances were some- times misleading, things were found for which Bengal supplied no names, words had acquired different meanings in different places, and, as time went on, in the mouths of different officers; and the confusion became so great that Holt Mackenzie, the Secretary to the Government of India, writing in the year 1819, suggested that in issuing Regula- tions it would be advisable “to adopt the use of artificial words, barbarous as they may seem, and altogether to avoid the use of terms already in use until the uniformity of their t Rev. Sel. i. 131. As examples of the pitfalls in these records it may be noted that the familiar term khudkasht is often applied in the sense now accepted to land cultivated by a landholder, but more frequently it means land held by a resident peasant who is not a landholder. Asami is applied to two different classes of peasants, as Mackenzie points out. What he does not mention is that he himself uses zamindar in at least three senses, to denote (a) what I call Chiefs, (b) a particular class of peasants, (¢) persons of whatever class allowed to engage for the revenue of a village.

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