Chapter VI.
The Last Phase in Northern India.
I. INTRODUCTORY
THE last phase of the Moslem agrarian system in Northern
India must be studied mainly in the initial proceedings of
the administrations which succeeded the Moslem power;
and the most suitable area for this purpose comprises the
country which at the opening of the nineteenth century
was described as the Ceded and Conquered Provinces
together with the ‘“Benares Province or Zemindarry,” or,
in the nomenclature of to-day, the United Provinces ex-
clusive of Oudh, Kumaiin, and parts of Bundelkhand.
The extant records relating to this area may be regarded as
sufficient for the present purpose; but at the same time they
are incomplete, and also treacherous, so that it will be well
to explain the exact position in some little detail.
The earliest English administrators in this region were
necessarily ignorant of the local conditions; while their
proceedings were governed by orders founded on ex-
perience gained in Bengal and Bihar, experience which
was in some respects seriously misleading. They knew that
the primary business of the administration was to arrange
for collecting the State’s share of the produce of the land,
and the first task assigned to them by the orders issued in
Calentta was to find the landowners, and compound with
them for its collection on the lines which had been adopted
! The revenue history of the Benares province begins in the year 1787,
when Jonathan Duncan became Resident: he was authorised to carry
out a settlement of the revenue, and his operations were given legal force
by Bengal Regulation II of 1795. The ‘ Ceded Provinces,” acquired in
1801, surrounded Oudh on three sides, and comprised the present Gorakh-
pur division on the East, Rohilkhand on the West, and the lower Doib
on the South and South-West; Farrukhiabid was added a year later,
The ‘Conquered Provinces’ included the rest of the Doib and small
areas to the West of the Jumna, while parts of Bundelkhand were acquired
about the same time.
