THE LAST PHASE IN NORTHERN INDIA 161 
allowed to cultivate small portions of the village lands, 
retaining the entire produce for themselves. Analogous 
to these service tenures were the lands granted by way of 
charity; the holders of these also enjoyed the entire produce, 
paying nothing on account of the King’s share. 
Service and charitable tenures were common at this 
period, but in an ordinary village they occupied only a 
trifling proportion of the land under cultivation. The 
bulk of it was held by the peasants, who fall into three 
classes, the organised bodies which I shall call Brotherhoods,! 
peasants living in the village but outside the Brotherhood, 
and peasants living in another village and coming in to work. 
The position of the non-resident peasant was purely con- 
tractual. The managers of a village with land to spare were 
glad to find outsiders to cultivate it: peasants in a neigh- 
bouring village might be induced to cultivate it on certain 
terms; and the bargain was struck according to the views 
of the parties. 
The position held by peasants living in the village, but 
outside the Brotherhood, was less clearly defined. Some 
reports of the period presented them as entitled to continue 
in occupation at established rates of rent; others as entitled 
to occupy, but liable to pay whatever rates might be de- 
manded; the majority as liable to be ejected at the end of 
each successive year. These discordant reports may well 
represent real local differences, but the truth is that what- 
ever views were expressed on the subject were at this period 
largely theoretical; land lay waiting for peasants, and, so 
long as that condition persisted, the question of peasants’ 
rights could not arise in practice on any considerable scale. 
A manager might, or might not, be able to turn out a 
peasant, but he would be a fool to do so when nobody was 
available to take his place; that is the gist of numerous 
‘ In the Records, the peasants forming the Brotherhood are usually 
called village-zamindars, pattidars, sharers, or parceners. They are some- 
times referred to in the aggregate as the “village community,” but this 
term frequently covers other elements of the population, and, apart 
from this ambiguity, it has gathered so many vague connotations that I 
prefer to avoid it. “Brotherhood” is occasionally used in the Records 
in the sense which I intend, and not in any other. Non-resident peasants 
were called, as they still are called, pakikasht, but with varied spelling 
(¢.8. pyekoost). Resident peasants were called either. as now, chapparband., 
or else bhudkhisht