164 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA

of the customary remuneration or perquisites which it
offered; and in the last days of the Moslem period the
Headmen were often either men of straw, or else men of
exceptional force of character. A person with a very small
stake in the village was put forward as nominal Headman,
prepared to abscond if his position became really dangerous;
or, in the alternative, the post was accepted by a man strong
enough to turn it to his personal advantage.
The usurping Headman was thus a characteristic figure
at this period, but I think it would be rash to assume that
he emerged in it for the first time. The fullest description
of him is contained in the following extract from a document!
 which Jonathan Duncan transmitted to the Government
 in the year 1704.

“There are cases where there is one Zemindar, in whose name
the Pottahs have all along stood, who is very powerful, and of
whom all his brethren stand in fear; he collects from his brothers
and from the Ryots the Malgoozary or revenue, taking on
himself to settle for the whole of what he pays to the Sircar
[“ Treasury,” or ‘“Government”], as he is in his own person
the master of profit and loss, and if all the brethren should
desire to enter into possession with him according to their respective
 shares, he will not admit thereof, but, at the same time,
without preventing them from carrying on their cultivation,
only keeping them excluded from any proportion of the general
profit, having, besides, this additional voucher in his favour,
that for 5 or 6, or 8 or 10 generations, the ancestors of these
brethren of his have in like manner paid in their revenue to his
particular line of ancestors, but neither does he collect from
these brethren of his at the same rates as he does from the
common Ryots; so much the contrary; that if the common Ryots
pay for instance after the proportion of Rs. 3 per Begah [bigha],
he will only take from these his brethren at the rate of Rs. 2
per Begah, and the rvots and all submit to this from ancient
custom.’

That this aspect of the position of the Headman was not
peculiar to the Benares country may be seen from the
Report? which Mr. T. Fortescue, the Civil Commissioner of
Delhi. wrote in the vear 1820 on the revenue svstem of the

1 Rev. Sel., i. 169. It will. be seen that the writer of this description
meant by ‘‘zemindar,” one of the Brotherhood, and by *‘ryots” peasants
outside the Brotherhood. ‘ Pottahs’ (pafta) were the documents given
to the individuals who engaged to pay the revenue.
* Delhi Records. 60 ff. The auotations in the text begin with para. 190.