THE LAST PHASE IN NORTHERN INDIA 165 
country West of the Jumna. He recorded that, prior to 
British rule, ‘the predicament of the moquddums was 
frequently very trying and involved much personal suffering. 
If the moquddums acquiesced in the payment of a sum which 
the proprietors disapproved, they were sure to load them 
with abuse and reproach. Unless they had displayed the 
most devoted zeal for the village by undergoing imprison- 
ment, stripes, starvation, etc., and had been reduced to the 
last extremity before yielding, the sharers were not satisfied.” 
Here we have the Headman as genuine representative of the 
Brotherhood, and held strictly to his duties. On the other 
hand the position enabled the Headmen “often to outwit 
their brethren and the ruling power for their own aggran- 
lisement. Thus, as I have before said, they would impose 
a higher jumma [revenue] than they had agreed for with the 
public officers and enjoy the difference, or they would agree 
with each sharer to receive from him a certain proportion 
only, by buttie [batdi, Sharing] of his crops, and take upon 
themselves all the trouble and responsibility of paying and 
satisfying the Government, by which means they secured 
a large profit.” Thus, in effect, ‘they became a little 
aristocracy; but in general they were the safeguards of the 
community, and had its welfare at heart.” 
While then many of the Headmen were faithful agents, 
in some cases there might be a disintegrating force at work 
within the Brotherhood, which, out of the original organisa- 
tion, might produce a village Chitf and a body of peasants 
holding their land from him at favourable rates. Disinte- 
gration could occur also as the result of external causes, 
for drought, or intolerable oppression, might drive the 
residents of a village to abscond en masse. There was a 
general understanding to the effect that the survivors, or 
their descendants, could claim to re-occupy the village 
at any time; but, in the case of famine at least, there might 
be no survivors to exercise the claim, and the village would 
then remain derelict until new peasants were introduced 
by someone anxious to draw a revenue from it. On the 
other hand, there are indications that repopulation of a 
derelict village might bring a new Brotherhood into existence 
in place of that which had disintegrated, so that it would