Book I, Chapter 6: Land Settlements in the Punjab

CHAPTER VI

LAND SETTLEMENTS IN THE PUNJAB

A PORTION of the Punjab was annexed to the British dominions by Lord Hardinge in 1846, after the first Sikh War; and the remainder was taken over by Lord Dalhousie after the second Sikh War in 1849. And we have a clear and lucid account of the condition of the Province, under its former Sikh rulers as well as under British rule, in the First Punjab Administration Report, published in 1852.

Under the great Ranjit Singh, who had consolidated the Province into a strong and powerful kingdom, men who distinguished themselves by their courage and high capacity were deputed to the remoter districts for the collection of revenue, armed with pretorian and pro-consular power. Among them was General Avitabile who held down Peshawar with an iron hand, as also the doughty Hari Singh who kept the fierce and turbulent mountaineers of Hazara in unwilling submission. In the districts nearer to Lahore, Kardars or agents were employed to collect the revenue; and their most important proceedings were subject to review by the Lahore Ministry.

Written law there was none; but a rude and simple justice was dealt out. “Private property in land, the relative rights of land-holders and cultivators, the corporate capacities of Village Communities, were all recognised. Under the direction of the local authorities, private arbitration was extensively resorted to. The most difficult questions of real and personal property were adjudicated by these tribunals. . . . The Maharaja constantly made tours through his dominions. He would listen to complainants during his rides, and he would become angered with any Governor in whose province complaints were numerous. At court also, he would receive individual appeals.”¹

The taxation was heavy. “But in some respects the Government gave back with one hand what it had taken with the other. The employés of the State were most numerous; every village sent recruits for the army who again remitted their savings to their homes. Many a highly-taxed village paid half its revenue from its military earnings; thus money circulated freely.”²

The Land Tax under Maharaja Ranjit Singh was in theory assumed to be one-half the gross produce, but in practice “may be said to have varied from two-fifths to one-third of the gross produce. The proportion prevailed in all the provinces which the Sikhs had fully conquered, and which were fairly cultivated, and may be said to have been in force in all their Cis-Indus possessions, except the province governed by Dewan Mulraj. Beyond the Indus, owing to the distance from control, the less patient character of the population, the insecurity of property, and the scarcity of population, the revenue system pressed more lightly on the people.”³

The Land Tax, such as it was, was raised not in money but in kind; and it was therefore proportionate to the produce of the fields in good years as well as in bad years. Under such a system cultivators were not called upon to pay a fixed and immutable sum when their harvest had failed; nor were they required in years of low prices to pay a revenue calculated on the basis of high prices.

The second treaty of 1846, concluded in December of that year, provided that a British Resident should control the civil and military affairs of the Punjab; and Henry Lawrence was appointed the first Resident. There is no brighter name in the Indian annals of this period, renowned for able administrators and brave soldiers, than Henry Lawrence the Pacificator. Born in 1806, he had seen service in the first Burmese War of 1825; he had controlled Sikh chieftains at Peshawar and helped Pollock’s advance into Afghanistan in 1842; and he had taken a part in the battle of Subraon which concluded the first Sikh War in February 1846. There was no man in India who knew the Sikhs better or had more influence with them than Henry Lawrence; and there was none who felt a greater respect for their virtues, or a truer desire to maintain their position, dignity, and independence.

As Resident, Henry Lawrence was practically the ruler of the Punjab; and he secured the assent of the Council of Regency, consisting of eight Sardars, in all his measures of reform. One reform was of doubtful benefit to the people—the substitution of the British system of collecting land revenue in money for the old system of payment in kind. The State-demand was nominally reduced; but the cultivators found no relief under the summary settlements and money assessments made by British officers. In other respects, however, Lawrence was more successful and more in touch with Sikh institutions. A simple code of laws, founded on Sikh customs, was framed by fifty selected heads of villages under the supervision of Sardar Lehna Singh. Oppressive duties and Government monopolies were abolished. Able and efficient officers, selected by Henry Lawrence, carried out his ideas, and controlled the administration in different parts of the Province. And Sardars, Chiefs, land-holders, and the people generally, appreciated his administration, and accepted the rule of the great Pacificator.

Unfortunately, the two men, who had secured peace in the Punjab, left India not long after. Henry Lawrence was compelled by ill-health to leave the country at the close of 1847. And Lord Hardinge made over the reins of Government to Lord Dalhousie early in 1848. The troubles which arose soon after, and which were allowed to grow until they culminated in the second Sikh War, have already been narrated in another chapter.

Sir Henry Lawrence, now knighted for his distinguished services, hastened back to India on hearing of these disturbances, and stood by Lord Gough in the hard-fought field of Chillianwala in January 1849. The next battle, at Gujrat, fought in February, broke the power of the Sikhs; and the question of the ultimate fate of the Punjab came up for decision. Henry Lawrence was against British annexation; his brother John Lawrence is said to have been for it.⁴ On March 29, 1849, the Proclamation was issued announcing that the sovereignty of the Punjab had passed over to the Queen of England.

Sir Henry Lawrence had tendered his resignation as soon as he had heard of this decision, partly from his avowed view of the injustice of the annexation, but mainly from the belief that the arrangement that would ensue would be harsh to the conquered people. But Lord Dalhousie knew the value of the Pacificator’s work, and would not let him go. He sent his Secretary to Sir Henry, desiring him to continue in his leading position in the Punjab, “if only for the special reason that it would ensure his having the best opportunity for effecting his great object—the fair and even indulgent consideration of the vanquished; the smoothing down of the inevitable pangs of subjugation to those proud and brave enemies, with whose chiefs and leaders no man was so familiar as he, or so appreciative of what was noble in their character.”⁵

To this appeal, urged on such a reason, Sir Henry could not but yield. Lord Dalhousie entrusted the administration of the Punjab to a Board, consisting of Sir Henry Lawrence as President, his brother John Lawrence, and Charles Mansel who was soon succeeded by Robert Montgomery. Sir Henry conducted the political work; John Lawrence was in charge of civil and revenue administration; Mansel and his successor Montgomery superintended the administration of justice.

The Board did not work smoothly or harmoniously. Henry Lawrence, impelled by his generous instincts, strove to maintain for the fallen Sardars a high position and status in the new British Province, and to recognise in them the aristocracy of the country as they had been. John Lawrence tried to carry out the narrower view of Lord Dalhousie that the Sardars deserved little but maintenance; that none should intervene between the people and their alien rulers. Henry Lawrence endeavoured unceasingly to recognise the natural and influential leaders of the people. John Lawrence, charged with revenue administration, was anxious to have a tighter grip on the Land Tax paid by the Cultivators; and saw in the due recognition of the old Sardars an alienation of the revenues supposed to be due to the State only.

The two brothers, who had the highest personal regard for each other, became estranged in their official relations; and the work of the State suffered. “My brother and I,” wrote John Lawrence to the Secretary to the Governor-General, “work together no better than we formerly did. Indeed, the estrangement between us has increased. We seldom meet, and still more seldom discuss public matters. . . . What I feel is the mischief of two men brought together, who have both strong wills and views diametrically opposed, and whose modes and habits of business do not conform.”⁶

Both brothers tendered their resignation. Lord Dalhousie had to choose between them, and he had little hesitation in choosing. He abolished the Board of Administration; made John Lawrence the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab; and transferred Sir Henry Lawrence to the less responsible and humbler post of Agent at Rajputana.

The decision of Lord Dalhousie fell as a thunderbolt on the Punjab. “Grief was depicted on every face. Old and young, rich and poor, soldiers and civilians, Englishmen and Natives, each and all felt that they were about to lose a friend. Strong men, Herbert Edwards conspicuous amongst them, might be seen weeping like children; and when the last of those moments came, and Henry Lawrence, on January 20, 1853, accompanied by his wife and sister, turned his back for ever upon Lahore and upon the Punjab, a long cavalcade of the Native Chiefs followed him, some for five, some for ten, others for twenty or twenty-five miles out of the city. They were men, too, who had nothing now to hope from him, for the sun of Sir Henry Lawrence had set, in the Punjab at least, for ever. But they were anxious to evidence, by such poor signs as they could give, their grief, their gratitude, and their admiration. It was a long, living funeral procession from Lahore nearly to Amritsar. Robert Napier, now Lord Napier of Magdala, was the last to tear himself away from one who was dearer to him than a brother. ‘Kiss him,’ said Henry Lawrence to his sister, as Napier turned back at last, heart-broken towards Lahore. ‘Kiss him, he is my best and dearest friend.’ When he reached Amritsar, at the house of Charles Saunders, the Deputy Commissioner, a new group of mourners and a fresh outburst of grief awaited him; and thence he passed on into Rajputana.”⁷

We shall hear of Sir Henry Lawrence once more in this narrative. On July 22, 1857, when British rule in India was threatened by the outbreak of a great rebellion in Northern India, when the death or resignation of Lord Canning might at any day leave India without a guiding hand, the Court of Directors thought it proper to name a Governor-General in case of a vacancy. Their choice fell on the man who had proved himself a valiant soldier in times of war, and a sympathetic administrator in times of peace. And they resolved that “Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, K.C.B., be appointed provisionally to succeed to the office of Governor-General of India on the death, resignation, or coming away of Viscount Canning, pending the arrival of a successor from England.” But the honour of the selection came too late; Sir Henry Lawrence had fallen on July 4 at Lucknow—the most generous of British administrators then in India, after the great Englishman whom he had been selected to succeed.

Apart from the personal interest which attaches to the story of the life of Henry Lawrence, his public policy will have an abiding interest for all Indian administrators. He represented in his generation a distinct school of administrators—the school founded in the preceding generation by Elphinstone and Bentinck—the school which had almost become obsolete under the Imperialism of Auckland and Dalhousie. “This school,” says General M’Leod Innes, “which gave special consideration to the feelings, traditions, and modes of thought of the Native Community, demanded a fair recognition of the claims of Native States, and urged the need for wise and generous treatment of the natural leaders of the people.”⁸

Lord Dalhousie never understood, never appreciated, this school. He was an Imperialist. He held that the best administration for the people of India was the direct administration of alien rulers; that all intervening chiefs and leaders were an obstruction to good administration and a hindrance to reforms. He made the mistake, which has been made again and again by British rulers in India, of ignoring old leaders and old institutions, and of trying to substitute the direct and personal rule of British officials. And in removing Sir Henry Lawrence from the Punjab, Lord Dalhousie virtually uprooted his policy, swept aside the natural leaders of the people, and brought a nation of cultivators directly under the Government. The policy was neither wise in itself, nor has it conduced to good administration during the fifty years which have since elapsed.

National institutions are the results and the outer expressions of national needs. The people of India developed Village Communities, and lived under Polygars and Zemindars, Jaigirdars and Talukdars, Sardars and Panchyets, because they needed them. Their social organisation was built up according to their social requirements; they felt themselves securer and happier under their born leaders or within their Rural Communities. It is unwise for any rulers to disturb such arrangements; it is especially unwise for alien rulers to neglect the organised institutions of a people.

The want thus created has not yet been remedied. No proper self-governing institutions have yet taken the place of the old Village Communities. No natural leaders of the people adequately represent their wishes and opinions in the government of Madras, Bombay, or the Punjab. Those Governments are less influenced and less benefited by public opinion than the Government in Bengal where society was early saved from dislocation by the action of Lord Cornwallis. Assessments have been severer and harsher in Madras and Bombay in the absence of Village Communities and of intermediate chiefs. In the Punjab, where the leaders of the people were unwisely ignored half a century ago, the so-called cultivating proprietors of the soil have not prospered. And the Government is exerting at the present day to save them from a new class of leaders—speculators, shroffs, and money-lenders—the worst aristocracy that any country can have.

It is a simple truism that some sort of representation, some form of self-government, is needed to safeguard the interests and promote the welfare of all nations, in Asia as in Europe. The forms of self-government which prevailed in India were not the forms with which Englishmen were familiar; but they served their purpose. They might have been fostered, corrected, and improved; but their effacement left a blank. In critical times, the want makes itself felt; British Rule does not obtain adequate support; Imperialism itself does not find a national basis. General M’Leod Innes has pointed out in the work already cited that, in the dark days of the Indian Mutiny, Cis-Sutlej Sikhs, as well as the Mussulmans of Multan and the frontier, rendered valuable services and furnished strong contingents under the specific guidance of their chiefs. But the leaderless Sikhs of the Punjab rendered none till after the capture of Delhi. But the Indian administrator notes this want in times of peace no less than in time of war—the want of popular co-operation in influencing and popularising an alien administration.

John Lawrence carried out the policy of Lord Dalhousie. “Assess low,” he wrote to Nicholson, “leaving fair and liberal margin to the occupiers of the soil, and they will increase their cultivation and put the revenue almost beyond the reach of bad seasons. Eschew middlemen. They are the curse of the country everywhere.”⁹

But the assessment was not low. As in other Provinces of India, it was raised rapidly after British occupation. In 1847-48 the Land Revenue of the Punjab was £820,000. Within three years after British annexation it went up to £1,060,000. The fall in prices added to the distress of the cultivators now required to pay their revenue in money. The complaints during the year 1851 on the part of the agriculturists was loud and general. “There has been a very general demand among the agriculturists for a return to grain payments, to a division or appraisement of the crops every season. The Board have resisted this call, but have directed the suspension of revenue wherever it appeared desirable.”¹⁰

The following figures for the different districts of the Punjab are compiled from the First Administration Report:¹¹

To “assess low” was John Lawrence’s first principle in land administration; and he soon perceived that the demand of one-third the gross produce, payable in money, was oppressive to the peasantry. Within a few years the Punjab Administration corrected the mistake. The Land Tax of the Punjab was reduced to one-fourth, and then to one-sixth of the gross produce. The wisdom of this measure was proved by the extension of cultivation, the rise of revenue, and the increase of actual collections.

The figures for 1856-57 and 1857-58 show a considerable increase in revenue as compared with the figures given above, as also a very satisfactory rate of collection:¹²

A regular Settlement of the Land Revenue was commenced soon after the annexation of the Punjab and was approaching completion when the East India Company was abolished in 1858. One-sixth of the produce was demanded as the land revenue in the Settlements of Lahore and Amritsar districts, concluded between 1860 and 1872; while by later rules, framed under the Land Revenue Act of 1871, the Government demanded one-half the actual rents paid by ordinary tenants at will in average years.

We have now dealt successively with Northern India, Bombay, Madras, and the Punjab. For a general view of the last results of the East India Company’s Land Revenue Administration in India, we cannot refer our readers to an abler document than to a return submitted by the India House itself in 1857.¹³ It is signed by John Stuart Mill, then Examiner of India Office correspondence; and though probably it was compiled by his clerks, it bears traces of his philosophic finish and precision. Some extracts are given below.

JOHN STUART MILL ON INDIAN LAND SYSTEMS.

Bengal.—“In the Lower Provinces of the Bengal Presidency the land is held by Zemindars, on payment of an annual sum fixed in perpetuity, the estates being liable to be sold in default of payment under the provisions of Act I of 1845. The only land at the disposal of Government consists of estates which have been thus sold, and purchased on the public account. The rate of Land Tax cannot be given, but is believed to amount on the average to about half the rental.”

Northern India.—“First. All the inhabited part of the country is divided into portions with fixed boundaries, called Mahals or estates. On each Mahal a sum is assessed for the term of twenty or thirty years, calculated so as to leave a fair surplus profit over and above the net produce of the land; and for the punctual payment of that sum, the land is held to be perpetually hypothecated to the Government.

“Secondly. It is determined who are the person or persons entitled to receive this surplus profit. The right thus determined is declared to be heritable and transferable, and the persons entitled to it are considered the proprietors of the land from whom the engagements for the annual payment of the sum assessed by the Government on the Mahal are taken.

“Thirdly. All the proprietors of a Mahal are, severally and jointly, responsible in their persons and property for the payment of the sum assessed by the Government on the Mahal. When there are more proprietors than one it is determined according to what rule they shall share the profits, or make good the losses on the estate. If the proprietors are numerous, engagements are only taken from a few of the body, who, on their own parts and as representatives of the rest, undertake to manage the Mahal, and to pay the sum assessed upon it.¹⁴

“The rate of assessment was in the first instance limited to two-thirds of the nett produce of each Mahal or estate, but on the revision which is about to take place on the expiration of the thirty years which formed the first term of settlement, it has been determined¹⁵ to restrict the demand of the State to one-half of the average nett assets.”

Madras.—“The revenue systems in force in the Madras Presidency are the Zamindari, Village joint rents, Ryotwari, and Ulangu.”

“The Zamindari tenure prevails chiefly in the Northern Cercars, though there are large proprietary estates in other districts, as Madura, Nellore, North Arcot, &c.”

“In the Village-renting system the villagers stand in the Zemindar’s position, and jointly hold from the Government. The village is rented to the whole body, or a section of them, for a term of years, and they make their payments direct to Government, managing their affairs independently, and allotting the lands for cultivation among themselves.”

“Under the Ryotwari System every registered holder of land is recognised as its proprietor, and pays direct to Government. He is at liberty to sublet his property, or to transfer it by gift, sale, or mortgage. He cannot be ejected by Government so long as he pays the fixed assessment, and has the option annually of increasing or diminishing his holding, or of entirely abandoning it. In unfavourable seasons remissions of assessment are granted for entire or partial loss of produce. The assessment is fixed in money, and does not vary from year to year, except in those cases where water is drawn from a Government source of irrigation to convert dry land into wet, or one into two-crop land, when an extra rent is paid to Government for the water so appropriated; nor is any addition made to the assessment for improvements effected at the Ryot’s own expense. The Ryot under this system is virtually a Proprietor on a simple and perfect title, and has all the benefits of a perpetual lease without its responsibilities, inasmuch as he can at any time throw up his lands, but cannot be ejected so long as he pays his dues; he receives assistance in difficult seasons, and is irresponsible for the payment of his neighbours. . . . The Annual Settlements under Ryotwari are often misunderstood, and it is necessary to explain that they are rendered necessary by the right accorded to the Ryot of diminishing or extending his cultivation from year to year. Their object is to determine how much of the assessment due on his holding the Ryot shall pay, and not to reassess the land. In these cases where no change occurs in the Ryots holding a fresh Potta or lease is not issued, and such parties are in no way affected by the Annual Settlement, which they are not required to attend.”

“The Ulangu-renting system prevails only in Tanjore and Tinnevelly, and is not general in either; its peculiarity consists in the Government demand being dependent on the current price of grain. On the introduction of the system, a certain grain assessment was fixed on each village, and also a standard rate, according to which the grain demand was to be commuted into money; but it was, at the same time, arranged, that if current prices in any year rose more than 10 per cent. above the standard commutation rate, or fell more than 5 per cent. below it, the Government, and not the Ryot, was to receive the profit and to bear the loss. The advantages of the system are that the Government participates with the Ryot in the benefit of high prices, while the latter is relieved from loss when the prices are much depressed; its disadvantage consists in the difficulty that is experienced in obtaining accurate and fair returns of the current prices which are taken throughout the year.”

Bombay.—“Under the Bombay Presidency, the revenue management may be described in general terms as Ryotwari, implying that, as a general rule, the occupants of Government lands¹⁶ settle for their land revenue or rent with the Government Officers direct, and not through a middleman. It should be understood, however, that throughout the Presidency, instances not unfrequently occur in which the Government revenues of entire villages are settled for by individual superior holders under various denominations, or by a copartnery of the superior holders.”

“A revision of assessment is now in progress throughout the Presidency, by which the amount payable on each field is determined according to its quality, and the amount so fixed is not liable to alteration for a term of thirty years.”

Punjab.—“In the Punjab, one and the same man is usually absolute proprietor and generally the sole cultivator, though he may occasionally lease out a few fields to tenants. He is saddled with no rent. He has to provide for the cost of cultivation and for the Government demand; the rest of the produce he may devote to the maintenance of his family and the accumulation of his capital. But these men, well maintaining their individuality, do yet belong to Village Communities. A village is not inhabited by a certain number of Ryots each unconnected with the other, but by a number of persons of common descent, forming one large cousinhood, having their own head man accustomed to joint action and mutual support.”

“The British Government has from the first decided on levying the Tax by money payments assessed for a number of years. The Peasant Proprietors compound with the State for a fixed period, such assessment and compounding being technically called a Settlement. But the Proprietors do not engage individually with the Government, but by villages. The brotherhood, through its headmen or representatives, undertakes to pay so much for so many years; and then, having done this, they divide the amount among themselves, assigning to each man his quota. Primarily each man cultivates and pays for himself, but ultimately he is responsible for his coparceners, and they for him, and they are bound together by a joint liability. The Punjab System, therefore, is not Ryotwari, nor Zamindari, but the Village System. In the hills, and occasionally elsewhere, the Zamindari System, and near Multan something approaching the Ryotwari System, may be found. But the Village System is the prevalent one, especially in the most important districts.”

Summary.—The account given above may be summed up in a few words. In Bengal, land was held by landlords paying a fixed and unalterable Land Tax to the Government. In Northern India it was generally held by landlords paying a Land Tax revised at each new Settlement. In Madras and Bombay it was generally held by Peasant Proprietors who paid a Land Tax revised at each new Settlement. In the Punjab it was generally held by Peasant Proprietors living in Village Communities, each village collectively paying the Land Tax which was revised at each new Settlement.

And under these various arrangements the Land Tax gradually became a uniform rate, at least in theory In Bengal it was about one-half the rental in the middle of the nineteenth century. In Northern India it was fixed at one-half the rental by the Saharanpur Rule of 1855. In Bombay and Madras Sir Charles Wood fixed the Land Tax at about one-half the economic rent in 1864. And in the Punjab the Government demand was reduced to one-half the rents ordinarily paid by tenants at will.

This, then, is the theory of the Indian Land Tax. Where the Land Tax is not permanently fixed, one-half of the actual or economic rent may be claimed as the Land Revenue.

Footnotes

This First Punjab Report, from which we have made frequent extracts in the preceding pages, was from the facile pen of Sir Richard Temple, known as the Knight of the Pen in India. John Lawrence, a solid worker and a great administrator, had not the gift of a lucid style; and he felt the want. When he first met Richard Temple in 1851 at Simla, and examined some of his settlement reports, he was mightily pleased. “Here is the very man we want as Secretary,” he said to his friends. “He can understand what I say, and put it into first-rate form!” Forthwith Temple was appointed to write the Punjab Report which Henry Lawrence and John Lawrence had already partly drafted; but the new Secretary recast the whole; and the First Punjab Report stands apart from all other Indian reports as a readable and entertaining document. In 1854, when Temple returned from England to his work, John Lawrence had become Chief Commissioner of the Punjab. “Very glad,” he said to Temple, “to have got you in your proper place at last! I am glad of your opinion, and, of course, very glad of your pen; but remember, it will be my policy and my views—not yours. Your day may come; it is mine now: every dog will have its day."—Bosworth Smith’s Life of Lord Lawrence.