Book III, Chapter 6: Land Administration in Bombay and Madras

CHAPTER VI

LAND ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY AND MADRAS

THE Land Systems of Bombay and Madras, like those of Northern India, were built up under the administration of the East India Company. The first Settlement for thirty years in Bombay was commenced by Wingate in 1836; and a Settlement of thirty years for Madras was ordered by the Court of Directors in 1855. And after the administration had passed to the Crown, it was laid down by Sir Charles Wood in 1864, that the demand of the State from the soil should be limited, as in Northern India, to one-half the nett produce or economic rent. The action which was taken in the two Provinces, down to the time of Lord Lytton’s administration, to carry out these principles, has been narrated in a previous chapter. We shall now briefly continue the story to the end of the century.

BOMBAY.

The mistakes which were made in Bombay at the revision of the Settlement commenced in 1866 were among the reasons which led to the Poona Riot of 1875. Auckland Colvin, one of the Members of the Commission appointed to inquire into the causes of the disturbance, pointed out the sudden and enormous enhancements made in the Land Revenue demand. This evil was not removed. The Bombay Government did not place clear and definite limits on its own claims upon the soil. The rule of Sir Charles Wood to limit the demand to one-half the rental was virtually ignored in Settlement Operations.

The Revenue Jurisdiction Act of 1876 took away the jurisdiction of Courts of Justice in matters of assessment, and made the Settlement Officers absolute. The Agricultural Relief Acts of 1879 sought to protect cultivators from their creditors, but gave no hint of limiting the Land Revenue. The Land Revenue Act of 1879 contained no adequate provisions to limit the State-demand. And yet it was this protection which Bombay cultivators needed more urgently than any other. As Sir William Hunter said, openly and strongly from his place in the Governor-General’s Council in 1879: “The fundamental difficulty of bringing relief to the Deccan Peasantry is that the Government Assessment does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year.”

The only rule which limited the discretion of the Settlement Officer was that he should not enhance the revenue of a Taluka or group of villages by more than 33 per cent., or that of a single village by more than 66 per cent., or that of an individual holding by more than 100 per cent. Such a rule was calculated to do more harm than good.

The Revision Settlement, commenced in 1866, went on slowly, and by 1899 (the year preceding the Bombay famine), only half the villages of the Province had been revised. Out of 27,781 villages in the Province, only 13,369½ had been resettled. And the figures¹ showing the old demand, and the revised demand, indicate the enormous increase which had been secured.

The figures on the opposite page call for one or two remarks. The headings of columns 3 and 4 will show that this increase of 30 per cent. was not the result of the slow extension in cultivation during thirty years; it was obtained in the year of the revision. As Auckland Colvin had pointed out in 1876, a slow increase in the Land Revenue is obtained in Bombay during the term of a Settlement; and then a sudden and additional increase is obtained at the Revision Settlement. It need hardly be repeated that this sudden increase in the Land Revenue is made without consulting the cultivator. Sir Bartle Frere had expressed a desire, in his evidence before the Select Committee of 1872, that the cultivators of Bombay should be consulted, and should have their say, when a new Settlement was proposed. As a fact, however, the cultivators are not consulted; they know the revised State-demand for the first time when it is announced to them.

A system of calculating and determining the revised demand, without consulting those on whom it is imposed, is convenient for expeditious work, but is not just to the Peasant Proprietors. They have not the right or the opportunity of restraining the demand within one-half the nett produce of their fields. They cannot limit the enhancement to a rate proportionate to the rise in prices or the increase in cultivation. They have no chance of proving how far the increased demand trenches on improvements made by themselves. And they are not permitted to appeal against the new assessment to an independent tribunal, after the assessment has been proclaimed to them. The result is what might be expected. The Hon. Gokuldas Parekh, a Member of the Legislative Council of Bombay, has shown from the official figures, exhibiting the results of crop experiments made by Government Officials, that among the large class of cultivators in Gujrat, who own holdings of five acres and less and are unable to grow rich rice, the value of their out-turn is not sufficient even in ordinary years to enable them to meet the Government demand, the cost of tillage, and the maintenance expense of their families and cattle. And he also proves that, “Even a large proportion of the cultivators, holding up to ten acres, are unable to get out-turns sufficient for the payment of the cost of cultivation and their maintenance.”²

But a higher authority than the Hon. Gokuldas furnishes us with figures for Gujrat which are painful to contemplate. The Famine Commission of 1900, of which Sir Antony Macdonnell was the President, has found that the Government Revenue in Gujrat represents one-fifth of the gross produce of the soil. This is nearly double that which private landlords in Bengal obtain as rent from their tenants; and this virtually sweeps away the whole of the Economic Rent of Gujrat, instead of limiting the Government demand to one-half the rental as is laid down by the rule of 1864.³

The famine of Bombay, like the famine in the Central Provinces, brought the redress which cultivators might have expected from a just and considerable land administration. The enhancements made in the Settlement commenced in 1866 could not be maintained. Half the Province might be sold up, but the Revenue-demand could not be realised. In 1902 and 1903, therefore, the Bombay Government was engaged in lowering assessments in Gujrat. No specific rules governing the reductions have been published. The people are ignorant what limits regulate the Government-demand beyond the varying discretion of the different officials. The people are ignorant to what limits that demand will rise again in some future year, or at the next settlement. The alternate raising and lowering of the State-demand, according to signs of distress or of prosperity, is a see-saw policy which is fatal to agricultural prosperity. A general feeling exists in the country that the Government desires to take as much as it can, leaving the population permanently poor and indebted. A sullen despair prevails among the peasantry which may lead to political danger in the future.

A large remedial measure is needed. The measure which would have suggested itself in the age of Canning and Lawrence would have been to enlarge and define the tenant-right, to limit enhancements to specific and definite grounds, and to provide Land Courts to assure the peasantry in half the nett produce of their fields. But the measure which suggested itself in 1901 is in keeping with those adopted in the Central Provinces and in the Punjab. A Bill was introduced to empower the Government to take away the right of transfer attached to the soil, in case of default in the payment of the Revenue. The right of transfer was inherent in Mirasi holdings since the Mahratta times. It gave a marketable value to the holdings, and increased the resources of the Peasant Proprietors. It was recognised by the British Government from the commencement of British Rule in the Deccan. It was expressly confirmed by the Land Revenue Act of 1879, which provided that, even when a holding was sold for default, the right of transfer inherent in the holding would vest in the purchaser. The Bombay Peasant Proprietors had exercised this right during eighty years of British Rule. They had enjoyed a legal sanction to the right for over twenty years. The Government now sought the power to take away this right in cases of default. The Bill did not mention any backward tracts, or backward hill tribes, to which its operation would be limited. It sought to empower the Government with respect to the entire Province, and to all Peasant Proprietors.

Never did the people of Bombay protest more emphatically against any Government measure than against this Act of Confiscation as they regarded it. All parts of Bombay shared in the protest. The mass of Peasant Proprietors felt that it was a blow struck at their recognised rights. The elected members of the Bombay Legislative Council argued against the measure forcibly, loyally, emphatically. They left the Council Hall in a body when their protest was disregarded. The Bill was passed into law. The Bombay Land Revenue Act of 1879 was amended so as to empower the Government to resettle fields without the right of transfer when they were sold for default.

Measures like this do not add to the strength and the staying power of a nation of cultivators. They do not add to the value of their property or improve their economic condition. The Peasant Proprietors of Bombay still look forward to more liberal measures, assuring them in their rights, limiting the State-demand to half the nett produce, and limiting enhancements to specific, definite, and equitable grounds.

MADRAS.

It has been stated in a preceding chapter that a regular Survey Settlement was commenced in Madras in 1861. The Settlement was made for thirty years; and as District after District was taken up, the work continued for a long number of years. In fact, Settlement Work is thus going on continually in Madras as in Bombay; for before the last District or Taluka has been settled or revised, the time has come for a fresh revision of the first tract settled thirty years ago. This arrangement is convenient to Settlement Officers; and the people do not object to it so long as a place, settled once, is left in peace for thirty years. What they do ask for is that enhancements, made in Revised Settlements, should be made on specific and definite grounds; and that the new demand should be limited to one-half the nett produce of their fields. The results of Settlements, down to 1875, were exhibited in figures in a preceding chapter. Similar figures for the subsequent eighteen years, down to 1898, are given below from an official report:⁴

It will appear from these figures that a million of acres went out of cultivation after the famine year of 1877; and the loss continued for no less than seven years. It was not till 1885 that the cultivated area again came up to the figure for 1877.

But the most striking fact revealed by the foregoing table is increase in the gross demand within the eighteen years. The area under cultivation went up from 19 millions to 21½ million acres, or less than 14 per cent.; but the gross demand increased from £3,150,000 to £5,400,000, or over 70 per cent. Or if we take the increase in the assessment on the occupied area, the increase is from £3,240,000 to £4,050,000, or nearly 25 per cent. This large and disproportionate increase is mainly due to the irrigation of some of the Ryotwari land; and the Irrigation Cess has been consolidated with the Land Revenue, so that the cultivator cannot tell how much is demanded for the land and how much for the water supplied.

The question whether the water-rate should be a compulsory rate on all lands within reach of canals, or whether it should be an optional rate payable by those cultivators who choose to use the water, has been under consideration for many years. Lord Lawrence had declared before the House of Commons Committee in 1873: “I would almost rather not make a canal at all, however much I desired to do so, rather than make it obligatory on them [the cultivators] to take water.”⁸ And the Duke of Argyll, as Secretary of State for India, had strongly and emphatically maintained this view three years before, i.e. in 1870. His reasons against levying a compulsory water-rate on cultivators were recorded clearly in his letter to Lord Mayo,⁹ from which we make the following extracts:—

“The object of the provision in question is to enable Government to secure itself against pecuniary loss in the event of a canal proving a financial failure. Such failure might ensue from three causes. A canal might not be able to supply for irrigational purposes the expected quantity of water, or, the expected quantity being available, cultivators might decline to avail themselves to the expected extent, or excessive costliness of construction might, in order to render a canal remunerative, necessitate the imposition of higher rates than cultivators could afford or would voluntarily pay. In the first case, under the proposed enactment, the loss consequent on Government having engaged in an unsuccessful speculation, would fall, not upon itself, but upon the cultivators, whom it had disappointed. In the second, cultivators would be forced to pay for water for which they had no use, or, at any rate, were not disposed to use, possibly, no doubt, from imperfect appreciation of the value of irrigation, but quite possibly also from a perfectly intelligible desire to have part of their land under dry crops, instead of all under wet. With regard to the third, none can require less than your Government to be reminded how prone to become excessive guaranteed expenditure always is; and under the provisions of the Bill all expenditure on Government canals would be guaranteed.”

“To force irrigation on the people would be not unlikely to make that unpopular which could otherwise scarcely fail to be regarded as a blessing, and which, as all experience shows, Indian agriculturists, if left to themselves, are sure duly to appreciate, sooner or later, and seldom later than the first season of drought that occurs after irrigation has been placed within their reach.”¹⁰

In Bengal, accordingly, the irrigation rate is optional to this day; and cultivators use it largely and pay for it cheerfully. But the Government in Madras has always been less liberal, and more autocratic than in Bengal; partly because it is less under the control of the Governor-General in Council, and partly also because there is less of influential and educated public opinion in the Ryotwari tracts, to leaven the administration and bring it in touch with the wishes of the people. Accordingly, the scheme which was rejected by the Duke of Argyll in 1870, and which was condemned by Lord Lawrence in 1873, was passed into law in Madras in 1900. Instead of leaving the cultivators the option of using and paying for canal water, a law was passed making the irrigation rate compulsory on all lands supposed to be benefited by canals, even by percolation! And no option was left to cultivators to appeal to Courts of Law to show that their lands were not benefited.

The Water Tax is consolidated with the Land Tax. The cultivator does not know what portion of the assessment is for his holding and what portion is for the water which is supposed to benefit him. But he does know that the total assessment is so excessive as not to leave him one-half the nett produce of his holding. In many places, the assessment leaves him nothing beyond the wages of his labour and the cost of cultivation.¹¹ Irrigation protects him from famine; but it has not enabled him to save, or to improve his condition.

It also appears from the table given above that the cesses went up with a bound in 1887, when the irrigation charges were transferred to Land Assessments. So long as the water-rate was separate from the land-rate, cesses could be charged on the land-rate only. When irrigation charges were consolidated with land assessments, the cesses went up in one year from £460,000 to £590,000. Is it possible in Madras to separate the land-rate from the water-rate, so as to impose the cesses on the former and not on the latter?

But the greatest complaint of Madras cultivators is about the uncertainty of the assessments. In 1882, as we shall see in the succeeding chapter, the Marquis of Ripon, then Viceroy of India, sought to remove this uncertainty. He laid down the rule that in districts which had been surveyed and settled, there should be no enhancement of the Land Revenue except on the clear ground of an increase in prices. The Madras Government accepted this rule. The principle was explained in Government publications. The Madras Revenue Settlement Manual, compiled in 1887, laid down:—

“That the grain values, thus determined, should be declared unalterable.”

“That the Ryots’ payments should vary with the rateable money value of the standard crop, fixed every thirty years.”

“The revised settlements are to be permanent as regards grain values; but to be reconsidered as regards commutation rates after thirty years.”¹²

The Madras Agricultural Committee reported in 1889: “A revaluation of soils at each recurring revision would, it is said, and we think rightly said, be fatal to improvement. We believe that the present opinion of the Government is opposed to such a revaluation, and is inclined to make the settlements permanent, so far as the grain values of soils are concerned.”¹³

The Government of Madras remarked on the above report: “Nor has the Government any intention of revising the classification of soils. This principle has been repeatedly laid down, and is very clearly stated in the Settlement Manual.”¹⁴

These assurances were as clear and empathetic as words could make them. “People had actually invested money in land,” writes the Hon. Vencataratnam, member of the Madras Legislative Council, “relying on these declarations. But when the time came for giving effect to them, the Government coolly cast them to the winds, and sought to obtain increases not warranted by a rise in prices. In the Revision Settlements of the Trichinopoly, Godavari, and Krishna Districts, the soils in the Deltaic tracts have been reclassified, and the Ryots’ improvements deliberately taxed in such reclassification. The actual work of classification is practically done by a low paid agency. In the case of individual holdings, the enhancements went up to 200 or 300 per cent., and even more.¹⁵

As in Bombay, so in Madras, this uncertainty in the assessment militates against all improvements, and is a bar to all agricultural prosperity. What is wanted in Madras, as in Bombay, is some effective provision to limit the Land Tax to one-half the nett produce in every village and every field, and to limit enhancements of the tax to specific and definite grounds like increase in prices, or in cultivation.

The trend of land legislation in the Central Provinces and the Punjab, in Bombay and in Madras, has in recent years been sadly different from that of the earlier decades. In the early years of the Crown administration, and under the rule of Canning and of Lawrence, the one object which animated the Government was to assure the position of the cultivator, to make his tenant-right valuable, to inspire him with a feeling of self-reliance and strength, and to make him a substantial if not a prosperous member of the community in which he lived. The Bengal Rent Act of Lord Canning, the Oudh and Punjab Rent Acts of Lord Lawrence, the Settlement of the Central Provinces made in 1863, all had this one common object: to make agriculture prosperous, and to identify the interests of the Government with the interests of the landed and cultivating classes.

But recent land administration seems to aim at a different object, to secure for the State a firmer grip on the produce of the soil, to whittle away both landlord right and tenant right, and to make an agricultural nation more dependent on the unfettered will of the Executive Officer.

The power of the Revenue Officer and the Settlement Officer has been made more absolute by legislation. The period of Settlements has been cut down from thirty years to twenty years in the Punjab and the Central Provinces. Cultivators in the same Provinces have been restrained from alienating their own holdings. The Government has taken the power of withdrawing the right of transfer in Bombay. The Government settles rents between landlords and tenants in the Central Provinces. The rule of limiting the State-demand to half the nett rent is, in practice, disregarded in Bombay and in Madras. The rule of limiting State enhancements to the specific and definite ground of a rise in prices has been withdrawn. And a compulsory water-rate, which was condemned by Argyll and Lawrence, has been imposed in Madras, and is consolidated with the land assessment.

Footnotes