Chapter XXII: Bird and the New Settlement in Northern India (1822-1835)

CHAPTER XXII

BIRD AND THE NEW SETTLEMENT IN NORTHERN INDIA (1822-1835)

The Settlement of Northern India, commenced in 1822, and described in Chapter XI. of this work, was a failure. Inquiries needed for the preparation of a Record of Rights made no progress. Minute investigations relating to the produce of fields proved vexatious and futile. The Government demand of over 80 per cent. of the rent was severe and impracticable. The system broke down through its own harshness. A reform was needed, and a true reformer appeared on the scene.

Lord William Bentinck had come to India as Governor-General in 1828, and the East India Company never sent out a truer friend of the people. He made a tour in Northern India, and he described what he saw in a letter to the Court of Directors.

" 2. Your Honourable Court is already aware that my visit to the Western Provinces was in a great measure prompted by my anxiety to satisfy myself by personal observation of the progress which was making in the work of Settlements under the operation of the provisions of Regulation VII. of 1822, and to ascertain whether it might not be practicable to expedite the progress, or to adopt other measures equally adapted to secure the objects contemplated by your Honourable Court to promote the prosperity of the country."

" 4. Among the officers whom I consulted, I found no deficiency of zeal, and no want of intelligence; but it is nevertheless my duty to assure your Honourable Court that, to whatever cause the failure may be attributable, little or nothing has been effected towards a Settlement of these Provinces.

" 8. It is with sincere gratification that I perused the remarks contained in the 58th paragraph of your Honourable Court’s despatch dated the 9th February last, which evince your sense of the necessity of long leases, and which detail your views, so nearly corresponding with my own, as to the mode by which the process of settlement may be expedited, and the rights of the subordinate tenantry protected." ^1

In a letter addressed to the Board of Revenue in the same year, Lord William Bentinck pointed out the main causes of the failure of the scheme of 1822. He condemned the exorbitant Government demand of over 80 per cent. of the rental, and he had the courage to suggest that this should be reduced.

The Regulation prescribes, he wrote, “that where an increase may be demanded, the assessment shall be so regulated as to leave the Zemindars and others a nett profit of 20 per cent. on the amount of the Jumma [Government demand] payable by or through them respectively, while his Lordship understands it to be a prevalent notion among revenue officers whose opinions are entitled to respect, that the allowance in favour of the Zemindars should in no instance fall short of 30 or 35 per cent. of the Government Jumma; and after all may not this be considered as the capital by which improvement is to be accomplished?

" This however is exclusive of charges of collection, and is calculated upon the nett rental. The deductions to be made in favour of the Zemindar or other proprietor from the gross rental on every account is that which his Lordship is desirous of having fixed; and whatever may be the proper rate, his Lordship desires me to suggest for your consideration whether it would not be more practicable to consolidate the whole of the deducted allowances to be made in favour of Zemindars from the gross rental, and to fix it so that it shall operate uniformly and universally, instead of being assigned, as appears to have been hitherto the custom, at the discretion of individual officers.“¹

It will appear from these extracts that as early as 1831 Lord William Bentinck had grasped the cardinal principles of the New Settlement which was to follow, viz., long leases, which would give landlords and tenants a motive for improvement, and a moderate Government demand, which would leave with them some portion of the profits from the soil.

Another matter which also received the attention of the Governor-General was the preservation of the Village Communities of Northern India. This was forcibly laid down by Sir Charles Metcalfe, then a member of the Governor-General’s Council, and afterwards Acting Governor-General of India, in his famous Minute of 1830, which has often been quoted.

“The Village Communities are little Republics, having nearly everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds to revolution; Hindu, Pathan, Moghal, Mahratta, Sikh, English, are masters in turn; but the Village Communities remain the same. In times of trouble they arm and fortify themselves; a hostile army passes through the country; the Village Community collect their cattle within their walls, and let the enemy pass unprovoked. If plunder and devastation be directed against themselves and the force employed be irresistible, they flee to friendly villages at a distance, but when the storm has passed over they return and resume their occupations. If a country remain for a series of years the scene of continued pillage and massacre, so that the villages cannot be inhabited, the scattered villagers nevertheless return whenever the power of peaceable possession revives.

A generation may pass away, but the succeeding generation will return. The sons will take the places of their fathers, the same site for the village, the same position for the houses, the same lands, will be reoccupied by the descendants of those who were driven out when the village was depopulated; and it is not a trifling matter that will drive them out, for they will often maintain their post through times of disturbance and convulsion, and acquire strength sufficient to resist pillage and oppression with success.

“The union of the Village Communities, each one forming a separate little State in itself, has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India through all revolutions and changes which they have suffered, and it is in a high degree conducive to their happiness and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.

I wish, therefore, that the Village Constitutions may never be disturbed, and I dread everything that has a tendency to break them up. I am fearful that a Revenue Settlement with each individual cultivator, as is the practice in the Ryotwari Settlement, instead of one with the Village Community through their representatives, the headmen, might have such a tendency. For this reason, and for this only, I do not desire to see the Ryotwari Settlement generally introduced into the Western Provinces.”¹

Sir Charles Metcalfe was correct in ascribing the disappearance of Village Communities in Madras and in Bombay to the introduction of the Ryotwari Settlement. When a settlement is made with each individual cultivator, the raison d’être of Village Communities ceases. The endeavours of Munro and Elphinstone to keep the Communities alive, after depriving them of their chief function, failed. In Northern India too, the Village Communities have virtually disappeared within the last seventy years through similar causes. The British Government, in obedience to Western ideas, endeavoured to fix the responsibility of the Land-Tax on particular men—zemindars or headmen—until they became the responsible revenue payers and landlords, and the Communities declined. And in trying also to centralise all judicial and executive powers in the hands of its own officers in the spirit of Western institutions, the Government withdrew or weakened the ancient powers of the Communities, until they fell like trees whose roots had been severed. With the most sincere desire to preserve this ancient form of self-government—a desire earnestly and eloquently felt and expressed by Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe—they nevertheless failed in their object because they withdrew the powers of Self-Government from the little republics, because they centred all powers in their own civil courts and executive officers, because they reposed no real trust in the old institutions of the people. One of the saddest results of British rule in India is the effacement of that system of village Self-Government which was developed earliest and preserved longest in India among all the countries of the earth.

Lord William Bentinck had now completed his scheme in consultation with his Councillors, his Board of Revenue, and the Court of Directors; and he convened a conference of officers at Allahabad in 1833, over which he presided in person. The result was the passing of Regulation IX. of 1833, which is the true basis of Land Settlements in Northern India. By this Regulation the majority of judicial cases were transferred from the Courts of Settlement Officers, estimates of produce and of rents were simplified, and the system of average rents for different classes of soil was introduced. The general use of the field map and the field register was prescribed for the first time. The Government demand was reduced to two-thirds of the gross rental; and the settlements which took sixteen years to complete, from 1833 to 1849, were made for a period of thirty years.

The direction of this vast operation fell on a man who was worthy of the work. This man was Robert Merttins Bird, the Father of Land Settlements in Northern India. He was originally a judicial officer, and the training he had received in the discharge of his judicial work rendered him better qualified as a great revenue administrator.

“The greater part of the measures”, he wrote in 1842, “which have now been carried through, had been many years before planned and elaborated by me, as measures of a purely judicial character, when I was holding a judicial office, and had no prospect of ever being employed in the Revenue Department….

“A judicial officer has no official facilities for bringing plans of general usefulness into practical operation. I embraced therefore with avidity the offer of the appointment of Revenue Commissioner to conduct the settlements of the Goruckpur Division, as affording the ready means of carrying out my purposes and testing both the soundness and the practicability of my views by actual experiment. . . .

“I saw no reason to doubt the assessment of a fair and moderate revenue on the land might be so combined with the ascertainment of private rights and the cultivation of the Village Communities, that such records might be framed, such principles fixed, and such sanatory processes put in action, as would correct the evils which had eaten like a canker into the very vitals of landed property and agricultural prosperity.

“On these principles I commenced operations at Goruckpur. The late Lord William Bentinck, having visited that district in the following year, communicated fully with me on my plans, and by his command I maintained a constant correspondence with him on the subject; the result was his calling me in the year 1832 to the office in which the superintendence of the settlements of the North-Western Provinces had devolved principally on me. . . .

“On the whole, there is, I think, just reason to consider that a moderate, fair, and equal demand on the land, such as can and ought to be collected without interfering with the accumulation of property, and the march of agricultural prosperity, has, generally speaking, been fixed.“¹

It is not necessary in the present work to go through the history of the settlements in the different divisions and districts in Northern India; but the results of the assessments may be seen from the following figures taken from a statement appended to Bird’s Report.²

These were the general results of Robert Bird’s work up to the date of his leaving India. Ten years after, when he was examined as a witness before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, he explained clearly and lucidly the procedure he had followed in India.

“I first of all proceeded to make a survey of all the land. . . . The next process was to make a map, including every field, exactly in the same manner as the English tithe commutation maps. . . .Then the next thing was the professional survey of the boundary made by an educated officer, that shows the cultivated and the uncultivated land, and the real shape of the village as taken by a regular survey. . . .We then proceeded to investigate the assessment of the Government Land-Tax upon that tract. . . .As soon as that was ascertained, we fixed the amount of the Government tax we should require upon the whole of that tract, and then we proceeded to set down the amount that we should require upon each village. . . .The people then came forward and met the Collector. They generally met, as is our way of doing business in India, under the shade of a tree or in an open field. . . .In many instances objections were made: they said, ‘This is too high; my village will not pay this; it is a poor village.’ They were then told that we intended to have that amount of revenue from the whole tract, and that, therefore, if there was any objection regarding that village, they must point out who could pay more; and this set them to discuss the matter among themselves. . . .The assessment upon the whole tract was not strictly maintained; it was not our object to do so; we were ready to reduce it if we found cause to do so; but the object of demanding this first in a lump was to induce them to look into their own concerns, and to come to such an adjustment as they should find to be satisfactory.”

This procedure, as described by Robert Bird himself, was by no means perfect: but it was far better than that of Bombay, where, according to Goldfinch, each cultivator was called upon to take his field on the revenue fixed by Government, or to throw it up.

Asked what was the proportion of the Government revenue assessed by him on the produce of the soil, Robert Bird replied: “My general impression is that it was not above a tenth of the produce.” And he added that “in Madras and other places it is a matter notorious now that the error is that the revenue was fixed too high at the beginning, and impoverishes the people.”¹

A fuller account of Robert Bird’s Settlement will be given in another work,—India in the Victorian Age. In the present chapter we will only add a few words to complete the land revenue history of Northern India.

When Robert Merttins Bird left India, the work he had commenced, and almost completed, passed under the control and supervision of a worthy successor. James Thomason was the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces from 1843 to 1853, and a more kind-hearted and benevolent Englishman never went out to India. His “Directions for Settlement Officers,” drawn up in 1844, was the first complete Code of Land Settlement compiled in India. These, with the “Directions for Collectors,” were published five years after under the name of “Directions for Revenue Officers,” and continued for many years to be the standard of official reference. The underlying principles of the Land System of Northern India are enunciated in a Preface to these Directions.

“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 nett 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.” ¹

Thomason laboured for ten years to complete the great work initiated in Northern India by Lord William Bentinck. And if Bentinck had able and distinguished colleagues in Metcalfe, Trevelyan, and Macaulay, Thomason too trained up under him a school of no less distinguished administrators, such as John Lawrence, Robert Montgomery, and William Muir. They were inspired by that practical desire to work in the interests of the people which animated Lord William Bentinck; a desire which unfortunately became less conspicuous in the last decades of the century. Thomason’s good work of ten years was recognised in England; and on the 27th September 1853 an order was signed by Her Majesty’s command appointing the wise and able administrator of Northern India to the higher post of Governor of Madras. The reward came too late: on that very day, the 27th September 1853, James Thomason died in the country in which he had passed the best part of his life in the service of its people.

Two years after, Bentinck’s wise policy of reducing the Government demand was more than vindicated. He had reduced that demand to two-thirds of the rental, but in practice, even this was found to be harsh and unworkable. Under the administration of Lord Dalhousie it was decided by the famous Saharanpur Rules of 1855 that the Government demand should be limited to one-half the rental.

“The assets of an estate can seldom be minutely ascertained, but more certain information as to the average nett assets can be obtained now than was formerly the case. This may lead to over-assessment, for there is little doubt that two-thirds, or 66 per cent. is a larger proportion of the real average assets than can ordinarily be paid by proprietors or communities in a long course of years. For this reason the Government have determined so far to modify the rules laid down in paragraph 52 of the Directions to Settlement Officers as to limit the demand of the State to 50 per cent. of the average nett assets. By this it is not meant that the Jumma [Government revenue] of each estate is to be fixed at one-half of the nett average assets, but in taking these assets, with other data, into consideration, the Collector will bear in mind that about one-half, and not two-thirds as heretofore, of the ascertained nett assets should be the Government demand. The Collectors should observe the cautions given in paragraphs 47 to 51 of the treatise quoted, and not waste time in minute and probably fruitless attempts to ascertain exactly the average nett assets of the estates under settlement.“¹

Thus after the persistent blunders of half a century, the Government at last decided to limit its demand to one-half the rent. This is now the recognised principle all over India, where the revenue has not been permanently fixed. In Madras and Bombay the Land-Tax is fixed at one-half the economic rent by Sir Charles Wood’s despatch of 1864; in Northern India it has been fixed at one-half the rental by the Saharanpur Rules of 1855. It would be a distinct gain to the cause of good government in India if this principle were strictly and honestly adhered to.

But it is the unavoidable result of a system of administration in which Revenue Collectors dictate the revenue policy, and the people have no voice whatever, that the clearest and most unmistakable rules are strained, misinterpreted, and evaded. How this was done in Madras and Bombay has been described elsewhere. How this was done in Northern India, it is painful to note. Lord Canning’s recommendation for a Permanent Settlement of the land revenue all over India, made in 1862, and supported by Lord Lawrence, Sir Charles Wood, and Sir Stafford Northcote, was rejected in 1883. Even the Saharanpur Rules, which were still binding on revenue collectors, were virtually evaded in practice. The purport of the Saharanpur Rules is unmistakable. The rule quoted above limits the Government demand to one-half of “the average nett assets,” “the real average assets.” But in later settlements the Government interpreted this to mean one-half of “the prospective and potential” rental of estates. If an estate had a rental of £1200 a year, the claim of the Government was to a revenue of £650, or might be £700, on the ground that the rental might rise hereafter to £1300 or £1400. More than this, while the Land-Tax is still theoretically one-half the rental, a number of new taxes for education, post-office, &c., have been introduced and assessed on the rent, adding to the share of the Government on the produce of the soil. Is this not paltering with the people of India in a double sense, keeping the word of promise to their ear, and breaking it to their hope?

Footnotes

^1 Letter from the Governor-General to the Court of Directors, dated 15th September 1831.

¹ Letter to the Board of Revenue, dated 7th April 1831, paragraphs 106 and 107.

¹ Sir Charles T. Metcalfe’s Minute, dated 7th November 1830.

¹ T. M. Bird’s Report on the Settlement of the North-Western Provinces, dated 21st January 1842.

² The statement excludes tracts permanently settled. One mistake in calculation about Hariana District has been corrected. Fractions of acres and pies have been omitted.

¹ T. M. Bird’s Report on the Settlement of the North-Western Provinces, dated 21st January 1842.

² The statement excludes tracts permanently settled. One mistake in calculation about Hariana District has been corrected. Fractions of acres and pies have been omitted.

¹ Selection of Papers relating to Revenue Survey and Assessment in the North-Western Provinces, 1853, pp. 4, 5.