It has been successfully
practised by the Hindostan Princes that where a particular district has gone
to ruin to give it to a Zamindar or any other man of known good conduct for
a long lease of years or in perpetuity at a fixed rent not to be increased should
ever the industry of the renter raise an unexpected average to himself.
practised by the Hindostan Princes that where a particular district has gone
to ruin to give it to a Zamindar or any other man of known good conduct for
a long lease of years or in perpetuity at a fixed rent not to be increased should
ever the industry of the renter raise an unexpected average to himself.
Cambridge History of India - v5 - British India
The
directors commenced by attaching an enormous salary, nine lakhs
of rupees per annum, to the office of the naib diwan, hoping thereby
to obtain uncorrupt and efficient service.
Meanwhile, under the governorship of Verelst, the president and
Select Committee made as full an enquiry as they could, arriving at
the well-known conclusions, contained in their Proceedings 2 for
16 August, 1769, in which "certain grand original sources" of the
unsatisfactory state of the revenue collection in Bengal were enume-
rated. At home, the court of directors in June, 1769, had sent orders
to Bengal, appointing a committee "for the management of the
the diwanni revenue”; and three "supervisors” with plenary powers
sailed from England in September, 1769, but after leaving the Cape
of Good Hope were never heard of again.
Verelst and his committee made a correct diagnosis of the trouble.
They realised that the Company's European servants were kept in
complete ignorance “of the real produce and capacity of the country
by a set of men who first deceive us from interest and afterwards
continue the deception from a necessary regard to their own safety".
The chaos and misrule caused by the venal officials and adventurers
who had frequented Bengal since the death of Aurangzib, combined
with the secretive methods which a continuous oppression of the ryot
by the zamindar had produced, formed an impenetrable labyrinth
of which the key was sought in vain.
Verelst's committee established supervisors of the collections;
these supervisors received instructions to make a full and complete
enquiry into the method of collecting the revenue in their respective
districts and, in fact, into any customs, knowledge of which might
assist to improve the condition of the people; the instructions breathe
a warm and humane spirit and a real desire, not merely to collect
revenue, but to assist the oppressed cultivator of the soil. The super-
visors failed, as indeed they were bound to do. Their instructions
ordered them to prepare a rent roll, and, by enquiry, to ascertain tho
fact from which a just and profitable assessment of the revenue could
be made. Such instructions were impossible to carry out. The super-
visors soon found themselves confronted by a most formidable passive
opposition from the zamindars and kanungos which prevented any
real knowledge whatever of the amount of revenue actually paid by
the ryot to the zamindar from coming to the knowledge of the Com-
pany. By this conspiracy of two corrupt and hereditary revenue
agencies all avenues of information were closed. Between them, the
zamindars and the kanungos held all the essential information, but
the kanungo was the dominant figure.
1 Cf. letter from Hastings to the Secret Committee, 1 September 1792.
2 Cf. Verelst, A View, etc. pp. 224-39.
## p. 412 (#440) ############################################
412
REVENUE ADAINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
A full account of this officer and his duty was submitted in May,
1787, to the Board of Revenue by J. Patterson, register, Kanungo's
Office,
The kanungo comes into prominence in the reign of Akbar, who
employed him, as the name implies, to keep the records of the pargana,
a revenue sub-division. He was in fact a registrar of a district ap-
pointed to see that the crown received its dues and that the ryot was
not oppressed; his duties were responsible and onerous; he had to
register the usages of a district, the rates and mode of its assessment, and all
regulations relating thereto. To note and record the progress of cultivation, the
produce of the land and the price current thereof, and to be at all times able to
furnish Government with materials to regulate the assessment by just and
equitable proportions.
The kanungo's duties also included
che keeping of a record of all events, such as the appointments, deaths or re-
movals of zamindars, to preserve the records of the Tumar and Taksim Jama,
and the record of the boundaries and limits of zamindars, talukdaris, parganas,
villages, etc.
They also preserved in their registers the genealogies of zamindars,
records of all grants of land, copies of the contracts of the zamindars
and tax-farmers with the government, and, in short, acted as general
custodians for every description of record in the district. There were
two main, or sadar, kanungos for Bengal, but in each pargana thera
was a deputy or naib kanungo; the office became hereditary at an
early date. Murshid Kuli Khan is stated to have replaced the
kanungos of his day by an entirely new set, but the evil was not
checked, because the new kanungos passed on their office and their
knowledge to their descendants in the same way as the evicted ones
had done.
Thus the whole of the land registration, and the entire knowledge
of the actual receipts of the land revenue, were in the hands of a
hereditary close corporation, who were the only authorities on the
real state of the revenue; their power was enormous; and only com-
plete ignorance can explain Verelst and his committee's imagining
that such knowledge would be surrendered to the Company on
demand. Edward Baber, in his letter of 13 December, 1772, called the
attention of the Board of Revenue to these facts, and to the great
power which the kanungos had over the zamindars,
because it was in the power of the Kanungos to expose the value of their
parganas. This power the Kanungos availed themselves of, and it was the
rod which they held over them so that the apprehension of an increase of his
rents kept the zamindar in very effectual awe of the Kanungo. . . . In a word
the Kanungos have an absolute influence over the Zamindars which they
exercise in every measure that can promote their own interests.
It now
1 Original consultations, no. 63, Revenue Dept. 18 May, 1787. Printed ap.
Ramshothanı, Land Revenue History of Bengal, pp. 163-97.
## p. 413 (#441) ############################################
THE KANUNGOS
413
happens that the Kanungos manage, not only the zamindars, but the business
of the province. There is not a record but what is in their possession and so
much of the executive part have they at last obtained that they are now virtually
the Collector, while he is a mere passive representative of Government. They
are the channel through which all his orders are conveyed. . . Instead of
being the agents of Government they are become the associates of the zamin-
dars and conspire with them to conceal what it is their chief duty to divulge.
Baber drives home the argument by challenging the board to
state how the last settlement (he is referring to the settlement made
by the Committee of Circuit in 1772) was made; taking the example
of Midnapur, his own district, he asks "on what information, on what
materials was it made? was there a single instrument produced to
guide the judgment of the board? " i It will be obvious that the
1
supervisors appointed in 1769 were bound to fail. They were com-
pletely and wilfully kept in the dark by officials who had everything
to lose and nothing to gain by giving the required information. The
kanungos were only prepared to serve the state on their own terms;
and those terms included a retention of the very information which
their office was created to obtain for the state. Their action was
utterly unconstitutional and involved the admission that a few families
a
should hereditarily possess information which is the sole prerogative
of the state, and that they should use that information for their
personal and pecuniary profit.
The Company's government in India created in 1770 two Boards
of Revenue, one in Murshidabad and one in Patna, to control respec-
tively the Bengal and Bihar collections; but dissensions taking place
in the council, John Cartier was ordered to hand over his office to
Warren Hastings and several other alterations were made. Hastings
assumed office as governor and president of Fort William on 13 April,
1772.
The outstanding result of the first seven years of the Company's
administration of the diwanni is that the Company's officers in Bengal
realised that they were face to face with the great problem of ascer-
taining the difference between the sum received as land revenue by
government, and the sum actually paid by the ryot to the zamindar.
This was the secret of the zamindar and kanungo which the Company
never fathomed; it forms the burden of the collectors' reports to the
Board of Revenue from 1772 onwards; and it is the basis of the great
Shore-Grant controversy. When the revenue settlement was made
permanent in 1793 this information was still wanting, and not a single
revenue officer of the Company in 1793 could state with accuracy the
entire actual amount which the zamindars in his district received
from the ryots, or the proportion which it bore to that which the
zamindar paid to the government; yet these were the conditions in
which the revenue settlement was declared permanent.
Hastings brought to his work a sound experience of Bengal, a
1 Revenue Board Proceedings, 16 December, 1772, pp. 417-26.
## p. 414 (#442) ############################################
414
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
1
fluent and accurate knowledge both of Persian and of Bengali : more-
over, he had the reputation of being a loyal and most efficient servant
of the Company. It is still difficult to give an impartial verdict on his
official career. In revenue work his ability was not remarkable, and
on his own admission ? he had no practical working knowledge of it;
in fact, his influence on the actual conditions of the revenue was
unfortunate, especially when contrasted with his administration and
reorganisation of the judicature in the districts, which was a vigorous
beneficial achievement. His masterful temperament often prevented
him from using the advice of subordinates better qualified than him-
self to speak authoritatively on details of revenue administration
This inflexibility must share responsibility with the jealousy of
Francis and the ill-temper of Clavering for the deadlock which
occurred in the administration of Bengal between 1774 and 1776.
The directors' orders which confronted the new governor were
of a disturbing nature. On 14 April, 1772, these dispatches containing
the well-known proclamation arrived in Calcutta. On 11 May the
information was made public :
Notice is hereby given that the Hon'ble the Court of Directors have been
pleased to divest the Nawab Muhammad Reza Khan of his station of Naib
Diwan and have determined to stand forth publicly themselves in the character
of Diwan.
This announcement radically altered the existing system of the
collections.
The new governor and his council as a prelude to carrying out
their orders, appointed a committee to tour through various districts
of Bengal and to submit a report on their observations. Thus was
formed the Committee of Circuit, consisting of the Company's most
senior officers, including the governor himself, S. Middleton, P. M.
Dacres, J. Lawrell, and J. Graham. Their terms of reference were
based on the resolutions taken by the council on 14 May, 1772, viz.
(a) to farm the lands for a period of five years;
(b) to establish a Committee of Circuit to form the settlement;
(c) to re-introduce the supervisors under the name of collectors,
assisted by an Indian diwan in each district;
(d) to restrict the officials of the Company from any private
employment.
The Committee of Circuit realised the difficulty of their work.
The Hon'ble Court of Directors . . . declare their determination to stand
forth as Diwan, and, by the agency of the Company's servants, to take upon
themselves the entire care and management of the Revenue. By what means
this agency is to be exercised we are not instructed. They have been pleased
to direct a total change of system, and have left the plan of execution of it to
the direction of the Board without any formal repeal of the regulations they
1Cf. the evidence given by Hastings for the plaintiff in the case brought
by Kamal-ud-din Khan against the Calcutta Committee of Revenue, Governor-
General's Proceedings, . 2 September, 1776, pp. 336. 7-89.
## p. 415 (#443) ############################################
COMMITTEE OF CIRCUIT
415
had before framed and adopted to another system, the abolition of which must
necessarily include that of its subsidiary institutions unless they shall be found
to coincide with the new. The Revenue is beyond all question the first object
of Government. 1
The Committee of Circuit decided to place the revenue adminis-
tration entirely under the direct control of the president and council,
who were to form a committee of revenue; they also recommended
that the Khalsa, or treasury office, should be removed from Murshi-
dabad to Calcutta, making the latter town the financial capital of
the province.
As the duties of the diwanni comprised the administration of civil
justice, and as the business of the Committee of Circuit was to
consolidate the Company's control over the diwanni, the important
question of restoring the administration of justice in the districts came
before them. The close connection between the land revenue and
civil justice necessitates a brief mention of the committee's proposals
recorded in their Proceedings. They recommended in each district
under a collector che formation of two courts, the diwanni adalat and
the faujdari adalat, the former with civil, the latter with criminal
jurisdiction; the matters cognisable by each court were strictly
defined, and the diwanni adalat was under the direct charge of the
collector. In addition to these mufassil or district courts, two similar
sadar, or headquarters' courts, were to be established in Calcutta, the
sadar diwanni adalat being presided over by the governor or a
member of council. These courts were designed to remove the abuses
in the administration of justice referred to by Verelst in his Instruc-
tion to the Supervisors. “Every decision", he writes of these native
courts, "is a corrupt bargain with the highest bidder. . . Trifling
offenders are frequently loaded with heavy demands and capital
offences are as often absolved by the venal judge. "
The most objectionable feature of the proposed regulations, as is
pointed out by Harington,4 was that they vested in one person the
powers of a tax-collector and of a magistrate. Hastings himself
a
made this complaint against Verelst's plan introducing the super-
visors; but he was apparently forced to embody the same defect in
his own regulation. Perhaps the best and most straightforward
defence of this admitted defect was that made by Shore. 6
" 3
It is impossible to draw a line between the Revenue and Judicial
Departments in such a manner as to prevent their clashing : in this case either
the Revenue must suffer or the administration of Justice be suspended. It
may be possible in course of time to induce the natives to pay their rents with
regularity and without compulsion, but this is not the case at prevent.
1 Committee of Circuit's Proceedings, 28 July, 1772, pp. 162-8.
2 Idem, 15 August, 1772, pp. 234-48. Cf. also Coleb:ooke, Supplement, etc.
3 Verelst, op. cit. pp. 229-30.
4 Harington, Analysis, 1, 34.
5 In a minute printed in India papers, vol. vi, quoted by Harington, Ana-
lysis, a, 41-3.
6 Letter to Sir G. Cnlebrooke, 26 March, 1772.
pp. 1-8.
## p. 416 (#444) ############################################
416
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
The Committee of Circuit's recommendations 1 were sent with a
covering letter to the council at Fort William on 15 August, 1772,
and received the council's approval on 21 August.
21 August. They proposed
that à large proportion of that land, known as huzur zilla land,
because it paid its revenue direct to the Khalsa, should be converted
into separate districts each under a collector. The whole council was to
act as a committee of revenue, and to audit the accounts of the
diwanni assisted by an Indian officer styled the rai raian. The latter
was a most important person; his duties included the supervision of
all the provincial diwans attached to the various collectorships,
to receive from them the accounts in the Bengali language and to issue to them
a counterpart of the orders which the Board of Revenue shall from time to
time expedite to the Collectors.
The salary attached to this important post was 5000 rupees a month.
The first holder was Raja Rajballabh, a son of Raja Rai Durlabh,
the old colleague of Muhammad Reza Khan. The business of the
Khalsa was precisely defined; the post of accountant-general was
created, the first holder being Charles Croftes; and the various
departments of that office, and of the treasury in general, defined
and organised. This completed the main work of the Committee of
Circuit, and unquestionably the most successful portion was that
which dealt with the administration of justice. They inherited from
the Moghul government every evil that could afflict a judicial system :
a disorganised and corrupt judicature and incompetent agents. Dacoity
was rampant, and there was no ordinary security in the land. The
new courts, although by no means perfect, brought great relief to
trie ryots and talukdars, and within a short time began to foster
confidence in the Company's administration.
On 13 October, 1772, the new Committee of Revenue commenced
its work by settling the revenue to be collected from Hugli, Midnapur,
Birbhum, Jessore and the Calcutta zamindary lands. The settlement
was for five years, and the lands were farmed out by public auction,
in order better to discover the real value of the lands. This, in itself,
is a comment on the board's revenue policy, for they must have
known that to farm the land revenue by public auction would induce
many people to bid from motives other than mere desire for profit;
the gambling instinct, the desire for power, the opportunity of inflict-
ing injury on an enemy or of humiliating a local zamindar, all
powerfully contributed to raise the bidding beyond the value of the
revenue. The board certainly expressed an opinion that, ceteris
paribus, it was preferable to accept the bids of established zamindars,
but they had definitely placed both the zamindar and the ryot at the
2
1 Committee of Circuits Proceedings, pp. 248-58. Cf. Colebrooke, Supple-
ment, pp. 8-14 and 194-200; also Harington, Analysis, 01, 25-33.
2 Letter of the President to the Court of Directors, 3 November, 1772. Cf.
Harington, op. cit. 1, 16-18.
## p. 417 (#445) ############################################
THE COLLECTORS
417
mercy of speculating and unprincipled adventurers who, in many
cases, ousted the old zamindars and thus severed an old-established
link between government and the cultivator of the soil, for the zamin-
dar, in spite of his shortcoming, had (in the words of Hastings him-
self) “riveted an authority in the district, acquired an ascendancy
over the minds of the ryots and ingratiated their affections". Between
1772 and 1781 the connection between the zamindars and their tenants
was seriously impaired by this unfortunate method.
In justice to Hastings and his colleagues it must be remembered
that they were suddenly called upon to administer the revenues of
a country which for half a century had been in a state of increasing
disorder, and to create an administrative service from young men
who had come to the country at an immature age for a purely com-
mercial career. Among their critics is Hastings himself, whose letters
in the early days of his governorship contain disparaging references
to the collectors; yet many of those so criticised were almost imme-
diately employed by him and rose to positions of comparative
eminence; the majority came from good British homes. The record
of their work, contained in the forgotten and unpublished minutes of
perished boards, shows them to have been humane, if untrained, men
genuinely anxious to relieve the distress in their districts.
A careful perusal of the proceedings of the Board of Revenue for
the years 1772 and 1773 reveals that the most valuable suggestions
for alleviating distress among the cultivators are to be found in letters
from the district officers rather than in the resolutions of the board :
in spite of the most determined passive resistance which zamindars,
kanungos,'and farmers of the revenue made to their enquiries, it was
the collectors who enabled the voice of the oppressed ryot to reach
the headquarters of government.
The collectors soon realised that the settlement had been seriously
over-estimated, but the board refused to believe their district officers
and added to the trouble by peremptory orders for the collection of
deficits. This was done with undoubted harshness, for the collectors
had no option 3 but to carry out their orders. Confinement of zamin-
dars and farmers was freely used, but without any result except that
of adding to the confusion; and the words with which Hastings, in
his letter to the directors, dated 3 November, 1772, described the
conditions of the revenue collections in Bengal on his assumption of
the governorship, might be used with truth to describe the conditions
in collecting the same revenue in 1773.
The entire system of revenue registration was still in the hands of
an hereditary corporation and was still unknown to government,
1 In the matter of the public auction of the farms consult alsu the letter
dated 17 May, 1766, para. 17 from the Court of Directors (Long, Selections,
no. 893).
2 E. g. to L. Sulivan, 10 March, 1774.
3 Letter from the Council of Revenue at Patna, . dated 17 October, 1774.
Revenue Board Proceedings, 1 November, 1774, pp. 6395-8.
27
## p. 418 (#446) ############################################
418
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
which had no accurate working knowledge on which to base a general
settlement, and which was, as several district officers testified, com-
pletely ignorant of the actual amount paid by the cultivator com-
pared with that received by itself. 1 Over-assessmer. i and wholesale
farming had aggravated the mischief. Though government had
established a business-like system for keeping the accounts of such
revenue as was actually received, this was but a trifle compared with
the weighty problem that was still unsolved.
The diwanni adalats relieve the sombre colours of the picture, and
in them the cultivator found a real protection and assistance at the
hands of those collectors whose work received such scanty acknow-
ledgment : but the day of the collectors was to be short. In April,
1773, the court of directors sent orders to the governor and council to
recall the collectors from their districts and to adopt other measures
for collecting the revenues. These orders were similar to those issued
in 1769 abolishing the supervisors; the directors apparently distrusted
their junior officers, and were nervous lest private trade should
engross their time. These orders were considered by the president
and council on 23 November, 1773. 2
The board drew up a detailed temporary plan in order to give
effect to these instructions, to be "adopted and completed by such
means as experience shall furnish and the final orders of the Hon'ble
Company allow”. (1) A committee of revenue at the presidency was
formed consisting of two members of the board and three senior
Servants below council who were to meet daily and transact the
necessary business assisted by the rai raian; (2) the three provinces
were divided into six divisions, each under a provincial council
consisting of a chief, assisted by four senior servants of the Company :
in Calcutta the committee of revenue above mentioned was to carry
out the duties of such a council; (3) each district, originally a
collectorship, was placed under the control of an Indian revenue
officer (diwan), except in districts entirely let to a zamindar or
farmer, who was then empowered to act as diwan; (4) occasional
inspections were to be made by commissioners specially selected by
the board for their knowledge of Persian and "moderation of temper”
The selection of these commissioners was to be unanimous;
an objection made by a single member of the Board to any proposed as want-
ing these requisites shall be a sufficient bar to his rejection without any proof
being required to support it;
(5) the various collectors were to make up their accounts and hand
over charge to Indian deputies who were empowered to hold the
courts of diwanni adalat, but appeals in all cases were allowed to the
provincial sadar adalat now constituted to form a link between the
1 Letter from C. Bentley, collector of Chittagong, dated 10 July, 1773. Re-
venue Board Proceedings, 17 August, 1773, pp. 2620-39.
2 Idem, 23 November, 1773, pp. 3453-77.
## p. 419 (#447) ############################################
PROVINCIAL COUNCILS
419
worse.
mufassal and headquarters diwanni courts; (6) with a view to check-
ing private trade the chiefs of the provincial councils were given a
salary of 3000 sicca rupees per mensem, and had to take an oath 1
not to engage in private trade.
The changes, necessitated by the directors' orders, were for the
The collectorship as a district unit of the revenue adminis-
tration was retained, but the employment of Indian diwans instead
of European collectors deprived the Company of an increasing
knowledge among its European servants of the country, the state of
the revenue, and the methods of collection; it checked the growth of
a spirit of responsibility and of public service among the junior
officers; and it diluted the European element in the district collections
to such an extent as to render it negligible. The whole scheme, for
which the directors must bear the responsibility, is tainted with the
inference that, provided the stipulated revenue was received, the
method of collecting it did not much matter.
The proceedings of the Board of Revenue from 1773 to 1776
record a monotonous list of large deficits, defaulting zamindars,
absconding farmers, and deserting ryots. The provincial councils, like
the collectors before them, protested that the country was over-
assessed; the diwans proved incapable and unbusinesslike, and were
the subject of a circular letter of complaint issued by the board to
the provincial councils.
The new system was only in force for six months before the
Regulating Act made further changes, but its proceedings display all
he signs of impending collapse. The council of Patna sent in a
moving description of the distress in their province. Anticipating
Philip Francis, they definitely recommended a settlement in perpe-
tuity, because no satisfactory collections could be made except on
that basis of stability which only a lengthy tenure furnishes.
"It remains', they write, “that we should suomit to you our sentiments
on the measures calculated to produce a remedy.
It has been successfully
practised by the Hindostan Princes that where a particular district has gone
to ruin to give it to a Zamindar or any other man of known good conduct for
a long lease of years or in perpetuity at a fixed rent not to be increased should
ever the industry of the renter raise an unexpected average to himself. . . . . "
The board in their reply considered the suggestion to be too hazardous
for experiment.
Other events were now impending. On 19 October, 1774, Clavering:
Monson, and Francis arr. ved in Calcutta. Of the three new members
of council the ablest was Francis, whose malicious and petulant
character needs no description here, but whose ability and grasp of
the intricate revenue problem in Bengal, although not free from error,
3
1 Revenue Board Proceedings, 16 March, 1774.
2 Idem, 5 July, 1774, pp. 5425-6.
3 Idem, 29 January, 1773, pp. 627-33.
## p. 420 (#448) ############################################
420
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
was remarkable, even if due allowance is made for his alleged
indebtedness to the "coaching" of John Shore.
The Supreme Council soon offered a most unfortunate example of
disunion to all the subordinate officers of the Company, and the same
spirit appeared in the provincial councils; thus was created a spirit
of partisanship throughout the entire service, which encouraged in
farmers, zamindars, and tenants the hope that profit might be
obtained by supporting one side or the other; but in spite of these
evils, the new council brought into the administration of the revenue
a vigorous and, on the whole, healthy spirit of enquiry. Abuses were
brought to light which under a more easy-going régime would have
remained dormant. The most noticeable result of the new change was
the position of the governor-general. Hitherto Hastings had exerted
an overwhelming, almost dictatorial, control over his council, whose
proceedings for the years 1772-4 show a general compliance with
the governor's desires, and the greatest reluctance to oppose him.
This authority was now openly disregarded. The new members of
the council came out prejudiced, if not against individual servants of
the Company, against the personnel and the Company's service in
general; but allowing for their wholesale suspicion, it must be con-
ceded that the time was ripe for a complete investigation into the
methods of collecting the revenue, and for some radical changes in
that administration.
On 21 October, 1774, the new Board of Revenue met for the first
time and the governor-general explained in detail the mode of
collecting the land revenue, and the lately introduced system of the
provincial councils, and he recommended a continuation of the
system, at any rate for the present, as the season of year was soon
approaching in which the heaviest instalments of the revenue were
due for payment. The board agreed to the suggestion, partly because
they wanted to see the existing system at work, and partly because
they realised the force of the argument for a temporary continuation
of the existing system, but “they do not mean to preclude themselves
from such future alterations as . . . some mature deliberation may
suggest to them". In revenue matters, as in others, the new councillors
soon displayed their intolerance, and the first difference was between
the governor-general and Clavering over a complaint made to the
former by the rai raian against Joseph Fowke. It is impossible to
relate here in detail the many cases of friction and open quarrelling
which occurred during the new administration; this was not always
produced by the quarrelsome attitude of the new arrivals. Hastings
and Barweil were also intolerant. The rejection of certain officers
proposed by the governor-general for promotion drew a protest from
Barwell who alleged that “good and, zealous servants had been
deprived of normal promotion”; a policy, he contended, that would
create faction throughout the service and "involve the policy and
connection of the state with the different powers of Hindostan". But
## p. 421 (#449) ############################################
SUPREME COURT
421
Clavering was able to quote figures to prove thar in the matter of
revenue appointments the governor-general's choice had almost
always been accepted by the council. In a letter to the court of
directors dated 1 September, 1777, and embodied in proceedings for
1 October, 1777, Clavering states without contradiction that out
of thirty-four officers recommended by the governor-general for
appointment to seats on the provincial councils, only six were set
aside by the vote of the majority; moreover, in 1777 there were on
the provincial councils only three men who had not been recommended
by Hastings himself : these three were John Shore, Boughton Rous,
and Goring. This effective reply remained unanswered, and disposes
very decisively of Barwell's insinuations.
In addition to the weekly reports from the districts of defaulting
farmers and oppressed ryots, a new and serious problem was created
by the interference of the Supreme Court in the revenue adminis-
tration. This threatened to bring the collections to a standstill,
because the Supreme Court, by issuing writs of habeas corpus in favour
of persons confined by the orders of the provincial diwanni adalat
courts for non-payment of revenue, paralysed the effective control
exercised by these courts. Complaints and requests for instructions
poured in from all the divisions: the Supreme Council became very
restive but was induced to concur for the time being in the governor-
general's advice "not to controvert the authority which the Supreme
Court may think fit to exercise". 1 The judges of the Supreme Court
acknowledged the caution displayed by the board in a letter 2 which
conveyed their opinion on certain questions propounded by the board
regarding the appellate jurisdiction of the sadar diwanni adalat and
the Supreme Court. The matter rested there for a while.
The dissensions in the council encouraged unscrupulous people,
hostile to Hastings, to bring accusations of corruption against the
governor-general to which the majority in the council lent a greedy
ear.
It must be admitted that the governor-general had shown much
laxity in permitting his banyan Krishna Kantu Nandi (the well-
known “Cantoo Baboo") to hold lucrative farms. The Committee of
Circuit had laid down 3 that no banyan of the collector, nor any of
his relations, should under any circumstances hold a farm or be
connected with a farmer. Gleig's + shuffling defence that this order
applied to collectors only is unworthy of serious consideration, for
the chances of corrupt profit that might accrue to the banyan of a
collector were insignificant compared to those which an unscrupulous
banyan of the governor-general might receive. Kantu Babu held
Governor-General's Proceedings, January, 1775.
2 Idem, 25 July, 1775. Cf. also Hastings's letter to Lord North, dated 10
January, 1776.
3 Committee of Circuit's Proceedings, pp. 56-9.
4 Gleig, op. cit. I, 529, 530 (ed. 1841).
## p. 422 (#450) ############################################
422
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
farms in his own name whose annual rental exceeded thirteen lakhs
of rupees, and, in addition, he held farms in the name of his son,
Loknath Nandi, a child of twelve or thirteen years. The acquiescence
of Hastings in this matter was contrary to the spirit of the regulations
drawn up by the Committee of Circuit of which he himself had been
the most prominent member. His statement that he had no personal
interest in the affairs of his banyan does not alter the situation. In
this case, and in his defence 2 of Bhawani Charan Mitra, diwan of
Burdwan, whose sons and servants had been discovered in the posses--
sion of farms, no excuse can be offered for Hastings's inertness; but
the majority of the council allowed their venom to poison their
judgment in declaring that “there was no species of peculation from
which the governor-general had thought fit to abstain". Certain trans-
actions of Barwell, when chief of the Dacca provincial council, were
also declared by the majority to be corrupt, but the real target was
the governor-general who protested with unavailing logic that his
would-be judges were also his accusers. Hastings, to preserve the
dignity of his office, was forced on several occasions to break up the
council. Such were the conditions in which the new government
proceeded to administer the revenues of Bengal; conditions which
lasted till Monson's death on 25 September, 1776. During this period
some very valuable information was obtained from the senior servants
of the Company in response to a circular issued on 23 October, 1774,
to the chiefs of the provincial councils asking their views on the causes
of the diminution of the land revenue and of the frequent deficits.
Middleton, writing of the Murshidabad division which included
Rajshahi, named the famine of 1770 as the first cause; he also con-
sidered that "the unavoidably arbitrary settlement made by the
Committee of Circuit" and the public auction of farms contributed
heavily to the distress, especially the last cause :
the zamindar being tenacious of her hereditary possessions, and dreading the
disgrace and reproach which herself and her family of long standing as zamin-
dars must have suffered by its falling into other hands.
He suggested that "a universal remission of a considerable amount
of the revenue due" be granted, and the settlement in future be made
with the zamindars : if farmers must be employed, they should be
very carefully selected.
P. M. Dacres, late chief of the Calcutta committee, also considered.
the public auction of farms to be largely responsible for much distress,
instancing the bidding in the Nadia district; other causes were the
great famine and the excessive assessment of 1772. He advocated a
general remission of deficits and urged a permanent settlement with
3
1 Governor-General's Proceedings, 17 March, 1775, 25 April, 1777, and 29
April, 1777.
2 Idem, 23 January, 1776.
3 Idem, 7 April, 1775.
4 Idem.
## p. 423 (#451) ############################################
REFORMS PROPOSED
423
the zamindars which "would fix the rents in perpetuity and trust to
a sale of their property as a security for their payments”: advice
that was not lost on Francis.
G. Hurst, from the council of Patna, shared Middleton's views
and also referred to the wars that had ravaged Bihar from the days
of 'Ali Wardi Khan until the assumption of the diwanni by the
Company. Of these interesting comments, that of P. M. Dacres, advo-
cating a permanent settlement of the land revenue, commands the
most attention. This advice did not reach the board for the first time.
Two years previously 2 the council of Patna had suggested it, and in
January, 1775,9 G. Vansittart, late chief of the Burdwan Council,
had urged the board to adopt a lengthy settlement, for life at least.
In July, 1775, G. G. Ducarel, lately in charge of the Purnia district,
in his evidence given before the board,4 expressed the view that "a
person of experience with discretionary power might render great
service to the Company by effecting a permanent settlement in the
most eligible mode". He even argued that it was desirable to effect
a permanent settlement "with inferior talukdars or with the ryots
themselves if possible”, advice which implies that the speaker did
not regard either the state or the zamindars as owners of the soil.
At home the same idea was also finding expression. In 1772 Colonel
Dow" had strongly advocated a settlement in perpetuity with the
zamindars, and in the same year a pamphlet urging a similar course
was published by H. Patullo.
Meanwhile the results of the quinquennial settlement were
proving more deplorable each year, and some fresh method was im-
peratively necessary. Accordingly, on 21 March, 1775, the governor-
general invited the individual opinions of members of the council on
the subject of settling and collecting the land revenue. On 22 April he
and Barwell submitted a joint plan consisting of seventeen proposals
in which they practically adopted the principle of a permanent
settlement by recommending leases for life or for two joint lives.
Beveridge? has shown that the concluding remarks of this scheme
bear strong if unintentional testimony to the hardships inflicted on
the ryots by the nawab's and, latterly, the Company's mismanage-
ment of the collections. This plan was opposed by one propounded
by Francis on 22. January, 1776, in which he definitely recommended
a settlement in perpetuity with the zamindars, and he emphasised
this opinion at meetings of the board in May, 1776,8 when a letter was
1 Governor-General's Proceedings, 7 April, 1775.
2 Revenue Board Proceedings, 29 January, 1773.
Governor-General's Proceedings, 27 January, 1775.
&
, ,
4 Idem, 15 July, 1775.
5 Enquiry into the state of Bengal, affixed to vol. I, History of Hindostan,
ed. 1772.
6 Firminger, Fifth Report, etc. I, 309, note.
7 Op. cit. II, 410-17.
8 Governor-General's Proceedings, 17 May and 31 May, 1776.
## p. 424 (#452) ############################################
424
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
considered from the provincial council of revenue at Patna describing
the over-assessment and consequent poverty of the people. Francis
published in 1782 his proposals, together with the plan of Hastings and
Barwell and various extracts from the minutes of the board's pro-
ceedings, but he did not acknowledge the debt that he obviously
owed to Dacres and other servants of the Company. The following
comments from two distinguished writers are sufficient to reveal the
defects of the scheme of Francis, who recognised only the zamindar
and ignored the ryot. "We are left to infer”, says Beveridge,2 "that,
after all, the best security for the ryot would be to throw himself on
the zamindar's mercy. ” Mill 3 is even more trenchant.
Without much concern about the production of proof he [Mr Francis)
assumed as a basis two things : first, that the opinion was erroneous which
ascribed to the sovereign the property of the land; and secondly, that the pro-
perty in question belonged to the zamindars. Upon the zamindars as propriet-
ors he accordingly proposed a certain tax should be levied; that it should be
fixed once and for all; and held to be perpetual and invariable.
The effect of Francis's pertinacity was to bring into prominence the
question of the ownership of the land. It is sufficient to point out
that while Hastings and Barwell assumed that the sovereign possessed
the land, and Francis and his school were equally convinced that the
zamindar was the real owner, no one thought, with the possible
exception of Ducarel, of what might be the claim of the ryots to the
possession of the land, and of the khudkasht ryot 4 in particular.
The settlement problem, though of the first importance, was not
peremptory; the quinquennial settlement had still some time to run.
At this juncture, Monson died, and the governor-general recovered
his lost authority in the council. Almost the first use that Hastings
made of his restored authority was to take up the business of the
coming settlement, a duty which he had felt to be ‘paramount, and
which he could now approach with effect. In August, 1776, he
had laid before the board certain proposals connected with the
necessity of preparing for the approaching settlement, suggesting that
all provincial councils and collectors should submit an estimate of
the land revenue that might justly be expected from their districts.
This idea was eventually agreed to and a circular letter to that
effect issued.
On 1 November ? the governor-general suggested that an "office"
7
2
1 The Original Minutes of the Governor-General and Council of Fort
William, etc. , published in London, 1782.
Op. cit. II, 417.
3 Mill, History of British India, 5th ed. iv, 24.
4 The Zemindary Settlement of Bengal, vol. 1, para. 2, and appendix viii,
vol. I, pp. 198-9. (Calcutta, 1879. )
5 Letter to L. Sulivan, 21 March, 1776, also to John Graham, 26 September,
1776.
6 Governor-General's Proceedings, 30 August. 1776.
7 Idem, 1 November, 1776.
## p. 425 (#453) ############################################
THE AMINI COMMISSION
425
"
or, in modern parlance, a commission should be formed whose duty
should be to tour throughout Bengal "to procure material for the
settlement of the different districts". The reports from the various
district officers had revealed the disastrous effect of an assessment
based on faulty information, and Hastings was determined to avoid
that evil, if possible, in making the approaching settlement. His
proposals were strenuously, even
violently, opposed by Clavering and
Francis, who feared that the powers given to the amins, or Indian
officers, of, the commission to enable them to obtain the requisite
information would be used in a method prejudicial to the good name
of the Company. This fear, which was not without basis, was ex-
pressed in their usual intemperate fashion, and was made to serve as
an attack on the governor-general's character; for he was accused of
diverting the constitutional powers of the Supreme Council for his
own gratification by means of the casting vote.
Hastings met these unfounded allegations with more than his
wonted courtesy and self-control, entering into detailed explanations
of the information required, and the necessity for it, but his deter-
mination was as inflexible as ever : on 29 November D. Anderson and
C. Bogle, two of the most promising of the younger officers of the
Company, were selected as members of the commission: the
accountant-general, C. Croftes, was shortly afterwards added, and the
cost of the commission was estimated at something less than 4500
rupees per mensem. Thus was established that commission whose
report, presented in March, 1778, is perhaps the most valuable con-
temporary document in the early revenue history of Bengal under
the Company's administration. The information collected and its
style of presentment reflect the greatest credit both on the professional
capacities of its authors, and on the choice and acumen of the gover:
nor-general. The report lost no force from the dispassionate and
unassuming tone in which it recounted with studied moderation the
wholesale alienation of lands and deliberate oppression of the ryots
by the zamindars, who not infrequently continued to collect taxes
which the indulgence of government had abolished. The report
therefore exposed the inaccuracy of much that Francis had asserted :
it also included a large collection of
the original accounts in the Bengal, Persian, and Orissa languages.
preserved as records they will be highly serviceable as references in settling
disputes . . . and may lay the foundation of regular and permanent registers.
Meanwhile the court of directors wrote to express their displeasure
with the governor-general, and their support of the minority; they
censured the use which Hastings had made of the casting vote, and
expressed surprise that "after more than seven years' investigation"
further information about the collections was still required.
If
1 Governor-General's Proceedings, 6 December and 27 December, 1776.
2 Printed ap. Ramsbotham, op. cit. pp. 99-131.
## p. 426 (#454) ############################################
426
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
No definite decision was taken in the matter of the new settle-
ment. In the face of much conflicting evidence the directors decided to
Inark time; accordingly, on 23 December, 1778, they sent orders for
the land revenue to be settled annually; it is not easy to say what else
they could have done. In 1779 the trouble 1 between the Supreme
Court and the Company's diwanni adalats, which had been simmer-
ing since 1774, boiled over. The Kasijora case, with its disgraceful
incidents, compelled the immediate interference of the council. The
Supreme Court refused to yield, and the quarrel threatened to split
the entire administration. A solution was found by the chief justice
in consultation with the governor-general. Sir Elijah Impey was
offered and accepted the chief judgeship of the sadar diwanni adalat
with an additional salary of about £ 6500: he thus united in his own
person the authority of both jurisdictions. His action was severely
criticised by Francis and Wheler at the time, and by later critics.
But the law officers of the crown in England found nothing incorrect
in Impey's action which "put an end to an intolerable situation
and anticipatea by many years the policy which extended the
appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over the provincia!
courts”?
It will be remembered that the plan drawn up by the Board of
Revenue in 1773, placing the collections under six provincial councils
of revenue, was expressly declared by the governor and council to
be temporary. No opportunity occurred for introducing a permanent
scheme until Hastings had regained his control of the council, when
a commission of enquiry was appointed to prepare the way for a
permanent measure. In July, 1777, the governor-general and council
promulgated to all the provincial councils except Patna a modified
scheme for the settlement of the revenue for the current year. The
scheme contained ten paragraphs and bore strong impress of the
board's debates during the previous three years, in that it gave the
zamindar a position of increased importance at the cost of the ryot.
The councils were empowered to use their own discretion in making
fresh settlements with those zamindars who refused to agree to a
renewal of the existing terms, and where possible the zamindar was
to be invited to co-operate in making the settlement. In April, 1778,
a circular letter was sent to all provincial councils requiring a list of
all cefaulting zamindars to be posted at every district headquarters,
while defaulters were warned that failure to meet obligations might
result in the sale of the zamindari, or its transference to others who
were willing to take over the existing arrangement and to pay the
arrears. These instructions were repeated each May in 1778, 1779
and 1780.
In December, 1780, Francis sailed for Europe. The field was now
a
1 Mill, op. cit. IV, 218-54; Beveridge, op. cit. pp. 436-40.
Roberts, History of British India, p. 213.
## p. 427 (#455) ############################################
CENTRALISATION OF 1781
427
clear; Hastings had an undisputed authority; his adversaries "had
sickened, died and fled". 1 Tenax propositi, if ever man was, Hastings
continued his endeavours to reorganise the collections, and shortly
there was issued
a permanent plan for the administration of the revenue of Bengal and Bihar,
formed the 20th February, 1781, by the Hon'ble the Governor-General and
Council in their Revenue Department. 2
The main alteration involved cannot be described better than in
the words of the introductory minute. After recalling the temporary
nature of the provincial councils, the easy prelude of another per-
manent mode, and referring to the Revenue Board's proceedings of
23 November, 1773, where the board's intention is "methodically
and completely delineated", the alteration is stated to consist sub-
stantially in this : that
all the collections of the provinces should be brought down to the Presidency
and be there administered by a Committee of the most able and experienced
of the covenanted servants of the Company under the immediate inspection of,
and with the opportunity of constant reference for instruction to, the Governor-
General and Council.
"By this plan”, wrote Hastings, “we hope to bring the whole administration
of the revenues to Calcutta, without any intermediate charge or agency, and to
effect a saving of lacs to the Company and to the Zamindars and ryots. " He
added complacently: "Read the plan and the minute introducing it; it will not
discredit me, but the plan will put to shame those who discredit it”.
directors commenced by attaching an enormous salary, nine lakhs
of rupees per annum, to the office of the naib diwan, hoping thereby
to obtain uncorrupt and efficient service.
Meanwhile, under the governorship of Verelst, the president and
Select Committee made as full an enquiry as they could, arriving at
the well-known conclusions, contained in their Proceedings 2 for
16 August, 1769, in which "certain grand original sources" of the
unsatisfactory state of the revenue collection in Bengal were enume-
rated. At home, the court of directors in June, 1769, had sent orders
to Bengal, appointing a committee "for the management of the
the diwanni revenue”; and three "supervisors” with plenary powers
sailed from England in September, 1769, but after leaving the Cape
of Good Hope were never heard of again.
Verelst and his committee made a correct diagnosis of the trouble.
They realised that the Company's European servants were kept in
complete ignorance “of the real produce and capacity of the country
by a set of men who first deceive us from interest and afterwards
continue the deception from a necessary regard to their own safety".
The chaos and misrule caused by the venal officials and adventurers
who had frequented Bengal since the death of Aurangzib, combined
with the secretive methods which a continuous oppression of the ryot
by the zamindar had produced, formed an impenetrable labyrinth
of which the key was sought in vain.
Verelst's committee established supervisors of the collections;
these supervisors received instructions to make a full and complete
enquiry into the method of collecting the revenue in their respective
districts and, in fact, into any customs, knowledge of which might
assist to improve the condition of the people; the instructions breathe
a warm and humane spirit and a real desire, not merely to collect
revenue, but to assist the oppressed cultivator of the soil. The super-
visors failed, as indeed they were bound to do. Their instructions
ordered them to prepare a rent roll, and, by enquiry, to ascertain tho
fact from which a just and profitable assessment of the revenue could
be made. Such instructions were impossible to carry out. The super-
visors soon found themselves confronted by a most formidable passive
opposition from the zamindars and kanungos which prevented any
real knowledge whatever of the amount of revenue actually paid by
the ryot to the zamindar from coming to the knowledge of the Com-
pany. By this conspiracy of two corrupt and hereditary revenue
agencies all avenues of information were closed. Between them, the
zamindars and the kanungos held all the essential information, but
the kanungo was the dominant figure.
1 Cf. letter from Hastings to the Secret Committee, 1 September 1792.
2 Cf. Verelst, A View, etc. pp. 224-39.
## p. 412 (#440) ############################################
412
REVENUE ADAINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
A full account of this officer and his duty was submitted in May,
1787, to the Board of Revenue by J. Patterson, register, Kanungo's
Office,
The kanungo comes into prominence in the reign of Akbar, who
employed him, as the name implies, to keep the records of the pargana,
a revenue sub-division. He was in fact a registrar of a district ap-
pointed to see that the crown received its dues and that the ryot was
not oppressed; his duties were responsible and onerous; he had to
register the usages of a district, the rates and mode of its assessment, and all
regulations relating thereto. To note and record the progress of cultivation, the
produce of the land and the price current thereof, and to be at all times able to
furnish Government with materials to regulate the assessment by just and
equitable proportions.
The kanungo's duties also included
che keeping of a record of all events, such as the appointments, deaths or re-
movals of zamindars, to preserve the records of the Tumar and Taksim Jama,
and the record of the boundaries and limits of zamindars, talukdaris, parganas,
villages, etc.
They also preserved in their registers the genealogies of zamindars,
records of all grants of land, copies of the contracts of the zamindars
and tax-farmers with the government, and, in short, acted as general
custodians for every description of record in the district. There were
two main, or sadar, kanungos for Bengal, but in each pargana thera
was a deputy or naib kanungo; the office became hereditary at an
early date. Murshid Kuli Khan is stated to have replaced the
kanungos of his day by an entirely new set, but the evil was not
checked, because the new kanungos passed on their office and their
knowledge to their descendants in the same way as the evicted ones
had done.
Thus the whole of the land registration, and the entire knowledge
of the actual receipts of the land revenue, were in the hands of a
hereditary close corporation, who were the only authorities on the
real state of the revenue; their power was enormous; and only com-
plete ignorance can explain Verelst and his committee's imagining
that such knowledge would be surrendered to the Company on
demand. Edward Baber, in his letter of 13 December, 1772, called the
attention of the Board of Revenue to these facts, and to the great
power which the kanungos had over the zamindars,
because it was in the power of the Kanungos to expose the value of their
parganas. This power the Kanungos availed themselves of, and it was the
rod which they held over them so that the apprehension of an increase of his
rents kept the zamindar in very effectual awe of the Kanungo. . . . In a word
the Kanungos have an absolute influence over the Zamindars which they
exercise in every measure that can promote their own interests.
It now
1 Original consultations, no. 63, Revenue Dept. 18 May, 1787. Printed ap.
Ramshothanı, Land Revenue History of Bengal, pp. 163-97.
## p. 413 (#441) ############################################
THE KANUNGOS
413
happens that the Kanungos manage, not only the zamindars, but the business
of the province. There is not a record but what is in their possession and so
much of the executive part have they at last obtained that they are now virtually
the Collector, while he is a mere passive representative of Government. They
are the channel through which all his orders are conveyed. . . Instead of
being the agents of Government they are become the associates of the zamin-
dars and conspire with them to conceal what it is their chief duty to divulge.
Baber drives home the argument by challenging the board to
state how the last settlement (he is referring to the settlement made
by the Committee of Circuit in 1772) was made; taking the example
of Midnapur, his own district, he asks "on what information, on what
materials was it made? was there a single instrument produced to
guide the judgment of the board? " i It will be obvious that the
1
supervisors appointed in 1769 were bound to fail. They were com-
pletely and wilfully kept in the dark by officials who had everything
to lose and nothing to gain by giving the required information. The
kanungos were only prepared to serve the state on their own terms;
and those terms included a retention of the very information which
their office was created to obtain for the state. Their action was
utterly unconstitutional and involved the admission that a few families
a
should hereditarily possess information which is the sole prerogative
of the state, and that they should use that information for their
personal and pecuniary profit.
The Company's government in India created in 1770 two Boards
of Revenue, one in Murshidabad and one in Patna, to control respec-
tively the Bengal and Bihar collections; but dissensions taking place
in the council, John Cartier was ordered to hand over his office to
Warren Hastings and several other alterations were made. Hastings
assumed office as governor and president of Fort William on 13 April,
1772.
The outstanding result of the first seven years of the Company's
administration of the diwanni is that the Company's officers in Bengal
realised that they were face to face with the great problem of ascer-
taining the difference between the sum received as land revenue by
government, and the sum actually paid by the ryot to the zamindar.
This was the secret of the zamindar and kanungo which the Company
never fathomed; it forms the burden of the collectors' reports to the
Board of Revenue from 1772 onwards; and it is the basis of the great
Shore-Grant controversy. When the revenue settlement was made
permanent in 1793 this information was still wanting, and not a single
revenue officer of the Company in 1793 could state with accuracy the
entire actual amount which the zamindars in his district received
from the ryots, or the proportion which it bore to that which the
zamindar paid to the government; yet these were the conditions in
which the revenue settlement was declared permanent.
Hastings brought to his work a sound experience of Bengal, a
1 Revenue Board Proceedings, 16 December, 1772, pp. 417-26.
## p. 414 (#442) ############################################
414
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
1
fluent and accurate knowledge both of Persian and of Bengali : more-
over, he had the reputation of being a loyal and most efficient servant
of the Company. It is still difficult to give an impartial verdict on his
official career. In revenue work his ability was not remarkable, and
on his own admission ? he had no practical working knowledge of it;
in fact, his influence on the actual conditions of the revenue was
unfortunate, especially when contrasted with his administration and
reorganisation of the judicature in the districts, which was a vigorous
beneficial achievement. His masterful temperament often prevented
him from using the advice of subordinates better qualified than him-
self to speak authoritatively on details of revenue administration
This inflexibility must share responsibility with the jealousy of
Francis and the ill-temper of Clavering for the deadlock which
occurred in the administration of Bengal between 1774 and 1776.
The directors' orders which confronted the new governor were
of a disturbing nature. On 14 April, 1772, these dispatches containing
the well-known proclamation arrived in Calcutta. On 11 May the
information was made public :
Notice is hereby given that the Hon'ble the Court of Directors have been
pleased to divest the Nawab Muhammad Reza Khan of his station of Naib
Diwan and have determined to stand forth publicly themselves in the character
of Diwan.
This announcement radically altered the existing system of the
collections.
The new governor and his council as a prelude to carrying out
their orders, appointed a committee to tour through various districts
of Bengal and to submit a report on their observations. Thus was
formed the Committee of Circuit, consisting of the Company's most
senior officers, including the governor himself, S. Middleton, P. M.
Dacres, J. Lawrell, and J. Graham. Their terms of reference were
based on the resolutions taken by the council on 14 May, 1772, viz.
(a) to farm the lands for a period of five years;
(b) to establish a Committee of Circuit to form the settlement;
(c) to re-introduce the supervisors under the name of collectors,
assisted by an Indian diwan in each district;
(d) to restrict the officials of the Company from any private
employment.
The Committee of Circuit realised the difficulty of their work.
The Hon'ble Court of Directors . . . declare their determination to stand
forth as Diwan, and, by the agency of the Company's servants, to take upon
themselves the entire care and management of the Revenue. By what means
this agency is to be exercised we are not instructed. They have been pleased
to direct a total change of system, and have left the plan of execution of it to
the direction of the Board without any formal repeal of the regulations they
1Cf. the evidence given by Hastings for the plaintiff in the case brought
by Kamal-ud-din Khan against the Calcutta Committee of Revenue, Governor-
General's Proceedings, . 2 September, 1776, pp. 336. 7-89.
## p. 415 (#443) ############################################
COMMITTEE OF CIRCUIT
415
had before framed and adopted to another system, the abolition of which must
necessarily include that of its subsidiary institutions unless they shall be found
to coincide with the new. The Revenue is beyond all question the first object
of Government. 1
The Committee of Circuit decided to place the revenue adminis-
tration entirely under the direct control of the president and council,
who were to form a committee of revenue; they also recommended
that the Khalsa, or treasury office, should be removed from Murshi-
dabad to Calcutta, making the latter town the financial capital of
the province.
As the duties of the diwanni comprised the administration of civil
justice, and as the business of the Committee of Circuit was to
consolidate the Company's control over the diwanni, the important
question of restoring the administration of justice in the districts came
before them. The close connection between the land revenue and
civil justice necessitates a brief mention of the committee's proposals
recorded in their Proceedings. They recommended in each district
under a collector che formation of two courts, the diwanni adalat and
the faujdari adalat, the former with civil, the latter with criminal
jurisdiction; the matters cognisable by each court were strictly
defined, and the diwanni adalat was under the direct charge of the
collector. In addition to these mufassil or district courts, two similar
sadar, or headquarters' courts, were to be established in Calcutta, the
sadar diwanni adalat being presided over by the governor or a
member of council. These courts were designed to remove the abuses
in the administration of justice referred to by Verelst in his Instruc-
tion to the Supervisors. “Every decision", he writes of these native
courts, "is a corrupt bargain with the highest bidder. . . Trifling
offenders are frequently loaded with heavy demands and capital
offences are as often absolved by the venal judge. "
The most objectionable feature of the proposed regulations, as is
pointed out by Harington,4 was that they vested in one person the
powers of a tax-collector and of a magistrate. Hastings himself
a
made this complaint against Verelst's plan introducing the super-
visors; but he was apparently forced to embody the same defect in
his own regulation. Perhaps the best and most straightforward
defence of this admitted defect was that made by Shore. 6
" 3
It is impossible to draw a line between the Revenue and Judicial
Departments in such a manner as to prevent their clashing : in this case either
the Revenue must suffer or the administration of Justice be suspended. It
may be possible in course of time to induce the natives to pay their rents with
regularity and without compulsion, but this is not the case at prevent.
1 Committee of Circuit's Proceedings, 28 July, 1772, pp. 162-8.
2 Idem, 15 August, 1772, pp. 234-48. Cf. also Coleb:ooke, Supplement, etc.
3 Verelst, op. cit. pp. 229-30.
4 Harington, Analysis, 1, 34.
5 In a minute printed in India papers, vol. vi, quoted by Harington, Ana-
lysis, a, 41-3.
6 Letter to Sir G. Cnlebrooke, 26 March, 1772.
pp. 1-8.
## p. 416 (#444) ############################################
416
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
The Committee of Circuit's recommendations 1 were sent with a
covering letter to the council at Fort William on 15 August, 1772,
and received the council's approval on 21 August.
21 August. They proposed
that à large proportion of that land, known as huzur zilla land,
because it paid its revenue direct to the Khalsa, should be converted
into separate districts each under a collector. The whole council was to
act as a committee of revenue, and to audit the accounts of the
diwanni assisted by an Indian officer styled the rai raian. The latter
was a most important person; his duties included the supervision of
all the provincial diwans attached to the various collectorships,
to receive from them the accounts in the Bengali language and to issue to them
a counterpart of the orders which the Board of Revenue shall from time to
time expedite to the Collectors.
The salary attached to this important post was 5000 rupees a month.
The first holder was Raja Rajballabh, a son of Raja Rai Durlabh,
the old colleague of Muhammad Reza Khan. The business of the
Khalsa was precisely defined; the post of accountant-general was
created, the first holder being Charles Croftes; and the various
departments of that office, and of the treasury in general, defined
and organised. This completed the main work of the Committee of
Circuit, and unquestionably the most successful portion was that
which dealt with the administration of justice. They inherited from
the Moghul government every evil that could afflict a judicial system :
a disorganised and corrupt judicature and incompetent agents. Dacoity
was rampant, and there was no ordinary security in the land. The
new courts, although by no means perfect, brought great relief to
trie ryots and talukdars, and within a short time began to foster
confidence in the Company's administration.
On 13 October, 1772, the new Committee of Revenue commenced
its work by settling the revenue to be collected from Hugli, Midnapur,
Birbhum, Jessore and the Calcutta zamindary lands. The settlement
was for five years, and the lands were farmed out by public auction,
in order better to discover the real value of the lands. This, in itself,
is a comment on the board's revenue policy, for they must have
known that to farm the land revenue by public auction would induce
many people to bid from motives other than mere desire for profit;
the gambling instinct, the desire for power, the opportunity of inflict-
ing injury on an enemy or of humiliating a local zamindar, all
powerfully contributed to raise the bidding beyond the value of the
revenue. The board certainly expressed an opinion that, ceteris
paribus, it was preferable to accept the bids of established zamindars,
but they had definitely placed both the zamindar and the ryot at the
2
1 Committee of Circuits Proceedings, pp. 248-58. Cf. Colebrooke, Supple-
ment, pp. 8-14 and 194-200; also Harington, Analysis, 01, 25-33.
2 Letter of the President to the Court of Directors, 3 November, 1772. Cf.
Harington, op. cit. 1, 16-18.
## p. 417 (#445) ############################################
THE COLLECTORS
417
mercy of speculating and unprincipled adventurers who, in many
cases, ousted the old zamindars and thus severed an old-established
link between government and the cultivator of the soil, for the zamin-
dar, in spite of his shortcoming, had (in the words of Hastings him-
self) “riveted an authority in the district, acquired an ascendancy
over the minds of the ryots and ingratiated their affections". Between
1772 and 1781 the connection between the zamindars and their tenants
was seriously impaired by this unfortunate method.
In justice to Hastings and his colleagues it must be remembered
that they were suddenly called upon to administer the revenues of
a country which for half a century had been in a state of increasing
disorder, and to create an administrative service from young men
who had come to the country at an immature age for a purely com-
mercial career. Among their critics is Hastings himself, whose letters
in the early days of his governorship contain disparaging references
to the collectors; yet many of those so criticised were almost imme-
diately employed by him and rose to positions of comparative
eminence; the majority came from good British homes. The record
of their work, contained in the forgotten and unpublished minutes of
perished boards, shows them to have been humane, if untrained, men
genuinely anxious to relieve the distress in their districts.
A careful perusal of the proceedings of the Board of Revenue for
the years 1772 and 1773 reveals that the most valuable suggestions
for alleviating distress among the cultivators are to be found in letters
from the district officers rather than in the resolutions of the board :
in spite of the most determined passive resistance which zamindars,
kanungos,'and farmers of the revenue made to their enquiries, it was
the collectors who enabled the voice of the oppressed ryot to reach
the headquarters of government.
The collectors soon realised that the settlement had been seriously
over-estimated, but the board refused to believe their district officers
and added to the trouble by peremptory orders for the collection of
deficits. This was done with undoubted harshness, for the collectors
had no option 3 but to carry out their orders. Confinement of zamin-
dars and farmers was freely used, but without any result except that
of adding to the confusion; and the words with which Hastings, in
his letter to the directors, dated 3 November, 1772, described the
conditions of the revenue collections in Bengal on his assumption of
the governorship, might be used with truth to describe the conditions
in collecting the same revenue in 1773.
The entire system of revenue registration was still in the hands of
an hereditary corporation and was still unknown to government,
1 In the matter of the public auction of the farms consult alsu the letter
dated 17 May, 1766, para. 17 from the Court of Directors (Long, Selections,
no. 893).
2 E. g. to L. Sulivan, 10 March, 1774.
3 Letter from the Council of Revenue at Patna, . dated 17 October, 1774.
Revenue Board Proceedings, 1 November, 1774, pp. 6395-8.
27
## p. 418 (#446) ############################################
418
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
which had no accurate working knowledge on which to base a general
settlement, and which was, as several district officers testified, com-
pletely ignorant of the actual amount paid by the cultivator com-
pared with that received by itself. 1 Over-assessmer. i and wholesale
farming had aggravated the mischief. Though government had
established a business-like system for keeping the accounts of such
revenue as was actually received, this was but a trifle compared with
the weighty problem that was still unsolved.
The diwanni adalats relieve the sombre colours of the picture, and
in them the cultivator found a real protection and assistance at the
hands of those collectors whose work received such scanty acknow-
ledgment : but the day of the collectors was to be short. In April,
1773, the court of directors sent orders to the governor and council to
recall the collectors from their districts and to adopt other measures
for collecting the revenues. These orders were similar to those issued
in 1769 abolishing the supervisors; the directors apparently distrusted
their junior officers, and were nervous lest private trade should
engross their time. These orders were considered by the president
and council on 23 November, 1773. 2
The board drew up a detailed temporary plan in order to give
effect to these instructions, to be "adopted and completed by such
means as experience shall furnish and the final orders of the Hon'ble
Company allow”. (1) A committee of revenue at the presidency was
formed consisting of two members of the board and three senior
Servants below council who were to meet daily and transact the
necessary business assisted by the rai raian; (2) the three provinces
were divided into six divisions, each under a provincial council
consisting of a chief, assisted by four senior servants of the Company :
in Calcutta the committee of revenue above mentioned was to carry
out the duties of such a council; (3) each district, originally a
collectorship, was placed under the control of an Indian revenue
officer (diwan), except in districts entirely let to a zamindar or
farmer, who was then empowered to act as diwan; (4) occasional
inspections were to be made by commissioners specially selected by
the board for their knowledge of Persian and "moderation of temper”
The selection of these commissioners was to be unanimous;
an objection made by a single member of the Board to any proposed as want-
ing these requisites shall be a sufficient bar to his rejection without any proof
being required to support it;
(5) the various collectors were to make up their accounts and hand
over charge to Indian deputies who were empowered to hold the
courts of diwanni adalat, but appeals in all cases were allowed to the
provincial sadar adalat now constituted to form a link between the
1 Letter from C. Bentley, collector of Chittagong, dated 10 July, 1773. Re-
venue Board Proceedings, 17 August, 1773, pp. 2620-39.
2 Idem, 23 November, 1773, pp. 3453-77.
## p. 419 (#447) ############################################
PROVINCIAL COUNCILS
419
worse.
mufassal and headquarters diwanni courts; (6) with a view to check-
ing private trade the chiefs of the provincial councils were given a
salary of 3000 sicca rupees per mensem, and had to take an oath 1
not to engage in private trade.
The changes, necessitated by the directors' orders, were for the
The collectorship as a district unit of the revenue adminis-
tration was retained, but the employment of Indian diwans instead
of European collectors deprived the Company of an increasing
knowledge among its European servants of the country, the state of
the revenue, and the methods of collection; it checked the growth of
a spirit of responsibility and of public service among the junior
officers; and it diluted the European element in the district collections
to such an extent as to render it negligible. The whole scheme, for
which the directors must bear the responsibility, is tainted with the
inference that, provided the stipulated revenue was received, the
method of collecting it did not much matter.
The proceedings of the Board of Revenue from 1773 to 1776
record a monotonous list of large deficits, defaulting zamindars,
absconding farmers, and deserting ryots. The provincial councils, like
the collectors before them, protested that the country was over-
assessed; the diwans proved incapable and unbusinesslike, and were
the subject of a circular letter of complaint issued by the board to
the provincial councils.
The new system was only in force for six months before the
Regulating Act made further changes, but its proceedings display all
he signs of impending collapse. The council of Patna sent in a
moving description of the distress in their province. Anticipating
Philip Francis, they definitely recommended a settlement in perpe-
tuity, because no satisfactory collections could be made except on
that basis of stability which only a lengthy tenure furnishes.
"It remains', they write, “that we should suomit to you our sentiments
on the measures calculated to produce a remedy.
It has been successfully
practised by the Hindostan Princes that where a particular district has gone
to ruin to give it to a Zamindar or any other man of known good conduct for
a long lease of years or in perpetuity at a fixed rent not to be increased should
ever the industry of the renter raise an unexpected average to himself. . . . . "
The board in their reply considered the suggestion to be too hazardous
for experiment.
Other events were now impending. On 19 October, 1774, Clavering:
Monson, and Francis arr. ved in Calcutta. Of the three new members
of council the ablest was Francis, whose malicious and petulant
character needs no description here, but whose ability and grasp of
the intricate revenue problem in Bengal, although not free from error,
3
1 Revenue Board Proceedings, 16 March, 1774.
2 Idem, 5 July, 1774, pp. 5425-6.
3 Idem, 29 January, 1773, pp. 627-33.
## p. 420 (#448) ############################################
420
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
was remarkable, even if due allowance is made for his alleged
indebtedness to the "coaching" of John Shore.
The Supreme Council soon offered a most unfortunate example of
disunion to all the subordinate officers of the Company, and the same
spirit appeared in the provincial councils; thus was created a spirit
of partisanship throughout the entire service, which encouraged in
farmers, zamindars, and tenants the hope that profit might be
obtained by supporting one side or the other; but in spite of these
evils, the new council brought into the administration of the revenue
a vigorous and, on the whole, healthy spirit of enquiry. Abuses were
brought to light which under a more easy-going régime would have
remained dormant. The most noticeable result of the new change was
the position of the governor-general. Hitherto Hastings had exerted
an overwhelming, almost dictatorial, control over his council, whose
proceedings for the years 1772-4 show a general compliance with
the governor's desires, and the greatest reluctance to oppose him.
This authority was now openly disregarded. The new members of
the council came out prejudiced, if not against individual servants of
the Company, against the personnel and the Company's service in
general; but allowing for their wholesale suspicion, it must be con-
ceded that the time was ripe for a complete investigation into the
methods of collecting the revenue, and for some radical changes in
that administration.
On 21 October, 1774, the new Board of Revenue met for the first
time and the governor-general explained in detail the mode of
collecting the land revenue, and the lately introduced system of the
provincial councils, and he recommended a continuation of the
system, at any rate for the present, as the season of year was soon
approaching in which the heaviest instalments of the revenue were
due for payment. The board agreed to the suggestion, partly because
they wanted to see the existing system at work, and partly because
they realised the force of the argument for a temporary continuation
of the existing system, but “they do not mean to preclude themselves
from such future alterations as . . . some mature deliberation may
suggest to them". In revenue matters, as in others, the new councillors
soon displayed their intolerance, and the first difference was between
the governor-general and Clavering over a complaint made to the
former by the rai raian against Joseph Fowke. It is impossible to
relate here in detail the many cases of friction and open quarrelling
which occurred during the new administration; this was not always
produced by the quarrelsome attitude of the new arrivals. Hastings
and Barweil were also intolerant. The rejection of certain officers
proposed by the governor-general for promotion drew a protest from
Barwell who alleged that “good and, zealous servants had been
deprived of normal promotion”; a policy, he contended, that would
create faction throughout the service and "involve the policy and
connection of the state with the different powers of Hindostan". But
## p. 421 (#449) ############################################
SUPREME COURT
421
Clavering was able to quote figures to prove thar in the matter of
revenue appointments the governor-general's choice had almost
always been accepted by the council. In a letter to the court of
directors dated 1 September, 1777, and embodied in proceedings for
1 October, 1777, Clavering states without contradiction that out
of thirty-four officers recommended by the governor-general for
appointment to seats on the provincial councils, only six were set
aside by the vote of the majority; moreover, in 1777 there were on
the provincial councils only three men who had not been recommended
by Hastings himself : these three were John Shore, Boughton Rous,
and Goring. This effective reply remained unanswered, and disposes
very decisively of Barwell's insinuations.
In addition to the weekly reports from the districts of defaulting
farmers and oppressed ryots, a new and serious problem was created
by the interference of the Supreme Court in the revenue adminis-
tration. This threatened to bring the collections to a standstill,
because the Supreme Court, by issuing writs of habeas corpus in favour
of persons confined by the orders of the provincial diwanni adalat
courts for non-payment of revenue, paralysed the effective control
exercised by these courts. Complaints and requests for instructions
poured in from all the divisions: the Supreme Council became very
restive but was induced to concur for the time being in the governor-
general's advice "not to controvert the authority which the Supreme
Court may think fit to exercise". 1 The judges of the Supreme Court
acknowledged the caution displayed by the board in a letter 2 which
conveyed their opinion on certain questions propounded by the board
regarding the appellate jurisdiction of the sadar diwanni adalat and
the Supreme Court. The matter rested there for a while.
The dissensions in the council encouraged unscrupulous people,
hostile to Hastings, to bring accusations of corruption against the
governor-general to which the majority in the council lent a greedy
ear.
It must be admitted that the governor-general had shown much
laxity in permitting his banyan Krishna Kantu Nandi (the well-
known “Cantoo Baboo") to hold lucrative farms. The Committee of
Circuit had laid down 3 that no banyan of the collector, nor any of
his relations, should under any circumstances hold a farm or be
connected with a farmer. Gleig's + shuffling defence that this order
applied to collectors only is unworthy of serious consideration, for
the chances of corrupt profit that might accrue to the banyan of a
collector were insignificant compared to those which an unscrupulous
banyan of the governor-general might receive. Kantu Babu held
Governor-General's Proceedings, January, 1775.
2 Idem, 25 July, 1775. Cf. also Hastings's letter to Lord North, dated 10
January, 1776.
3 Committee of Circuit's Proceedings, pp. 56-9.
4 Gleig, op. cit. I, 529, 530 (ed. 1841).
## p. 422 (#450) ############################################
422
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
farms in his own name whose annual rental exceeded thirteen lakhs
of rupees, and, in addition, he held farms in the name of his son,
Loknath Nandi, a child of twelve or thirteen years. The acquiescence
of Hastings in this matter was contrary to the spirit of the regulations
drawn up by the Committee of Circuit of which he himself had been
the most prominent member. His statement that he had no personal
interest in the affairs of his banyan does not alter the situation. In
this case, and in his defence 2 of Bhawani Charan Mitra, diwan of
Burdwan, whose sons and servants had been discovered in the posses--
sion of farms, no excuse can be offered for Hastings's inertness; but
the majority of the council allowed their venom to poison their
judgment in declaring that “there was no species of peculation from
which the governor-general had thought fit to abstain". Certain trans-
actions of Barwell, when chief of the Dacca provincial council, were
also declared by the majority to be corrupt, but the real target was
the governor-general who protested with unavailing logic that his
would-be judges were also his accusers. Hastings, to preserve the
dignity of his office, was forced on several occasions to break up the
council. Such were the conditions in which the new government
proceeded to administer the revenues of Bengal; conditions which
lasted till Monson's death on 25 September, 1776. During this period
some very valuable information was obtained from the senior servants
of the Company in response to a circular issued on 23 October, 1774,
to the chiefs of the provincial councils asking their views on the causes
of the diminution of the land revenue and of the frequent deficits.
Middleton, writing of the Murshidabad division which included
Rajshahi, named the famine of 1770 as the first cause; he also con-
sidered that "the unavoidably arbitrary settlement made by the
Committee of Circuit" and the public auction of farms contributed
heavily to the distress, especially the last cause :
the zamindar being tenacious of her hereditary possessions, and dreading the
disgrace and reproach which herself and her family of long standing as zamin-
dars must have suffered by its falling into other hands.
He suggested that "a universal remission of a considerable amount
of the revenue due" be granted, and the settlement in future be made
with the zamindars : if farmers must be employed, they should be
very carefully selected.
P. M. Dacres, late chief of the Calcutta committee, also considered.
the public auction of farms to be largely responsible for much distress,
instancing the bidding in the Nadia district; other causes were the
great famine and the excessive assessment of 1772. He advocated a
general remission of deficits and urged a permanent settlement with
3
1 Governor-General's Proceedings, 17 March, 1775, 25 April, 1777, and 29
April, 1777.
2 Idem, 23 January, 1776.
3 Idem, 7 April, 1775.
4 Idem.
## p. 423 (#451) ############################################
REFORMS PROPOSED
423
the zamindars which "would fix the rents in perpetuity and trust to
a sale of their property as a security for their payments”: advice
that was not lost on Francis.
G. Hurst, from the council of Patna, shared Middleton's views
and also referred to the wars that had ravaged Bihar from the days
of 'Ali Wardi Khan until the assumption of the diwanni by the
Company. Of these interesting comments, that of P. M. Dacres, advo-
cating a permanent settlement of the land revenue, commands the
most attention. This advice did not reach the board for the first time.
Two years previously 2 the council of Patna had suggested it, and in
January, 1775,9 G. Vansittart, late chief of the Burdwan Council,
had urged the board to adopt a lengthy settlement, for life at least.
In July, 1775, G. G. Ducarel, lately in charge of the Purnia district,
in his evidence given before the board,4 expressed the view that "a
person of experience with discretionary power might render great
service to the Company by effecting a permanent settlement in the
most eligible mode". He even argued that it was desirable to effect
a permanent settlement "with inferior talukdars or with the ryots
themselves if possible”, advice which implies that the speaker did
not regard either the state or the zamindars as owners of the soil.
At home the same idea was also finding expression. In 1772 Colonel
Dow" had strongly advocated a settlement in perpetuity with the
zamindars, and in the same year a pamphlet urging a similar course
was published by H. Patullo.
Meanwhile the results of the quinquennial settlement were
proving more deplorable each year, and some fresh method was im-
peratively necessary. Accordingly, on 21 March, 1775, the governor-
general invited the individual opinions of members of the council on
the subject of settling and collecting the land revenue. On 22 April he
and Barwell submitted a joint plan consisting of seventeen proposals
in which they practically adopted the principle of a permanent
settlement by recommending leases for life or for two joint lives.
Beveridge? has shown that the concluding remarks of this scheme
bear strong if unintentional testimony to the hardships inflicted on
the ryots by the nawab's and, latterly, the Company's mismanage-
ment of the collections. This plan was opposed by one propounded
by Francis on 22. January, 1776, in which he definitely recommended
a settlement in perpetuity with the zamindars, and he emphasised
this opinion at meetings of the board in May, 1776,8 when a letter was
1 Governor-General's Proceedings, 7 April, 1775.
2 Revenue Board Proceedings, 29 January, 1773.
Governor-General's Proceedings, 27 January, 1775.
&
, ,
4 Idem, 15 July, 1775.
5 Enquiry into the state of Bengal, affixed to vol. I, History of Hindostan,
ed. 1772.
6 Firminger, Fifth Report, etc. I, 309, note.
7 Op. cit. II, 410-17.
8 Governor-General's Proceedings, 17 May and 31 May, 1776.
## p. 424 (#452) ############################################
424
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
considered from the provincial council of revenue at Patna describing
the over-assessment and consequent poverty of the people. Francis
published in 1782 his proposals, together with the plan of Hastings and
Barwell and various extracts from the minutes of the board's pro-
ceedings, but he did not acknowledge the debt that he obviously
owed to Dacres and other servants of the Company. The following
comments from two distinguished writers are sufficient to reveal the
defects of the scheme of Francis, who recognised only the zamindar
and ignored the ryot. "We are left to infer”, says Beveridge,2 "that,
after all, the best security for the ryot would be to throw himself on
the zamindar's mercy. ” Mill 3 is even more trenchant.
Without much concern about the production of proof he [Mr Francis)
assumed as a basis two things : first, that the opinion was erroneous which
ascribed to the sovereign the property of the land; and secondly, that the pro-
perty in question belonged to the zamindars. Upon the zamindars as propriet-
ors he accordingly proposed a certain tax should be levied; that it should be
fixed once and for all; and held to be perpetual and invariable.
The effect of Francis's pertinacity was to bring into prominence the
question of the ownership of the land. It is sufficient to point out
that while Hastings and Barwell assumed that the sovereign possessed
the land, and Francis and his school were equally convinced that the
zamindar was the real owner, no one thought, with the possible
exception of Ducarel, of what might be the claim of the ryots to the
possession of the land, and of the khudkasht ryot 4 in particular.
The settlement problem, though of the first importance, was not
peremptory; the quinquennial settlement had still some time to run.
At this juncture, Monson died, and the governor-general recovered
his lost authority in the council. Almost the first use that Hastings
made of his restored authority was to take up the business of the
coming settlement, a duty which he had felt to be ‘paramount, and
which he could now approach with effect. In August, 1776, he
had laid before the board certain proposals connected with the
necessity of preparing for the approaching settlement, suggesting that
all provincial councils and collectors should submit an estimate of
the land revenue that might justly be expected from their districts.
This idea was eventually agreed to and a circular letter to that
effect issued.
On 1 November ? the governor-general suggested that an "office"
7
2
1 The Original Minutes of the Governor-General and Council of Fort
William, etc. , published in London, 1782.
Op. cit. II, 417.
3 Mill, History of British India, 5th ed. iv, 24.
4 The Zemindary Settlement of Bengal, vol. 1, para. 2, and appendix viii,
vol. I, pp. 198-9. (Calcutta, 1879. )
5 Letter to L. Sulivan, 21 March, 1776, also to John Graham, 26 September,
1776.
6 Governor-General's Proceedings, 30 August. 1776.
7 Idem, 1 November, 1776.
## p. 425 (#453) ############################################
THE AMINI COMMISSION
425
"
or, in modern parlance, a commission should be formed whose duty
should be to tour throughout Bengal "to procure material for the
settlement of the different districts". The reports from the various
district officers had revealed the disastrous effect of an assessment
based on faulty information, and Hastings was determined to avoid
that evil, if possible, in making the approaching settlement. His
proposals were strenuously, even
violently, opposed by Clavering and
Francis, who feared that the powers given to the amins, or Indian
officers, of, the commission to enable them to obtain the requisite
information would be used in a method prejudicial to the good name
of the Company. This fear, which was not without basis, was ex-
pressed in their usual intemperate fashion, and was made to serve as
an attack on the governor-general's character; for he was accused of
diverting the constitutional powers of the Supreme Council for his
own gratification by means of the casting vote.
Hastings met these unfounded allegations with more than his
wonted courtesy and self-control, entering into detailed explanations
of the information required, and the necessity for it, but his deter-
mination was as inflexible as ever : on 29 November D. Anderson and
C. Bogle, two of the most promising of the younger officers of the
Company, were selected as members of the commission: the
accountant-general, C. Croftes, was shortly afterwards added, and the
cost of the commission was estimated at something less than 4500
rupees per mensem. Thus was established that commission whose
report, presented in March, 1778, is perhaps the most valuable con-
temporary document in the early revenue history of Bengal under
the Company's administration. The information collected and its
style of presentment reflect the greatest credit both on the professional
capacities of its authors, and on the choice and acumen of the gover:
nor-general. The report lost no force from the dispassionate and
unassuming tone in which it recounted with studied moderation the
wholesale alienation of lands and deliberate oppression of the ryots
by the zamindars, who not infrequently continued to collect taxes
which the indulgence of government had abolished. The report
therefore exposed the inaccuracy of much that Francis had asserted :
it also included a large collection of
the original accounts in the Bengal, Persian, and Orissa languages.
preserved as records they will be highly serviceable as references in settling
disputes . . . and may lay the foundation of regular and permanent registers.
Meanwhile the court of directors wrote to express their displeasure
with the governor-general, and their support of the minority; they
censured the use which Hastings had made of the casting vote, and
expressed surprise that "after more than seven years' investigation"
further information about the collections was still required.
If
1 Governor-General's Proceedings, 6 December and 27 December, 1776.
2 Printed ap. Ramsbotham, op. cit. pp. 99-131.
## p. 426 (#454) ############################################
426
REVENUE ADMINISTRATION OF BENGAL, 1765-86
No definite decision was taken in the matter of the new settle-
ment. In the face of much conflicting evidence the directors decided to
Inark time; accordingly, on 23 December, 1778, they sent orders for
the land revenue to be settled annually; it is not easy to say what else
they could have done. In 1779 the trouble 1 between the Supreme
Court and the Company's diwanni adalats, which had been simmer-
ing since 1774, boiled over. The Kasijora case, with its disgraceful
incidents, compelled the immediate interference of the council. The
Supreme Court refused to yield, and the quarrel threatened to split
the entire administration. A solution was found by the chief justice
in consultation with the governor-general. Sir Elijah Impey was
offered and accepted the chief judgeship of the sadar diwanni adalat
with an additional salary of about £ 6500: he thus united in his own
person the authority of both jurisdictions. His action was severely
criticised by Francis and Wheler at the time, and by later critics.
But the law officers of the crown in England found nothing incorrect
in Impey's action which "put an end to an intolerable situation
and anticipatea by many years the policy which extended the
appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over the provincia!
courts”?
It will be remembered that the plan drawn up by the Board of
Revenue in 1773, placing the collections under six provincial councils
of revenue, was expressly declared by the governor and council to
be temporary. No opportunity occurred for introducing a permanent
scheme until Hastings had regained his control of the council, when
a commission of enquiry was appointed to prepare the way for a
permanent measure. In July, 1777, the governor-general and council
promulgated to all the provincial councils except Patna a modified
scheme for the settlement of the revenue for the current year. The
scheme contained ten paragraphs and bore strong impress of the
board's debates during the previous three years, in that it gave the
zamindar a position of increased importance at the cost of the ryot.
The councils were empowered to use their own discretion in making
fresh settlements with those zamindars who refused to agree to a
renewal of the existing terms, and where possible the zamindar was
to be invited to co-operate in making the settlement. In April, 1778,
a circular letter was sent to all provincial councils requiring a list of
all cefaulting zamindars to be posted at every district headquarters,
while defaulters were warned that failure to meet obligations might
result in the sale of the zamindari, or its transference to others who
were willing to take over the existing arrangement and to pay the
arrears. These instructions were repeated each May in 1778, 1779
and 1780.
In December, 1780, Francis sailed for Europe. The field was now
a
1 Mill, op. cit. IV, 218-54; Beveridge, op. cit. pp. 436-40.
Roberts, History of British India, p. 213.
## p. 427 (#455) ############################################
CENTRALISATION OF 1781
427
clear; Hastings had an undisputed authority; his adversaries "had
sickened, died and fled". 1 Tenax propositi, if ever man was, Hastings
continued his endeavours to reorganise the collections, and shortly
there was issued
a permanent plan for the administration of the revenue of Bengal and Bihar,
formed the 20th February, 1781, by the Hon'ble the Governor-General and
Council in their Revenue Department. 2
The main alteration involved cannot be described better than in
the words of the introductory minute. After recalling the temporary
nature of the provincial councils, the easy prelude of another per-
manent mode, and referring to the Revenue Board's proceedings of
23 November, 1773, where the board's intention is "methodically
and completely delineated", the alteration is stated to consist sub-
stantially in this : that
all the collections of the provinces should be brought down to the Presidency
and be there administered by a Committee of the most able and experienced
of the covenanted servants of the Company under the immediate inspection of,
and with the opportunity of constant reference for instruction to, the Governor-
General and Council.
"By this plan”, wrote Hastings, “we hope to bring the whole administration
of the revenues to Calcutta, without any intermediate charge or agency, and to
effect a saving of lacs to the Company and to the Zamindars and ryots. " He
added complacently: "Read the plan and the minute introducing it; it will not
discredit me, but the plan will put to shame those who discredit it”.
