No More Learning

At Pitt's house in Wimbledon they went into the details and the
1 Minute by Cornu allis, 10 February, 1790. Printed ap. Ross, op. cit. 11,
459-74.


## p. 451 (#479) ############################################

THE PERMANENT SETTLEMENT
451
principles of the plan, for ten days, and Charles Grant (the commer-
cial adviser of Cornwallis) was with them "a great part of the time".
They decided in favour of permanence. In principle the matter was
prejudged; for the idea of permanence lay behind the agitation of the
'eighties. But respect for Shore made Dundas hesitate; and he and
Pitt seem to have been genuinely undecided in 1791.
The authorisation reached Cornwallis in 1793, and the change was
immediately announced by proclamation (22 March). All that
remained therefore was to watch the working out of this contested
system. So far the full effect had not been seen. Some of the dangers
of the system were, however, apparent in the frequent sales of zamin-
dari estates and in the oppressions of sub-tenants by the zamindars.
Regulations in 1793 attempted to deal with these, but without much
effect.
One accidental result followed the settlement. In 1793, Cornwallis
was about to leave Bengal : and at last a successor had been found for
him. The choice was Shore. The man who was to see the first results
of the Permanent Settlement, was the man who had opposed its
permanence. And the decision was deliberate. Cornwallis had
written home in 1789 that their differences had been marked by
great good humour. Dundas and Pitt, in their discussions with Shore,
were struck with his “talents, industry and candour". And so Shore
was appointed to take the lead at Calcutta, expressing himself
characteristically as ready to step aside and "become second in
Council" if on further enquiry someone else seemed more suitable. It
is the best defence of the administration which Cornwallis "purified"
that it contained such men as Shore and Grant, who were willing to
do their best to ensure the good working of schemes of which they
disapproved in principle. If not perhaps the qualification best suited
to a governor-general, the humble-minded zeal for duty that charac-
terised Shore was an excellent testimony to the Bengal service.
The authorisation of the Permanent Settlement reached Corn-
wallis in time to head the list of great reforms that mark the year
1793. It is regulation 1 of the long series of regulations passed by the
Supreme Council on 1 May, and known collectively as "the Cornwallis
Code".
For by this time Cornwallis had prepared the series of changes
that mark his second period of reform. Some, indeed most, of them
were the result of his earlier work: either elaborating or reversing
what had been done. The chief new reform was the reorganisation
of the system of police. Cornwallis had long realised that the police
system of Calcutta was defective, and he had drafted a scheme for
reform as far back as 1788. He thought, however, at this time that his
legislative powers were not sufficient for this, and he proceeded
therefore by drafting an act to be laid before parliament. As this,
however, involved considerable delay, he decided at the end of 1788
to appoint a committee to enquire into the complaints that had been
.


## p. 452 (#480) ############################################

452
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
made. As the result, a scheme was drawn up, and it was published
in October, 1791. The regulations were said to be provisional, pending
the reply from home relative to the passing of an act of parliament.
The regulations applied only to the town of Calcutta. By the new
system, superintendents of police were appointed, with functions
confined to the maintenance of order and to the arrest of suspected
persons. They were no longer to share the attention of the super-
intendents with magisterial and judicial functions. By subsequent
regulations of December, 1791, duties were defined and salaries fixed.
The next stage was the application of the new system to the whole
province. This, the work of April to December, 1792, involved a
further exemplification of the principle of employing Europeans in
the place of Indians. The zamindars were relieved of their respon-
sibilities for maintaining the peace and were ordered to disband their
local police forces. In each district small areas were to be portioned
off, and placed under the control of a daroga or superintendent, under
the supervision of the Company's representative in the district. These
regulations were issued provisionally in December, 1792. They were
accompanied by a project for the erection of gaols in all the collector-
ships of the province. The police regulations were provisionally con-
firmed from home early in 1793, and were embodied in the general
restatement of the regulations, the Cornwallis Code of May, 1793.
The regulations of 1 May, 1793, covered the whole field of ad-
ministration. In many respects they were of importance merely as
defining the existing system. This work of definition Cornwallis and
the directors agreed was of first importance. His reforms were in a
precarious position if they depended only upon personal support.
One year of negligence would destroy the whole system. The ex-
haustive regulations of 1793, aimed at stereotyping the rules which
Cornwallis had introduced. They dealt with the commercial systeni,
with civil and criminal justice, with the police and with the land
revenue, While restating the existing position, they contemplated
further changes, for by regulation xx special procedure was laid
down for the proposal of new regulations by the officials charged with
working the present system. And, even where in substance the
regulations restated former rules, minor alterations showed a readi-
ness to profit by experience.
Among the changes effected by the code one of the most important
was the separation of the judicial from the revenue administration.
The junction of the two, which had given unprecedented power to
the collector from 1787 to 1790, had been due to the need both of
economy and of simplification. In the hierarchy of the administra-
tion the collector had become by 1790 the bottle-neck through which
all lines of control must pass. Though in all his functions responsible
to some superior authority, he was in practice virtually independent.
As early as 1790 Cornwallis realised the dangers of this position, even


## p. 453 (#481) ############################################

SEPARATION OF POWERS
453
though he was then making it still more powerful. As it stood, nothing
but the character of the collectors was a real safeguard to the subject.
He had long been of opinion, he wrote, that this was a mistake.
No system will ever be carried into effect so long as the personal quali-
fications of the individuals that may be appointed to superintend it, form the
only security for the due exercise of it.
In his view the conclusion of the Permanent Settlement was a
necessary preliminary to change : and it was not therefore until 1793
that change could be made. In the regulations of May detailed
instructions prescribed the action of the Company's servants, and a
system of check and counter-check was substituted for the quasi-
independence of 1787. By regulation 11 of 1793 the Board of Revenue
and the collectors were deprived of all judicial powers. The new courts
of 1790—of mal adalat for the trial of revenue causes were abolished.
These causes were transferred to the other district courts, those of
diwanni adalat. These, too, had hitherto been presided over by the
collector. But now the offices of judge and collector were separated.
Judges were to be appointed to preside over the courts, renamed
zillah or district courts, responsible for all civil cases. From them
appeal was to lie to four provincial courts of appeal, situated, like the
criminal courts, at Patna, Dacca, Murshidabad and Calcutta. Froni
them in the larger causes appeal lay to the Supreme Council in its
capacity as a court of sadr diwanni adalat. Over each of these provin-
cial courts were three English judges. And these judges, it was
provided, were also to preside over the criminal courts of circuit
stationed at the same towns. The administration of justice, both civil
and criminal, was therefore vested in the same hands. To make the
system of checks upon the revenue administration more complete, it
was provided that
the collectors of revenue and their officers, and indeed all the officers of Gov-
ernment, shall be amenable to the courts for acts done in their official capacities,
and that Government itself, in cases in which it may be a party with its sub-
jects in matters of property, shall submit its rights to be tried in these courts
under the existing laws and regulations. 1
In the reforms of the early period the chief aims had been economy,
purification and simplification. Cornwallis had come to India assured
that to purify the Company's service it was essential that the holders
of office should be Englishmen, adequately remunerated, and not
foisted on the Company, by influence. In the interests of economy
and simplification he had given to these Englishmen almost unparal-
leled powers. It seems to have been felt that while he was in office
no great danger would result. But now in this second period of
reform the outstanding aim was the safeguarding of the Indian from
oppression. Cornwallis himselt had completed the process by which
1 Ross, op. cit. II, 558.


## p. 454 (#482) ############################################

454
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
Pengal swarmed with Englishmen in commercial or administrative
offices; he seems to have reflected that it was at least necessary that
they should not be free to add to the oppression of Indians the old
practice of making a fortune. So the Company's servants and all
other English residents were to be subject to the courts. The revenue
and judicial systems were separated, and the collector of revenue
confined rigidly to the position suggested by his name.
Such a change operating without delay might well be expected to
rouse discontent in the Company's service. But Cornwallis was able
to allay this. The new district courts required judges, and it was part
of his scheme that the collectors of the district, chosen formerly as
being "of the first abilities and most established integrity”, were
transferred to this office. As judges of the zillah courts they exercised
jurisdiction in revenue and other civil causes : upon them was con-
ferred the magisterial power of the collector. The revenue duties,
which they left, devolved upon the assistants in the various districts.
Thus, under the new system, judicial administration was marked as
separate from, and as of much more importance than, revenue and
the executive functions associated with it.
The new system then created three branches of the service, instead
of two. The "commercial line” remained unchanged: the commer-
cial residents lived still at the various factories or stations, responsible
to the Board of Trade, and ultimately to the Supreme Council. The
revenue service, shorn of the important duty of the assessment, was
now the sole function of the new collectors of revenue. They were
responsible as before to the Board of Revenue, and then to the
Supreme Council. The district judges exercised civil jurisdiction and
the petty criminal jurisdiction of the magistrate. They were respon-
sible to the judges of the provincial courts in civil causes, and to those
same judges in the courts of circuit in criminal causes. The system
did not lack simplicity. It was not extravagant and it observed the
important principle of responsibility towards the inhabitants which
had been one of the chief characteristics of the new policy Cornwallis
came in to enforce.
With the Cornwallis Code the work of Cornwallis in India was
ended. But he was fully aware that it was only a beginning. He had
set up the machinery : established the recognition of certain prin-
ciples : but there was still no provision of a code of law. The resolu-
tions of December, 1790, and the regulations of 1793, had done
something to amend what seemed the greatest deficiencies of the
existing system. The law administered remained, however, in its
main features unchanged. The regulations of 1793 improved the
position a little by defining the qualifications of the Indian inter-
preters of the law, who were attached to the various courts. But
Cornwallis judged rightly that no greater innovation was possible
at present. "A good system of laws" was a thing more hard to come


## p. 455 (#483) ############################################

THE CORNWALLIS CODE
465
by even than "a due administration of them, and a well-established
peace". Sir William Jones was preparing the way by his treatise on
Indian laws. Cornwallis hoped that something would be done by
the building up of a case-made law on the findings of judges of the
courts. The developments of the future alone could fulfil the aim of
Cornwallis. He had created the machinery: upon the spirit that
informed it depended its success.
For twenty years after the retirement of Cornwallis, the system of
his code remained substantially unaltered. The periodical renewal of
the Company's Charter was due in 1793, but it took place without
any of the close scrutiny of administration which had heralded the
acts of 1773 and 1784. Cornwallis himself was of the view that little
real change was necessary; and the Company kept for another twenty
years its dual character as a commercial monopolist, and an instru-
ment of administration. It is in the events of this period that the
strength and weakness of the Cornwallis Code are most clearly seen.
The continued observance of Cornwallis's principles of adminis-
tration was due to some extent to the pressure of political cares. But
the lack of revolutionary change was in large measure a deliberate
policy. The preference for "steady adherence to almost any one
system" had become an accepted tenet : and the rulers of British
India did not attempt either a reversion to older ideas or the formu-
lation of new ones. The permanent settlement of the land revenue,
the severance of judicial from revenue administration, and the
restriction of Indians to offices of lesser responsibility were faithfully
observed by Cornwallis's successors. In the first half of the period,
indeed, the respect for the Cornwallis Code was so great that it was
introduced to the furthest degree possible into the new lands of the
Ganges basin, and even applied to Madras. Yet even the greatest
reverence could not hide the defects of the code, nor the utmost piety
avoid some attempt to correct them. The regulations of the period
1793 to 1813 are filled with amendments. Some were necessitated by
the faulty wording of the code, for which Barlow rather than Corn-
wallis was responsible; but many were due to the defects and the
rigidity of Cornwallis's own principles. In the last three years of
his rule he had added distrust of the covenanted servants of the
Company to his initial dislike of Indian agency. He deliberately placed
confidence in the system rather than in individuals, and he seems to
have ignored the fact that systems, like individuals, are bound to be
faulty. The great fault of his system was that he confounded courts
of justice with justice itself. In a land where the laws were still
vague and unknown, and the new system of administration was alien
to the ideas of the natives, the multiplication of court-made justice
was no advantage in itself. In theory, the Indians were protected by
courts of justice from the oppression of officials : zamindars and
talukdars against revenue collectors, ryots against zamindars. But
the courts were both unsuited and inadequate for the task. Delays


## p. 456 (#484) ############################################

456
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
were so serious that suits, it was said, were not decided in the normal
course of a lifetime. Protection of this kind was not of much value,
and, without the gravest unconcern for the welfare of the people, it
was impossible to disregard the need for reform.
The changes of the period 1793 to 1813 were mainly in two
directions, in connection with the Permanent Settlement, and with
the speeding up of civil and criminal justice. The reform of the
system of police was left over to the next period, but measures, on
the whole successful, were taken to deal with dacoits.
The general approval of the Permanent Settlement by the autho-
rities in India and at home did not hide the defects that resulted from
the system. It was soon found that the evil of “balances" continued
as before : that the efforts made to prevent the oppression of tenants
and ryots led only to the complete blocking of the courts of justice :
that the attempts made to realise the revenue without personal
coercion of the zamindars resulted in frequent sales of estates. More-
over the provision that talukdars could claim exemption from the
zamindars' control increased the business before the courts, and led
to the cutting up of estates.
The measures taken by Shore were in two directions. A regulation
of 1795 modified the rules as to the actions of zamindars in collecting
rents from their tenants and ryots. In effect, their powers of coercion
were increased. Secondly, additional civil courts were established,
and additional powers granted to the Indians who were responsible
for deciding minor causes. By these two measures it was hoped that
the "balances" would diminish and sales become less frequent.
Above all, they would remedy the existing state of affairs by which
“the determination of a cause could not. . . be expected. . . . in the
ordinary course of the plaintiff's life". Despite these measures,
however, the delays in the settlement of suits continued; and so did
sales and the dismemberment of estates. The latter were due to the
numerous claims of exemption from the control of zamindars on the
ground of talukdari rights, and, in 1801, Lord Wellesley, met this by
a regulation giving a date after which no such claim could be recog-
nised. The evil of sales was not so soon settled. A regulation passed
by Wellesley in 1799 gave still further powers of coercion to the
zamindars, and over them the former practice of arrest was reinstated.
The latter measure was a return to the procedure of Cornwallis, the
regulation of 1793 making the zamindar liable to arrest as well as to
the sale of his land having been amended by Shore. Now, in 1799,
the practice of personal coercion was restored, again with the object
of checking the flood of sales. Even so, Lord Minto found the same
defect, and attempted further to restrict sales by a regulation of 1807.
In fact the position was intrinsically difficult, and no mere regulation
would alter it. By Lord Minto's time the difficulties were beginning
to grow less, but this was due more to the greater goodwill of the


## p. 457 (#485) ############################################

THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
457
zamindars than to the revised regulations. So long as the system was
regarded with suspicion the difficulties continued. In fact it is clear
that in the years following its establishment the Permanent Settlement
was neither profitable to government nor popular with the people.
Such advantages as it had did not begin to operate until a later time.
In his advocacy of the Permanent Settlement, Cornwallis had put
high among the advantages the freeing of the Company's servants
from their absorption in revenue matters. In fact the difficulties in
the working out of the system made the task of a collector much less
simple than had been intended. Moreover, the mass of revenue suits
filled the zillah courts beyond measure, and the old collectors who
were now judges in these courts were certainly no freer than before
to concern themselves with the interests of the people. One of the
first and most pressing changes was therefore the limitation of suits.
Various regulations with this object date from the years 1795-1802.
They start with the reimposition of a fee upon registering a suit. This
was the work of Shore, as was also the increase in the number of
courts, and of Indians qualified to settle minor suits. Then, under
Wellesley, the regulation as to appeals was stiffened, and assistant
judges were appointed. The seriousness of the pressure extended
even to the sadr court, and Lord Wellesley thought it undesirable that
the governor-general and council should continue to act as its judges.
A reorganisation therefore took place in 1805, and three judges took
over the responsibilities of the court. The reforms of Wellesley, like
those of Shore, did not stop the evil of delay. Lord Minto attempted
further to remedy it. In 1807 the number of judges in the sadr court
was increased to four : in 1811 it was enacted that the number of
district judges should be increased as necessity occurred. Another
expedient for remedying the congestion of business was the reorgani-
sation of the system of circuit. According to the regulations of 1793
the provincial court of appeal was necessarily closed while the three
judges went on circuit in their capacity of circuit judges. A regulation
of 1794 provided for the unbroken session of the court. A further
change of 1797 made possible the trial of appeal cases during the
absence of the judges on circuit. Similar congestion in the trials of
criminal cases was met by the increase in the power of magistrates
in petty cases, and by conferring on them the right of delegating
power to their assistants. Special rules for the punishment of dacoits
were enacted in 1807.
None of the changes, however, did more than palliate the evils of
the systein. These evils were still formidable when they were sub-
mitted to the clear scrutiny of the next few years.
The unhesitating acquiescence in the Cornwallis system ended in
1808, and the work of reform started in earnest five years later.
Unlike the act of 1793 the Charter Act of 1813 made important
changes in the position of the Company; and, again unlike that act,


## p. 458 (#486) ############################################

458
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
it was the result of the careful examination of several years. This new
reforin movement stated on 11 March, 1808, when Robert Dundas
moved the appointment of a select committee to enquire into the
affairs of the Company. The committee issued five reports, and the
fifth, issued in 1812, contained a detailed analysis of the Bengal
system. Together with its appendices (and with some of the material
contained in the second report of 1810), it is a valuable exposition
of the history and the results of the Cornwallis Code. Above all, it
makes clear some, if not all, of its defects.
The period of the Select Committee saw also the beginning of an
enquiry in Bengal. The defects of the early system forced themselves
especially on the judges of the courts, and in the summer of 1809
Lord Minto set on foot an enquiry as to the best lines of change.
The
investigation, however, was not completed by him. In 1813 he was
succeeded by the Marquess of Hastings and it was in the ten years of
his rule that the most thorough enquiry was made. In 1813 the
Charter Act embodied one aspect of the new reform movement. On
9 November, 1814, a dispatch of the court of directors 1 emphasised
the other.
The act of 1813 abolished the Company's monopoly of trade in
India. The change in administration involved was not at first of
much importance, since the monopoly and not the trade was abolished.
The Board of Trade continued its work until 1835 : the commercial
residents remained at their factories, although their number decreased
as the trade diminished. The most immediate alteration was at the
presidency offices, for the act required a rigid separation of the
commercial and administrative accounts.
The instructions of 9 November, 1814, prescribed a far more
radical change. The pressure on the civil courts dictated a resumption
by the collector of his powers in civil justice : the difficulties found in
administering criminal justice and in the regulation of the police
demanded that the collectors should once more have magisterial
powers, and be responsible for the superintendence of the police. With
the same object of improving the administration of justice, additional
powers were to be given to Indian agents: and by increasing the
criminal jurisdiction of the zillah judges the pressure on the higher
courts would be relieved. At the same time the judicial interference
of the collector would serve to increase the protection of the ryots;
and with the latter object in view the Board of Control added a clause
to the directors' dispatch urging the observance "in all possible cases”
of "the principle of realising the revenues from the ryots themselves".
The recommendations of the dispatch were a denial of Cornwallis's
principles in several respects. If they. were carried out, the separation
11. 0. Records, Bengal Despatches, vol. LXVII, judicial Despatch of 9 Nov-
ember, 1814.


## p. 459 (#487) ############################################

FURTHER REFORMS
469
>
of revenue from judicial administration would once more disappear
The collector would resume in some measure his position of 1790 as
the bottle-neck through which all administration must pass. It was
impossible to set back the Permanent Settlement as fully as this, but
the dispatch showed at least that the authorities at home were alive
to its dangers. Even the prejudice of Cornwallis against the employ-
ment of Indians was set aside. Such revolutionary measures did not
commend themselves to the government of Bengal. The mistake of
Cornwallis in carrying out his reform without sufficient investigation
was not repeated. The new instructions were referred for opinion to
all the boards and courts in Bengal, and to the principal servants of
the Company. The repeated pressure of the court of directors did not
obtain an answer to their dispatch until 22 February, 1827, and then
in several respects the attitude of the government of India was more
conservative than that of the authorities at home.
In the meantime, however, much had been done to modify the
existing system. The period of Hastings's rule saw a number of
regulations which improved the working and loosened the rigidity
of Cornwallis's Code, while still paying rather more than lip-service
to his principles.
The first changes were already accomplished when the reforming
dispatch arrived. Regulations of 1813 and 1814 had provided a
fairly efficient police system for the large towns. In 1813, in the cities
of Dacca, Murshidabad and Patna, and in 1814 at the headquarters
of every district, police chowkidars were appointed under the control
of the superintendents of police. The system was said to be working
well in 1816. In 1817-19 the system of village watch was reformed.
These police reforms were regarded by the government as the most
urgent and the most satisfactory of the reforms.
The necessity for lessening the burden of the civil courts was met
by a series of measures. The powers of Indian munsiffs and sadar
amins in civil justice were defined in 1814 and extended in 1821. The
doctrine that no class of Indian officers should be vested with final
powers was, however, maintained, and other measures were necessary
to remedy the position. The procedure in appeal was laid down by
a regulation of 1814; and steps were taken to relieve the pressure in
the higher courts. The burden of the Calcutta appeal court was
diminished by the establishment of a separate court for the Western
Provinces, but the most important steps were the appointment of a
fifth judge and the systematic division of labour between the judges.
The difficulties of the lesser courts were met partly by the establish-
mert of special commissions to administer justice in the new parts of
the province. But the more effective measures for relief were the
increase in the number of zillah judges, and the transfer of certain
11. 0. Records, Bengal Letters Received, vol. LXX, Judicial Letter of 29
November, 1814.


## p. 460 (#488) ############################################

460
BENGAL ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM, 1786-1818
judicial functions to the revenue authorities. The latter expedient
was adopted very slowly, the proposal for the re-establishment of
mal adalats being disregarded. In unsettled districts the judicial
pcvvers of the collectors were fairly extensive, but they were still
slight in Bengal. There, the new powers were chiefly in connection
with the sale of liquor and the manufacture and sale of opium. Even
in Bengal, however, the collectors had some judicial business in
connection with the land revenue. In 1819 the collectors were autho-
rised to deal with cases relating to claims to freedom from assessment,
and in 1822 to rectify errors committed at the time of sales.
Closely connected with the measures to facilitate civil justice, are
those for the protection of the ryot. One of the chief reasons asserted
by the directors (and emphasised by the Board of Control) for
conferring power of civil justice on collectors had been the greater
protection that would be given to the ryot. The increased function
of the collectors would not be enough to secure this, and further
measures were urged. What was done was rather to prevent further
encroachment than to reverse what had already taken place. The
offices of kanungo and patwari were re-established in the years
1816-19, and the institution of the mufassal record committees aimed
at stabilising the position of the various classes concerned in land.
This was furthered also by the comprehensive definition of the rights
of the various classes concerned in land by regulation VIII of 1819.
That more was not lone was due to the fact that the Permanent
Settlement made a satisfactory system impossible.
The aspect of the directors' instructions to which least observance
was secured, was that which was concerned with criminal justice.
The principles of Cornwallis here died hard. As late as 1827 the
separation of the administration of criminal justice from the work of
the revenue officers was looked upon with respect as the chief
"principle on which the civil administration framed by Lord Corn-
wallis" was founded. The length of time that that system had been
in force made in itself a substantial argument against reversing it,
since the collectors of the 1820's were practically all without ex-
perience in judicial affairs. Another principle also was involved.
The collectors were assisted in most districts by Indian tahsildars,
and to entrust magisterial powers to them would be to abandon Corn-
wallis's refusal to vest real power in Indian hands. What was done
in this direction was therefore of a tentative character. In criminal
justice, as in civil, pressure of cases necessitated an increase in the
number of zillah judges and the addition of a fifth member in the
appeal court. But all that was done to meet the instructions to
reunite justice and revenue was the permissive regulation of 1821.
In 1818 the first step in this direction had been taken when three
collectors were specially empowered to act as magistrates. Now by
regulation r of 1821 such power might be granted to any collector.
at the discretion of the Supreme Government. In the following years


## p. 461 (#489) ############################################

CORNWALLIS'S WORK
461
a few collectors and sub-collectors were granted power under the
regulation.
When Hastings left India in 1823, despite his absorption in political
affairs, considerable changes had taken place in the system of Corn-
wallis. The chief need as Cornwallis estimated it was still no nearer
completion. “A good system of law” was not yet established, for
Sir William Jones had died in 1795, and little had been done to
continue his work. It is true that the code which Cornwallis had
promulgated had been simplified, and redrawn where its ambiguities
were greatest. But a vast body of new regulations had followed, and
the courts had piled up judicial precedents. No comprehensive code
had been issued : what had really been done was to follow up the
reforms of Cornwallis by further changes and experiments. In
criminal and civil justice, perhaps above all in the police system,
nd improvements had been made. The position of the collector
had once more been changed : for if he had not recovered the over-
whelming power of 1790, the degradation of 1793 had been consider-
ably mitigated. The collector was climbing back to his position as the
state's man of all work; and was well on his way to reach it in time to
be the chief instrument of the next reform movement. Yet much of
the work of Cornwallis was still standing. The building had been
extended and improved, and the original plans had been modified;
but all the early work had not been destroyed. The reforms of the
civil service had not needed to be done again. By this cleansing
of the administrative system, Cornwallis had established a lasting
tradition. After thirty years the best of his work, the result of his
uprightness and zeal for the public service, was still in being. In
spite of his mistakes, therefore, Cornwallis, like Warren Hastings,
had left a lasting impression on the system of government: and it
was one of the merits of his successors that they were slow to
experiment in change.


## p. 462 (#490) ############################################

CHAPTER XXVII
THE MADRAS DISTRICT SYSTEM AND
LAND REVENUE TO 1818
THROUGHOUT the eighteenth century up to the last decade
no power in South India felt itself secure enough to spare serious
attention for the improvement of the territories under its authority.
The more energetic rulers found their time fully occupied with the
task of suppressing rivals and rebels and raising the armies and
revenues necessary for this end. The rest were content to make hay
while the sun shone. Thus in time of peace the chief concern of every
ruler was the collection of the revenue and especially of the land
revenue, which usually produced more than nine-tenths of the total
state income. The insecurity of the ruler's position compelled him to
raise his demand as high as possible and to take the quickest and
easiest means of collecting what he claimed without thought for the
future. Checks and precautions were relaxed and abuses sprang up
on all sides. A strong ruler like Hyder of Mysore preferred to collect
through officers of his own appointment, amildars having jurisdiction
over large areas containing some hundreds of villages. The amildar
usually dealt with the village through the village headman and the
village accountant, whose records were supposed to show what the
villagers should by custom pay. As it was difficult to prevent the
village accountant from falsifying his accounts the amildar frequently
struck a bargain with the village headman, or, if he would not rise to
the amildar's terms, rented the village to a powerful outsider who
was left to collect what he could.
If the amildar could not trust the village officers, neither could
the ruler trust the amildar, who took presents and levied extra cesses
for which he rendered no account, securing the acquiescence of the
villagers partly by terror, partly by lowering the public demand on
the plea of a failure of the crop. Hyder met the difficulty by allowing
the amildars to grow rich and then fogging them till they disgorged.
Milder-mannered princes, such as the nawab. of Arcot, tended to
supplant the amildars by renting out whole districts to rich or
influential speculators. Where this was done, all the authority
formerly exercised by the amildar in practice devolved upon the
renter, since any restriction upon his proceedings was made an
excuse for withholding the sum contracted for. Neither the amildar
ncr the renter enjoyed any security of tenure. As a rule they looked
only for immediate profit regardless of longer views. 1
But South Indian rulers were not everywhere strong enough to
1 Srinivasaraghava Aiyangar, Memorandum, App. pp. xx sqq.
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THE POLIGARS
463
collect the revenue on the system which suited them best. Half the
Northern Sarkars and elsewhere many of the less accessible tracts
were under local chiefs who had never been completely subdued,
feudal nobles who had succeeded in retaining their feudal status, local
officials and adventurers with local influence who had seized power
and asserted a partial independence. These poligars and zamindars
exercised within their own territory all the functions of a sovereign,
even making war on their own account upon their peers. But they
acknowledged an obligation to pay tribute or peshkash to the sovereign
and to serve in his campaigns with a certain number of armed
retainers. The peshkash was sometimes fixed, sometimes it varied
from year to year with the state of cultivation. But its amount and
the regularity with which it was paid depended less upon the resources
of the poligar's territory than on the ease with which he could be
coerced.
Unlike the renters and the amildars the zamindars and poligars
had an hereditary interest in the territories under their control. But
their traditions and upbringing were as a rule essentially martial.
“Eat or be eaten” was the condition of their existence. Their grand
aims had always been to extend their territories at the expense of
their neighbours and to strengthen themselves to resist the central
power. Many of them were too spirited to exchange uncontrolled
if precarious authority for the assured income of a peaceful landlord,
and very few of them were capable of believing that the central power
would continue to allow them to intercept a share of the land revenue
once they had been disarmed. The central power usually aimed at
extirpating these territorial chiefs, as opportunity offered. Hyder
and Tipu of Mysore were especially active in pursuing this policy. It
is unlikely that the cultivators often regretted their poligar when he
was hanged. For he had to consider first the interests of his armed
retainers and he was often under the necessity of satisfying their
demands for arrears of pay by giving them authority to collect the
land revenue direct from the villages. 1
The workers of South India, the agriculturists and the artisans,
living for the most part in villages, hoped little and feared much from
their rulers. So narrow was the margin on which the cultivators were
living that advances of seed-grain had often to be made to enable them
to raise a crop. In many South Indian villages the land revenue
depends upon the upkeep of the irrigation works and some amildars
spent pains and money on this account. But as a rule the works seem
to have been neglected or maintained only by the villagers. Even
for protection the villagers relied chiefly on their own mud walls or
thorn fences which could be defended by stone-throwing against the
predatory horse and the camp followers of the period. Whether these
owed allegiance to an invading power or to the country's prince made
1 The Fifth Report of 1812, pp. 80 sqq.


## p. 464 (#492) ############################################

464
MADRAS DISTRICT SYSTEM AND LAND REVENUE
little difference in the feelings which they inspired among the villagers.
There were no made roads, no bridges, and no wheeled vehicles
outside a few large towns. Trade was carried on by pack cattle.
There was no code of law generally recognised as being in force; and
even where Hindu or Muhammadan law-books were supposed to have
authority, there were no regular courts in existence to interpret or
give effect to them, or to solidify custom and precedent into law.
Petty crime was dealt with by the village headman and most civil
disputes were settled in the village by the award of arbitrators or
by the decisions of village panchayats or juries. Caste offences were
punished by caste headmen or caste panchayats, the state only inter-
fering to raise revenue by leasing out the right to levy fines. Grave
crimes could be brought before the amildar, who might inflict any
punishment short of death. There were no gaols, and imprisonment
was not a recognised form of punishment. Mutilation for the poor
and fines for the rich were the order of the day. The proceedings of
the amildar were controlled not by law, but by his sense of equity.
The powers of the amildar were also exercised not only by zamindars
and poligars, but also by renters and military officers, and indeed by
any person who had at his command the force necessary to give effect
to his decision. The same authorities could sometimes be induced to
appoint arbitrators for the decision of important civil disputes. There
was always the possibility of an appeal to the sovereign, but access to
him was difficult, and the chance of a careful enquiry small. 1
For police in the more orderly tracts the villagers relied chiefly
on the hereditary village-watchman. But where criminal tribes or the
retainers of a poligar lived in the neighbourhood, they usually found
it expedient to invite one of their tormentors to become their kavalgar
or guard, and to pay him to save the village from theft, or at least to
obtain restitution of the stolen property for a reasonable consideration.
A poligar or other person of local influence often had himself recog-
nised as a head-kavalgar controlling the village kavalgars throughout
his sphere of influence and sharing their emoluments. In one or two
districts this system was reported to work well, but in general it
seems to have been a convenience to the criminal classes rather
than to the cultivators.
But if the sovereign concerned himself little with most aspects
of his subjects' lives, his interests in the produce of their agriculture
was close and persistent. Everywhere a share in the produce of the
land was claimed either by the sovereign, or by a grantee of the land
revenue deriving his right from the sovereign, or by a zamindar or
poligar who claimed this among other rights of sovereignty. In the
absence of any court of law, the nature of the sovereign's rights and
the cultivators' tenure was determined not by law but by the interplay
of three forces the power of the sovereign, the custom of the village,
1 Ct. Gleig, Munro, I. 405 sqq.


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POSITION OF THE RYOT
465
ana the economic condition of the district. The Hindu family system
and the lack of stock tended to divide up the land into small holdings.
In many villages, especially in the irrigated tracts, there was a tradi-
tion of a joint settlement and a common ancestry, and the whole
village was owned in shares, the lands in some of them being periodi-
cally redistributed. In such villages there was a habit of common
action which enabled the villagers to oppose a certain resistance to
the sovereign and his agents. Elsewhere rights were derived from the
individual occupation of waste land, and the power of resistance was
very small. Almost everywhere there was more cultivable land than
could be cultivated by the labour and stock of the inhabitants. The
ruler therefore had seldom any reason to assert a claim to the land
itself or to oust a cultivator from it. His anxiety was to find cultivators
for the land and to secure the largest possible share of the product
of their industry. The share of the crop which he succeeded in
obtaining was usually so high as to leave the cultivator no more than
a bare subsistence. This, taken together with the presence of land
waiting to be brought under cultivation, prevented the land from
acquiring any saleable value except in Tanjore and in a few other
specially favoured localities. The cultivator therefore had all the
security of tenure that he desired. Hereditary rights were seldom in
question. The ryot was more concerned to assert his right to relin-
quish a holding-a right which the amildar was at pains to deny. To
the ruler's demands for an increasing land revenue the cultivator
could oppose an ill-defined village custom and sometimes the records
of an old assessment which showed what the cultivator ought to pay.
But the state's admitted share was itself very high, amounting often
to more than half the whole crop; and the cultivator was unable to
resist the imposition of all manner of extra cesses to meet the needs
of the ruler, the amildar and the village officers. It was said that in
practice the ruler and his agents took all that they could get, some-
times even the whole crop, and that the cultivator often kept no more
than he could conceal. But it must be remembered that, in the
circumstances of the time, it was easy for the cultivators to conceal
the extent of cultivation and to misrepresent the out-turn of their
crops. The village accountants and the revenue underlings who esti-
mated or measured the out-turn could usually be propitiated at no
very extravagant cost. At the opening of our period the uncertainty
and the inequality of the incidence of the demand was probably at
least as great an evil as the magnitude of the total sum collected.
To prevent fraud, it was clearly in the interest of the ruler that
his claim should be commuted for a fixed sum of money or a fixed
quantity of grain payable annually in good and bad seasons alike,
and in some districts there were in the hands of the village account-
1 Ellis, Mirassi Paper, ap: Rev. and Jud. Sel. I, 810.
2 Graeme's Report on N. Arcot, 31 March, 1818, ap. Rev. and Jud. Sel. 1, 959. ,
30


## p. 466 (#494) ############################################

466
MADRAS DISTRICT SYSTEM AND LAND REVENUE
ants records of old surveys in which the sum payable on each field or
on each holding was defined. Elsewhere attempts had been made to
fix the sum payable by each village. But so long as the state's
demand in average years left the cultivators little more than'a bare
subsistence, it could not be paid in bad years. The revenue underlings
and the village officers opposed a system which tended to curtail the
sources of illegitimate gain; and the cultivators feared that the fixed
demand might operate merely as a minimum and would not protect
them against extra cesses.
The most important crop in South India was the rice crop
cultivated on the irrigated lands. The state's share of this crop was
usually calculated each year in grain. The villagers were sometimes
required to buy back the state share at a price fixed at the discretion
of the sovereign's agent. Sometimes the state's share was stored in
granaries to be consumed by the state servants, or sold when prices
rose. To eliminate competition the villagers were often forbidden to
sell their grain till the state had disposed of its stock. The unirrigated
lands of South India were far more extensive than the irrigated. A
great variety of crops was raised and many of these crops were har-
vested piecemeal. To assess, collect, store and market the state's
share in all these crops would have been an impossible task. It was
therefore commuted for a money payment. This was sometimes
fixed on each field, sometimes for each kind of crop cultivated; and
sometimes it varied with the state of the season.
The net result was that every year saw a struggle between the
state's agent and the villagers to raise or lower the assessment, and
a good crop well cultivated might cost the village dear. When the
demand on the whole village had been fixed for the year, the appor-
tionment of it among the villagers was usually left to the discretion
of the village headmen, or other principal inhabitants, who might
or might not be charitably disposed to the poor, but were very
unlikely to encourage exceptional enterprise, industry, or thrift.
There was thus everything to discourage improvement and the
cultivator lost all interest in his land.