No More Learning

951, 14 August, 1855 (Selections, Madras, New Series, vol. mm).


## p. 51 (#81) ##############################################

IRRIGATION
51
9
draft regulation framed in 1817,4 did not receive effect until late in
the middle period when the special rates charged on “garden” lands
began to disappear, and the principle must always be subsidiary to
the primary division of cultivation into "dry" and "wet”. There is
clear justification for adopting the valuable rice-crop as the basis of
the assessment on wet land, seeing that it owes its existence to water
from public sources. Most of the irrigation is by “tanks” which vary
in size from mcre ponds to lakes covering over twenty square miles,
and which number in the ryotwari area nearly 32,000 (exclusive of
private reservoirs). Almost all the tanks antedate British acquisition
but, with the exception of the Grand Anikat (dam) on the Kaveri,
native works for the utilisation of river water are few and unimportant.
The principal English irrigation works are the Upper and Lower
Anikats on the Kaveri and Coleroon, the delta systems of the
Godavari and Kistna, and the Periyar dam. The genius of Sir Arthur
Cotton found its fullest scope on the Kaveri-Coleroon and Godavari.
The Kaveri-Coleroon works were begun in 1836 and, with the re-
modelled Grand Anikat, they provide water for nearly a million
acres. The Godavari dam, first suggested in 1798, was begun in 1846
and secures over half a million acres. Famine gave the impetus which
started in 1850 the almost equally extensive Kistna system. The
Periyar work is remarkable, not for the acreage served, but for diffi-
culties overcome in carrying out its bold conception. The idea
received the approval of “twelve intelligent men” deputed in 1798
by a raja of Ramnad, was condemned later, was revived in the 'sixties
and transformed into action in 1884. The dam, 176 feet high, was not
finished until 1895.
The origin of the Public Works Department which has done so
much for Madras is to be found in the engineering branch of the
Military Board established in 1786, but at first irrigation works were
in the hands of collectors who were later assisted by superintendents.
A Maramat (Repair) Department was instituted in 1819 under an
Inspector-General of Civil Estimates for whom was substituted later
the chief engineer in charge of the Military Board's engineering
department. The Maramat Department was placed under the general
control of the Board of Revenue in 1825, and was later organised
into divisions under civil engineers. The position as determined in
1845 was this: irrigation works, canals, civil buildings and minor
roads and bridges were under the Maramat Department; main roads
were under a Superintendent of Roads; military roads and buildings
and those in Madras town were under the Military Board. The
executive officers of the Maramat Department were the collectors and
their subordinates, over whom there was little professional super-
vision. The arrangements generally were strongly condemned by a
committee sitting in 1852 and six years later there came into being
1 Revenue Selections, 1820, vol. 1.
4-2


## p. 52 (#82) ##############################################

52
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN MADRAS
a
the Public Works Department in its modern form, as an agency for
execution as well as supervision. The Maramat Department then
disappeared, but the new department was reorganised again and
again, the changes being mainly due to the difficulty in securing
effective management of the scattered smaller tanks. Finally, about
1882, there was a partial reversion to the old Maramat system, the
revenue officers being made responsible for the ordinary repairs to
minor tanks.
At the British acquisition, the poligars, within their dominions,
controlled the police and collected not only the revenue charged on
the land but also a variety of other taxes. In theory they may have
been regarded as mere agents of the Muhammadan government,
occupying for their palayams the same position as the renters held
outside the palayams and being remunerated by a commission on their
collections; in practice they were much more, collecting on their own
behalf, and disgorging only under compulsion. When, however, the
zamindari settlement came into operation, the government announced
its intention to assume direct control of the police and taxation, and
the history of the taxes concerned may now be traced into more
recent times.
The mohatarfa was a tax on trades and occupations. In any district
it might be levied on more than a hundred classes of persons or things
(for the implements of business were sometimes taxed), but its
incidence and rate were matters of arbitrary distinction and often
varied from village to village. “It is a poll-tax, a house-tax, a cattle-
stall-tax and a caste-tax. The beggar is taxed because he is a beggar;
the widow is taxed because she is destitute'--so it was said in 1842.
Though many of these demands had been abandoned, enough re-
mained to render mohatarfa a source of much oppression. The only
thing to be said for it is that, if, in 1852, a million persons contributed,
they did not contribute much. In some places the tax formed a rough
income-tax on the profits of trade. This form, called visabadi, was
brought under formal control by Regulation iv of 1818. The govern-
ment fixed the total demand on a district so as not to exceed 10 per
cent. of the estimated profits of the traders therein; the collector
divided this among the taluks and the contributors settled the
individual demands among themselves.
In Coimbatore one of the items of mohatarfa was tobacco. This was
first abolished, and then revived, as a separate source of revenue, in
1807, when the sale of tobacco was made a government monopoly in
Malabar and Canara. Soon afterwards all the cultivation of tobacco
there and in Coimbatore was prohibited except under licence. 2 There
were subsequent changes of system, but in every form the tax was
accompanied by fraud and "frightful abuses", while in Malabar
smuggling arose on so large and determined a scale that troops had
Reg. xxv of 1802.
2 Regs. vii and vin of 1811.
1


## p. 53 (#83) ##############################################

MOHATARFA
53
a
to be employed to deal with it. The tobacco monopoly and its
accompaniments were abolished in 1852.
Embarrassments due to the Mutiny led to a general Indian income-
tax which was supplemented by a Licence Tax Act! abolishing the
mohatarfa tax and substituting a system of licences for carrying on
trades, industries and callings. This act disappeared in later legislative
shufflings, but, to make good the outlay on famine, the licensing
system was revived in Madras, and persons carrying on businesses
were required, if their incomes exceeded Rs. 200, to pay for licences
fixed sums varying roughly according to their receipts. 2 This licence
tax was a descendant of the mohatarfa. As an item of general taxation
it was displaced finally on the revival of the income-tax in 1886; but
the mohatarfa survives to this day in municipal areas in the form of a
graduated tax on arts, professions and callings.
The original mohatarfa was a bad enough tax, but the inland sayer was
far worse. This was a duty levied on articles of all sorts in transit and
had developed into a national calamity. The rates were variable and
capricious, there was no control over the tax-gatherers who charged
practically what they chose, and revenue renters and poligars took
to establishing posts and duties at pleasure, so that it was common
for
goods to come under charge at least once in every ten miles. The
injury to trade was mortal. This wicked impost was replaced in 1803
by frontier and town duties leviable ad valorem on specified goods
crossing the frontier or passing into selected towns. 3 Madras town
and the west coast came under separate rules which need not be
detailed. The duties were for a time collected by official agency, but
there was so much fraud that later the collection of the duties was
farmed out. 4 Even in the form finally taken by this impost, it could
not be otherwise than mischievous, and it was discontinued under
India Act VI of 1844.
Little need be said about the duties on sea-borne trade. They were
put on a basis of law in 1803;5 passed from the control of the Board of
Revenue to that of the Board of Trade in 1808;6 and were replaced
under the former authority in 1825. The duties on coastal trade were
abandoned in 1844, and in 1859? a uniform tariff was substituted for
the separate provincial rates theretofore levied.
In Muhammadan times the tax on salt took the form of a share of
the output of the salt pans, of a rent for privilege of manufacture, or of
a transit duty on leaving the factory. The Company established a
monopoly. 8 Manufacture and sale were placed under the direction
of a General Agent working under the Board of Revenue, but the
immediate management was in the hands of collectors. The govern-
ment fixed the price for sale to the public, while the agent settled the
1 India Act XVIII of 1861. 2 Act III of 1878.
• Reg. XII. Sec also amending and repealing Regs. xv of 1808 and 1 of 1812.
• Reg. v of 1821.
6 Regs. Ix and xi.
& Reg. xv.
, India Act VII.
8 Reg. 1 of 1805.


## p. 54 (#84) ##############################################

54 DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN MADRAS
sites of factories and the amount to be made each year. Actual
manufacture was conducted by persons having a customary right to
make salt, their interests in the output being converted into cash
payments. The General Agent was soon got rid of, and the business
went on under the board, collectors and their assistants being re-
munerated for their trouble by a commission which lasted until 1836.
To relieve government of the position of sole vendor, and in the hope
of improving the quality of salt, an Excise Act was passed (VI of
1871). On the extension of this act to any place, the monopoly
system ceased to apply there, manufacture was permitted under
licence, an excise-duty became payable on removal from the place
of storage, and distribution and sale were left to private arrangement.
The monopoly was, however, retained in places as affording a means
of controlling the price. From the first there had been much com-
petition with the government salt through the manufacture in places
of coarse salt out of saline earths. There was long discussion over the
prevention of this practice which at times led to affrays with the
police, and it was made an offence in 1878. 1 In that year, too,
collectors ceased to be immediately concerned with the salt revenue,
a commissioner with a separate establishment taking over control. 2
Soon afterwards the Commissioner of Salt took charge of the Abkari
Department also, and in 1887 he became a member of the Board of
Revenue. In 1889 a new act replaced the old laws. This made
no material change, for it continued both the monopoly and the
excise system. There is also in vogue a third system under which
licensees for general sale (as opposed to licensces for sale to govern-
ment) can be required to deliver to government a specified quantity
before proceeding to manufacture for sale to the public. Since 1882
the rate of duty on salt has been determined for the whole country
by the Government of India. 3
The abkari tax, or tax on intoxicating liquors and drugs, is derived
mainly from arrack (distilled as a rule from palm-juice or crude sugar)
and toddy (fermented palm-juice). In continuing this old impost,
the English administrators asserted from the outset the principle that
consumption should be checked. The somewhat uncertain pursuit of
this ideal led through such a bewildering jungle of enactments, rules
and local practices, that the path taken can be indicated only roughly
here. Pursuant to old custom Regulation 1 of 1808 contemplated
leasing the right to make and sell arrack, but it also provided for the
licensing of single shops. The collector was responsible and received
a commission for his trouble. Later the law was extended to toddy 4
and an alternative system of direct official management was authorised.
In practice there was no effective limit to the number of retail shops.
These might be separately licensed, usually with a primitive still
1 Act II. Act VI of 1878.
: Act IV of 1889.
4 Reg. I of 1820.
India Act XII.


## p. 55 (#85) ##############################################

ABKARI
55
attached, or they might be opened under private arrangement with
the lessee of the rights of manufacture and sale over a large area.
Minimum sale-prices were prescribed but, as they had no relation to
strength, they had little effect in regulating consumption. The obvious
lack of control led in 1869 to measures for suppressing outstills and
concentrating manufacture in large distilleries. The contractor re-
ceived the monopoly of manufacture and supply for a large area, paid
stillhead duty, guaranteed a minimum revenue, agreed to observe
certain price-limits and was responsible for keeping down illicit
practices. The stillhead duty provided a means of controlling con-
sumption, but the system did not answer expectations and “free
supply" came in from 1884. Manufacture and supply were now
separated from sale; anybody could get a licence for a distillery,
arranging prices with the licensed vendors, and the government
undertook prevention. Later came the “contract distillery system
under which the sole privilege of manufacture and supply in a given
area is disposed of by tender, the successful tenderer having a mono-
poly of supply of his own liquor to retail vendors at rates fixed by
government and paying stillhead duty on all issues; the right of retail
vend is sold annually by separate shops. This is the prevailing system,
but in some parts the right of manufacture and sale is still rented out,
the number of stills being limited as much as possible, and the number
and sites of shops being fixed beforehand. The right to sell arrack has
long been separated from that to sell toddy. Fermented toddy is now
taxcd in the form of rents for retail shops and (in the greater part of
the presidency) by mcans of the tree-tax system under which a fixed
fee is charged for each tree which it is proposed to tap under
licence.
Act I of 1886 authorised the government to place abkari adminis-
tration under a commissioner, and the Commissioner of Salt was put
in charge of it. Since 1887 the commissioner of the two departments
has been a member of the Board of Revenue. Finally excise advisory
committees, containing a non-official element, were instituted to
advise as to the 'location of shops.
The withdrawal from the poligars of authority over the police was
the most important abridgment of their powers effected by Regu-
lation xxv of 1802, but the discharge of the kavalgars (watchers) and
the resumption of many of their inams had unexpected results.
Deprived of responsibility and emoluments, the kavalgars, who were
largely recruited from criminal tribes, had no inducement to restrain
the activities of their follow-castemen. Though no longer recognised
by the government, they continued to receive fees from the villagers
and became interıncdiaries in a vast system of blackmail from which
the southern districts have never been able to shake themselves free.
The tribesmen stcal (cattle as a rule), the owner approaches the
* In Tinnevelly district, in 1866, there were 3642 stills, and there had been more.


## p. 56 (#86) ##############################################

56
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN MADRAS
>
kavalgar, restoration is arranged on terms, and the ransom is shared
between the kavalgar and the thieves.
The kavalgars had been at first succeeded by police darogas and
thanadars, operating, as in Bengal, greatly to their own advantage,
under the nominal supervision of the sedentary zillah judges. A reform,
inspired mainly by Munro, was introduced by Regulations ix and XI
of 1816. The general control was now vested in the collector as
magistrate. The principal executive officers were the tahsildars, under
the title "heads of police”, and all the members of their revenue
establishments, clerks and peons, were at their disposal for police
work. The prime agents of detection were the village watchers acting
under the village headmen and accountants. But time revealed
defects in this plan also. The superior revenue officers became more
immersed in their growing revenue duties; opportunities for mischief
by underlings were doubled by their dual capacity. Crime, gang-
robbery in particular, reached alarming proportions in some places.
The report of the Torture Commission of 1855 rendered change
imperative. The commission found torture to be a “time-honoured
institution" and spoke of "that perfect but silent machinery which
combines the forces of revenue demands and police authority”; wit-
nesses did not hesitate to speak of the police as “the bane and pest
of society". The force was now reconstituted on English and Irish
lines. 1 Direct control by the district magistrate disappeared and the
connection with the Revenue Department was sundered. The ad-
ministration was vested in an inspector-generala assisted by deputies.
The village watcher was retained. Each district was supplied with
European officers as superintendents and assistants. This system has
stood the test of time, which is not to say that the personnel does not
admit of improvement.
In natural sequence we come to the jails. Such institutions had
been unknown before British rule, and for a long time afterwards any
strong building was deemed suitable for the purpose. In these the
death-rate generally exceeded 100 per mille. 3 The rules of health
were not understood; floggings for breach of discipline were too
severe and frequent; still worse, perhaps, the system of paying daily
subsistence allowances to prisoners meant that catering was left to
jailors who made all they could out of it. These same officers had, in
practice, the whole administration in their hands, for, although the
zillah judge was charged with superintendence, 4 his occasional visits
had little effect. It was not until 1855 that an Inspector-General of
Prisons was appointed, and it was ten years later that the beneficial
change of appointing the civil surgeons to be superintendents was
· India Act XXIV of 1859. The presidency town has been governed by a different series
of enactments.
2 Called, at first, commissioner.
3 Macleane, Manual of the Administration, vol. 1, chap. iii.
• Reg. vi of 1802. Cf. India Act VII of 1843.


## p. 57 (#87) ##############################################

POLICE AND JAILS
57
a
carried out. A committee, appointed at the instance of Lord
Macaulay, had, in 1838, advised, among other things, the building
of central jails, but nothing was done in this direction until about
1857. A second committee, reporting in 1864, laid stress on this
matter and on ventilation, and thereafter there was much building.
To the new central jails European officers were appointed as super-
intendents and the civil surgeons were placed in medical charge.
Health was improved by the provision of fixed diet-scales in 1867;
behaviour, shortly afterwards, by a system of remissions. The mortality
in the triennium ending 1861–2 averaged 81. 0 per mille, in the
quinquennium ending 1884, 33. 3, in the two years ending 1916–17,
11. 5. These figures form a sufficient comment on the earlier adminis-
tration.
The civil surgeons who have just been mentioned belonged to that
beneficent body the Indian Medical Service, which was organised in
1786 as an establishment of surgeons and assistant surgeons under a
Hospital Board. That board was replaced in 1857 by a director-
general and other superintending officers, and in 1880 the Indian and
Army Medical Departments (the latter concerned with the European
soldiers) were put under a surgeon-general attached to the civil
government. The commissioned officers of the Indian Medical Service
who, when first associated with the civil administration, were styled
zillah surgeons, became later the civil surgeons. The report of the
royal commission of 1863 on the heavy mortality among English
troops in India led to the creation in Madras of a Sanitary Commission
which was soon replaced by a Sanitary Commissioner. That officer
was then associated with the civil administration and took over the
Vaccination Department which had been running independently
since 1805. In 1883 the civil surgeons were supplied with assistants
to enable them to tour and became the present district medical and
sanitary officers who, besides being the chief physicians and surgeons
of their districts, have administrative charge of the district jails and
medical charge of the central jails, and are advisory and adminis-
trative officers to the municipal councils and local boards to which,
since 1871, has appertained the general control of medical institutions,
vaccination and sanitation.
1 Act II of 1865.


## p. 58 (#88) ##############################################

CHAPTER IV
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
1818–1857
UNTIL the commencement of the nineteenth century there was
little or no increase in the territorial possessions of the Bombay
Government, and consequently no alteration of the system of adminis-
tration. Bankot was ceded by the Marathas in 1755 in cxchange for
Gheria (Vijayadrug), which had been taken from Angria by a naval
force consisting of vessels of both the Royal Navy and the Bombay
Marine. Broach, which was captured by assault in 1772, had to be
relinquished in 1779, and was not regained until 1803. The island of
Salsette, and Karanja, Elephanta, and Hog islands in Bombay
harbour, which had been transferred by Raghunatha Rao, the
pretender to the Peshwaship, were likewise relinquished in 1779, and
were not restored till the signing of the Treaty of Salbai in 1782.
These changes, though politically of importance, did not involve any
revision of the administrative arrangements, which had been applied
since early days to the Company's factories and settlements. In the
case of Surat, however, and the district surrounding it, the year 1759
witnessed the introduction of certain changes which lasted until 1800,
when they were superseded by administrative arrangements based
on the model of the district administration in Bengal.
The presidency, in the year 1800, included the town and island of
Bombay, the islands in Bombay harbour, the island of Salsette, the
outlying station of Bankot (Fort Victoria) in the South Konkan, and
the town and district of Surat. The local governor and council passed
by the Regulating Act under the influence, and by the India Act under
the control, of the governor-general and council of Fort William.
Justice was administered by the Rccorder's Court set up in 1798 to
supersede the existing Mayor's Court and Court of Quarter Sessions.
All British subjects resident within the territories subject to the
Bombay Government, as also those resident in the territories of native
princes in alliance with that government, were amenable to its juris-
diction. The Recorder's Court continued to function until 1823 when
it was superseded by a Supreme Court, composed of a chief judge and
two other judges, and modelled on the Supreme Court of Judicature
at Fort William.
In 1799 another development occurred. Ever since 1759 Surat,
though remaining under the nominal authority of the nawab, had
been in fact administered by one of the Company's servants, at first
styled “Chief for the Affairs of the British Nation and Governor of


## p. 59 (#89) ##############################################

TERRITORIAL DIVISIONS
59
the Moghul Castle and Fleet of Surat", and later called “lieutenant-
governor”, subordinate to the governor and council in Bombay. In
1799 the last nominally independent nawab died. The Bombay
Government then arranged with his brother to assume the whole
administration of the town and district, and by a proclamation of the
governor of Bombay, 15 May, 1800, the district of Surat, as then
existing, was placed in charge of a collector and a judge and magis-
trate, one of whom, generally the judge, was also in political charge
of the titular nawab and the petty chiefs of the neighbourhood, as
agent to the governor of Bombay. The same period witnessed also
the establishment at Surat of a sadr adalat, a court of circuit and
appeal, which ultimately exercised jurisdiction over all the Company's
territorial possessions in Gujarat.
It is clear that the system of ad-
ministration thus introduced into Surat at the opening of the nine-
teenth century was borrowed directly from the system initiated in
Bengal by Hastings in 1772 and revised by Lord Cornwallis after
1786.
With the nineteenth century came a rapid territorial expansion.
First came cessions by Sindhia, the Peshwa, and the Gaekwar. And
then the final downfall of the Peshwa in 1818 gave the Company an
enormous addition of territory, which included certain parts of
Gujarat, the whole of the Deccan, except the small kingdom reserved
for the raja of Satara and two parganas granted to the ruler of Kolhapu
the whole of Khandesh, the district of Dharwar including Belgaum,
Ratnagiri, and Kolaba, with the exception of the Alibag taluka, which
lapsed to the Company in 1840. The present Nasik district was divided
between the collectorates of Khandesh and Ahmadnagar up to 1837,
when the portion included in the latter district was formed into a
sub-collectorate. It was finally constituted a separate district with an
enlarged area in 1869. Between 1818 and 1858 the presidency was
further extended by the lapse of certain native states, e. g. Mandvi in
Surat, and Satara; and various territorial readjustments took place,
such, for example, as the separation of the Ahmadabad and Kaira
districts in 1833, and of Belgaum and Dharwar in 1836, and the
conversion of Sholapur in 1838 into a collectorate, formed mainly of
villages ceded by the Nizam in 1822. In 1848 the Bijapur district,
which had formed part of the territory of the raja of Satara, lapsed
to the Company, and in 1853 and 1861 occurred the lease and final
transfer respectively by Sindhia of the Panch Mahals. More distant
acquisitions by conquest were those of Aden in 1839 and of Sind in
1847. In 1861 North Kanara was transferred from the Madras
Presidency to Bombay.
At first the judicial and revenue administration of the Gujarat
districts acquired from the Gaekwar and the Peshwa between 1800
and 1803 was entrusted to the agent of the governor-general at
· Imperial Gazetteer of India, Bombay Presidency, 1, 331.
1


## p. 60 (#90) ##############################################

60
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
Baroda, who, like the resident at Poona in regard to the Deccan,
supervised thc affairs of North Gujarat, so far as they concerned the
Company and its relations with the native powers. In 1805 the
resident's responsibility ceased, and these ceded areas were placed in
charge of a collector armed with powers similar to those possessed by
the collectors in Bengal.
The great increase of territory which accrued from the conquest or
annexation of the Peshwa's possessions in 1818 necessarily involved
the establishment of a more extensive administrative system. The
newly acquired territories were divided into districts, organised and
managed on the lines adopted in Bengal. In two respects, however,
the Bombay arrangements differed from the Bengal system: first, no
Board of Revenue was created; and secondly, the districts were re-
stricted in size, so as to allow of their being more easily administered
than was the case with the large and unwieldy districts of Bengal.
The task of introducing order into the conquered arca was by no
means easy. In Gujarat the intermingling of the Company's pos-
sessions with the territories of the Gaekwar, nawab of Cambay, and
the unsettled tributary land-holders of Kathiawar and Mahi Kantha,
the restlessness of the Girasias and Mewasis within the British sphere of
jurisdiction, and the turbulent character of a considerable portion of
the population, offered formidable obstacles, which were overcome
mainly by caucion and good temper on the part of the Company's
officers. Conspicuous among the latter were Colonel Walker and his
assistants, who had charge of the area which developed in 1818 into
the two collectorates of Ahmadabad and Kaira. 1
Judicial regulations were introduced early and gradually made their
influence felt. For the purpose of revenue collection the Maratha
practice of farming out the districts to the desais, and subsequently to
the patels of the villages, was adopted for the first few years. Under
this system the collector or his subordinate mamlatdar or kamavisdar
had to make the best bargain he could with the desai for the annual
revenue, and provided that the amount promised was duly realised,
he did not concern himself with the methods of the desais and
village officers, or with the manner in which the government dues
were obtained from the peasantry. After 1816, however, the ryotwari
system was gradually re-introduced, and the talati or village ac-
countant, who was appointed directly by the Bombay Government,
superseded the desai and the patel. At the outset the position of the
mamlatdar or kamavisdar in Gujarat was not wholly satisfactory. Though
he was the collector's principal subordinate and the chief native
official of the district for revenue and police matters, he was poorly
paid and was also subjected to much expense by an order requiring
him, in his capacity of native police official, to attend the sessions. He
1 Minute of governor of Bombay, 6 April, 1821 (Appendix to Report of Select Committee
on Affairs of East India Company, 1832).


## p. 61 (#91) ##############################################

EARLY ORGANISATION
61
was on this account frequently absent from the district at times when
his revenue duties demanded his presence on the spot. These diffi-
culties, however, were gradually obviated after the re-introduction of
the ryotwari system, which brought the villages into direct contact
with the officers of government, substituted for the former corrupt
village accountants persons appointed direct by the government, and
enabled the authorities in consequence to increase the revenue and
distribute it more equally. There was better management and fuller
assertion of the public rights, due largely to the comparatively small
size of the districts, which admitted of adequate superintendence by
the collector, and also to the actual manner in which the system was
introduced, first by a commissioner, whose business was to enquire
rather than to innovate, and secondly by collectors trained in his
methods and acquainted with the actual state of everything which
they were called on to improve. 1
The settlement of the Deccan and Khandesh was entrusted to the
capable hands of Mountstuart Elphinstone. So far as the revenue
system was concerned, his main object was to preserve as far as
possible unimpaired the practice of the Maratha Government, subject,
however, to the abolition of the system of farming the revenue, to the
levy of assessment according to the area actually cultivated, and to
the imposition of no new taxes. Old taxes were for the time being
retained, except where they were manifestly unjust or oppressive. The
country, which in the days of the Peshwa had been divided up among
many mamlatdars and kamavisdars, whose powers and territorial juris-
diction varied greatly in extent, was placed under five principal
officers, namely the collectors of Khandesh, Poona, Ahmadnagar, and
the Carnatic, and the political agent at Satara. Each of these
officials resided within the limits of his charge and devoted his whole
time to its affairs. The straggling revenue areas of Maratha days were
formed into compact districts, each yielding from Rs. 50,000 to
Rs. 70,000 annually; and each was placed in charge of a mailatdar
on a fixed monthly salary of Rs. 70 to Rs. 150, with limited powers,
who was bound to reside within the limits of his charge and was in
all matters subordinate to one of the principal English officers or
collectors.
The duties of the mamlatdar consisted in supervising the collection
of the revenue, managing the police establishment, and receiving
civil and criminal complaints, of which the former were referred by
him to panchayats and the latter to the collector. To assist him in these
duties, he was furnished with a staff consisting of a sheristadar or
record-keeper on Rs. 30 to Rs. 40 a month, an accountant and sub-
· Letter from M. Elphinstone, 16 August, 1832 (Minutes of Evidence before Select
Committee on Affairs of East India Company, Rev. 111, 1832); Minute, 6 April, 1821, by
governor of Bombay on Ahmadabad and Kaira (Appendix, Report of Select Committee
(Parliamentary), 1832).


## p. 62 (#92) ##############################################

62 DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
ordinate clerks. At first the Bombay Government found some diffi-
culty in sccuring mamlatdars of the right type. In Poona and Satara
they were chiefly respectable servants of the former government; in
Khandesh, which had been wasted and depopulated, men had to be
introduced from the Nizam's dominions or from Hindustan; while a
few men were borrowed from Madras to act as a check upon the
Deccan officials. Below the mamlatdar was the patel, who was re-
sponsible, together with the kulkarni, for the revenue and police
administration of the village. His powers were pro tanto reduced by
the closer supervision exercised by the mamlatdar under the British
system, while his emoluments were lessened by the reduction or
abolition of the Maratha tax known as sadar warid patti.
The sheet-anchor of the district finances was the land-revenue,
other sources of income being customs (jakat), excise (abkari), fines
paid on succession to property (nazar), fecs paid for pasturage by
nomad shepherds, and fees paid for permits to cut wood in govern-
ment forests. The foundation of the agricultural assessment was the
amount paid by each village in times when the people considered
themselves to have been well governed. From this amount deductions
were made for diminution of cultivation or for special reasons, and
the final amount payable was apportioned among the ryots or agri-
cultural population by the village officers. The chauth and babti of
Maratha days were abolished, as also were arbitrary imposts like the
jasti patti. Speaking generally, the assessments were made lighter,
more definite, and more uniform; more liberal advances were made
to the cultivator for land improvement or to assist him in seasons of
scarcity; the practice of bringing false charges against him as a pretext
for extorting larger contributions was sternly and actively prohibited.
Owing to the difficulty of framing a tariff and to the collectors'
absorption in revenue and magisterial duties, the customs were
farmed for the first few years. The excise revenue, which yielded less
than £1000 annually, was maintained at a low figure, as in the
Peshwa's days, by express prohibition in Poona and the active dis-
couragement of drinking elsсwhere. Similarly, until the currency
system was stabiliscd, the mint was farmed to a contractor. The salt-
tax was unknown at the commencement of the nineteenth century,
though the manufacture of salt was carried on in the collectorate of
Bombay by both government and private persons, and in other dis-
tricts by various methods, the revenue so derived being recovered in
the shape of rent, customs-duty, or duty on sales. In 1837 an act was
passed establishing a salt excise-duty, whereupon all salt-works outside
the island of Bombay were placed in charge of a Collector of Conti-
nental Customs and Excise, and those in Bombay were supervised by
the Collector of Land Revenue at the presidency. These two officials
were responsible for the management and collection of the tax; but
whereas the collector of Bombay had no separate staff for the pur-


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TAXATION AND JUSTICE
63
poses of the salt revenue the Collector of Continental Customs was
assisted by a deputy-collector and five assistant collectors. These
arrangements continued until 1854, when the charge of all sea and
land customs and of the salt cxcisc of the whole presidency was trans-
ferred to a commissioner, assisted by a European staff of three deputy-
commissioners and ten uncovenanted assistants, and by an Indian
staff at each of the chief salt-works.
In regard to the administration of civil and criminal justice, the
position in the ycar 1812-13 may be briefly described, before pro-
ceeding to later developments. At that date the possessions of the
Bombay Government in Gujarat included the towns of Broach,
Kaira and Surat. In each of those towns was an officer combining
the functions of criminal judge and magistrate, with an assistant for
magisterial duties. Above them was a sadr adalat, consisting of three
judges, which served as a court of circuit and appeal, not only for the
three above-mentioned places in Gujarat, but also for Salsette, ad-
joining Bombay Island, which was administered by a single judge.
For the hearing and disposal of civil causes, a native official, styled
sadr amin, was appointed to each of the three Gujarat towns and
Salsettc, and an appeal from the decisions of these functionaries also
lay to the sadr adalat in Surat. In Bombay, as previously mentioned,
the superior court at this date was that of the recorder, which exercised
both civil and criminal jurisdiction, while the lower courts were, for
civil suits, the Small Causes Court for the recovery of debts not
exceeding Rs. 175, which was established in 1799, and, for criminal
cases, the courts of the senior, second and third magistrates of police,
which were established by Rule, Ordinance and Regulation 1 of 1812,
and the Court of Petty Sessions, which was opened in the same year. 2
The development which took place in consequence of the acquisi-
tions and annexations of 1818 and following years will be apparent
from a survey of the provincial judicial arrangements of the year
1828-9. By that date the system of combining judicial and magis-
terial powers in one individual had been abolished, and magisterial
jurisdiction, coupled with control of the police, had been vested in
the collector of the district. As remarked by Sir John Malcolm, sound
reasons existed for combining magisterial with revenue or territorial
jurisdiction; for under the actual form of administration introduced
after 1818, the collector alone was in the position to possess full in-
formation of the state of the district subject to his authority and of the
character and condition of its inhabitants. 3 On the other hand the
presidency was handicapped by two conflicting systems of judicature,
represented by the existence in Bombay of the Supreme or King's
Court, which superseded the Recorder's Court in 1823, and the
1 The third magistrate was not actually appointed till 1830,
: S. M. Edwardes, The Bombay City Police, pp. 25 399. ; Bombay City Gazetteer, 11, 220 599.
• Minute by Sir J. Malcolm, 16 November, 1830 (Appendix, Report of Select Committee
(Judicial), 1832).


## p. 64 (#94) ##############################################

64
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
Company's courts, known as the sadr diwani adalat and the sadr
faujdari adalat, which had been transferred from Surat to the capital
of the presidency in 1827, towards the close of the governorship of
Mountstuart Elphinstone. The Supreme Court had authority by
letters patent to exercise civil, criminal, equity, admiralty and éccle-
siastical jurisdiction within the island of Bombay and the factories
subordinate thereto, and was invested with jurisdiction similar to that
of the King's Bench in England. The adalats, on the other hand,
which were wholly independent of the Supreme Court, superintended
the administration of justice in all places outside the limits of Bombay
Island. The sadr diwani adalat, consisting of four judges, a “register"
and an assistant register, had no original jurisdiction, but its de-
cisions were final except in suits relating to property worth more than
Rs. 10,000, when an appeal lay to the King in Council, while the
sadr faujdari adalat, consisting of the junior member of council as
chief judge and three puisne judges, superintended all criminal and
police matters in the districts and had power to revise all trials held
by lower courts outside the limits of Bombay Island. The jury-system
was confined to the jurisdictional limits of the Supreme Court.
In Gujarat, under the jurisdiction of the sadr adalat, was a pro-
vincial court of appeal and circuit, stationed at Surat and composed
of three judges. This court served as a civil court of appeal, while one
of the judges attached to it held a sessions every six months at Surat
and other centres. Sentences of death, transportation, or imprison-
ment for life passed by this court were subject to confirmation by the
sadr faujdari adalat. The court was finally abolished in 1830. In each
of the districts of Broach, Surat and Ahmadabad-Kairal was stationed
a judge for both civil and criminal work, aided by an assistant judge
or register, who decided such cases as the judge made over to him.
Subordinate to the judge for the purposes of civil justice, there
were in each district several munsiffs and in each headquarters town
one or more sadr amins, who were remunerated by fees. In 1828-9
the Bombay Presidency contained four sadr amins and seventy-nine
munsiffs or native commissioners, from whose decisions an appeal lay
successively to the district judge, to the court of appeal and circuit,
and finally to the sadr diwani adalat. In criminal cases the district
judge could award sentences of solitary imprisonment for six months,
imprisonment with hard labour for seven years, flogging, public dis-
grace, fine and personal restraint, subject to the proviso that in all
cases where a sentence of more than two years' imprisonment was
imposed, a reference had to be made to the court of circuit. Magis-
terial powers were vested in the collectors of the four districts,
Ahmadabad, Kaira, Broach and Surat, and extended to sentences of
fine, simple imprisonment for not more than two months, flogging
1 For judicial purposes this area was treated as a single district, but as two districts for
revenue and magisterial work.


## p. 65 (#95) ##############################################

JUDICIAL ORGANISATION
65
not in excess of thirty stripes, and personal restraint. The native
district police officers and the village police officers, subordinate to
the collectors, also possessed limited powers of punishment in trivial
cases. The former could impose fines not exceeding Rs. 5, or sentence
delinquents to confinement for not mure than eight days or to a period
of not more than twelve hours in the stocks; while the latter could
punish petty cases of assault and abuse by confinement in the village
chauki for not more than twenty-four hours. 1
The Konkan, divided for administrative purposes into North and
South, was judicially administered on the same lines as Gujarat,
except that in both portions the criminal sessions were held by one
of the judges of the sadr faujdari adalat, while in civil matters there
was no intermediate court of appeal, as in Gujarat, between the
district (zillah) judge and the sadr diwani adalat in Bombay. Both
the judges of the North and South Konkan had assistants, to whom
they delegated such cases as they thought fit. ?
The Deccan at this date (1828–9) was composed of three col-
lectorates—Poona including Sholapur, Ahmadnagar and Khandesh.
The policy of Mountstuart Elphinstone, who was appointed com-
missioner for the settlement of the Deccan in 1817 and became
governor of Bombay two years later, was to interfere as little as possible
with the system which he found existing in the conquered territory,
and at the outset, except for modifications of procedure, the Maratha
arrangements for civil justice were maintained more or less unaltered.
All complaints that could not be amicably settled were referred in the
first instance to the collector, who usually directed the mamlatdar to
enquire into the facts and grant a panchayat. Occasionally the collector
or his assistant would hear and decide a case; but his function was
generally limited to granting a new panchayat in cases where a decision
appeared to be marked by injustice or to be due to corruption. In
the course of his tours through his charge, the collector was bound to
give audience to all classes for two hours daily, receive oral complaints,
and revise the decisions of the mamlatdar, if this appeared necessary.
In the large towns like Poona, civil justice was in the hands of amins,
who were empowered to grant panchayats and try cases referred to them
by the collector, whenever both parties consented to this mode of
adjustment.
In the sphere of criminal justice Elphinstone abolished the patel's
punitive powers, and the mamlatdar's powers were limited to sentences
of fine not exceeding Rs. 2, and of confinement for twenty-four hours.
All other criminal powers were vested in the collector, who corre-
sponded in this respect to the sarsubehdar under the Maratha govern-
ment. In practice a prisoner was formally and publicly brought to
1 Minute of John Bax on Judicial and Revenue system of Bombay, 16 June, 1829
(General Appendix, Report of Select Committee (Parliainentary), 1832).
Idem, pp. 123 599.
CHIVI
5


## p. 66 (#96) ##############################################

-66
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
trial before the collector. If found guilty, a sastri was called upon to
declare the penalty according to Hindu law, which, if considered
excessive according to European standards, was modified, and if light,
was accepted by the collector. In Khandesh a kind of jury was
assembled, which questioned witnesses and pronounced on the guilt
of the accused; while in Satara the political agent summoned re-
spectable residents to serve as assessors at the trial. In all cases native
exponents of the Hindu law were present in court, and where capital
sentences or heavy punishment were involved, the collector had to
report his decision for confirmation to the commissioner. 1
This system was shortly afterwards superseded by arrangements
resembling, though not absolutely identical with, those followed in
Gujarat. Thus in 1828–9 the Deccan districts werė administered for
judicial purposes by two district judges, one for Poona and Sholapur,
and the other for Ahmadnagar and Khandesh. Each judge had an
assistant, one being stationed in Sholapur and the other in Dhulia,
who were vested with limited penal powers and were bound to refer
all matters of importance to their superiors. Subject to the general
authority of the sadr faujdari adalat in Bombay, the two judges held
regular criminal sessions at Poona and Ahmadnagar, while their
decisions in civil suits were subject to appeal to the sadr diwani adalat.
The magisterial powers of the collector and his subordinates were the
same as in Gujarat, the assistant collector being empowered to try
such cases as the collector delegated to him, subject to the overriding
powers of the latter in appeal. 2
The Carnatic or Southern Maratha country, consisting of Dharwar
and Belgaum, was administered on rather different lines, as the
Bombay Regulations, which were published in 1827 and applied to
the rest of the presidency, were not formally applied to this area till
1830. The collector for the time being, aided by assistants and a regis-
trar, exercised all the civil and criminal functions which elsewhere
were performed by the separate departments of district judge, criminal
judge and magistrate. Even after the application of the regulations
in 1830, the offices of political agent, collector, judge and sessions judge
were still united in one individual, while the assistant judge at
Dharwar was vested with the powers of an assistant at detached
stations (e. g. Dhulia) in other parts of the presidency. The civil and
criminal work of the district was, however, placed under the general
supervision of the sadr adalat, the criminal side of which served, as
in the case of the Konkan, as a court of circuit. This difference of
treatment probably was due to the fact that the management of the
Southern Maratha country after 1813 was conducted mainly by
officers of the Madras Presidency, notwithstanding that the area con-
cerned was nominally under the authority of Bombay. The district of
1 M. Elphinstone, Report on the Territories conquered from the Peshwa, Calcutta, 1821.
· Report, Select Committee on Affairs of East India Company, 1832.
?


## p. 67 (#97) ##############################################

REFORMS OF 1830
67
Dharwar, including Belgaum, was permanently assigned to Bombay
in 1830, when the Bombay regulations were formally applied to it.
The judicial system in 1828–9, outlined above, had certain pro-
minent defects, which may be summarised as absence of superin-
tendence and supervision in the Deccan, and lack of homogeneity in
the arrangements followed in the four main divisions of the presidency,
viz. Gujarat, the Deccan, the Konkan and the Carnatic. A revision
of the system, however, occurred in 1830, which resulted in the wider
employment of Indians in the administration of civil law and in the
duties of the English civil servant being limited to a greater extent
than previously to the control and supervision of the inferior agents
of government. By the end of that year almost all original civil suits
had been made over for trial to natives of India, and special judicial
commissioners were appointed for Gujarat and the Deccan, who
toured throughout those areas and heard all complaints in regard
to the administration of justice. Simultaneously the magisterial
powers of the collector, assistant collector, and mamlatdar were ex-
tended, and the collector, as chief revenue official of the district, was
also empowered to take civil cognisance of suits relating to land and
to decide claims and disputes regarding ownership, etc. ,
subject to an
appeal to the district judge.
For the purposes of the ordinary revenue and judicial administra-
tion of the districts outside the town and island of Bombay, the civil
service cadre in 1828-9 was composed of six district judges, ten
assistant district judges, ten collectors with magisterial powers, one
sub-collector and magistrate, ten assistant collectors, seventy-nine
"koomashdars” (i. e. kamavisdars or mamlatdars), four sadr amins, and
seventy-nine munsiffs. At headquarters in Bombay were the chief
judge and three puisne judges of the sadr adalat, a registrar, two
secretaries and one deputy-secretary to government, an accountant-
general, a sub-treasurer, a mint master and civil auditor, and a post-
master-general. The Bombay Government consisted of the governor
and three members of council, of whom one was usually the com-
mander-in-chief of the Bombay army and the other two were civil
servants of more than ten years' standing. "
By an act of 1807 the governor and council had been given the same
power of making regulations, subject to approval by the Supreme and
the Recorder's Courts, as had previously been vested in the Bengal
Government, and the same power of appointing justices of the peace.
By 1833 Bombay possessed a large code of regulations, commencing
with Mountstuart Elphinstone's revised code of 1827, which embodie
the results of twenty-eight years' previous legislation. This code had
force and validity throughout the whole presidency, beyond the
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
As regards other departments of the Bombay administration at this
1 Report, Select Committee on Affairs of East India Company, 1832.
5-2


## p. 68 (#98) ##############################################

68
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
date (1830) mention has already been made of the salt-revenue
arrangements. The sea-customs administration was in charge of the
Collector of Land Revenue in Bombay and of a custom-master and
his deputy in Gujarat. A custom-master stationed in Salsette super-
vised the customs of the two divisions of the Konkan, and in order to
save the expense of establishments both the Gujarat and the Konkan
customs were farmed out at this date. The post-office was still in its
infancy and was little used by the Indian public. The mail was carried
by runners; and government dispatches, which were conveyed free,
were said in 1832 to exceed in bulk all private communications sent
by post. This is hardly surprising, when one remembers that it cost
a rupee to send a letter from Bombay to Calcutta. It was not until
the governor-generalship of Lord Dalhousie that the old inefficient
postal arrangements were swept away and a uniform half-anna postal
rate was introduced.
The educational administration of the Bombay Government at the
opening of the nineteenth century was restricted to the grant of
financial and moral support to the Bombay Education Society. In
1822 this society decided to confine its activities to the education of
European and Eurasian children, and thus indirectly gave birth to
the Bombay Native Education Society, which became merged in 1840
in a Board of Education. From that year till 1855 this society shared
with various English and American missionary bodies the whole
burden of the educational administration. It opened primary schools
in the Konkan, Deccan, and Gujarat and trained masters to staff them.
The experiment of placing these schools under the control of the
collectors of the districts was tried in 1832, but proved unsatisfactory;
and as it appeared likely that the management of the schools would
suffer in the absence of a special supervising agency, a Board of
Education was established in 1840, composed of a president and three
European members nominated by the Bombay Government and three
Indian members appointed by the Native Education Society. From
1840 to 1855 this board directed the educational administration of
the presidency, which was divided for this purpose into three divisions,
each under a European inspector and an Indian assistant. In 1852 the
Bombay Government increased its subsidy to the board from it to
2} lakhs of rupees, whereupon the latter undertook to open a school
in any village of the presidency, provided that the inhabitants were
prepared to pay half the salary of the master and to provide a school-
room and books. The opening and maintenance of girls' schools was
still left to private enterprise; but with that exception the system
founded by the board anticipated in many respects the principles laid
down in the famous dispatch of the court of directors in 1854. It had
prepared the way for a university by establishing institutions for the
teaching of literature, law, medicine, and engineering, and had
Appendix to Report, Select Committee on Affairs of East India Company, 1832.
1


## p. 69 (#99) ##############################################

EDUCATION AND POLICE
69
introduced a system of primary schools, administered by the govern-
ment, but mainly supported by the people themselves. These schools,
indeed, formed the germ of the later Local Fund school system.
Finally, in 1855, after receipt of orders from the governor-general
in council on the directors' dispatch of 1854, the department of
Public Instruction was formed with a full staff of educational and
deputy educational inspectors. The further progress of the educational
administration belongs to the period following the Mutiny and the
assumption by the crown of full responsibility for the government of
India.
Before dealing with the administrative changes which marked the
second half of the nineteenth century, the police system of the pre-
sidency prior to 1858 deserves brief notice. As regards the town and
island of Bombay, where the police arrangements differed ab initio
from those prevailing in the rest of the presidency, it has already been
stated that the earliest force for watch-and-ward was a militia, re-
cruited about 1673 as a supplement to the regular garrison and
composed chiefly of Bhandaris and other Hindus of lower caste. This
force was commanded by native officers (subehdars), who were posted
at the more important points in the island. In 1771 this militia was
relieved of military duties and formed into night patrols; but it
proved so ineffective in preventing crime that it was reorganised in
1779 and placed under the control of a European officer, styled first
“lieutenant”, then “Deputy of Police”, and finally, in 1793, “Super-
intendent of Police”. The force at this date was composed of twenty-
eight European constables and 130 native peons. The continuance of
serious crime and the gross inefficiency of this force led to the publi-
cation in 1812 of a regulation, vesting the control of police matters
in three Magistrates of Police, assisted by a “Deputy of Police and
Head Constable” as executive head of the force. This arrangement
likewise produced little or no amelioration of conditions, despite a
gradual increase in the numerical strength of the police force, which
was controlled from 1835 to 1855 by a succession of junior officers
chosen from the Company's military establishment. These officers,
who were styled “Superintendents”, possessed little or no aptitude
for police work, were poorly paid for their services, and had no real
encouragement to make their mark in civil employ. By 1855 the
public outcry against police inefficiency and corruption had become
so insistent, that Lord Elphinstone's government was obliged to hold
an enquiry; and, after drastic punishment of the offenders, a new act
(XIII of 1856) was passed for the future constitution and regulation
of the urban force. A district police officer, of unusual capability, was
appointed superintendent of the force; and he managed by 1865,
when the title of the appointment was changed to that of Commis-
sioner of Police, to bring crime under control and to lay the founda-
Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, m, 103 599.
>
1


## p. 70 (#100) #############################################

70
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
tions of the efficient organisation now known as the Bombay City
Police. 1
The modern Bombay district police includes, as an essential part
of its organisation, the ancient institution of the village watch, which
consists of the patel, who is responsible for the police of his village, and
the village watchman, whose duty it is to keep watch at night, find
out arrivals and departures, watch all strangers, and report all sus-
picious persons to the patel. Under native rule the patel was in the
position of a police magistrate, and the watchman, who worked under
his orders, was bound to know the character of every man in the
village. When a theft occurred within village bounds, it was the
watchman's business to find the thief.
>
He was enabled to do this by his early habits of inquisitiveness and observation,
as well as by the nature of his allowance, which, being partly a small share of the
grain and similar property belonging to each house, required him to be always on
the watch to ascertain his fees, and always in motion to gather them. On the
occurrence of a theft or robbery, he would often track the thief by his footsteps,
and if he did this to another village, so as to satisfy the watchman there, or if he
otherwise traced the property to an adjoining village, his responsibility ended. It
then became the duty of the watchman of the new village to take up the pursuit.
The last village to which the thief had been clearly traced became answerable for
the property stolen, which would otherwise have had to be accounted for by the
village in which the robbery was committed. The watchman was expected to con-
tribute as much as his means allowed to the value of the goods stolen, and the
balance was levied on the whole village.