222 



law of the country.^ At the other end of the scale, there 

 were the Zemindars, Jaghirdars, and Inamdars, who derived 

 their rights from the sovereign with jurisdiction over por- 

 tions of the country which would not, under the Hindu law, 

 affect the kudivaram right vested in the ryots. The Zemin- 

 dars were of very various origin. Some of them were the 

 descendants of ancient chiefs, holding the territories assigned 

 to them on condition of paying tribute and rendering military 

 service. Others were revenue oflBcers and farmers of revenue 

 employed by the Hindu and Muhammadan Governments, 

 who had acquired power and influence which led to their 

 being recognized as Zemindars. Others, again, were origin- 

 ally heads of villages or ryots or even kavalgars, taliaries, 

 or watchmen who had collected round them armed bands of 

 robbers and levied blackmail from the surrounding villages, 

 and by the assistance rendered to sovereigns during trou- 

 blous times got themselves recognized as Poligars, In all 

 cases, the Zemindar's right extended only to the melvaram, 

 except in the case of Khamar, Pannai or home-farm 

 lands which were kept distinct from lands cultivated by ryots. 

 This was the common law of the country, but in practice, of 

 course, owing to the absence of settled authority, the ryots 

 were grievously oppressed by the levy of illegal cesses. In a 

 few cases, where the "sist" or regular assessment was a 

 fixed sum of money, the extra assessments represented the 

 additional value of the Government share due to the rise in 

 the value of produce, and as such was legitimate enough ; 

 but in most cases the extra assessments were purely arbi- 

 trary. In the Northern Circars, as we have already seen, 

 the ryot's share of the produce which was originally not less 

 than one-half was, by the additional imposts levied on vari- 

 ous pretexts, reduced to one-fourth or one-fifth. Mr. Stratton 

 has given a full account of the revenue system prevailing 

 in the Chittoor polliems in his report, dated 14th July 1801. 

 His report shows that, besides the mamool teerva which 

 was in itself sufficiently onerous, imposts were being levied in 

 the Venkatagiri and Kalahasti Zemindaries under the deno- 

 mination of katnmns, and that most of these were arbitrary 

 exactions which had originated within the previous 35 years. 

 In the Ramnad Zemindari also, additional cesses over and 

 above the mamool teerva were levied, among which may be 

 mentioned Nilavavi (land-tax), Vakkalvari (the straw tax), 

 Pddakdnikhai (a present placed at the feet of the Zemindar), 

 palo,m katchi (a present made to the Zemindar when the glad 



See decision of the Madras High Court : I.L.B., VII, Madras, page 374. 



