1830 .] 
On Land Revenue . 
221 
authority and respectability of the biswadars, and raising animosities among the 
people ; it may not be improper, therefore, to enquire what this good old method 
was, which this regulation is blamed for removing. 
It appears that the proprietors of a village were sent for after a measurement, 
and enquiry into their lands and property ; and having appeared before the collec- 
tor, he declares they shall pay so much. The proprietors, well taught by long 
experience, state their inability to pay more than one-fourth that sum ; they are 
then remanded for a few days, when they are again brought before the hazur , 
who probably has come down a few hundreds in his demand ; and the proprietors, 
to shew that they are also not unreasonable, will advance a hundred on their first 
offer, which is rejected, and the collector, who can find no one to take the village 
on his terms, leaves the settlement of the matter to the tehsildur ; and those who 
are at all acquainted with the subject, must know the abuses this authority was put 
to, in the shape of juti-marxing ; making them stand on sharp wooden pins; 
suspending them by the hands, their toes just touching the ground ; putting cow’s 
bones into their mouths ; tying them up to a triangle, and flogging them ; making 
them ride on asses ; and baking, by exposing them to a hot sun :— -it may be 
said these abuses are eradicated, that they never now occur ; but it is owing to 
this very regulation : but while I state this fact, I am also prepared to assert, that 
bribery and corruption among the native amla 1 is gaining ground, which can 
only be put a stop to in the revenue departments, by the regulation being more 
generally acted up to ; and till the whole country is put under the operation of it, 
the temptation and opportunities are so great, that it may be impossible to avoid it. 
But the effects of the good old system have not been fully exposed. Let us 
suppose the proprietor has effected a bargain with the collector, through the 
good offices of his friends, or by good luck ; he proceeds to the village, and 
makes known the terms of the assessment. The lands, which were measured, 
most likely under a bribe, are now distributed among the cultivators, the biswadars 
taking care to use a small bigha ; the cultivator is taxed in various modes 
to the very utmost he can pay, for these poor people, rather than leave their homes, 
will submit to great hardships ; and he is plundered by the grossest acts of fraud 
and imposition, which occasionally are brought before the courts, where the judges 
(who had not formerly been in the revenue line,) are often ill versed in the laws 
and usageswhich pervade the village community. Even if the raiat succeeds in gain- 
redress, the proprietor has it in his power amply to punish him : the grazing of 
his cattle is stopped, and the people seeing him unprotected, his fields are invaded 
at night by stray cattle, and worried to death, till he is driven from the village. The 
profits of the village are probably considerable — it is all the same to the cisan; and 
• when a hard season comes, he suffers : his cattle either perish of hunger, or are 
sold to pay his share of the assessment ; he borrows cash to purchase others, as 
well as seed for a crop ; and, if fortunate, he may retrieve himself, but his means 
must always be precarious. 
This is an attempt at a short description of an assessment on the old plan, 
which was handed down to us with the possession of the country ; and notwithstand- 
ing the boasts of the Ain Acberi and the natives, of the flourishing state of 
the couutry, this is the very system which was then the means of raising and 
adjusting the revenue of the Great and Good Acber. 
This practice of cheapening and prigging for a good jetmna, appears to have been 
followed by the successive Governments in their turn ; and a ridiculous story is told 
of the Marhattas who, during their short rule, also had their settlements and bando- 
basts. In order to secure a good round sum, for what they thought a fine village, 
they set out with the demand of a ldc,h, and, to their astonishment, the proprietors 
agreed to it immediately, rather than go through with the inconvenient ceremonies 
I have detailed; but the zammdars’ prognostications were true: the Marhatta 
power did not subsist long enough to give them an opportunity of making the col- 
lection: the circumstance, however, has gained the name of Lac,/ai to the village, 
to this day. 
It remains now to be seen what the regulation purposes : it brings the lord or 
superior of the soil into contact with the cultivator, registering the property he 
possesses as a tenant or otherwise, defining and establishing the nature of his 
rights, and meets him on fair terms : his quota of lands are measured, valued 
and assessed, at a certain rate, by the collector ; and if he agrees to it, he receives 
his patti, and pays neither more or less : the profits and loss are his own, and 
> The preamble of Regulation I. of 1821, gives a description of the proceed- 
ings of these sort of people, which holds good to this day. I wouder what the preamble 
to the Regulation for admitting them to places of higher trust will say. 
