Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:20:23.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Maratha Revenue Farming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

André Wink
André Wink
Affiliation:
Kern Institute, University of Leiden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In absolutist Europe the administrative device called ‘farming’ covered at most the collection of customs and a number of other indirect taxes. In contrast we find in India and in many Muslim states that, in addition to customs, indirect taxes, and a wide range of less important miscellaneous items, the land-revenue itself could be farmed as well. It is chiefly with that of the latter, as implemented by the Maratha government, that this article is concerned. We will attempt to show that a variety of forms of land-revenue farming prevailed not only under the much-discredited Baji Rao II, the last of the Peshwas, but was also of regular occurrence under comparatively paternalistic rulers like Madhav Rao I and Nana Fadnis, and in fact throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Secondly, it will be argued that revenue farming was either a characteristic response to crisis, or otherwise occurred only under frontier conditions.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , October 1983 , pp. 591 - 628
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The research for this article was done mainly in Poona and Bombay in 1981 with financial support of the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research. My thanks are due to Professor A. R. Kulkarni for sponsoring my stay in India, and to Professor J. C. Heesterman for useful suggestions on an earlier draft.

1 Bonney, R. J., ‘The Failure of the French Revenue Farms, 1600–60’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. XXXII (1979), 11–31;Google Scholar R. Ashton, ‘Revenue Farming under the Early Stuarts’, idem, 2nd ser. VIII (1956), 310–22.

2 For the Muslim régimes, see esp. Shaw, S. J., The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517–1798 (Princeton, 1962), pp. 5, 8, 14, 21–7, 31–5, 38–41 ffGoogle Scholar; Løkkegaard, F., Islamic Taxation in the Classic Period (Copenhagen, 1950), ch. IVGoogle Scholar; Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn (Leiden and London, 1971–1978)Google Scholar, s.v. iḳṭā and kharādj. To understand the importance of land-revenue farming it should be kept in mind that in the East generally the land-revenue made up a proportionately much larger share of the state-budget than in ancien régime Europe (Ardant, G., Histoire de l'impôt, 2 vols (Paris, 1971–1972);Google Scholaridem, ‘Financial Policy and Economic Infrastructure of Modern States and Nations’, in Tilly, Ch. (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton, 1975), pp. 164–242).Google Scholar

3 Much, if not all, of the discredit came from the British. Still, at one place, Elphinstone wrote that Baji Rao II was ‘scrupulously just in pecuniary transactions’ (Letter to the Governor-General of 1815, quoted in Thompson, E., The Making of the Indian Princes (London and Dublin, 1978), p. 201).Google Scholar From the Indian side, an attempt at the Peshwa's rehabilitation was made by Vaidya, S. G. in Peshwa Bajirao II and the Downfall of the Maratha Power (Nagpur, 1976).Google Scholar

4 ‘Account of the Revenue Management of the Peshwa's Territory during the Administration of Nana Furnaveese’ (Revenue Enclosure in W. Chaplin's Report, 20 August 1822), Selection of Papers from the Records at the East-India House Relating to the Revenue, Police, and Civil and Criminal Justice under the Company's Governments in India, 4 vols (London, 1820–1826), 4, p. 630 (henceforward cited as EIP).Google Scholar

5 Pottinger's, H. replies to queries, 31 July 1822, EIP, 4, p. 745.Google Scholar

6 Thus in territories shared with the Sidi of Janjira (Vad, G. C., Mawjee, P. V., and Parasnis, D. B. (eds), Treaties, Agreements, and Sanads (Bombay, 1914), p. 108)Google Scholar, in the territories of Broach shared by the Peshwa and Sindhia (Sardesai, G. S. (ed.), Historical Papers relating to Mahadji Sindia (Gwalior, 1937), no. 282)Google Scholar, and in the Mughal Deccan and Karnataka where the Marathas collected cauth (25% of the land-revenue) and sardeśmukhī (10 or 12½% of idem) (Malik, Z., ‘Documents relating to Chauth Collection in the Subah of Hyderabad, 1726–1748’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 32nd session (Jabalpur, 1970), vol. I, p. 340)Google Scholar; Duff, J. Grant, History of the Mahrattas, 2 vols (New Delhi, 1971), 1, p. 333).Google Scholar

7 E.g., imposts on hill-tribes were farmed out (Jervis, T. B., Geographical and Statistical Memoir of the Konkan (Calcutta, 1840), p. 113)Google Scholar, or the tribute collected from zamīndārs in the early stage of the conquest of Malwa (Gordon, S. N., ‘The Slow Conquest: Administrative Integration of Malwa into the Maratha Empire, 1720–1760’, Modern Asian Studies, 11, 1 (1977), p. 17).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 From Akbar to Aurangzeb (New Delhi, 1972), p. 236.Google Scholar As more or less articulate exceptions to this view we may mention: Singh, D., ‘Local and Land Revenue Administration of the State of Jaipur (c. 1750–1800)’ (Thesis submitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 1975)Google Scholar; Barnett, R. B., North India between Empires. Awadh, the Mughals, and the British, 1720–1801 (Berkeley, 1980); Shaw, Ottoman Egypt. The latter studies tend to confirm much of what is proposed in this article.Google Scholar

9 Parasnis, D. B. (ed.), Itihāsasamgraha, vol. 6, nos 10, 11, 12 (May, June, July 1915), ‘Aitihāsik sphut lekh’, p. 97.Google Scholar The spread of revenue farming during the minority of Madhav Rao I is also noted in Bombay Archives: Revenue Department, vol. 59/746 of 1836, p. 195Google Scholar (henceforward B.A.:R.D.).

10 The terms occur passim in the Marathi documentation. Short general discussions of their application can be found in Moreland, Akbar to Aurangzeb, p. 235Google Scholar; idem, India at the Death of Akbar (London, 1920), pp. 31–3Google Scholar; J. Khaur Dhot, ‘The Pattern of Taxation and Economy of North Gujarat in the Second Half of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century: A Case Study of the Pargana of Nadiad’ (unpublished paper submitted to a seminar on the 16th–2Oth century history of Gujarat and Maharashtra held at the M.S. University of Baroda, 19–21 March 1982).

11 Thompson, , Indian Princes, p. 47Google Scholar; B.A.:R.D., vol. 11/698 of 1836, p. 87;Google ScholarVaidya, , Bajirao II, pp. 179–80Google Scholar; Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, vols. I–XXIII (Bombay, 1879–1896), XVIII, pt II, p. 339 (henceforward BG).Google Scholar

12 B.A.:R.D., loc. cit. This is also acknowledged in Duff, Grant, History, 2, p. 337.Google Scholar

13 Aitihāsik patren yādī vagaire, 2nd edn by Sardesai, G. S., Kale, Y. M., and Vakaskar, V. S. (Poona, 1930), p. 468Google Scholar; ‘Substance of a Mahratta Proclamation issued on the 11th February 1818 by the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone, sole Commissioner for the settlement of the territories conquered from the Paishwa’, Sarkar, J., Sardesai, G. S. et al. (eds), Poona Residency Correspondence, 13 vols (Bombay, 1936–1958), 13, p. 299 (henceforward PRG).Google Scholar

14 Cf. Governor-General to H.H. the Peshwa, 20 January 1816, PRC, 13, p. 17: ‘Under the influence of this alliance with the British government the prosperity of your country has increased …’; ‘Substance of a Mahratta Proclamation’, p. 300: ‘Since then in spite of the farming system and the exactions of Bajee Row's officers, the country has completely recovered through the protection afforded it by the British Government …’; BG, XVIII, pt II, p. 341: ‘In spite of the exactions of the farmers which reduced almost all the landholders of the district to one level, so great was the advantage of the security ensured by the British protectorate that in the thirteen years before the overthrow of the Peshwa in 1817 the district [i.e. Poona] increased greatly in wealth’.

15 T. Munro to Governor-General, 12 August 1817, quoted in Thompson, , Indian Princes, p. 23.Google Scholar

16 The Encyclopaedia of Islam (new edn.) defines idjāra as ‘the contract by which one person makes over to someone else the enjoyment, by personal right, of a thing or of an activity, in return for payment’. It adds that the period of the idjāra has to be stated, but that no limit is necessarily fixed. In the context of farming, we should not interpret such a ‘contract’ in the exclusive sense of continental legal theory, which postulates ‘sovereignty’ as the indivisible attribute of the modern state, and hence regards the acts of its functionaries as the exercise of ‘public duties’—and not as obligations deriving from a contract. It should be viewed here rather as ‘shared sovereignty’.

17 Sardesai, Historical Papers, no. 282; idem (ed.), Selections from the Peshwa Daftar, 45 vols (Bombay, 1930–1934), 10, p. 49 (henceforward SPD);Google ScholarBendre, V. S. (ed.), Mahārāstre-itihāsācī sādhanen, vol. I (Bombay, 1967), p. 57Google Scholar; Śivcaritra sāhitya, 13 vols (Poona, 1926–1965), 3, no. 465 (henceforward SCS).Google Scholar

18 Vad, R. B. G. C., Parasnis, D. B. et al. (eds), Selections from the Satara Rajas' and the Peishwas’ Diaries, 9 vols (Poona and Bombay, 1905–1911), 3, no. 405 (henceforward SSRPD).Google Scholar

19 Author, , ‘The Settlement of the Deccan, c. 1600–1680’, BISM-Quarterly, vol. 60 (1981), nos. 1–4, 47–65.Google Scholar

20 Marshall, T., Statistical Reports on the Pergunnahs of Padshapoor, Belgam, Kalaniddee and Chandgurh, Khanapoor, Bagulkot and Badamy, and Hoondgoond, in the Southern Maratha Country, etc. (Bombay, 1822), pp. 25–6, 159Google Scholar; Wingate, G., ‘Reports on the revenue survey settlements of the Hoobullee, Nuwulgoond, Kode, and Dharwar Talookas of the Dharwar collectorate’, Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, no. 12 (Bombay, 1853), p. 5 (henceforward BGS).Google Scholar

21 Graham, D. C., ‘Statistical report on the principality of Kolhapoor’, BGS, n.s. no. 8 (Bombay, 1854), p. 65; Marshall, Statistical Reports.Google Scholar

22 Briggs', J. replies to queries, n.d., EIP, 4, p. 695.Google Scholar

23 BG, XIX, p. 324Google Scholar; Chaplin's report to the Secretary to Government, 10 October 1821, EIP, 4, p. 468Google Scholar; J. Grant to the Commissioner in the Deccan, 17 June 1822 (Revenue Enclosure in Chaplin's Report, 20 August 1822), ibid., pp. 651–2.

24 Candy, E. T., ‘Selections, with notes, from the Records of Government, regarding the Khoti tenure’, BGS, n.s. no. 134 (Bombay, 1873), p. 19.Google Scholar

25 To give out a village in maktā, as in SSRPD, 3, no. 412, ‘from the year … onwards’, is very exceptional. Almost always a maktā will be qualified as eksālā (one-year), dosālā (two-year), tīsālā (three-year), causālā (four-year), etc.

26 Moreland, , Akbar to Aurangzeb, p. 250Google Scholar; idem, The Agrarian System of Moslem India (New Delhi, 1968), p. 9Google Scholar; Habib, I., The Agrarian System of Mughal India (Bombay, 1963), pp. 232, 234.Google Scholar

27 Author, , ‘Settlement of the Deccan’.Google Scholar

28 For an example, see Rajvade, V. K., Marāthyāncyā itihāsācīn sādhanen, vol. 22 (Bombay, 1917), no. 21 (of 1792): ‘ ‥ mauze āland p. zāfarābād yā gānvcī pātilkī dārkojī nāīk yāncī āhe tethīl ijārā ānkhā pr. tharāūn ā bādī jhālī…’.Google Scholar

29 Jenkins, R., Report on the Territories of the Raja of Nagpur (1827) (Nagpur, 1923), p. 95.Google Scholar

30 Siddiqi, N. A., Land Revenue Administration under the Mughals (1700–1750) (Bombay, 1970), pp. 43, 95Google Scholar; Habib, , Agrarian System, p. 235Google Scholar; Moreland, , Agrarian System, p. 112;Google Scholaridem, Death of Akbar, pp. 31, 33.

31 Moreland, , Akbar to Aurangzeb, pp. 239, 243, 245Google Scholar; idem, Agrarian System, p. 187Google Scholar; Grant to the Commissioner in the Deccan, EIP, 4, p. 667.Google Scholar

32 Moreland, , Death of Akbar, pp. 31–3.Google Scholar

33 Author, , ‘Settlement of the Deccan’.Google Scholar

34 BISM-Quarlerly, vol. 28 (1948), no. 3–4, p. 1.Google Scholar

35 Only later, in the eighteenth century, whole parganas are sometimes given out on the khotī tenure (SSRPD, 3, no. 408).

36 Their continued existence into the eighteenth century testifies to this, but it is also made explicit in the documents (BISM-Quarterly, vol. 21 (1940), no. 1 (SCS, 5), pp. 179–80Google Scholar; Oak, B. P., Oak gharānyācā itihās (Poona, 1973), pp. 251–3).Google Scholar

37 Jervis, , Konkan, p. 66.Google Scholar

38 Author, , ‘Settlement of the Deccan’.Google Scholar

39 SCS, 4, no. 751.

40 Hervadkar, R. V. (ed.), Saptaprakaranātmak caritra (Poona, 1967), p. 30.Google Scholar

41 Vakaskar, V. S. (ed.), Krsnājī anant sabhāsadācī bakhar chatrapati śri śivprabhūcen caritra (Poona, 1973), p. 30.Google Scholar

42 Ibid.

43 See on this also Gordon, , ‘Slow Conquest’, pp. 16, 17Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, History, 1, pp. 66, 70.Google Scholar

44 Jervis, , Konkan, p. 108Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, History, 1, pp. 174–5Google Scholar; SCS, 3, no. 422; Ranade, M. G., Rise of the Maratha Power (Bombay, 1900), p. 176.Google Scholar

45 Cf. Duff, Grant, History, 1, pp. 233–4.Google Scholar

46 This appears to have been the case, for instance, with the desāīs in Surat (BG, II, p. 214).

47 See the statement by Marriott, 14 August 1820, quoted in BG, XIII, pt II, p. 555; BG, XVIII, pt II, pp. 340–1; and section VIII.

48 The tribute included about 10% darbārkharc or antastha, i.e. ‘secret payments’ (cf. section IX). Numerous examples in SSRPD, 9, pp. 245–92.

49 Moreland, , Agrarian System, p. 10;Google Scholaridem, Akbar to Aurangzeb, p. 236.

50 Choksey, R. D. (ed.), Ratnagiri Collectorale (1821–1829) [Select Documents from the Ratnagiri Collector's Files (Peshwa Daftar)] (Poona, 1958), p. 139.Google Scholar

51 Malcolm, J., A Memoir of Central India, 2 vols (London, 1823), 2, p. 60.Google Scholar

52 Gordon, , ‘Slow Conquest’, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

53 Ibid.

54 The word mavās most likely derives from the Arabic ma'āsī, ‘acts of disobedience’ (F. Steingass, Persian-English Dictionary).

55 SSRPD, 9, nos 272, 277.

56 Malcolm, , Central India, 2, p. 60Google Scholar; Gordon, , ‘Slow Conquest’, p. 17.Google Scholar

57 SSRPD, 9, nos 294, 299.

58 Elphinstone to the Earl of Moira, 5 November 1813, PRC, 12, p. 301.

59 Sarkar, J., The History of Bengal, Muslim Period 1200–1757 (Patna, 1973), p. 409Google Scholar; Siddiqi, , Lund Revenue Administration, pp. 98–9.Google Scholar

60 The khālsā is that part of the revenue, defined in terms of amals (shares, fractions) in specific territorial units (such as villages or districts), which is collected directly by the government, or, to put it negatively, which is not alienated permanently as inām or assigned temporarily as saranjām. The khālsā may, however, be differently defined on different levels of administration. Shares of the revenue of a village may be registered as dumālā (alienated or assigned) in a prānt ajmās or ‘district estimate’, while they are referred to as khālsā in the zamīnjhādā or ‘land register’ of the village. In the first case the distinction serves to differentiate dumālā villages from khālsā villages within the district, in the second case it serves to differentiate village inām lands from lands which pay revenue, whether this be to the government or to a dumāldār.

61 More rarely: vahivātdārs.

62 They had specific names, like svarājya (a varying proportion), monglāī (the complement of svarājya), cauth (25%) and sardeśmukhī (10 or 12 1/2%), with further subdivisions of the cauth, called rājbābtī (25%), sāhotrā (6%), and nādgaundā (3%), the latter two comprised in the mokāsā (75% of the cauth), but only the last of the two in the ainmokāsā (69% of the cauth). These terms were often of mere nominal value.

63 In the territories under the direct control of the Peshwa, from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, we also sometimes find a sarsubhedār interposed, who was in some cases authorized to appoint māmlatdārs and kamāvīsdārs independently of the huzūr.

64 SSRPD, 3, nos. 431 ff.; idem, 7, nos. 441 ff.

65 ‘mendharāce vanacarāīcī māmlat (SSRPD, 6, no. 803).

66 Some confusion has arisen about the meaning of this term from the fact that the rasad could be the whole of the anticipated revenue.

67 SSRPD, 7, no. 441.

68 Similar implications seem to have ibid., nos 443, 5, and SSRPD, 3, nos 340, 431.

69 EIP, 4, p. 624.Google Scholar

70 SSRPD, 3, nos 407, 409, 420. According to Gordon, in Malwa, in the period 1740–60, the Peshwa's kamāvīsdārs received 4% of the rasad, which varied from 1/3 to 1/2, and was as low as 1/10 in the early period of administration (‘Slow Conquest”, pp. 22, 32).

71 SSRPD, 3, no. 407; and nearly identical formulas in ibid., 409, 420.

72 ibid., no. 431.

73 Pottinger's, replies to queries, EIP, 4, p. 745.Google Scholar

74 SSRPD, 7, no. 445; Sen, S. N., Administrative System of the Marathas (Calcutta, 1976), p. 158.Google Scholar

75 SSRPD, 3, nos 407, 409, 431. Gordon, (‘Slow Conquest’, p. 34) shows that in Malwa interest-rates on rasad loans became lower when the districts became more settled, dropping from 2% per month to less than 1%. In Gujarat there was a special bonus stipulated by the moneylender above the current interest, called manotī. R. Kumar Hans, ‘The Manotidari System in the Agrarian Economy of Eighteenth Century Gujarat’ (paper read at the 43rd session of the Indian History Congress, Bodh Gaya, 1981).Google Scholar

76 SSRPD, 3, nos 407, 9; Duff, Grant, History, 1, p. 455.Google Scholar

77 Malcolm, , Central India, 2, p. 50.Google Scholar

78 Gordon, , ‘Slow Conquest’, p. 22.Google Scholar

79 When the revenue was already generally farmed (Jenkins, , Nagpur, p. 96).Google Scholar

80 BG, XIII, pt II, pp. 560–1.Google Scholar

81 Poona Archives: List no. 11, Nasik Records, vol. I, no. 161 of 1850, ff. (henceforward P.A.).

82 SSRPD, 3, no. 447.

83 Ibid., nos 410, 414, 425, 427, 430.

84 Examples: ibid., nos 431ff.; 7, no. 456.

85 Gordon, , ‘Slow Conquest’, p. 33.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., pp. 30, 31.

87 SSRPD, 7, nos 416, 7.

88 Ibid., 1, no. 279; 7, no. 416; 8, nos 1155ff.

89 Ibid., 3, no. 411; 7, no. 473.

90 Ibid., 3, no. 340.

91 Ibid., no. 431.

92 For further examples, see ibid., 7, nos 416, 417.

93 Ibid., 6, no. 777; 7, nos 436, 438, 441, 442, 443, 456, 471, 475 ff.

94 Elphinstone's report to the Governor-General, 25 October 1819, EIP, 4, p. 164;Google ScholarBreloer, B., Kautalīya Studien (Osnabrück, 1973), pp. 33–5.Google Scholar

95 Elphinstone's report, loc. cit.; Breloer, loc. cit. (see previous note).

96 So called because their payment included, in addition to the salary or small assignment from the huzūr, a darak or ‘fee’ from the villages under their charge (‘Account Nana Fadnis’, EIP, 4, p. 625).Google Scholar

97 Either in ijárá or khotī (SSRPD, 3, nos 423, 426).

98 Ibid., 8, no. 821.

99 Elphinstone to Chief Secretary Edmonstone, 26 October 1811, PRC, 12, p. 81; Malcolm, , Central India, 1, p. 538.Google Scholar

100 PRC, 12, p. 87.Google Scholar

101 E.g., SSRPD, 9, no. 190.

102 Nor did the mokāsadār of the time of Shahu.

103 Cf. Habib, , Agrarian System, p. 284Google Scholar; Grover, B. R., ‘Nature of Land-Rights in Mughal India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. I, no. 1 (July–September 1963), pp. 9–10Google Scholar; Chandra, S., Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court, 1707–1740 (New Delhi, 1972), p. xlix.Google Scholar

104 BISM-Quarterly, vol. 56 (1976), nos 1–4, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

105 Litt. ‘their pāndhrī (residential area) and kālīcā thikānā (black soil) are not shown in the records’.

106 “…parganiyānt konī mavās nāhī zamīdārhī konī mātbar nāhī sarkārce tarfene jo rāhīl tyānec tartūd lāvnīcī karāve gānv ijārā dyāve kāhī gānv rayetīcī niśā karūn kaul karār deūn lāvāve …’.

107 Khare, V. V., Aitihāsik lekh samgraha, vol. 13 (Miraj, 1926), p. 6901Google Scholar; Vaidya, , Bajirao II, p. 97.Google Scholar

108 Malcolm, , Central India, 1, p. 50.Google Scholar For Nagpur, see Jenkins, , Nagpur, p. 80Google Scholar: ‘The principal bankers of the city had not only a place in the Darbar according to their wealth and consequence, but frequently a voice in deliberations on State affairs’. Under the Gaikwar of Baroda also some bankers seem to have become very influential (Duff, Grant, History, 2, p. 261).Google Scholar Such evidence from the northern Maratha states corroborates K. Leonard's argument about the ‘strategic’ position of financial and merchant groups in eighteenth-century India in general, a position which she also links to the spread of revenue farming (‘The “Great Firm” Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 21 (1979), pp. 154, 158–9, 161, 165).Google Scholar On the role of bankers in revenue farming, see also C. A. Bayly, ‘Putting Together the Eighteenth Century in India; Trade, Money and the “Pre-Colonial” Political Order’ [Paper presented to the Second Anglo-Dutch Conference on Comparative Colonial History, 23–25 September 1981, Leiden], esp. p. 6.

109 Malcolm, , Central India, 1, p. 50.Google Scholar

110 Ibid., pp. 31, 38.

111 Ibid., p. 31.

112 The rayats discharged their rent to the mahālkarīs, sometimes in ready money, sometimes by means of an havālā or assignment upon bankers. The mahālkarīs made similar transfers to the māmlatdārs, who took hundīs from the district's sāhukārs upon the sāhukārs in Poona, from whom the amount was recovered or by whom it was paid to the huzūr at Poona. Occasionally varats were granted to individuals for advances made by them at Poona, and then the amount was collected from those on whom the varat was drawn (B.A.: BGS, no. 160, MS, 1828–31, p. 776). The Prant Ajmas documents in the Peshwa Daftar show that it was very exceptional to collect the revenue in kind. In so far as it was, it was subsumed under ain jinas.

113 In the Peshwa's territories in the Deccan, the sāhukārs are sometimes credited with very small fractions (of a few thousand or hundred rupees) of the revenue of some parganas. Bankers and, more frequently, moneylenders were, however, not uncommonly put in the possession of gānv nisbat inām (cf. p. 624) by the patils, for loans they had made to the village. If the bankers were important government-lenders, such ināms might receive the sanction of the government later. Gadgil, D. R., in Origins of the Modern Indian Business Class, An Interim Report (New York, 1959), p. 31Google Scholar, and more recently Divekar, V. D., in ‘The Emergence of An Indigenous Business Class in Maharashtra in the Eighteenth Century’, Modern Asian Studies 16, 3 (1982), 427–43, argued for a limited role of bankers and traders in policy-making in eighteenth-century Maharashtra. Both these authors fail to account for the very different situation under the Maratha sardārs in Central India, Nagpur, etc. And it may still be argued that the role of bankers is merely less apparent in Poona.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

114 Gordon, , ‘Slow Conquest’, p. 23.Google Scholar

115 SSRPD, 6, no. 774.

116 Ibid., 7, no. 436.

117 ‘jamābandī, nakt bāb, ain jinasī, jirāīt bāgāīt pāhanī, agar makte’ (ibid., no. 451).

118 Op. cit., p. 630.Google Scholar

119 See the scheme in section X.

120 B.A.: R.D., vol. 16/16 of 1821, p. 519; BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 5; Jervis, , Konkan, p. 75Google Scholar; BISM-Vārsik itivrtt śake 1835, p. 320.Google Scholar

121 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 13Google Scholar; Choksey, , Ratnagiri, p. 138Google Scholar; BG, I, pt II, p. 33Google Scholar; BG, X, p. 213; SCS, 9, no. 24.Google Scholar

122 There are but traces of khotī tenures elsewhere, and mostly in seventeenth-century documents. These speak of khots, khot ijāradārs, or khot pātīls in the Deccan. Khots appear to have been fairly common in the Mavals until they were suppressed by the farmers of Baji Rao II (Chaplin's Report, 20 August 1822, EIP, 4, p. 468).Google Scholar There were also khots under the Delhi Sultans, who imported the term from beyond the Vindhyas, but may have transformed the institution (Tripathi, R. P., Some Aspects of Muslim Administration (Allahabad, 1966), p. 256, note 193).Google Scholar

123 Choksey, , Ratnagiri, p. 139Google Scholar; BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 13.Google Scholar

124 A number of brahmans also acquired such rights by grant (BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 1Google Scholar; B.A.: R.D., vol. 16/16 of 1821, p. 518).Google Scholar

125 SSRPD, 3, no. 408. (Compare with this SCS, 9, no. 81 of A.D. 1699.)

126 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 5.Google Scholar

127 BG, X, p. 206, note 1.

128 BG, XIII, pt II, p. 557.Google Scholar

129 When attempts were being made to introduce mīrās tenure in the northern Konkan (BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 19).Google Scholar

130 Ibid.

131 Ibid., p. 20.

132 In anticipation of the reappearance of the vatandār khot, the village could be given out to temporary khots. It was then expressly ordered that it was to be held only up to that time (BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 3).Google Scholar

133 Ibid., p. 2.

134 SSRPD, 8, no. 450.

135 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 3.Google Scholar

136 B.A.: R.D., vol. 12/64 of 1823, p. 248Google Scholar; Jervis, , Konkan, p. 63.Google Scholar

137 B.A.: R.D., loc. cit.

138 BGS n.s. no 134, p. 2.Google Scholar

139 BG, XI, p. 160; idem, X, pp. 202–3.

140 B.A.: R.D., vol. 16/16 of 1821, p. 321.Google Scholar

141 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 3.Google Scholar

142 Ibid., pp. 2, 3. They were, probably, resumed on the grounds that any vatan could be resumed, such as rebellion, oppression (cf. p. 618), or disputes.

143 Ibid., p. 2.

144 SSRPD, 7, no. 450.

145 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 3.Google Scholar

146 It was a general problem, but only when long-term investments needed to be made, which itself was far from general, or perhaps often optional.

147 SSRPD, loc. cit.

148 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 55Google Scholar; B.A.:R.D., vol. 5/211 of 1828, p. 182.Google Scholar

149 The dhārekarīs were exempted from all forced labour.

150 BG, X, p. 222.Google Scholar

151 B.A.: R.D., vol. 16/16 of 1821, p. 318. There were, however, the pāndarpeśas, who can to some extent be compared with them.Google Scholar

152 Ibid., vol. 5/211 of 1828, pp. 176–8.

153 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 34.Google Scholar

154 B.A.: R.D., vol. 16/16 of 1821, p. 319.Google Scholar

155 Ibid., p. 518. The khots were also entitled to some trifling perquisites in kind from the rayats.

156 BGS, ns. no. 134, p. 12.Google Scholar

157 Elphinstone's report, EIP, 4, p. 165.Google Scholar

158 Central India, 1, p. 34.Google Scholar

159 BGS, n.s. no. 134, p. 11.Google Scholar

160 Ibid., pp. 3–4; SSRPD, 3, no. 422.

161 It could also be made dhārekarī on such occasions (BGS, n.s. no. 134, pp. 3, 4; SSRPD, 7, no. 454).

162 SSRPD, 3, no. 405; and see again section II.

163 SSRPD, 3, nos. 415, 419, 429.

164 SSRPD, 6, no. 782.

165 B.A.: R.D., vol. 59/746 of 1836, p. 217.Google Scholar

166 Ibid., pp. 195, 216, 217; vol. 16/16 of 1821, p. 518.

167 Ibid., vol. 59/746 of 1836, p. 217.

168 Jenkins, , Nagpur, p. 96.Google Scholar

169 BG, II, pp. 213–15; Kumar Hans, ‘Manotidari System’.Google Scholar

170 BG, XIII, pt II, p. 555.Google Scholar

171 Historical Selections from Baroda State Records, vol. V (Baroda, 1939), p. 706.Google Scholar On the mulūkhgirī of Kathiawad, see Copland, I., The British Raj and the Indian Princes, Paramountcy in Western India, 1857–1930 (Bombay, 1982), pp. 16, 18.Google Scholar

172 Elphinstone to the Earl of Moira, 15 November 1813, PRC, 12, p. 301.Google Scholar

173 In spite of their opposition to farming in general, the British considered the renewal of this farm expedient for the ‘consolidation of authority and the exclusion of rival interference’ which they thought essential to keep order among the numerous mavāśīs in this part of Gujarat (A. Walker to J. Duncan, 2 October 1808, in Gense, J. H. and Banaji, D. R. (eds), The Gaikwads of Baroda, vol. IX (Baroda, n.d.), p. 156).Google Scholar The renewal of the farm would, moreover, have facilitated the severance of the relations between the Gaikwar and the Peshwa, another implicit aim of the British, which is emphasized by Vaidya, , Bajirao II, p. 228.Google Scholar The Peshwa, as we saw, wanted to protect his own authority by the resumption of the farm (cf. p. 603).

174 Gense, and Banaji, , Gaikwads, vol. IX, p. 1.Google Scholar

175 Close's report of his conversation with the Peshwa's minister, 31 October 1813, ibid., pp. 2–3.

176 Gense, and Banaji, , Gaikwads, vol. VII (Baroda, n.d.), pp. 117, 118.Google Scholar

177 Duff, Grant, History, 2, pp. 354–5Google Scholar; BG, XIX, p. 337Google Scholar; XVII, p. 430; Pottinger's replies to queries, EIP, 4, pp. 745–51.Google Scholar Torture was also applied to defaulting maktedārs (Grant to Deccan Commissioner, EIP, 4, p. 659).Google Scholar

178 EIP, 4, p. 745Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, History, 1, p. 454.Google Scholar

179 Duff, Grant, History, 1, p. 454Google Scholar; Elphinstone's report, EIP, 4, p. 166.Google Scholar

180 BG, XVIII, pt II, p. 339.Google Scholar

181 The eighteenth-century farms we examined were generally held by the same person for 3–5 years, sometimes shorter or a few years longer. They might have been renewed, but it does not seem very likely that this occurred on a wide scale. Annual leases were already given under Nana Fadnis in the districts on the Nizam's frontier. The non-hereditary khotīs in the Konkan were also farmed out annually or for a short term of years. In Malwa and Central India short-lease farms with often annual changes coexisted for a long time with farms of unusually long leases, sometimes remaining for 70 years in the same family, with under-renters with leases of 30, 40, or 50 years (Malcolm, , Central India, 1, p. 532, and 2, pp. 38, 40, 41, 51).Google Scholar The longer duration and hereditary transmittance of the assignments in the second half of the eighteenth century is demonstrated by innumerable cases everywhere.

182 BG, XIX, p. 337Google Scholar; XVI, p. 210; XVII, p. 430; EIP, 4, p. 746Google Scholar; Briggs’ replies to queries, EIP, 4, p. 697.Google Scholar In the Konkan the length of tenure commonly remained 4 or 5 years under Baji Rao II (Jervis, , Konkan, pp. 120, 121, 124Google Scholar; BG, XIII, pt II, p. 559).Google Scholar

183 EIP, 4, p. 747.Google Scholar

184 Ibid., p. 769; B.A.: R.D., vol. 13/700 of 1836, p. 156.

185 BG, VII, p. 365.Google Scholar

186 Elphinstone's report, EIP, 4, p. 166.Google Scholar

187 See section IX.

188 Elphinstone's report, ibid.; Extract Bombay Revenue Consultations, 15 July 1818, EIP, 3, p. 768.Google Scholar

189 BG, XIII, pt II, pp. 560, 588Google Scholar; B.A.: R.D., vol. 13/700 of 1836, pp. 199–207.Google Scholar

190 B.A.: R.D., op. cit., p. 149; ‘Papers relating to revised rates of assessment for thirteen different Talookas of the Tanna Collectoratc’, BGS, n.s. no. 96 (Bombay, 1866), p. 3. There was a bias in the old rates in favour of the pāndharpeśas, which was continued by the farmers (cf. p. 619).Google Scholar

191 Jervis, , Konkan, p. 124.Google Scholar

192 Marshall, , Statistical Reports, p. 179Google Scholar; Elphinstone's report, EIP, 4, p. 167Google Scholar; BGS, no. 12, p. 7Google Scholar; B.A.: R.D., vol. 5/549 of 1834, p. 86.Google Scholar

193 Elphinstone's report, EIP, 4, pp. 161, 166Google Scholar; P.A.: Prant Ajmas for the years 1804–18.

194 Cf. note 14; BG, XIII, pt II, pp. 340, 341, 556.Google Scholar This seems to have had a parallel in the policy followed by Sindhia (Anderson, J. to Governor-General, 13 November 1786, PRC, 1, p. 88).Google Scholar

195 BG, X, p. 218.Google Scholar

196 The privileged position of the pāndharpeśas (non-cultivators, mostly brahmans) antedated the Peshwa regime. It was founded on their being the original reclaimers of the land (B.A.: R.D., vol. 50/203 of 1827, p. 270).Google Scholar

197 Ibid.

198 Jervis, , Konkan, p. 126.Google Scholar

199 Here they also participated in the task of agrarian resettlement (BG, XXIII, p. 448).Google Scholar

200 BG, XVI, p. 210.Google Scholar

201 Chaplin's replies to judicial queries, 25 June 1819, EIP, 4, p. 269.Google Scholar In the Karnataka a large number of cultivators fled to Mysore (Thackeray's, J. replies to queries, n.d., EIP, 4, p. 798Google Scholar; BGS, no. 12, p. 51Google Scholar; B.A.: R.D., vol. 5/549 of 1834, p. 86).Google Scholar

202 BG, XII, p. 272.Google Scholar

203 Gleig, G. R., The Life of Sir Thomas Munro, vol. II (London, 1830), p. 278.Google Scholar

204 BGS, no. 12, p. 51.Google Scholar A situation which is perhaps broadly similar to the one in Awadh in the first half of the nineteenth century, as described in Fox, R. G., Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule, Stale–Hinterland Relations in Pre-industrial India (Bombay, 1971), p. 109.Google Scholar

205 BG, XVI, p. 210; VII, p. 365.Google Scholar

206 Malcolm, , Central India, 2, p. 31.Google Scholar

207 Grant to Deccan Commissioner, EIP, 4, p. 672.Google Scholar

208 Baden-Powell, B. H., ‘A study of the Dahkan Villages’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (04 1897), p. 253Google Scholar; Stokes, E., The Peasant and the Raj (Cambridge, 1980), p. 53.Google Scholar

209 Marshall, , Statistical Reports, p. 174.Google Scholar

210 Ibid., pp. 136, 166.

211 P.A.: List no. 11, General Volumes, vol. 13, no. 92 of 1855. When alienations made by farmers were nevertheless considered legitimate by the huzūr, this was because they were made by the farmer in a different capacity, which authorized him to do so. For instance, alienations made by the Gaikwar in his Ahmadabad farm were valid, as he was also considered to be the sarsubhedār of the district for the period that he held it in farm (cf. List of officers who under the former Governments had power to confer Grants exempting Lands wholly or partially from the Payment of Public Revenue, App. C to Regulation I of 1823, EIP, 3, p. 827).Google Scholar

212 P.A.: List no. 11, Nasik Records, vol. 1, no. 1100 of 1861.

213 Ibid., no. 117 d.d. 2 April 1850; SSRPD, 5, no. 193.

214 P.A., op. cit., no. 161 of 1850.

215 Ibid., no. 1100 of 1861. In Baji Rao II's case these were written in his own hand, on gold- and silver-decorated paper (Peśve Rozkird, rumals 238–47). See on such private accounts also Malcolm, , Central India, 2, p. 28Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, History, I, p. 457.Google Scholar In the accounts of Angria's Colaba estate all revenue proceeds were subsumed in one general savsthān tāḷeband, but private income from vatans and ināms were separately accounted for (P.A.: List no. 13, rumal no. 54, file no. 723, no. 564 of 1864).

216 In: Gense, and Banaji, , Gaikwads, VII, p. 117.Google Scholar

217 Elphinstone's report, EIP, 4, p. 164Google Scholar; Maharashtra State Gazetteer, History, pt III (Bombay, 1967), p. 9Google Scholar; Duff, Grant, History, 1, p. 454.Google Scholar This fund also enabled the darakdārs to attend at the huzūr, and meet the expenses of complimentary presents (Jervis, , Konkan, p. 119Google Scholar; ‘Account Nana Fadnis’, EIP, 4, pp. 625, 628).Google Scholar

218 See P.A.: Prant Ajmas passim; Breloer, , Kautalīya Studien, pp. 47ff.Google Scholar

219 BG, XIX, p. 337.Google Scholar

220 B.A.: R.D., vol. 59/746 of 1836, pp. 216–17Google Scholar; BGS, no. 160, MS, 1828–31, p. 772.Google Scholar

221 After the conquest of the Peshwa's territories, in 1818, Elphinstone ordered his subordinate Collectors—Robertson in Poona, Briggs in Khandesh, Pottinger in Ahmadnagar—and his Political Agent at Satara, Grant Duff, to ‘keep up’ the Maratha revenue arrangements but ‘to abolish farming at once”, and instead make the collections directly from the patils (M. E. to H. D. Robertson, 26 February 1818, in Choksey, R. D., ed., The Last Phase (Bombay, 1948), no. 79Google Scholar; M. E. to J. Briggs, 10 March 1818, Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, vol. 301, 31 August 1818, pt I, no. 89; M. E. to H. Pottinger, 2 April 1818, ibid., pt II, no. 105; M. E. to J. Grant, 24 April 1818, ibid., no. 131). Earlier, in the eighteenth century, the British had still continued the farming of the land-revenue, when they took possession of Salsette and Karanja; this lasted from 1774 up to 1788 (BG, XIII, pt II, p. 562).Google Scholar In the nineteenth century, in British territory only customs were farmed, but in the Maratha (and other) Princely States the land-revenue continued to be put up to auction. The khotī tenures were, if not resumed, always treated as hereditary (cf. p. 615).

222 See on this problem Van Leur, J. C., Indonesian Trade and Society (The Hague and Bandung, 1955), p. 287Google Scholar; Wertheim, W. F., ‘Sociological Aspects of Corruption in Southeast Asia’, in Bendix, R. et al. , State and Society (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London), p. 562.Google Scholar