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Zamindars and Jotedars: a study of Rural Politics in Bengal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Rajat  and
Ratna Ray
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Extract

‘In England every piece of land is owned by someone—an individual, a public body, a company or perhaps by the crown. In India this is not so.’ Thus writes, in his unpublished reminiscences, a British ICS Officer who acquired experience of revenue work in the United Provinces and Bengal in the course of his career in India from 1915 to 1946.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1975 , pp. 81 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Johnston, Papers, Reminiscences in India 1915–1946 (typescript), p. 27. University of Cambridge, Centre of South Asian Studies.Google Scholar

2 Bell, Papers, File No. 2, 1940–1946, ‘Agriculture in India.’ University of Cambridge, Centre of South Asian Studies.Google Scholar

3 James, Grant, Analysis of the Finances of Bengal, pp. 267–269, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 7, Sess. 1812.Google Scholar

4 The best readily available description of this pyramidal revenue-collecting structure in print is SirShore's, John famous minute of 18 June 1789, printed in the appendix of the Fifth Report on the Afffairs of the East India Company, Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 7, Sess. 1812.Google Scholar

5 Francis, Buchanan (Hamilton), A Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of the District, a Zilla, of Dinajpur, in the Province, or Soubah, of Bengal (Baptist Mission Press 1883), pp. 236, 244.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 235.

7 Ibid., pp. 243–245.

8 Ibid., p. 236. Buchanan Hamilton Manuscript (India Office Library), Mss. Eur. D. 75, Account of Ronggopur, Vol. II, p. 103.

9 Colebrook, H. T., Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal (Calcutta 1804), p. 85;Google Scholar

Shore's minute of 18 June 1789, op. cit.Google Scholar

10 Cited in Westland, J., A Report on the District of Jessore, Its Antiquities, Its History and Its Commerce (Calcutta 1874), pp. 76–77.Google Scholar

11 Home Miscellaneous, Vol. 385, ‘Beerbhoom (including Bissenpore).’

12 Bengal Revenue Consultations, 25 February 1789, Collector Keating of Birbhum to the Board of Revenue, 13 February 1789.Google Scholar

13 Home Miscellaneous, Vol. 385, Rajshahi, letter from MrSpeke, , 23 May 1788.Google Scholar

14 It is not implied by this statement that a settlement with the jotedars in 1793 would have led to the desired improvements in agriculture. A massive investment in agriculture by the government certainly needed a rationalization of the revenue system by setting aside its various grades of revenue collectors, as was done by the Zamindari Abolition Acts after independence, but the subsequent dismal performance in agriculture shows that the causes of agricultural backwardness are more deep-rooted.Google Scholar

15 Home Miscellaneous, Vol. 530, pp. 493–500, ‘Rights Conferred on Zamindars by the Bengal Regulations (i.e., the Permanent Settlement), Cumming's Observations on a Memorandum from the India House.’Google Scholar

16 Bengal Village Biographies, Reprinted from the Calcutta Review, No. LXI (Calcutta 1858).Google Scholar

17 Richard Temple Collection (India Office Library), Mss. Eur. F. 86. 161, ‘The Condition of Peasantry Bengal 1875,’ Commissioner, Chittagong Division, to Private Secretary to the Lieutenant-Govenor of Bengal, 16 September 1875.Google Scholar

18 Bengal Revenue Proceedings, 7 March 1828, No. 27.Google Scholar

19 Bengal Village Biographies, op. cit., p. 21.Google Scholar

20 Report on the Statistics of Rungpore for the year 1872–1873 by Gopal, Chunder Dass, Special Deputy Collector (Calcutta 1874), p. 44.Google Scholar

21 Buchanan Hamilton Manuscript, Mss. Eur. D. 75, Account of Ronggopur, Vol. 11, p. 148.

22 Ibid., p. 149.

23 Ibid., p. 152.

24 Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of Mymensingh 1908–1919, by Sachse, F. A., pp. 69–78.Google Scholar

25 Patiladaha was transferred from Rangpur to Mymensingh in the nineteenth century.

26 Buchanan Hamilton Manuscript, Account of Ronggopur, op. cit., p. 158.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., pp. 162–165.

28 Bengal Revenue Proceedings, 21 August 1787, Late Collector of Ghoraghat to BR, 12 April 1787.Google Scholar

29 Buchanan Hamilton Manuscript, Account of Ronggopur, op. cit., pp. 162, 165.

30 The account which follows is based on Final Report on the Rangpur Survey and Settlement Operations 1931–1938, by ArthurCoulton, Hartley, pp. 56–58.Google Scholar

31 Bengal Revenue Proceedings, Land Revenue Branch, Survey and Settlement, July 1872, No. 210. The following account is based on this particular source.Google Scholar

32 Bengal Revenue Proceedings, Land Revenue Branch, Wards, etc., December 1876, Appendix A.Google Scholar

33 There were few rural outbreaks of disorder between 1800–1858, and such disorders, when they took place, occurred within small areas.Google Scholar

34 For an account, see two articles by Sengupta, Kalyan Kumar, ‘The Agrarian League of Pabna’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, June 1970, and ‘Agrarian Disturbances in Nineteenth Century Bengal’, IESHR, 06 1971;Google Scholar

see also, Binay, Bhushan Chaudhuri, Agrarian Economy and Agrarian Relations in Bengal 1859–1885, Oxford Ph.D. thesis 1968.Google Scholar

35 BRP, Land Revenue Branch, Miscellaneous, January 1874, Collection 14, Nos. 26–27.Google Scholar

36 BRP, Land Revenue Branch, January 1896, Nos. 9–11: Minute by the Lieutenant-Governor on the question of amending the Bengal Tenancy Act.Google Scholar

37 These figures have been calculated from the annual reports on wards’ and attached estates by Dr. Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri, who generously supplied the information to us.

38 Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of Dacca 1910–1917 by Ascoli, F. D..Google Scholar

39 Bengal Legislative Council Proceedings, 24 November 1921, speech of Ekramul Haq.Google Scholar

40 Ray, R. K., Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875–1925, manuscript thesis, pp. 515–517.Google Scholar