The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.73

v4.c22.73

The result of these tendencies was to produce the conditions which prevailed when, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the country which now forms the bulk of the United Provinces came under British jurisdiction, and was found to be parcelled out in what were then called *taluqas* (Arabic, *taʻalluqa*), or "dependencies", claimed by various titles, if that term can be applied in such a situation, but all resting on the basis of possession, maintained in the last resort by force. Each holder of a dependency claimed to collect the revenue from the peasants under his power, and each admitted liability to pay a portion of his receipts to any superior authority strong enough to insist on payment, the amount being a matter either for negotiation or for determination by the will of the stronger party. The peasants, on their side, recognised liability to pay revenue, ordinarily at the rate of one-half of the produce, and were prepared to pay it to whoever was in a position to take it. The actual sum to be paid by the peasants was usually fixed year by year by what may be called a process of bargaining. The holder of a dependency could enforce his views by the threat of detailed assessment: the peasants could rarely adopt an attitude of frank opposition, but in the circumstances of the time they could hope to mitigate the burden by concealing the facts of productivity, and would go a long way to avoid such detailed assessments as might bring these facts to light. There was no scope for any constructive policy of development, nor was it possible to look ahead. In some cases, the payments made by villages tended to be repeated until they became customary, but the settlement was still annual; the idea of an assessment fixed beforehand for a term of years was quite unfamiliar, and the arrangement was at first unpopular when it was introduced by British administrators.