Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s9.t2: The Case of Āmli

Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s9.t2

Language: English

The Case of Āmli

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The Case of Āmli.—One more anecdote may suffice. The lands and fortress of Amli had been in the family of Amet since the year 27, only five years posterior to the date to which these arrangements extended; their possession verged on half a century. The lords of Amet were of the Sixteen, and were chiefs of the clan Jagawat. The present representative enjoyed a fair character: he could, with the chief of Badnor, claim the succession of the loyal; for Partap and Jaimall, their respective ancestors, were rivals and martyrs on that memorable day when the genius of Chitor abandoned the Sesodias. But the heir of Amet had not this alone [493] to support his claims; for his predecessor Partap had lost his life in defending his country against the Mahrattas, and Amli had been his acquisition. Fateh Singh (such was his name) was put forward by the more artful of his immediate kin, the Chondawat interest; but his disposition, blunt and impetuous, was little calculated to promote their views: he was an honest Rajput, who neither could nor cared to conceal his anger, and at a ceremonious visit paid him by the Agent, he had hardly sufficient control over himself to be courteous, and though he said nothing, his eyes, inflamed with opium and disdain, spoke his feelings. He maintained a dogged indifference, and was inaccessible to argument, till at length, following the example of Badnor, he was induced to abide by the Agent's mediation. He came attended by his vassals, who anxiously awaited the result, which an unpremeditated incident facilitated. After a long and fruitless expostulation, he had taken refuge in an obstinate silence; and seated in a chair opposite to the envoy, with his shield in front, placed perpendicularly on his knees, and his arms and head reclined thereon, he continued vacantly looking on the ground. To interrupt this uncourteous silence in his own house, the envoy took a picture, which with several others was at hand, and placing it before him, remarked, “ That chief did not gain his reputation for *swamidharma* ¹ (loyalty) by conduct such as yours.” His eyes suddenly recovered their animation and his countenance was lighted with a smile, as he rapidly uttered, “ How did you come by this—why does this interest you ? ” A tear started in his eye as he added, “ This is my father ! ”—“ Yes,” said the Agent, “ it is the loyal Partap on the day he went forth to meet his death ; but his name yet lives, and a stranger does homage to his fame.”—“ Take Amli, take Amli,” he hurriedly repeated, with a suppressed tone of exultation and sorrow, “ but forget not the extent of the sacrifice.” To prolong the visit would have been painful to both, but as it might have been trusting too much to humanity to delay the resumption, the Agent availed himself of the moment to indite the *chhorchittha* ² of surrender for the lands.

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¹ Literally faith (*dharma*) to his lord (*swami*).

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² Paper of relinquishment.

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With these instances, characteristic of individuals and the times, this sketch of the introductory measures for improving the condition of Mewar may be closed. To enter more largely in detail is foreign to the purpose of the work; nor is it requisite for the comprehension of the unity of the object, that a more minute dissection of the parts should be afforded. Before, however, we exhibit the [494] general results of these arrangements, we shall revert to the condition of the more humble, but a most important part of the community, the peasantry of Mewar; and embody, in a few remarks, the fruits of observation or inquiry, as to their past and present state, their rights, the establishment of them, their infringement, and restitution. On this subject much has been necessarily introduced in the sketch of the feudal system, where landed tenures were discussed; but it is one on which such a contrariety of opinion exists, that it may be desirable to show the exact state of landed tenures in a country, where Hindu manners should exist in greater purity than in any other part of the vast continent of India.

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The Landed System.—The ryot (cultivator) is the proprietor of the soil in Mewar. He compares his right therein to the *akshay* duba,¹ which no vicissitudes can destroy. He calls the land his bapota, the most emphatic, the most ancient, the most cherished, and the most significant phrase his language commands for patrimonial² inheritance. He has nature and Manu in support of his claim, and can quote the text, alike compulsory on prince and peasant, “ cultivated land is the property of him who cut away the wood, or who cleared and tilled it,”³ an ordinance binding on the whole Hindu race, and which no international wars, or conquest, could overturn. In accordance with this principle is the ancient adage, not of Mewar only but all Rajputana, *Bhog ra dhanni Raj ho : bhum ra dhanni ma cho* : ‘the government is owner of the rent, but I am the master of the land.’ With the toleration and benevolence of the race the conqueror is commanded “to respect the deities adored by the conquered, also their virtuous priests, and to establish the laws of the conquered nation as declared in their books.”⁴ If it were deemed desirable to recede to the system of pure Hindu agrarian law, there is no deficiency of materials. The customary laws contained in the various reports of able men, superadded to the general ordinances of Manu, would form a code at once simple and efficient : for though innovation from foreign conquest has placed many principles in abeyance, and modified others, yet he has observed to little purpose [495] who does not trace a uniformity of design, which at one time had ramified wherever the name of Hindu prevailed : language has been modified, and terms have been corrupted or changed, but the primary pervading principle is yet perceptible ; and whether we examine the systems of Khandesh, the Carnatic, or Rajasthan, we shall discover the elements to be the same.

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¹ The *dūb* grass *Cynodon dactylon*] flourishes in all seasons, and most in the intense heats; it is not only *amara* or ‘immortal,’ but *akshay*, ‘not to be eradicated’; and its tenacity to the soil deserves the distinction.

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² From *bap*, ‘father,’ and the termination *ot*, or belonging to, and by which clans are distinguished; as Karansot, ‘descended of Karan’; Mansinghgot, ‘descended of Mansingh.’ It is curious enough that the mountain clans of Albania, and other Greeks, have the same distinguishing termination, and the Mainote of Greece and the Mairot of Rajputana alike signify mountaineer, or ‘of the mountain,’ *maina* in Albanian; *mairu* or *meru* in Sanskrit. [The words have no connexion.]

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³ *Laws*, ix. 44.

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⁴ [“When he [the king] has gained victory, let him duly worship the gods and honour righteous Brāhmanas, let him grant exemptions, and let him cause promises of safety to be proclaimed. But having fully ascertained the wishes of all the (conquered), let him place then a relation of (the vanquished ruler on the throne), and let him impose his conditions. Let him make authoritative the lawful customs of the inhabitants, just as they are stated to be” (Manu, *Laws*, vii. 201 f., trans. Bühler, *Sacred Books of the East*, xxv. 248 f.).]

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FACSIMILE OF NATIVE DRAWING OF PARTĀB SINGH AND RĀĒMALL.

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If we consider the system from the period described by Arrian, Curtius, and Diodorus, we shall see in the government of townships each commune an ‘ imperium in imperio ’ ; a little republic, maintaining its municipal legislation independent of the monarchy, on which it relies for general support, and to which it pays the bhog, or tax in kind, as the price of this protection ; for though the prescribed duties of kings are as well defined by Manu¹ as by any jurisconsult in Europe, nothing can be more lax than the mutual relations of the governed and governing in Hindu monarchies, which are resolved into unbounded liberty of action. To the artificial regulation of society, which leaves all who depend on manual exertion to an immutable degradation, must be ascribed these multitudinous governments, unknown to the rest of mankind, which, in spite of such dislocation, maintain the bonds of mutual sympathies. Strictly speaking, every State presents the picture of so many hundred or thousand minute republics, without any connexion with each other, giving allegiance (an) and rent (bhog) to a prince, who neither legislates for them, nor even forms a police for their internal protection. It is consequent on this want of paramount interference that, in matters of police, of justice, and of law, the communes act for themselves ; and from this want of paternal interference only have arisen those courts of equity, or arbitration, the panchayats.

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¹ [“ Let him [the king] cause his annual revenue in his kingdom to be collected by trusty (officials), let him obey the sacred law (in his transactions with) the people, and behave as a father to all men ” (Manu, Laws, vii. 80). “ Not to turn back in battle, to protect the people, to honour the Brāhmanas, is the best means for a king to secure happiness ” (ib. vii. 88). “ From the people let him (the king) learn (the theory) of the (various) trades and professions ” (ib. vii. 43). “ But (he who is given) to these vices (loses) even his life ” (ib. vii. 46), trans. Bühler, Sacred Books of the East, xxv.]

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But to return to the freehold ryot of Mewar, whose bapota is the watan and the miras of the peninsula—words of foreign growth, introduced by the Muhammadan conquerors ; the first (Persian) is of more general use in Khandesh ; the other (Arabic)

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in the Carnatic. Thus the great Persian moralist Saadi exemplifies its application: “If you desire to succeed to your father’s inheritance (*miras*), first obtain his wisdom” [496].

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While the term *bapota* thus implies the inheritance or patrimony, its holder, if a military vassal, is called Bhumia, a term equally powerful, meaning one actually identified with the soil (*bhum*), and for which the Muhammadan has no equivalent but in the possessive compound *watandar*, or *mirasdar*. The Caniatchi¹ of Malabar is the Bhumia of Rajasthan.

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¹ Cani, ‘land,’ and atchi, ‘heritage’: *Report*, p. 289.—I should be inclined to imagine the atchi, like the ot and awat, Rajput terminations, implying clanship. [Tamil *kāniyātchi*, ‘that which is held in free and hereditary property’; *kāni*, ‘land,’ *ātchi*, ‘inheritance’ (Wilson, *Glossary*, *s.v.*; *Madras Manual of Administration*, iii. 58).]

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The emperors of Delhi, in the zenith of their power, bestowed the epithet zamindar upon the Hindu tributary sovereigns: not out of disrespect, but in the true application of their own term Bhumia Raj, expressive of their tenacity to the soil; and this fact affords additional evidence of the proprietary right being in the cultivator (*ryot*), namely, that he alone can confer the freehold land, which gives the title of Bhumia, and of which both past history and present usage will furnish us with examples. When the tenure of land obtained from the cultivator is held more valid than the grant of the sovereign, it will be deemed a conclusive argument of the proprietary right being vested in the ryot. What should induce a chieftain, when inducted into a perpetual fief, to establish through the ryot a right to a few acres in bhum, but the knowledge that although the vicissitudes of fortune or of favour may deprive him of his aggregate signiorial rights, his claims, derived from the spontaneous favour of the commune, can never be set aside; and when he ceases to be the lord, he becomes a member of the commonwealth, merging his title of Thakur, or Signior, into the more humble one of Bhumia, the allodial tenant of the Rajput feudal system, elsewhere discussed.² Thus we have touched on the method by which he acquires this distinction, for protecting the community from violence; and if left destitute by the negligence or inability of the government, he is vested with the rights of the crown, in its share of the *bhog* or rent. But when their own land is in the predicament called *galita*, or reversions from lapses to the commune, he is ‘seised’ in all the rights of the former proprietor; or, by internal arrangements, they can convey such right by cession of the commune.

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² See p. 195.

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The Bhūmia.—The privilege attached to the bhum,¹ and acquired from the community by the protection afforded to it, is the most powerful argument for the recognition of its original rights. The Bhumia, thus vested, may at pleasure drive his own plough [497], the right to the soil. His bhum is exempt from the jarib (measuring rod); it is never assessed, and his only sign of allegiance is a quit-rent, in most cases triennial, and the tax of kharlakar,² a war imposition, now commuted for money. The State, however, indirectly receives the services of these allodial tenants, the yeomen of Rajasthan, who constitute, as in the districts of Kumbhalmer and Mandalgarh, the landwehr, or local militia. In fact, since the days of universal repose set in, and the townships required no protection, an arrangement was made with the Bhumias of Mewar, in which the crown, foregoing its claim of quit-rent, has obtained their services in the garrisons and frontier stations of police at a very slight pecuniary sacrifice.

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¹ See p. 195.

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² See Sketch of Feudal System, p. 170.

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Such are the rights and privileges derived from the ryot cultivator alone. The Rana may dispossess the chiefs of Badnor, or Salumbar, of their estates, the grant of the crown—he could not touch the rights emanating from the community; and thus the descendants of a chieftain, who a few years before might have followed his sovereign at the head of one hundred cavaliers, would descend into the humble foot militia of a district. Thousands are in this predicament: the Kanawats, Lunawats, Kumbhawats, and other clans, who, like the Celt, forget not their claims of birth in the distinctions of fortune, but assert their propinquity as "brothers in the nineteenth or thirtieth degree to the prince" on the throne. So sacred was the tenure derived from the ryot, that even monarchs held lands in bhum from their subjects, for an instance of which we are indebted to the great poetic historian of the last Hindu king. Chand relates, that when his sovereign, the Chauhan, had subjugated the kingdom of Anhilwara³ from the Solanki, he returned to the nephew of the conquered prince several districts and seaports, and all the bhum held by the family. In short, the Rajput vaunts his aristocratic distinction derived from the land; and opposes the title of ‘Bhumia Raj,’ or government of the soil, to the ‘Bania Raj,’ or commercial government, which he affixes as an epithet of contempt to Jaipur : where “ wealth accumulates and men decay.”

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³ Nahrwala of D'Anville; the Balhara sovereignty of the Arabian travellers of the eighth and ninth centuries. I visited the remains of this city on my last journey, and from original authorities shall give an account of this ancient emporium of commerce and literature.

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In the great ‘register of patents’ (patta bahi) of Mewar wè find a species of [498] bhum held by the greater vassals on particular crown lands; whether this originated from inability of ceding entire townships to complete the estate to the rank of the incumbent, or whether it was merely in confirmation of the grant of the commune, could not be ascertained. The benefit from this bhum is only pecuniary, and the title is ‘bhum rakhwali’¹ or land [in return for] ‘preservation.’ Strange to say, the crown itself holds ‘bhum rakhwali’ on its own fiscal demesnes consisting of small portions in each village, to the amount of ten thousand rupees in a district of thirty or forty townships. This species, however, is so incongruous that we can only state it does exist : we should vainly seek the cause for such apparent absurdity, for since society has been unhinged, the oracles are mute to much of antiquated custom.

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¹ Salvamenta of the European system.

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Occupiers' Rights in the Land.—We shall close these remarks with some illustrative traditions and yet existing customs, to substantiate the ryot’s right in the soil of Mewar. After one of those convulsions described in the annals, the prince had gone to espouse the daughter of the Raja of Mandor, the (then) capital of Marwar. It is customary at the moment of hathleva, or the junction of hands, that any request preferred by the bridegroom to the father of the bride should meet compliance, a usage which has yielded many fatal results; and the Rana had been prompted on this occasion to demand a body of ten thousand Jat cultivators to repeople the deserted fisc of Mewar. An assent was given to the unprecedented demand, but when the inhabitants were thus despotically called on to migrate, they denied the power and refused. “Shall we,” said they, “abandon the lands of our inheritance (bapota), the property of our children, to accompany a stranger into a foreign land, there to labour for him? Kill us you may, but never shall we relinquish our inalienable rights.” The Mandor prince, who had trusted to this reply, deemed himself exonerated from his promise, and secured from the loss of so many subjects: but he was deceived. The Rana held out to them the enjoyment of the proprietary rights escheated to the crown in his country, with the lands left without occupants by the sword, and to all, increase of property. When equal and absolute power was thus conferred, they no longer hesitated to exchange the arid soil of Marwar for the garden of Rajwara; and the descendants of these Jats still occupy the flats watered by the Berach and Banas [499].

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In those districts which afforded protection from innovation, the proprietary right of the ryot will be found in full force; of this the populous and extensive district of Jahazpur, consisting of one hundred and six townships, affords a good specimen. There are but two pieces of land throughout the whole of this tract the property of the crown, and these were obtained by force during the occupancy of Zalim Singh of Kotah. The right thus unjustly acquired was, from the conscientiousness of the Rana’s civil governor, on the point of being annulled by sale and reversion, when the court interfered to maintain its proprietary right to the tanks of Loharia and Itaunda, and the lands which they irrigate, now the *bhum* of the Rana.¹ This will serve as an illustration how *bhum* may be acquired, and the annals of Kotah will exhibit, unhappily for the ryots of that country, the almost total annihilation of their rights, by the same summary process which originally attached Loharia to the fisc.

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¹ The author has to acknowledge with regret that he was the cause of the Mina proprietors not re-obtaining their *bapota*: this arose, partly from ignorance at the time, partly from the individual claimants being dead, and more than all, from the representation that the intended sale originated in a bribe to Sadaram the governor, which, however, was not the case.

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The power of alienation being thus proved, it would be superfluous to insist further on the proprietary right of the cultivator of the soil.

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Proprietary Rights in Land.—Besides the ability to alienate as demonstrated, all the overt symbols which mark the proprietary right in other countries are to be found in Mewar; that of entire conveyance by sale, or temporary by mortgage; and numerous instances could be adduced, especially of the latter. The fertile lands of Horla, along the banks of the Khari, are almost all mortgaged, and the registers of these transactions form two considerable volumes, in which great variety of deeds may be discovered: one extended for one hundred and one years;¹ when redemption was to follow, without regard to interest on the one hand, or the benefits from the land on the other, but merely by repayment of the sum borrowed. To maintain the interest during abeyance, it is generally stipulated that a certain portion of the harvest shall be reserved for the mortgagee—a fourth, a fifth, or gugri—a share so small as to be valued only as a mark of proprietary recognition.² The mortgagees were chiefly of the commercial classes of the large frontier towns; in [500] many cases the proprietor continues to cultivate for another the lands his ancestor mortgaged four or five generations ago, nor does he deem his right at all impaired. A plan had been sketched to raise money to redeem these mortgages, from whose complex operation the revenue was sure to suffer. No length of time or absence can affect the claim to the bapota, and so sacred is the right of absentees, that land will lay sterile and unproductive from the penalty which Manu denounces on all who interfere with their neighbour's rights: "for unless there be an especial agreement between the owner of the land and the seed, the fruits belong clearly to the land-owner"; even "if seed conveyed by water or by wind should germinate, the plant belongs to the land-owner, the mere sower takes not the fruit."³ Even crime and the extreme sentence of the law will not alter succession to property, either to the military or cultivating vassal; and the old Kentish adage, probably introduced by the Jats from Scandinavia, who under Hengist established that kingdom of the heptarchy, namely:

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¹ Claims to the bapota appear to be maintainable if not alienated longer than one hundred and one years; and undisturbed possession (no matter how obtained) for the same period appears to confer this right. The miras of Khandesh appears to have been on the same footing. See Mr. Elphinstone's Report, October 25, 1819, ed. 1872, p. 17 f., quoted in BG, xii. 266. [The word mīrās means 'inherited estate,' the right of disposal of which rests with the holder. The Jāts certainly did not bring the custom to Kent.]

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² The sawmy begum of the peninsula in Fifth Report, pp. 356-57; correctly swami bhoga, 'lord's rent,' in Sanskrit.

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³ Manu, Laws, ix. 52-54, on the Servile Classes. [Bühler's version differs, but the meaning is practically the same as that of the text.]

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The father to the bough,
And the son to the plough

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is practically understood by the Jats and Bhumias ¹ of Mewar, whose treason is not deemed hereditary, nor a chain of noble acts destroyed because a false link was thrown out. We speak of the military vassals—the cultivator cannot aspire to so dignified a crime as treason.

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¹ Patel.

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Village Officials : the Patel.—The officers of the townships are the same as have been so often described, and are already too familiar to those interested in the subject to require illustration. From the Patel, the Cromwell of each township, to the village gossip, the ascetic Sannyasi, each deems his office, and the land he holds in virtue thereof in perpetuity, free of rent to the State, except a small triennial quit-rent,² and the liability, like every other branch of the State, to two war taxes.³

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² Patel barar.

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³ The Gharginti barar, and Kharlakar, or wood and forage, explained in the Feudal System.

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Opinions are various as to the origin and attributes of the Patel, the most important personage in village sway, whose office is by many deemed foreign to the pure Hindu system, and to which language even his title is deemed alien. But there is no doubt that both office and title are of ancient growth, and even etymological rule proves the Patel to be head (pati) of the community.⁴ The office of Patel [501] of Mewar was originally elective; he was ‘primus inter pares,’ the constituted attorney or representative of the commune, and as the medium between the cultivator and the government, enjoyed benefits from both. Besides his bapota, and the serano, or one-fortieth of all produce from the ryot, he had a remission of a third or fourth of the rent from such extra lands as he might cultivate in addition to his patrimony. Such was the Patel, the link connecting the peasant with the government, ere predatory war subverted all order :

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⁴ In copper-plate grants dug from the ruins of the ancient Ujjain (presented to the Royal Asiatic Society), the prince’s patents (patta) conferring gifts are addressed to the Patta-silas and Ryots. I never heard an etymology of this word, but imagine it to be from patta, ‘grant,’ or ‘patent,’ and sila, which means a nail, or sharp instrument; [? sila, the stone on which the grant is engraved]; metaphorically, that which binds or unites these patents; all, however, having pati, or chief, as the basis (see Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 237). [Pati, ‘chief,’ has no connexion with patta, ‘a grant,’ the latter being the origin of patel. For the position of the Patel see Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, 10 ff.; Malcolm, Memoir of Central India, 2nd ed. ii. 14 ff.]

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but as rapine increased, so did his authority. He became the plenipotentiary of the community, the security for the contribution imposed, and often the hostage for its payment, remaining in the camp of the predatory hordes till they were paid off. He gladly undertook the liquidation of such contributions as these perpetual invaders imposed. To indemnify himself, a schedule was formed of the share of each ryot, and mortgage of land, and sequestration of personal effects followed till his avarice was satisfied. Who dared complain against a Patel, the intimate of Pathan and Mahratta commanders, his adopted patrons? He thus became the master of his fellow-citizens; and, as power corrupts all men, their tyrant instead of their mediator. It was a system necessarily involving its own decay; for a while glutted with plenty, but failing with the supply, and ending in desolation, exile, and death. Nothing was left to prey on but the despoiled carcase; yet when peace returned, and in its train the exile ryot to reclaim the bapota, the vampire Patel was resuscitated, and evinced the same ardour for supremacy, and the same cupidity which had so materially aided to convert the fertile Mewar to a desert. The Patel accordingly proved one of the chief obstacles to returning prosperity; and the attempt to reduce this corrupted middle-man to his original station in society was both difficult and hazardous, from the support they met in the corrupt officers at court, and other influences ‘behind the curtain.’ A system of renting the crown lands deemed the most expedient to advance prosperity, it was incumbent to find a remedy for this evil. The mere name of some of these petty tyrants inspired such terror as to check all desire of return to the country; but the origin of the institution of the office and its abuses being ascertained, it was imperative, though difficult, to restore the one and banish the other. The original elective right in many townships was therefore returned to the ryot, who nominated new Patels [502], his choice being confirmed by the Rana, in whose presence investiture was performed by binding a turban on the elected, for which he presented his nazar. Traces of the sale of these offices in past times were observable; and it was deemed of primary importance to avoid all such channels for corruption, in order that the ryot’s election should meet with no obstacle. That the plan was beneficial there could be no doubt; that the benefit would be permanent, depended, unfortunately, on circumstances which those most anxious had not the means to control : for it must be recollected, that although “personal aid and advice might be given when asked,” all internal interference was by treaty strictly, and most justly, prohibited.

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After a few remarks on the mode of levying the crown-rents, we shall conclude the subject of village economy in Mewar, and proceed to close this too extended chapter with the results of four years of peace and the consequent improved prosperity.

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Modes of Collecting Rents.—There are two methods of levying the revenues of the crown on every description of corn—*kankut* and *batai*, for on sugar-cane, poppy, oil, hemp, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and garden stuffs, a money payment is fixed, varying from two to six rupees per bigha. The *kankut*¹ is a conjectural assessment of the standing crop, by the united judgement of the officers of government, the Patel, the Patwari, or registrar, and the owner of the field. The accuracy with which an accustomed eye will determine the quantity of grain on a given surface is surprising : but should the owner deem the estimate overrated, he can insist on *batai*, or division of the corn after it is threshed ; the most ancient and only infallible mode by which the dues either of the government or the husbandman can be ascertained. In the *batai* system the share of the government varies from one-third to two-fifths of the spring harvest, as wheat and barley ; and sometimes even half, which is the invariable proportion of the autumnal crops. In either case, *kankut* or *batai*, when the shares are appropriated, those of the crown may be commuted to a money payment at the average rate of the market. The *kut* is the most liable to corruption. The ryot bribes the collector, who will underrate the crop ; and when he betrays his duty, the *shahnah*, or watchman, is not likely to be honest : and as the *makai*, or Indian corn, the grand autumnal crop of Mewar, is eaten green, the crown may be defrauded of half its dues. The system is one of uncertainty, from which eventually the ryot derives no advantage, though it [503] fosters the cupidity of patels and collectors ; but there was a *barar*, or tax, introduced to make up for this deficiency, which was in proportion to the quantity cultivated, and its amount at the mercy of the officers. Thus the ryot went to work with a mill-stone round his neck ; instead of the exhilarating reflection that every hour’s additional labour was his own, he saw merely the advantage of these harpies, and contented himself with raising a scanty subsistence in a slovenly and indolent manner, by which he forfeited the ancient reputation of the Jat cultivator of Mewar.

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¹ [*Kan*, ‘grain,’ *kūt*, ‘valuation,’ *batāi* from *batānā*, ‘to divide.’]

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Improvement in the Condition of the People.—Notwithstanding these and various other drawbacks to the prosperity of the country, in an impoverished court, avaricious and corrupt officers, discontented Patels, and bad seasons, yet the final report in May 1822 could not but be gratifying when contrasted with that of February 1818. In order to ascertain the progressive improvement, a census had been made at the end of 1821, of the three central fiscal districts ¹ watered by the Berach and Banas. As a specimen of the whole, we may take the tappa or subdivision of Sahara. Of its twenty-seven villages, six were inhabited in 1818, the number of families being three hundred and sixty-nine, three-fourths of whom belonged to the resumed town of Amli. In 1821 nine hundred and twenty-six families were reported, and every village of the twenty-seven was occupied, so that population had almost trebled. The number of ploughs was more than trebled, and cultivation quadrupled; and though this, from the causes described, was not above one-third of what real industry might have effected, the contrast was abundantly cheering. The same ratio of prosperity applied to the entire crown demesne of Mewar. By the recovery of Kumbhalmer, Raepur, Rajnagar, and Sadri-Kanera from the Mahrattas; of Jahazpur from Kotah; of the usurpations of the nobles; together with the resumption of all the estates of the females of his family, a task at once difficult and delicate; ² and by the subjugation of the mountain districts of Merwara, a thousand towns and villages were united to form the fiscal demesne of the Rana, composing twenty-four districts of various magnitudes, divided, as in ancient times, and with the primitive [504] appellations, into portions tantamount to the tithings and hundreds of England, the division from time immemorial amongst the Hindus.¹ From these and the commercial duties² a revenue was derived sufficient for the comforts, and even the dignities of the prince and his court, and promising an annual increase in the ratio of good government : but profusion scattered all that industry and ingenuity could collect ; the artificial wants of the prince perpetuated the real necessities of the peasant, and this, it is to be feared, will continue till the present generation shall sleep with their forefathers.

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¹ Mui, Barak, and Kapasan.

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² To effect this, indispensable alike for unity of government and the establishment of a police, the individual statements of their holders were taken for the revenues they had derived from them, and money payments three times the amount were adjudged to them. They were gainers by this arrangement, and were soon loaded with jewels and ornaments, but the numerous train of harpies who cheated them and abused the poor ryot were eternally at work to defeat all such beneficial schemes; and the counteraction of the intrigues was painful and disgusting.

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¹ Manu [*Laws*, vii. 119] ordains the division into tens, hundreds, and thousands.

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² Farmed for the ensuing three years, from 1822, for seven lakhs of rupees.

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*Abstract of the Fiscal Revenues of Mewar in the years 1818–19–20–21–22.*

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| Spring harvest of 1818 | . | Rs. 40,000 |
| ,, 1819 | . | 451,281 |
| ,, 1820 | . | 659,100 |
| ,, 1821 | . | 1,018,478 |
| ,, 1822 | . | 936,640 | { The active superintendence of the British Agent being almost entirely withdrawn.

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*Abstract of Commercial Duties included in the above.*

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| In 1818 | . | . | Nominal |
| 1819 | . | . | Rs. 96,683 |
| 1820 | . | . | 165,108 |
| 1821 | . | . | 220,000 | { Farmed for three years, from 1822, for 750,000 rupees, which was assigned by the Rana for the liquidation of tribute fallen in arrear. |
| 1822 | . | . | 217,000 |

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**Mines and Minerals.**—There are sources of wealth in Mewar yet untouched, and to which her princes owe much of their power. The tin mines of Jawara and Dariba alone, little more than half a century ago, yielded above three lakhs annually ;³ besides rich copper mines in various parts. From such, beyond a doubt, much of the wealth of Mewar was extracted, but the miners are now dead, and the mines filled with water. An attempt was made to work them, but it was so unprofitable that the design was soon abandoned.

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³ In S. 1816, Jawara yielded Rs. 222,000 and Dariba Rs. 80,000. The tin of these mines contains a portion of silver. [What the Author calls the tin mines are probably the lead and zinc mines at Jāwar, 16 miles south of Udaipur city. They seem now to be exhausted, and search might be made for other untouched pockets of ore. Those at Dariba, which formerly yielded a considerable revenue, have long been closed (Erskine ii. A. 53).]

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Nothing will better exemplify the progress of prosperity than the comparative population of some of the chief towns before, and after, four years of peace :

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| | No. of houses in 1818. | No. of houses in 1822. |
| Udaipur | 3,500 | 10,000 |
| Bhilwara | *not one* | 2,700 |
| Pur | 200 | 1,200 |
| Mandal | 80 | 400 |
| Gosunda | 60 | 350 [505] |

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The Feudal Lands.—The feudal lands, which were then double the fiscal, did not exhibit the like improvement, the merchant and cultivator residing thereon not having the same certainty of reaping the fruits of their industry ; still great amelioration took place, and few were so blind as not to see their account in it.¹ The earnestness with which many requested the Agent to back their expressed intentions with his guarantee to their communities of the same measure of justice and protection as the fiscal tenants enjoyed was proof that they well understood the benefits of reciprocal confidence ; but this could not be tendered without danger. Before the Agent left the country he greatly withdrew from active interference, it being his constant, as it was his last impressive lesson, that they should rely upon themselves if they desired to retain a shadow of independence. To give an idea of the improved police, insurance which has been described as amounting to eight per cent in a space of twenty-five miles became almost nominal, or one-fourth of a rupee per cent from one frontier to the other. It would, however, have been quite Utopian to have expected that the lawless tribes would remain in that stupid subordination which the unexampled state of society imposed for a time (as described in the opening of these transactions), when they found that real restraints did not follow imaginary terrors. Had the wild tribes been under the sole influence of British power, nothing would have been so simple as effectually, not only to control, but to conciliate and improve them; for it is a mortifying truth, that the more remote from civilization, the more tractable and easy was the object to manage, more especially the Bhil.¹ But these children of nature were incorporated in the demesnes of the feudal chiefs, who when they found our system did not extend to perpetual control, returned to their old habits of oppression: this provoked retaliation, which to subdue requires more power than the Rana yet possesses, and, in the anomalous state of our alliances, will always be an embarrassing task to whosoever may exercise political control.

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¹ There are between two and three thousand towns, villages, and hamlets, besides the fiscal land of Mewar ; but the tribute of the British Government is derived only from the fiscal; it would have been impossible to collect from the feudal lands, which are burthened with service, and form the army of the State.

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¹ Sir John Malcolm's wise and philanthropic measures for the reclamation of this race in Malwa will support my assertions [*Memoir of Central India*, 2nd ed. i. 516 ff., ii. 179 ff.].

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In conclusion, it is to be hoped that the years of oppression that have swept the land will be held in remembrance by the protecting power, and that neither petulance nor indolence will lessen the benevolence which restored life to Mewar, or mar the picture of comparative happiness it created.

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The Sixteen chief Nobles of Mewar, their Titles, Names, Clans, Tribes, Estates, number of Villages in each, and their Value.

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*Note.*—The inferior grades possessed estates to a still larger amount, conjointly yielding a revenue of thirty lakhs of rupees; and as each thousand rupees of estate furnished on emergency three horses completely equipped, the feudal interest could supply nine thousand horse besides foot, of which they make little account. [Accounts of the present condition of these nobles will be found in Erskine ii. A. under the headings of their estates.]

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Linked texts (1)

Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit