Caste and Race in India c5.125

c5.125

The whole village had to deal with the government of the locality in revenue matters. This had engendered a splendid sense of solidarity among the members of the village community who were dearly attached to their lands. The stability, co-operative spirit, and sense of solidarity seen in the village communities evoked the following remarks from Sir Charles Metcalfe, who fervently pleaded against the introduction of the system of collecting revenue directly from individual proprietors. He observes: "The village communities are little republics, having nearly everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last within themselves where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds revolution; Hindoo, Pathan, Mogul, Mahratta, Sik, English, are all masters in turn; but the village communities remain the same. In times of trouble they arm and fortify themselves: an hostile army passes through the country: the village communities collect their cattle within their walls, and let the enemy pass unprovoked . . . If a country remain for a series of years the scene of continued pillage and massacre, so that the villages cannot be inhabited, the scattered villagers nevertheless return whenever the power of peaceable possession revives. A generation may pass away, but the succeeding generation will return. The sons will take the places of their fathers; the same site for the village, the same position for the houses, the same lands will be reoccupied by the descendants of those who were driven out when the village was depopulated; and it is not a trifling matter that will drive them out, for they will often maintain their post through times of disturbance and convulsion, and acquire strength sufficient to resist pillage and oppression with success . . . all acting in union with a common interest as regards the Government, and adjusting their own separate interests among themselves according to established usage." ¹