Mughal Administration c15.s1.t1.9

c15.s1.t1.9

[Commentary, 114b :—In what has been written about giving lease, entrusting to cultivators for [direct] cultivation, taking the amount of the revenue from the lessee [in case of lease] and from the owner’s share in case of [direct] cultivation, and paying one-half to the *mālik*, *i.e.*, to the former cultivator,—the word *mālik* (owner) does not mean ‘proprietor of the soil’ but ‘owner of the crop in the field’; because, if the word ‘owner’ meant ‘proprietor of the soil,’ then the owner would not run away through poverty and want of agricultural materials, but would rather sell his land and seek relief in either of these two ways: (i) throwing the payment of Government revenue upon the purchaser, (ii) devoting the sale-proceeds of his owner’s right to the removal of his own needs. As for the words “substitute another man for the [former] owner,” the rightful substitute for a proprietor can be none but his heir, and this is the distinctive mark of ownership. Therefore, the word ‘substitute’ as used here means ‘a substitute for the owner of the crop.’ But in the case in which a man, after spending his own money and with the permission of Government, cultivates a waste land which had paid no revenue before, and having agreed to its assessment for revenue pays the revenue to the State,—such a man has [true] tenant’s right to the land he cultivates, because he is the agent in reclaiming the land. The real owner is he who can create a substitute for the owner, *i.e.*, the king. It is a well-known maxim, “Whosoever wields the sword, the coins are stamped in his name.” As for the expression “pay half [the produce] to the owner, and do not lease out the field to any one else for a year afterwards,”—the intention is that, as the fixed revenue (*kharāj-i-muazzaf*) is not affected by the productive or barren nature [of the year], in both cases the cultivator has to pay the revenue in cash. As the Emperor likes leniency and justice, [he here orders] that the officers should kindly wait for one year [for the return of a fugitive ryot] and, in the case of [direct] cultivation or lease, they should pay to him any surplus left above the Government revenue.]