Concluded by the Cornwallis administration in
1793, Permanent Settlement was a grand contract between the east india company government and the Bengal
landholders (zamindars and
independent talukdars of all denominations). Under the contract, the
landholders or zamindars were admitted into the colonial state system as the
absolute proprietors of landed property. Besides being turned into proprietors
of land, the zamindars were endowed with the privilege of holding their
proprietary right at a rate which was to continue unchanged for ever. Under the
contract the government was barred from enhancing its revenue demand on the
zamindars.
Though the zamindars had the right to transfer
their land freely by way of sale, mortgage or gift, their raiyats were denied such a privilege. They had the
customary right to hold the land hereditarily subject to payment of rent
regularly, but no right at all to transfer the right in any form. In relation
to government, zamindars had of course one obligation to perform. It was to pay
the government revenue demand absolutely punctually. The zamindars were warned
that in case any of them failed to pay the kist at the stipulated date
"a sale (in auction) of the whole of the lands of the defaulter, or such
portion of them as may be sufficient to make good the arrears, will positively
and invariably take place." (Section 7, Regulation 1, 1793)
The permanent settlement, the outcome of a long
drawn debate and discussion among the policymakers of the East India Company
must not be looked at as merely an arrangement for revenue collection. It was
rather contrived as the core part of the control system of the colonial state.
All other parts of the administration, such as executive, judiciary, and police
were geared to the desired working of the permanent settlement system. However,
in spite of all care to preserve the system, it began to erode under the impact
of new circumstances effected by the rise of imperialism and later, the growth
of nationalism, introduction of the revenue sale law, and growth of population. The
system suffered a series of amendments and modifications and finally, it was
abolished in 1950.
The English East India Company was growing in
political power ever since the foundation of Calcutta
But due to many constraints, the new 'king' was
not in a position to rule the kingdom directly from the start. As merchants and
mercantile accountants the company officials in Bengal
might have been adept in buying and selling of goods and in drawing long
business balance sheets but in the art of administration they were entirely
novice. The factors like paucity of manpower, language, ignorance of the native
institutions and presence of other rival maritime nations in Bengal
were compelling enough to prompt the company to go slow in building the
colonial state.
At the very initial stage, the company chose to
rule the nascent state with the help of its native collaborators. The problem
for the rookie rulers was that Bengal was not a settled
colony like America Australia Africa
and the Pacific that it would be kept under control by lashes. Bengal 's
record of civilization was as old as England Bengal Bengal 's own laws and institutions, because
such a choice would be contrary to the main purpose of founding the colonial
state - using Bengal revenue for conducting its eastern
trade. Under the circumstances the plan of
according to robert clive, the hero of the Palashi episode and
author of the Diwani Treaty (1765), was to allow the kingdom to be governed,
for some time at least, by the native people according to their own laws and
institutions and the company was only to oversee the native authority as the
suprapower and receive the surplus revenue through a resident at the Nawab's darbar
in murshidabad.
Syed Muhammed Reza Khan (1717?-1791), an
adventurer from Iran Bengal as a land administrator,
was entrusted with the responsibility of ruling the country of behalf of the
company. He was appointed the naib or deputy diwan and naib nazim or
deputy of the minor nawab (Najm-ud-daula) of Bengal . As
naib nazim he was the chief of nizamat or civil administration and as naib
diwan he was the chief of diwani or revenue administration. Reza Khan was
allowed to rule according to native laws and institutions.
The Clive system, generally called dual or double
government in the textbook, worked well until 1767, the year of the final
departure of Clive from Bengal . Supported by Clive, Reza
Khan was able to rule the company's kingdom efficiently. But with the departure
of his patron, Reza Khan's authority confronted challenges from the ambitious Fort
William
The next step towards the direct governance was
the establishment of two revenue councils at Murshidabad (for Bengal )
and Patna Bihar
and Orissa). The supervisors worked under these two councils. Reza Khan had
been constantly complaining to the Fort
William Fort
William Bengal . Two-thirds of Bengal 's
productive land went into the state of nature due to lack of cultivating
manpower. This holocaust had changed the whole previous thinking of the rulers
about the mode of administration of the new kingdom. The idea of administering
the company's diwani by native agency was abandoned. Under the orders of the
court of directors (28 August 1771 ),
the Calcutta Fort William council made itself the supreme government of the
suba as regards diwani administration. Naib Diwan Reza Khan was dismissed and
jailed for 'corruption and irregularities'.
To administer the company's territorial affairs a
central authority called Committee of Revenue was instituted at Calcutta Fort
William Bengal
as its president thus inaugurating quietly the capital city of the British
empire . warren hastings,
the Fort William
In its consequences, the quinquennial revenue
settlement proved to be disastrous. The revenue farmers, who came in land
control form various professions for higher income, in general practiced rack
renting. Raiyats responded to such predatory development by desertions, arjis
(petition to authorities), combinations and even uprisings in many places.
As the government itself was committed to collecting higher and higher revenue
and, as it had neither the moral strength nor administrative ability to relieve
the oppressed raiyats, the economic conditions in the countryside were
deteriorating fast. The balances of revenue unrealised were increasing
progressively ever since the conclusion of the settlement. However, it became
very clear to government that the five-year settlement was a colossal mistake.
The government realised also that the hereditary zamindars had a social stake
in land control which the temporary ijaradars lacked. It was felt that the
restoration of zamindars to their old status and assessment of revenue according
to resources of estates would stabilise the revenue collections on the one hand
and relieve the peasantry of ijaradari oppression on the other. But the
government was bound by the terms of settlement for five years.
Until then the only option for the government was
to consider and conceive in advance what might be the best mode of revenue
collection on the expiry of the ruinous farming system in 1777. Thus a number
of alternative suggestions were advanced. In a minute recorded on 28 March 1775 , Richard Barwell, a
member of the council, recommended for a settlement with the zamindars for a
long term, one or two generations at least. On 22 January 1776 , Philip Francis, another council member,
had advanced his thesis in a lengthy minute which he called a Plan of
Permanent Settlement of the Revenues, 1776. According to him land belonged
to zamindars and it must be settled with them in perpetuity. Warren Hastings
was in agreement with both Barwell and Francis as regards settlement with
zamindars, but he insisted for ascertaining in detail the resources of the
country before the tenure of settlement was fixed. On these views, the court of
directors gave its own ruling which was very close to the views of Hastings 24 December 1776 , on
the eve of the expiry of five-year settlement, the court directed that the
practice of leasing out land in auction be abandoned for a short-term
settlement with zamindars alone. The court also advised the council to conduct
necessary survey to ascertain accurately the resources of land with a view to
making a durable settlement. The council thus resolved to make settlement with
zamindars on annual basis for 1777 and three succeeding years.
But the new system could not arrest the declining
trend of revenue collection. Revenue arrears continued to accumulate. Attempts
were made to reverse the trend by decentralising the administration in 1786 by
making the district collector the sole representative of the state. In order to
make the colonial district collector, (in power comparable only to Mughal
faujdars of olden days), was placed in a position of trust. In him was combined
all executive and judicial powers. He could not make land settlement directly
and single handedly without taking prior sanction from the Committee of Revenue.
The committee, the symbol or centralisation and interference, was abolished and
replaced by a new body, the board of revenue
charged with general control of revenue affairs. To the collector the landholders
had to look for a just assessment of revenue, and to him, the Board of Revenue
had to look for the revenue of the state. The reforms of 1786 truly laid the
administrative foundation of the permanent settlement. Structurally, the
government was now prepared to deal with the landholders more confidently and
firmly than ever before. But such preparedness does not mean greater regularity
in revenue collection which continued to remain uncertain.
The pitt's india act of
1784 had a clause directing the Calcutta John
Shore Bengal . Shore believed that there was not
enough information with the government to conclude a permanent settlement
immediately. He was not against the idea of permanent settlement in principle.
His objection was to the timing of making the settlement. Shore argued how a
permanent settlement might harm all parties permanently including the
government if it is made without consideration to actual resources of
individual estates and also to the actual rights and obligations of various
interests in land including raiyats. Shore was in favour of deferring the
permanent settlement for another two or three decades so that enough
information could be gathered in the meantime about land resources and land
rights.
On the question of further inquiry into the resources
of the country before permanent settlement, Cornwallis differed with Shore very
drastically. He argued that whatever information had been gathered during the
last twenty years was enough for concluding permanent settlement. He further
argued that if any discrepancy occurred to any individual party or parties, it
would soon be adjusted under the impact of the permanent settlement. Cornwallis
believed that the permanent settlement would instill enough impetus to
landholders to turn themselves into landlords and agrarian capitalists.
However, Cornwallis and Shore agreed to send
their respective views and other related documents to the court of directors
for a final decision about the issue. They also agreed that in the meantime the
government should form a settlement for a term of ten years from 1790 with a
notice to the landholders that if the court of directors gave direction in
favour of permanent settlement, the decennial settlement would be declared
permanent immediately. The court of directors, after studying all the minutes
from all members of the council, gave its opinion in favour of permanent
settlement. On 23 March 1793, Lord Cornwallis proclaimed that "at the
expiration of the terms of the (decennial) settlement, no alteration would be
made in the assessment which (zamidnars had) respectively engaged to pay, but
that they, and their heirs and lawful successors, would be allowed to hold
their estates at such assessment for ever" (Proclamation Article III,
Section 4, Regulation 1, 1793).
Zamindars'
responses The Cornwallis administration expected, possibly with valid
grounds, that the new system would be enthusiastically received by the
zamindars as an unprecedented privilege, for it had created private property in
land which never existed before and that the newly created landed property was
vested in the zamindars free of cost. Most importantly, zamindars got the very
unique privilege of paying government revenue at a fixed rate forever, a
decision which was certainly a sacrifice for government in fiscal terms.
Obviously, the government thought that the zamindars, as great beneficiaries,
would respond to the settlement enthusiastically and with thanks and gratitude
to the good governance of the British. But to the utter dismay of the
government, the zamindars were seen to have expressed dissatisfaction and
disgust to the permanent settlement. Many disgruntled zamindars even went to
the extent of rejecting the settlement and some offered open resistance.
There were many valid reasons why the zamindars
were not happy about the terms of the permanent settlement. The revenue
assessment on individual zamindars was made on a crude estimation based on the
average actual collection of rents for the preceding ten years. Such an unsound
method of assessment could lead to very small incidence of revenue demand on
some, and very heavy on others. The heavily assessed estates were bound to fall
in chronic revenue arrears and consequently be exposed to public sale and
annihilation.
The government's firm declaration that no
remission of revenue would be allowed in the future "on account of
drought, inundation, encroachments and depredation of rivers, death or flight
of raiyats" was looked at by zamindars as utterly unrealistic. To them,
the most impractical condition imposed was the punctual payment of revenue
failing which the lands of the zamindars were to be sold in public auction for
realising the arrears. In an agrarian economy based on erratic monsoon rains,
occasional crop failures and consequently revenue arrears were inevitable. They
argued forcefully that if the authorities were unable to make monsoon rains
occur absolutely regularly and punctually then how could they insist on land
revenue payers to pay their dues absolutely regularly and punctually?
The concerned zamindars, while arguing with the
settlement people, invoked the great tradition under which landholders always
got moukuf (remission) of public revenue whenever crops failed due to
natural causes. Rasad (progressive increase) of revenue for three years
from 1790 was another cause of complaint on the part of the zamindars. The
rasad policy was treated by zamindars as highly arbitrary and unacceptable,
because the increase was based on pre-supposition that the resources of the
estates would increase. Such an assumption was highly presumptuous and
irrational.
Another area of zamindar's complaint was the taluk
policy. Under the rules of the permanent settlement all taluks hitherto paying
revenue through the zamindars were to be separated from them and treat such
separated estates as independent zamindaris. All large zamindaris had numerous
such taluks under their control and these were separated from them without
compensation. Consequent upon the separation of taluks many zamindaris, which
had hitherto created taluks for management or other reasons, were reduced in
size and many of them even got extinct practically. For zamindars, another
irritating law was the so-called patta Regulation
(Regulation VIII 1793) which required the zamindars to issue pattas to
raiyats stating terms and conditions of bandobast (settlement) and
strictly prohibiting them from collecting any abwab or imposition over and above the stipulated
amount of rent. The zamindars looked at it as a naked encroachment into what
was claimed to be the internal affairs of the zamindari management and control.
The general unrest and commotion among zamindars,
large-scale transfer of lands under the operation of the revenue sale law, declining trend of government
revenue, failure of the judiciary to clear up the mounting piles of revenue
suits, deteriorating law and order situation, and all other accompanying
factors, were disquieting enough for the government. It was strongly felt that
the trend must be reversed before the development went beyond control. The
authorities could content themselves that though the rules of the permanent
settlement had considerably disturbed the traditional social and economic
structures of the old landed aristocracy, the new regime had conversely been
able to attract support from assorted social elements, such as, emancipated talukdars,
jotedars, lightly assessed landholders, new landlords, emergent banians, Anglo-Indian mercantile interests and so
on. But socially, they were not yet respectable and powerful enough to lead the
society in favour of the government at times of a crisis.
The administration of Lord Wellesley (1797-1805),
which was committed to empire building, noticed the post-permanent settlement
development with grave concern. Hundreds of zamindaris were put to auction
sales every month; government's revenue collection became as irregular and
uncertain as before 1793; the administrative cost rose; revenue income
declined; law and order in the country deteriorated. The dismembered zamindars,
shorn of their zamindaris and princely image, more often than not put up quite
effective resistance to successful bidders who came to take possession of their
lots purchased at auctions.
Such a scene cannot comfort a government at war
and a home government looking forward to a regular flow of remittance after the
new system. Wellesley
The next change in the original law of permanent
settlement was the Regulation V of 1812 (popularly know as panjam or
fifth) under which the zamindars got the right to lease out their land for any
period. Originally, the lease period was kept limited to a maximum term of ten
years. However, the amendment, which had fundamentally changed the character of
permanent settlement was the Regulation VIII of 1819, which came down in the Bengal
agrarian history as the pattani law.
This law empowered the zamindars to create
perpetual intermediary rights in land between themselves and actual
cultivators. In other words, the pattani law authorised the zamindars to create
'little permanent settlements' under themselves as they were under the
government. This was, indeed, the height of the growth of zamindari powers and,
at the same time, the depth of the Cornwallisian spirit or the permanent
settlement. Under this law, the zamindars could sell the land of the defaulting
pattanidars in public auction, in the same manner as the land of the
defaulting zamindars was being sold now under the Sunset Law.
Objectives
and effects of Permanent Settlement The conclusion of the permanent
settlement with zamindars had some immediate objectives in view. These may be
classified as: (a) placing revenue paying on a definite footing and making
revenue collection sure and certain; (b) ensuring a minimum revenue; (c)
relieving officials of revenue matter and engaging them to other spheres of
administration; and finally, (d) forging an alliance between the zamindar class
and the colonial rulers. Though not entirely but largely, government succeeded
in achieving these short-term goals. The revenue paying agency was put on a
definite footing in the person of zamindar. The government now knew how much
was to be its annual inflow from land and the zamindars also knew for certain
their contractual obligation to government. Formerly, neither the government
nor the revenue payers knew exactly where did they stand as regards revenue
collection and payment.
The revenue law worked as a successful mechanism
for maintaining a minimum revenue collection which was hard to imagine in the
earlier period. Forging an alliance with the zamindar for political purpose was
not achieved immediately, because the original terms of the settlement did not
satisfy them, But over time, when zamindari powers were made unlimited and when
government revenue demand became lighter through rise in prices and inflation,
the landlord class did cooperate with the government. Their solidarity with the
government during the sepoy revolt and
Swadeshi and militant nationalist movements in the early twentieth century
vindicates it.
But the permanent settlement had nobler long-term
objects, which were made plain in the various council minutes and
correspondence on the eve of its enactment. Its authors anticipated that the
operation of the new system, which was thought to have been devised with some
in-built mechanism for social and economic transformation, would first bring
about capitalist changes in agriculture and agrarian relations, and eventually
trigger off an industrial revolution in the country. It was expected that the
proprietary right in land and fixity of government revenue demand for all time
to come would induce zamindars to turn themselves into progressive landlords
like their counterparts in Britain
Unfortunately, the long-term vision behind the
permanent settlement did not materialise. The zamindars, old or new, never
turned themselves into landlords like their British counterparts. There is no
difference of opinion among scholars as to zamindars' failure in changing the
country, but they differ drastically as to why the zamindars behaved the way
they did. Instead of improving land by means of capital and organisational
input, their strategy was to increase income by other more profitable means
such as mahajani investment, grain trade, purchase of new estates,
bonds, urban properties, and enhancing rent and imposing abwabs or illegal
cesses on raiyats. Viewed economically, such behaviour on the part of zamindars
was justified on the ground that the sectors where they invested their
surpluses had been yielding much higher returns than land management on
capitalist line. If investment in land was less profitable and more risky, then
why should the zamindars sink capital in land if they were rational? In England Bengal ,
zamindars were deprived of such benefits.
A certain amount of industrialisation is a
prerequisite for agricultural growth. Bengal
agricultural economy lost that advantage under the company rule when the great
manufacturing tradition of Bengal collapsed. The
agricultural sector under British rule was never free from adverse factors such
as recurring famines and scarcities, fluctuating prices, colonial
deindustrialisation and drainage of wealth. Such an environment was not congenial
to the growth of capitalist outlook but to the consumptive feudal mind, which
the zamindar class had truly demonstrated.
The most remarkable trail of feudal values that
the zamindars had acquired from the permanent settlement was living on unearned
income. They transferred the zamindari management and control to a permanent
intermediate class in exchange for an annuity. In other words, as the absolute
proprietors of land they made, tenurially a second permanent settlement with
the lease-holders under more or less the same terms and conditions as their own
settlement with the government. They received the annuity from the perpetual
tenureholders by virtue of their right in land, not by any claim to capital
investment in it. Their rights and liabilities in relation to zamindars were
practically the same as the zamindari rights and liabilities in relation to
government. Consequently, the tenureholders also created, in turn, sub-tenures,
and the process of gradation sometimes went down several steps, in Bakerganj
for example, to as many as fifteen steps.
The problem of the rise of hierarchic
intermediate classes in land control had, indeed, deep economic and social
implications. The revenue survey
records (1860-1870) and records of survey and settlement
operations (1886 onwards) reveal that the zamindars who had created
intermediate tenures in the wake of the permanent settlement were mostly saved
from the operation of the 'sunset law' and that the rent burden on raiyats was
the heaviest in those estates where the chain of intermediate tenures was the
highest. In other words, there is a correlation between the stability of
zamindari rights and intermediate tenures on the one hand, and the high rate of
rent and intermediate tenures, on the other. There is another important aspect
of intermediate tenures. It is the role of the tenureholders in the extension
of agriculture into hitherto jungle land. The clearing of extensive tracts of
land in various parts of Bengal , particularly the
coastal zones, in the nineteenth century was the feat of mainly the
intermediate classes. It is they who led the reclamation with their capital,
organisation and manpower. The productive role of the intermediate classes,
however, stopped in the beginning of the 20th century when no more vacant land
was left for clearing, and with that the tenureholders, excepting the tier just
above the raiyats, were left with no role to play in the land management and
thus were turned into parasites living on peasant production.
The
erosion of Permanent Settlement The crisis of the zamindari power and
control that is noted immediately after the system was put to operation was
soon followed by a spell of stability, and even of relative prosperity of the
zamindar class. The summary powers provided by a series of enactments
(Regulation XXXV of 1795, Regulation VII of 1799, Regulation V of 1812 and
Regulation VIII of 1819) enabled the zamindars to enhance rent and collect it
expeditiously. The public sale of zamindari land due to revenue arrears thus
became a rare phenomenon from 1820. The opening of the country to free trade
from 1813 led to an ever larger volume of export of primary products with its positive
effects on zamindari income. Population growth and consequent extension of
agriculture, introduction of commercial crops and rising trend in prices had
their happy effects on the zamindari economy.
Unfortunately, the prosperity of the zamindar
class did not lead to a corresponding prosperity of the peasantry (raiyats).
The peasant surpluses were systematically extracted by the zamindars and
intermediate interests in the form of enhanced rent and myriad impositions,
such as, abwabs, tuhuri, dasturi, chandas, bhet, nazrana, begar, selami, etc. Peasants continued to
produce subsistence plus rent only. With the integration of the country with
the global capitalist economy from the early nineteenth century, the
subsistence economy in the rural society came under severe strains. A series of
peasant uprisings in most parts of Bengal , especially in
eastern Bengal , from the late 1850s was the most direct
manifestation of the estranged relationship between the zamindars and raiyats.
The crisis was triggered off by the peasant disturbances in the Santal Pargana
first (1855) and then in the indigo districts (1859-61). The indigo resistance movement continued from 1858 to
1860.
The peasant resistance movements took an alarming
turn in the 1870s and early 1880s when the peasants in several parts of eastern
Bengal made jotes (alliances) among themselves to
assert their rights in land and minimise extraction of surpluses by zamindars.
The most remarkable of the peasant uprisings in this period were the Tushkhali
(in Bakerganj) peasant movement (1872-75), pabna peasant uprising (1873), chhagalnaiya (Noakhali) peasant movement (1874), mymensingh tribal peasant movement (1874-1882), munshiganj (Dhaka) peasant movement (1880-81) and mehendiganj (Bakerganj) uprising (1880-81). The
Faraizis (a Muslim reformist sect) took up the peasants' cause and the faraizi movement established extensive network
across the country, particularly in south Bengal ,
against the zamindari control. A common demand of all these peasant jotes was
the restoration of raiyati rights in land.
These uprisings indicate for certain the gradual
erosion of the permanent settlement. The proprietary classes had lost their
grips on the raiyats who were now asserting their rights in land. Zamindars,
being unable to contain the rebellious raiyats, asked for government help to
discipline the recalcitrant raiyats and government did send police, and even
armed forces where necessary, to quell the disturbances. Most government
reports on the peasant movements pointed to the weakening state of the zamindar
class, particularly to its impoverished conditions. The operation of the law of
inheritance and consequent partition and re-partition of estates, family feuds,
litigation, absenteeism, creation of intermediate tenures, untimely death of
proprietors, extravagance, and many other associated factors had eroded the zamindar
class structurally. On the other side, an affluent and assertive agrarian
middle class in the persons of madhyasvatvas
or intermediate tenureholders, jotedars, hawladars and other rich
peasants was emerging steadily since the first quarter of the nineteenth
century.
Rent Act 1859 No
longer the government, as the events developed, could ignore the peasantry,
particularly its rich section, as an interest in land. The Sepoy Revolt and the
closely followed indigo disturbances awakened the government to the dangers of
further ignoring the rural cause. Saving the loyal zamindar class was an
imperial need and saving the protesting peasantry was at the same time a
political dictate.
An outcome of this perception was the enactment
of Rent Act in 1859, which tried to recognise the rights of some categories of
raiyats. Instead of traditional classification of raiyats into khudkast and
paikast, the peasant society was now categorised into three legal groups
under the Rent Act. These are: (a) raiyats holding land at a fixed rate of rent
from the time of the permanent settlement; (b) raiyats having a right of
occupancy, ie raiyats holding continuously land for twelve years; and (c)
raiyats not having a right of occupancy, ie raiyats holding land for less than
twelve years. To secure the rights of raiyats and to regulate the payment of
their rent patta system was reintroduced. From now on, the payment of rent was
to be regulated by the terms of the patta which specified the amount of annual
rent (cash or kind), and beyond which zamindars would have no right to impose
any abwab which was now made a punishable offense (section 2).
The zamindars lost the power vested in them by
haftam (Reg. VII 1799) of compelling any category of raiyats to report to
kachari and adjust arrears or undergo physical torture in default (section 11).
The Rent Act had barred the zamindars from enhancing the first category of
raiyats (kayemi) whose rent was fixed permanently and they also lost power
to enhance the rent of occupancy raiyats without showing reasons like zamindari
investment, rise in prices, etc. The rent of non-occupancy raiyats could not be
enhanced too frequently.
The zamindars, by now too dependent on government
support, did not have the guts to oppose the Rent Act. Instead they just tried
to ignore it. They knew it well that enacting a law was something and
implementing it was something else. They kept on enhancing rent as before. The
defaulting raiyats were still called to kachari and tortured for adjustment of
arrears. Occupancy right was usually denied. As a result, the landlord-tenant
relations deteriorated progressively the extent of which can be measured from
the large scale peasant discontents in the 1870s and early 1880s.
No doubt, the Bengal Tenancy Act very
considerably changed the original framework of the permanent settlement. A
zamindar was now just one of the interests in land, a superior one, of course.
What is more important, this time government did mean to implement the act. The
operation of the Bengal Tenancy Act was closely monitored and it was found that
law had very successfully established peace in the countryside.
But peasant agitation began again in the 1920s.
One effect of the electoral politics under the constitution of 1919 was the
need for mass contact for success in polls. Necessity had impelled all major
political parties to establish peasant wings of their respective parties, which
tried to raise awareness about the agrarian problems besetting them. Prajas or
raiyats, now made militantly conscious by the left activists, could feel that
they were still deprived of the privileges of cutting trees, mortgaging land
beyond a certain time, transferring lands without permission of landholders,
building pucca structures and digging tanks and ponds. For all these
zamindari sanctions were required and no sanction was accorded without a selami.
Most of these limitations were removed by the Amendment Act of 1928. Under
this act the raiyats got the rights to transfer lands without permission of
landholders but they were still subject to pay salami and landlord's had still
the right to preemption. They also got the right to cut trees and dig tanks and
ponds and construct pucca structures without taking zamindari permission.
The
end of Permanent Settlement With the enactment and implementation of
the India Act of 1935 the peasant politics had received a fresh stimulus.
Peasant grievances were articulated by the political parties. A new political
organisation, krishak praja party
(KPP), was formed in Bengal with the avowed objects of serving the interests of
the praja class mainly and its leader Sher-e-Bangla ak fazlul huq, who politically committed himself
to abolishing the permanent settlement if voted to power, had actually formed
the government in 1937. Soon after, the Huq ministry formed a committee called
Land Revenue Commission (generally known as floud commission after the name of its chairman
Francis Floud) with specific terms of reference concerning the end of the permanent
settlement. However, instead of waiting for the recommendations from the Land
Revenue Commission the Huq ministry, in order to provide minimum satisfaction
to his constituency, brought another amendment to the Bengal Tenancy Act in
1938 (Act VI) under which salami system and zamindar's right to preemption in
the transfer of raiyati land were abolished and some rights of bargadars
(sharecroppers) were recognised. Act VI of 1938 made the prajas virtual
proprietors of land.
The Floud Commission, which submitted its report
in 1940, found the zamindari system untenable under the changed circumstances
and recommended for its immediate abolition including all intermediate rent
receiving interests. But by then Huq, the advocate of praja cause, had become politically
too effete to accomplish the task and thus the Floud Commission report remained
unimplemented.
The incidents of the Tebhaga
agitation in north Bengal (1946-47) served as a reminder
to the government that the depressed peasantry was more for land reforms than
for nationalist or communal politics. In response to the widespread tebhaga
movement, the Bengal government headed by huseyn shaheed suhrawardy brought two bills for
enactment - the State Acquisition and Tenancy Bill and the Bengal Bargadar
(Provisional) Bill in early 1947. The intention was to abolish the permanent
settlement and to improve the status of the sharecropping tenants. In view of
the politics of partition, the two bills could not be finally enacted into law.
However, after partition the bills were placed in the East Bengal Legislative
Assembly in the form of a new bill called the East Bengal State Acquisition and
Tenancy Bill, 1950. On 16 December
1950 , the bill became on act entitled east bengal state acquisition and tenancy act 1950.
Under the act the permanent settlement was at last abolished. The raiyats, now
called maliks or proprietors of land, became direct tenants under the
government.
