Company officials felt that a fixed revenue demand
would give zamindars a sense of security and,
assured of returns on their investment, encourage
them to improve their estates. In the early decades
after the Permanent Settlement, however, zamindars
regularly failed to pay the revenue demand and
unpaid balances accumulated.
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The reasons for this failure were various. First: the
initial demands were very high. This was because it
was felt that if the demand was fixed for all time to
come, the Company would never be able to claim a
share of increased income from land when prices
rose and cultivation expanded. To minimise this
anticipated loss, the Company pegged the revenue
demand high, arguing that the burden on zamindars
would gradually decline as agricultural production
expanded and prices rose.
Second: this high demand was imposed in the
1790s, a time when the prices of agricultural produce
were depressed, making it difficult for the ryots to
pay their dues to the zamindar. If the zamindar could
not collect the rent, how could he pay the Company?
Third: the revenue was invariable, regardless of the
harvest, and had to be paid punctually. In fact,
according to the Sunset Law, if payment did not come
in by sunset of the specified date, the zamindari was
liable to be auctioned. Fourth: the Permanent
Settlement initially limited the power of the zamindar
to collect rent from the ryot and manage his zamindari.
The Company had recognised the zamindars as
important, but it wanted to control and regulate them,
subdue their authority and restrict their autonomy.
The zamindars� troops were disbanded, customs
duties abolished, and their �cutcheries� (courts)
brought under the supervision of a Collector appointed
by the Company. Zamindars lost their power to
organise local justice and the local police. Over time
the collectorate emerged as an alternative centre of
authority, severely restricting what the zamindar
could do. In one case, when a raja failed to pay the
revenue, a Company official was speedily dispatched
to his zamindari with explicit instructions �to take
charge of the District and to use the most effectual
means to destroy all the influence and the authority
of the raja and his officers�.
At the time of rent collection, an officer of the
zamindar, usually the amlah, came around to the
village. But rent collection was a perennial problem.
Sometimes bad harvests and low prices made
payment of dues difficult for the ryots. At other times
ryots deliberately delayed payment. Rich ryots and
village headmen � jotedars and mandals � were only
too happy to see the zamindar in trouble. The
zamindar could therefore not easily assert his power
over them. Zamindars could prosecute defaulters,
but the judicial process was long drawn. In Burdwan
alone there were over 30,000 pending suits for
arrears of rent payment in 1798.
The rise of the jotedars
While many zamindars were facing a crisis at the
end of the eighteenth century, a group of rich
peasants were consolidating their position in the
villages. In Francis Buchanan�s survey of the
Dinajpur district in North Bengal we have a vivid
description of this class of rich peasants known as
jotedars. By the early nineteenth century, jotedars
had acquired vast areas of land � sometimes as much
as several thousand acres. They controlled local trade
as well as moneylending, exercising immense power
over the poorer cultivators of the region. A large part
of their land was cultivated through sharecroppers
(adhiyars or bargadars) who brought their own
ploughs, laboured in the field, and handed over half
the produce to the jotedars after the harvest.
Within the villages, the power of jotedars was more
effective than that of zamindars. Unlike zamindars
who often lived in urban areas, jotedars were located
in the villages and exercised direct control over a
considerable section of poor villagers. They fiercely
resisted efforts by zamindars to increase the jama of
the village, prevented zamindari officials from
executing their duties, mobilised ryots who were
dependent on them, and deliberately delayed
payments of revenue to the zamindar. In fact,
when the estates of
the zamindars were
auctioned for failure to
make revenue payment,
jotedars were often
amongst the purchasers.
The jotedars were
most powerful in North
Bengal, although rich
peasants and village
headmen were emerging
as commanding figures
in the countryside in
other parts of Bengal as
well. In some places they
were called haoladars,
elsewhere they were
known as gantidars
or mandals. Their rise
inevitably weakened
zamindari authority.
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AKHAND PRATAP SINGH
