The Gazetteers Department

[For sections on History of Land Revenue Assessment and Management, History of Land Tenures and Agrarian Movements, Dr. G. D. Patel's " The Land Problem of Reorganised Bombay State " has been largely referred to.]

History.

FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL, THE LAND REVENUE HAS BEEN AN IMPORTANT AND DEPENDABLE SOURCE OF REVENUE IN INDIA primarily because it was the only source of stable revenue. Normally, the royal share was 1/6th of the total crop-share. The revenue survey was first introduced by Todar Mal in 1576 in South India. Lands were surveyed and settled, one third of the estimated produce being demanded as the royal share. The payment of revenue in kind was substituted by that in cash. In the absence of a regular survey, the bhagbatai system arose and became widespread with the downfall of the Moghal empire and the establishment of the Maratha rule. The revenue was farmed out to influential persons such as Desais, Amins, Patels, Deshmukhs, Deshpandes, etc. Lands were alienated to religious and charitable institutions by the State. The various rulers such as Hindu, Muslim and the British were forced to build upon the foundations left by their predecessors. Thus the present land system has devolved from the land systems which preceded it.

The present system was evolved by the British. Mount Stuart Elphinstone adopted the Rayatwari system as evolved by Munro in Madras and laid down the leading principles of revenue administration viz., to abolish farming but otherwise to maintain the local system, to levy the revenue according to the actual cultivation, to make the assessment light, to impose, no new taxes and to do away with none, unless obviously unjust and above all to make no innovations. Within these limitations, the revenue officers were given wide discretion in the measures to be adopted. In the initial stages attempts were made by the British to make annual, triennial or ten-year leases for securing land revenue from villages. They, however, failed owing to (a) the lack of details about the revenue administration, (b) high assessments fixed on the basis of past collections, and (c) the considerable fall in prices of agricultural produce in the thirties of the last century. In order to collect details about the revenue administration, revenue surveys were carried out between 1811 and 1825. These surveys though they contain considerable information about the revenue and social and economic conditions, were of little value to the administration because they were not accompanied by a settlement of land revenue. Thereafter, a report was drawn in 1847 on the principles of the settlement of land revenue under Government direction. It declared that the chief design of the revenue survey was the regulation of the customary land tax so that it shall at once secure an adequate revenue to Government, the progressive development of the resources of the country and the preservation of all proprietory and other rights connected with the soil. Further, it clarified the objectives that the land should be assessed in accordance with its capabilities, thereby excluding consideration of such details as the ability to pay, caste or condition of the cultivators which formed the basis of settlement in the previous administrations. According to the report, the settlement involved three processes which were distinctly divided into-

(a) survey,

(b) classification and

(c) assessment.

In the revision settlements, the classification system was improved and brought up-to-date. The revision was remarkable in that it laid down important principles regarding (a) grouping, (b) the regulation of the rate of enhancements, (c) the graduated levy of enhancements and (d) suspensions and remissions of land revenue.

During the pre-British period, although the assessment was high, it was never collected in full. But during the British regime, it was collected in full by resorting to coercive measures, where necessary. The Joint Report of 1847 and the Land Revenue Code, 1879, did not contemplate any abatement of fixed revenue. The result was that the rigid collection of land revenue became oppressive and forced the cultivators to relinquish their holdings. The situation became acute during the latter half of the nineteenth century when there were frequent famines. In 1907, the Government of India, therefore, laid down the policy of granting suspensions and remissions of land revenue in the event of natural calamities such as flood, fire, etc. This concession introduced an element of flexibility in the otherwise rigid revenue system.

TOP