C H A P T ER V.
Maintenance of the Record-of-rights.-
82. This is a question which has been Considered for m any years, b o th by the Governm ent o f Bengal and by the Governm ent of Eastern
Bengal an d Assam. T h e views o f the Bengal Govern
m ent were set forth in detail in M r. .K err’s letters No.
Dtsu^fnlity1 of 1098, dated the 5th M arch 1912, and No. 31, dated a*tewfaforCa^lf tlie 6 th Ja n u a ry 1913, to the address of the Governm ent
S u b o rd in a te Qf India. The' first o f these letters relates to Orissa, A g en cy .
and the second to the Presidency o f Bengal as now cons
tituted. In b6th letters the Local Governm ent has recotfirrieVided th a t action should be postponed. A t thte same tim e t h e G overnor in Council has stated th a t he “ fully recognizes th e ad- vdritages which would be1 derived from a m aintenance scheme,- if the necessary funds Were forthcoming, if a trustw orthy local staff were a v a ila b le , afrd if the co-operatiofr o f the poople could be secured.” W e h a v e been asked td consider w hether “ it is possible an d desirable to c r e a te subordinate .revenue Establishments' in connection w ith th e m a in te n a n c e o f land records an d the collection o f inform ation regarding re v e n u e subjects,” of, as the case m ay be otherwise stated, w hether th e ' m ainteriance o f the settlem ent record- is a sufficiently desirable end jifc itself to w a rta n t ou r recom m ending it as the best basis for any sub
o rd in a te revfenue Establishment th a t we m ay propose to create. W e h a v e therefore studied th e volumirious literature on th e subject, incjuding th e tentative schfeme prepared for East Bengal* by one o f our m embers, Beatson Bell. In the Course o f o ur touts in Bengal we have also taken evidence from m any witnesses, official and non-official, con
cerning
the? advisability o r otherwise, o f maixrtaining th e record-of-rights, jfnd concerning, the respective m erits o f periodical revision a n d , continuous m aintenance. W e hav^ also m ade a point o f examining th e
■working
o f the latter system in perm anently-settled villages in the IJnited provinces an d M adras an d in m alguzari villages in the C entralPro
vinces.
Moreover,* during the course o f our visit to B ihar and Oriss^, h ad th e advantage o f hearing th e vievys o f the D irector o f L and R e-l i b» *r y
N *.TIO^ AI ' N •> TlT11T p Qf
> *i,0t»c i s r «»artta*.
f D M C I ,
cords o f th a t Province and of seeing the m aps an d papers which are being prepared in connection w ith the revision o f the record in N orth Bihar.
83. As Governm ent are aw are, the districts o f Bakarganj an d C hittagong have complete records-of-rights. Settlem ent operations are practically com plete in F arid p u r an d Jalpaiguri, are far advanced - in D acca and M ym ensingh, and are
Progress of* • • «
preparation of ^ progress in P.ajshahi an d N lidnapur. In most of
^B engal"® 1'1* the remairiing districts there' are records-of-rights for individual estates, some o f which are o f considerable extent. T aking the Province as a whole, the figures stand thus
RECORD-OF-RIGHTS.
Record-of-rights to be prepared.
Total settled area of the Province.
Completed. Under prepara
tion.
Total.
Square miles.
10,921
Square miles.
12,496
*
Square miles.
23.417
Square miles.
41,794
•
Square miles.
65,211
I t will be seen th a t 17.1 percent, o f the Province is already provided w ith accurate maps an d records, an d th a t w ithin a few years as m uch as 3 6.7 p er cent, will be so provided. W e have com pared the difficulty o f the work w ith th a t o f other Provinces in In d ia, a n d we- a re impressed by the fact th a t in no Province are the difficulties so great, ior the work so com plicated, as in Bengal. A t the same tim e we have com pared th e finished work in Bengal w ith th a t o f other Provinces, an d we are satisfied th a t in no Province has the work' been better done. Those o f us w ho come from other Provinces were particularly impressed by th e zeal and efficiency o f the Bengal kanungos an d by the excellence o f the printed records which are now being prepared. I t was also most satisfactory to find th a t thfe m aps and records o f the Bengal Settlem ent D epartm ent, even though they are not m aintained or revised, are b f enorm ou? advantage to all branches o f the adm inistration, an d greatly facilitate the working o f th e civil courts. T h e good which has been done in settling agrarian disputes, in dissem inating a knowledge o f the ren t law , and in protecting the peasantry from illegal exactions cannot be too higly estim ated.
84. O n the usefulness o f these docum ents to landlords and tenants almoSt all the Bengal witnesses whom we examined were u n anim ous; and m any o f them expressed a n 1 opinion- in favour of fheir
continuous m aintenance by a locai agency. For instance, we would invite Popular attention to the evidence o f the H o n ’ble M r. Byomkesh of ?heCRecord- C hakravarti, who cam e to us as the accredited repre- of-rights. sentative of the Bengal Landholders’ Association. This witness stated th a t “ the m aintenance of the record w ould be valuable” and
“ he would prefer yearly m aintenance to periodical revision.” T he proposal, he thought, “ would not be unpopular, as it would save them (the zamindars) a lot of trouble in the courts,” b u t he added th a t “ the zamindars W o u ld n o t like paying.” N ot less rem arkable was the evidence of M r. Sachse, the experienced Settlem ent Officer o f Mymensingh, who placed before us the views of the raiyats of th a t district. H e told us th a t the raiyats would not only welcome a system o f continuous maintenance, b u t th a t they have already begun to clam our for it and would gladly pay their share o f the cost. But however m uch we were impressed by the tenor of the Bengal evidence in favour of continuous maintenance, we desire to avoid the error o f laying too m uch stress upon it. I t is probable th a t m any o f those who now support the policy in the abstract would strongly criticize any concrete scheme which is p u t forward, as the landlords of Bakarganj actually did in the case o f the scheme formulated by M r. B*atson Bell. I t is also certain th a t the landlords and tenants, who now express a readiness to bear a portion of the cost, would grum ble when called upon to pay it.
85. W hen we visited other Provinces we found systems o f record m aintenance working smoothly and satisfactorily every where, not only in raiyatw ari tracts, b u t also in tracts where there are
„ ... interm ediate landlords between G overnm ent an d the Conditions
under which cultivators. W e were struck by the fact th a t in other rights'^0*" Provinces the recorders not only correct the m aps and maintained in records, bu t also note the paym ents o f rent. As far as we
other Provinces. , , . . , „
are aware, it has never been suggested in any scheme for record-m aintenance in Bengal, th a t th e recorders shqjild concern themselves w ith payments o f rent. Any such proposal would in our opinion be altogether im practicable in Bengal, and it is well th at this should be clearly understood. W e m ade p articu lar inquiries regarding the relationship which exists in other Provinces * between the landlords and th eir agents on the one h an d an d the m ain
tenance staff on the other. In soihe places the landlords an d their agent make their annual collections from the tenants on the basis of the m aintenance papers and in direct com m unication w ith the m ain
tenance staff. In other places the collections are m ade m ore or less independently of the m aintenance staff; b u t in all cases the landlords consult the latter an d bring their papers into accord with those of the-
m aintenance staff, before they take coercive steps against those raiyats who have fallen into arrears o f rent. Everywhere we found a marked spirit o f co-operation and a m arked absence of friction; and we are persuaded that, if the system which we found working so smoothly in other Provinces ( an d which some o f us have seen working well both in raiyatw ari and zam indari tracts in Assam ) could be introduced into Bengal, it w ould be an undoubted boon b o th to th e landlords and the tenants. O n the other hand, we fully realize the difficulties of the problem. We appreciate the fact th a t the smoothness with which the system works elsewhere is largely due to three causes :—
First, th a t the people of other Provinces have always been accustomed to this system a n d regard it as th e natural state o f affairs;
Secondly, th a t the rent-suits in other Provinces are dealt with by R evenue Officers, who work un der the control of the D istricts Collector, who also controls the agency o f m aintenance; and
Thirdly, th a t in other Provinces, each raiyat generally pays a lum p ren t to a single landlord o r group o f landlords.
In Bengal, on the other hand, the s ^ te m w ould be strange both to landlords and tenants : the rent-suits are dealt w ith by the civil courts; and the tenants often pay their rents in m inute separate sums to five or six, sometimes even to 50 or 60 different, landlords or groups of landlords.
86. But the argum ent which weighed most of all w ith those m em bers of the Com mittee who belonged to Provinces where a lan d record system existed, was the fact th a t the entries o f a current record-of rights would no t be accepted by a civil court in Bengal, unless m aintained w ith th e help o f an extrem ely costly Peculiar difficul- sup ervjsin g staff. In th e U nited Provinces .and Central
. „ . Provinces the m aintained record adm ittedly contains ance»n Bengal
certain imperfections of survey; and in the rare cases (occurring ihostly in the former Province) where the khewat, or record of proprietary right, is especially elaborate, mistakes o f title lire occasionally found, while a certain small percentage o f errors o f possession or tenure are also m et w ith in the case of tenants’ holdings. Y et the grow th of. custom has led even the civil courts to attach in practice a.deg ree o f validity to these records w hich is not w arranted by any legal enactm ent. S tarting from a tim e w hen th e courts h ad a t their disposal b u t very imperfect m eans of discovering th e facts about possession or {enure, we soon find them relying m ore and m ore on the pat- w ari’s record, as its general average of accuracy was proved by experience
to be high . I t is not claimed th a t the record is accepted w ithout fre
q u e n t—often inconveniently frequent — summonses to the patw ari to appear in court, bu t com pared w ith the volume of civil litigation in Bengal, th a t o f the U nited Provinces and C entral Provinces is trival, while the bulk of cases, including rent-cases th a t involve reference to a m aintained record are tried by Revenue Officers, whose tours enable them in m any instances to take up cases on the spot, and whose responsibi
lity for the work of the patw ari ensures every care being taken not to summon him unnecessarily, o r detain him unduly.
From this state o f affairs conditions in Bengal differ toto coelo.
Here, the prescription of rules having the force o f law, under which an entry in the record-of-rights m ust have been attestated by a gazetted officer before it can be treated as proof presumptive, is certain to be rigidly enforced. M r. R eid, the D irector o f L and Records in Bihar and Orissa, p u t before us the some w hat surprising statem ent th a t in Orissa, where this standard of perfection has at great expense been attained, in not a single case have the civil courts m ade use o f the m aintained records during five years.
87. Even a p a rt from this difficulty, we find ourselves confronted with the following dilem m a :* either we m ust expect to see the patwaris chained to constant attendance on the courts, with a
„ , consequent breakdow n of the land records system; or we
Costly nature , , . .
of supervising m ust recom m end the m aintenance of a large gazetted establishment. staff, though even this would probdbly n o t entirely free the patw ari from attendance in mesne profit suits and the like, where questions o f the crops sown and their o u ttu rn are in issue.
T he cost o f such a staff would be ou t of all proportion to th a t entertained in any other Province. For a Bengal record-of-rights is in itself a totally different an d infinitely m ore form idable docum ent th a t anything of its kind elsewhere. W e have been informed th a t in the U n ited Provinces it is in villages w ith an elaborate record of proprietary rig ht th a t the* p a t
wari is most a p t to be in fault. B ut th e “ ten su re tree” o f a Bengal m auza exhibits complications entirely unparalleled in any other Province in India. T h e original ownership o f the village has in m any cases been split into a bewildering m aze o f vertical an d horizontal subdivisions th a t require a skilled agency to trace ou t and rocord. W here proprietary tenures are quite commonly found seven an d eight deep, and in some cases 12, 15, or even '17 tenure-holders are recorded one b elo w ’an o th er; where each of these strata of proprietorship is divided u p'am o ng equally num erous sharers;
where a single proprietor very frequently holds tenures in #several of these stEata; and where, finally, m ost o f the tenure-holders are absentees, and n o t continuously represented in the village : .h ere is a state o f things in the
face of which an agency like th a t in the U nited Provinces an d C entral P ro
vinces would be entirely helpless. To give some idea o f th e complications which exist we have annexed to this'report a copy of the largest “ tenure tree”
from he records of Bakarganj th at the limitations o f book-binding would allow to be inserted. I t would have been easy to find a “ tree” four or five times as large. This “ tenure tree” shows the landlord-interest in th e single village o f south C hauddabaria. O ne o f these “ tenure trees”
was prepared for every one o f the two thousand an d odd villages in the district. A nd it m ust be rem em bered th a t these “ tenure trees” do not show the raiyats a t all. T h e raiyats and the under-raiyats will only be found in the volume o f the khatians. I t is obvious from the study of the
“ t.enure tree” th a t nearly every correction which is m ade involves m any corollary corrections in the papers, both of the superior and inferior interest,
T here is no doubt, therefore, th a t the continuous m aintenance of a record-of-rights in Bengal will entail an expense out o f all proportion to th a t which suffices for the L and Records D epartm ents o f other provinces;
while the direct financial justification for this expense th a t exists in tem porarily-settled tracts is not found here. T h e cost, too, will bear an alarm ingly high proportion to the com paratively small land revenue paid in Bengal.
W e recognize th at, w hatever m ay be the argum ents for the in tro duction o f a system o f m aintenance under ordinary circumstances, they are not based on the urgent social, political, or economic considerations arising out o f the present extraordinary state of affairs existing in Bengal, th a t have provided the justification for the measures we have proposed in this report. These proposals, while necessary, will be so costly to intro
duce an d to m aintain th a t we have, w ith w hatever reluctance, found it necessary to recomm end the postponement from present consideration of the system of continuous m aintenance.
. '88. In the letters already quoted regarding the m aintenance of the record in Orissa and in Eastern Bengal it was stated th a t the question of m aintenance need not be considered until the next Postponement revision o f the record-of-rights in 8 or 10 years’ time. Whe-
of System o f , . . . .
maintenance. th er the possibility o f m aintaining the record m ight not be reconsidered a t an earlier d ate in some o f the districts, such as D acca a n d Mymensingh, in which the initial record is approaching com pletion, is a matte*- which we m ust leave for the decision, o f govern
m ent. O n one point we are quite clear, an d th a t is, th a t it would be a great mistake to attem p t to jjitroduce any scheme of record-m aintenance
•until the Circle .System .an d the other reforms in village life, which have been proposed in the following chapters, have first been introduced-
89. A p art altogether from w hat we .have w ritten above there is another very strong reason for recom m ending a postponemfent of the
question of record-m aintenance, namely, th a t the Tenancy Difficulties f Law o f Bengal is a t present in a state o f great confusion impending and uncertainty on the vital question o f the transferability amendmentaW ° f occupancy rights. T he H o n’ble H igh C ourt has addressed the Bengal Governm ent on this subject, and has recom m ended th a t legislation should be undertaken a t an early date.
It is alm ost certain th a t it will be found impossible to confine legislation to this one point. A num ber o f corollary problems will b e opened out, and the result will probably be th at, along w ith the determ ination o f the question of “ free sale,” the framework o f the Tenancy A ct will bs subs
tantially altered in the m atter o f the status of tenants an d their various rights and liabilities. I f any system o f coptinuous m aintenance or perio
dical revision is to be introduced, it is m uch better th a t it should intro
duced. after, and not before, the am endm ent o f the law. This also was the opinion o f m any o f the witnesses who deposed in favour o f continuous m aintenance.
90. In the circum stances we hardly feel called upon to pronounce on the respective m erits o f pejiiodical revision and continuous m aintenance,
still less to give our vote in favour o f a particular scheme o f either kind. From the point o f view o f bringing the _ . Executive into touch' w ith the people, w hich is the point
staff and Circle . . . .. ,
System ° f view w ith which our Committee is prim arily concerned, it is obvious th a t any scheme which invqlves the utiliza- tion o f a perm anent an d resident agency, recruited from am ong the villagers, has m any advantages over a scheme which relies on a tem porary and extraneous agency. This aspect o f th e case will, we have no doubt, be duly considered w hen the tim e comes for taking up this problem. M eanwhile m uch will have been done by the system o f Circle Officers and Village Unions, which we are proposing towards bringing about closer co-operation between the G overnm ent and the people, and this consideration has reconciled us in no small measure to a postponement of the question o f m aintaining o r revising the records.
M oreover, from w hat we have seen in other parts o f In d ia, we are satisfied that, if it be decided hereafter to m aintain the Bengal records, there will be no difficulty in m aking the necessary additions to th e staff o f th e Circle System, and in working the two branches of the staff as p arts of the same organization. For the supervision o f the village recorders, the Circle Officer would probably require the assistance of an Assistant Circle Officer and K anungos; but, as we said before, we refrain from form ulat
ing a definite scheme.
91. Although we do not recom m end th e im m ediate introduction of any scheme o f m aintenance or periodical revision, we would suggest
that, in some o f the areas in which th e record-of-rights Proposals for js comp iete an(j printed maps are available, an experi- Cro^'Ttatistics m ent should be m ade in the direction o f im proving the through preparation of forecasts an d crop statistics. T o begin panchayats. with, this operation m ight be confined to ju te, winter
rice, an d autum n rice—the th ree most im po rtant crops o f Bengal . I t m ight be arranged th a t th e Secretary o f the Village Union should be a m an who understands maps and records, preferably a villager who has been trained in the Settlem ent D epartm ent. W e have ascertained that, in the district o f M ymensingh alone, th ere are 2,500 villagers who have received such training. In add itio n to his o th er work, the Secretary should be required to go round the fields w ith a printed m ap and a blank register showing fields an d field areas. H e should m ark the fields which are under the crop in question, and should p rep are an accurate total for th e village. A small honorarium m ight perhaps be paid to the Secretary for this duty, in addition to his o ther emoluments. T he Collector, the Subdivisional Officer, an d the Circle Officer would m ake a point o f check
ing th e Secretary’s work in the field. W e «.re convinced th a t such a sys
tem would no t only brin g about a m arked im provem ent in the forecasts an d crop statistics o f the Province, b u t it would have the great advan
tage o f giving work to the executive staff, which would m ake them visit, no t only the hom esteads, bu t also the .fields o f the villagers. W e see no reason why this system should not be introduced into the selected areas pari passu w ith Circle System and the village reforms.