plz share the softcopy of punjab settlement manual

PUNJAB SETTLEMENT MANUAL


CHAPTER 1

Introductory

Rights of State and private land owners in
land and its produce- In India the State has
always claimed a share of the produce of the
land from the persons in whom it recognized
a permanent right to occupy and till it or
arrange for its tillage. It is needless to
discuss the various ways in which in which
this the right of the ruler to his share and the
right of the occupier to hold the land he
cultivated and pass it on to his children both
formed part of the ancient customary law of
the country, however, the latter might
occasionally be denied in practice by an
unjust Government.

2. Ownership of land in India. Land
revenue not a land tax. Broadly speaking
individuals exercising a permanent right of
the king described above subject only to
payment of the dues of the State have been
recognized by us as. “owners” or
“proprietors”, but it would be a mistake to
assume that these words, as used in India,
imply all that they do in England. The share of
the State, which we call the land revenue, is
not a land tax .It is more analogous to rent,
and in early settlement literature it was so
described, the Government being represe
noted as surrendering to the landowner a
small portion of the rent. The land revenue to
is therefore “the first charge upon the rents,
profit, or produce” of an estate or holding,
and, until it has been paid, they cannot,
without the previous consent of the Collector,
be taken inexecution of a decree obtained by
any private creditor. (Land Revenue Act, XVII
of 1857, section 62).

3. Rent under native system of
assessing land revenue. Native rulers sometimes
took their share in kind dividing the crops
with the cultivator on the threshing floor
(batai). For certain crops, known as zabti,
which it was inconvenient to provide, e.g.,
cane and poppies; fixed money rates were
charged per bigha or Kanal. At other times
the State officials resorted to appraisement
(kan or kankut), estimating the amount of
the Government share of the crops, and
usually taking its value in money Numerous
cesses (abwab) were levied in addition to the
land revenue proper (mal).

A prudent or ruler forbore to make the
burden too heavy to be borne, and it is
obvious that the collections were roughly
adusted to the character of the seasons, and
pressed much less heavily than a fixed cash
demand equal to the average of the
fluctuating amounts realised would have
done. Rent in the usual sense of the word
hardly existed in the districts now included in
the North-Western Provinces or in the cast of
the Punjab. The small land-holder was
content to win a bare subsistence from the
soil which he tilled with his own hands; the
large landholder was at most able to obtain
from the cultivator some trifling fraction of
the crop, say one seer in the maund, as an
acknowledgement of his superior title. As Mr.
Thomason remarked in the valuable sketch of
teh system of land revenue administration
prevalent in the North-Western Provinces

4. Policy adopted of a moderate cash
assessment fixed for a term of year. A civllad
Government like our own naturally prefers to
commute its claim to a part of the produce of
the soil into an annual money payment fixed
for a term of year. British officers gradually
learned that, if land revenue was to be
collected in this shape with any sort of
regularity, the dernand must be pitched well
below the native standard. The tendency to
moderation was reinforced by considerations
of humanity and belief that the best way to
promote the extension and improvement of
agriculture was to render the land a source of
increasing profit to its owners by limiting the
land revenue and making it incapable of
enhancement for a considerable period. This
policy is especially associated in the northwest
of India with the names of Robert Merttins
Bird and James Thomason, and the first
administrators of the Punjab brought into this
province the lessons learned in their school.

5. Twofold object of settlement. To
assess the land revenue is the primary object
of a settlement. It is necessary at the same
time to decide who shall pay the sums
assessed or, in technical language, with whom
the settlement shall be made. To permit an
individual to contract to pay the land revenue
is usually an acknowledgement that he
possesses a proprietary right in the soil, and
the drawing up of lists (khewats)showing the
landowners in every estate, the extent of each
man’s right, and the amount of revenue for
which he was primarily responsible, involved
in our early settlements a determination for
the first time of the ownership of every parcel
of land in the country. It soon became evident
that there were other persons who had rights
in the soil besides those who could claim the
offer of a settlement, and the advisability of
making a complete record of all rights and
liabilities connected with the land, including
even those of tenants from year to year, was
recognized. A settlement, therefore, consists of
two main branches.
(a) the assessment; and
(b) the framing of a record of rights.