The Permanent Settlement: A Critical Study of Decolonial Approach Mohammad Golam Rabbani* Abstract More than a half century has past after the political decolonization of the Indian subcontinent but the history of this region, to many extents, is yet to be decolonized. The colonial subservience is still dominant, especially, in the history of Bangla. Under this observation, the history of the Permanent Settlement is attempted to be critically reviewed with a decolonial approach in this article. The Permanent Settlement is often fantasized by many scholars as a benign settlement for capitalist transformation in agriculture. But, from a decolonized standpoint it can be seen as a settlement for the ‘revenue farmers’ for being the permanent pillar of the British political domination in Bangla. Differentiation and expropriation in peasant economy were the main effects of the Permanent Settlement. But, most of the historical works, presumably owing to colonial scholarship and colonial source materials have spent much time in researching the benign role of its authors. Its devastating impacts, as obvious by evidences though provide the maximum contents of those texts, their model overwhelmingly perceive the ‘benign role’ of its authors which eventually caused to conceptual paradoxes. These need to be addressed and challenged.
1. Introduction The Permanent Settlement was formulated and enforced by Lord Cornwallis, the governor general of the Fort William of Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1793 which had devastating impacts on the economic life of Bangla. The Permanent Settlement was, however, a landmark towards Company’s political domination over the economy of Bangla by which the land ‘revenue’ i.e land-rent1 to be paid by the ‘revenue farmers’ i.e. land-rent collectors was permanently fixed. The peasant economy of Bangla (colonial term is ‘Bengal’) was directly affected by the political change for the first time during the colonial period. In fact, the mercantile plundering since the Palashi (colonial term is ‘Plassey) and thereafter, the enforcement of the Permanent Settlement with sole interest of ‘revenue’ (henceforth land-rent) had shattered the peasant economy of Bangla in many regards. As Sirajul Islam (1992) observed, though the people of Bangla were though rarely fortunate to manage their political affairs by themselves, in the sphere of economic life they had always been original and autonomous in their thought and activities. Particularly, peasant economy and the agrarian relations in the country side tended to continue more or less unaffected and unchanged until Bangla was subjugated by the British East India Company. Then what makes the Company’s domination different? Why shattering changes occurred in the peasant economy and in the agrarian structure during Company’s occupation? Answers can be found in the fact that, unlike all previous regimes, Company’s domination in Bangla derived from entirely mercantile interests. That politico-mercantile domination, eventually, caused to devastating reshuffling in agrarian relations. And, in real 1
*Associate Professor, Jahangirnagar University. Email:
[email protected]
Since the Company was not a legitimate government of the country the fees it took from the raiyats and peasants for land cultivation should be considered as land-rent, not as ‘revenue’.
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judgment, the Permanent Settlement was nothing but an instrument of Company’s exploitative control over the land management, and thereby, over the peasant economy of Bangla. It is arguable that why the Permanent Settlement was enforced? The colonial subservient view is that the Permanent Settlement was a benign settlement for capitalist transformation in agriculture. To quote Sirajul Islam, Economically it was expected that the permanent settlement would encourage the investment of capital in land and, therefore, the growth of a middle class; that it would lead to more lenient and considerate treatment of the tenants by the landlords, and would thus promote general prosperity.2 But how far this was true? Needless to say, the Company enforced the Permanent Settlement for the sake of their interest. The period from Palashi to the Permanent Settlement was an era of mercantile plundering of the Company’s servants which besides ruining the economy of the country spoiled the economy of the Company. Presumably, it is not the ruining of the country that made the colonial authority to find out a way of recovery but the wreck of the Company. According to Sirajul Islam (1992), in digging out the causes of the crisis the rulers discovered the fault not in the policies of the new regime, but in the imagined weakness of the land control system. The Permanent Settlement was, however, a settlement for the landrent collecting agents i.e the zamindars (colonial term is ‘revenue farmers’) for being the permanent pillar of the British political supremacy in Bangla. And, the political ambition of the Permanent Settlement was however, successful. As history attests, the sycophant ‘revenue farmers’ were devoted for holding up the British domination until the eventual years. 2. Subservient interpretations of the Permanent Settlement and the reality The rural agrarian structure underwent little changes even after the establishment of the Company’s domination till the enforcement of the Permanent Settlement in 1793. Apparently, crushing changes in the agrarian structure were taking place after the Permanent Settlement. But, most of the historical works, presumably owing to colonial scholarship and colonial source materials have spent much time in researching the benign role of its authors. For example, to quote Sirajul Islam, Cornwallis was particularly disturbed to see that the landlords and raiyats were coerced to pay higher and higher taxes every year and all their surpluses were ruthlessly extracted from them by the Company’s government. He called this practice banditry of the state, which was primarily responsible, according to him, for the collapse of the Bengal economy and the economy of the Company itself.3 But, if Cornwallis was really of that kind of view, why the land-rent was fixed by an extreme over estimation? Why the revenue-sell law (popularly known as ‘sun-set law’) came into effect and deceived the traditional big zamindars from their zamindari rights? Why land was farmed out to the highest bidding speculators who had no previous connection with land control, and according to Islam (1992), were given the license to squeeze the raiyats? In my 2
Sirajul Islam, The Permanent Settlement in Bengal-A Study of its Operations 1790-1819, Bangla Academy, Dhaka, 1979, p.xi. 3 Sirajul Islam, (ed.), History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol. 2, (Dhaka 1992), p.17
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view, enhancement of land-rent was the main purpose of the Permanent Settlement which was immediately made clear by the endorsement of the devastating ‘sun-set law’. However, in the above quotation we can see that Company’s authority is being acknowledged as ‘government’ and ‘state’. But at the time of the enforcement of Permanent Settlement (1793) the Company was not in a status of legitimate government of Bangla. In another place, Sirajul Islam says, As an improving landlord of his time, he (Cornwallis) had, however, no doubt in his mind that the zamindari system vesting property rights in the zamindar class and fixing the public revenue in perpetuity would bring about a quick capitalist transformation in Bengal’s agrarian relations and agriculture.4 Here, the land-rent to be collected by the Governor General-in-Council of the Fort William of Calcutta is recognized as ‘public revenue’. But, there is a conceptual problem. In Bangla language ‘revenue’ means rajaswa which is collected by the government of the state. And, the general idea of ‘public revenue’ is that, a legitimate government of the state is entitled to collect it and to spend for public service. But, as Sirajul Islam himself recognized, the so called sovereignty still lay in the Mughal ruler 5. Then why the land-rent collected by colonial occupiers recognized as ‘public revenue’? Thus colonial subservience and, thereby, conceptual paradoxes are prevailing the history of permanent settlement. 3. The mood of Permanent Settlement The Permanent Settlement is often fantasized as a colonial wisdom for capitalist transformation in agriculture. Sirajul Islam (1992) is of the view that the Company’s Bengal expert wanted the traditional agrarian relations to be changed for a more dynamic system which would take the country to the path of capitalist transformation with its happy consequences on the rulers as well as on the ruled. But, as a matter of fact, capitalist transformation did not occur. Why? Again, Sirajul Islam found its reasons in the inability of the zamindars of Bangla to lead a capitalist transformation. But, in my view, somewhat desire for agrarian capitalism might be in the spirit of the Permanent Settlement but not in its code. Rather, the sole interest of the Permanent Settlement was to enhance land-rent. If Lord Cornwallis was really looking for a capitalist development in agriculture and agrarian relations through the Permanent Settlement, at least, there could be no ‘sun-set law’. However, in view of the Company’s interest it might be a ‘reform, which was also auspicious for the banians (local merchants and creditors). But, what did it bring for the peasants and raiyats? As historical evidences attest, it brought nothing but shattering changes for them. Nevertheless, the overall changes in the period were significant for the development of the region on modern lines. In this context, it would not be misleading to refer that colonial process of development as pauperization. 6 And, the rural proletarianization was primarily the outcome of that pauperization. It is undeniable that there was a growth in agriculture after the Permanent Settlement. But the growth was only in the size of land in cultivation, not in the mood of production. To be noted that, in the early nineteenth century, the expansion of land in cultivation had occurred due to the growth of population. By 1792 it was officially estimated that due to lack of husbandmen, 4
Ibid. Ibid. 6 Pauperization is a development process whereby an increasing number of families become poorer. 5
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about one-third of the fertile land of Bangla fell out of cultivation 7 which, in turn, resuming to be cultivated by the increasing population. So, the due expansion of land in cultivation did not essentially mean any capitalist or commercial transformation in agriculture. It is interesting to note that there is no evidence of commercial farm-house in Bangla during the post-permanent settlement period. Ironically, the zamindari estates were being considered by the colonial authority as ‘revenue farm’ and the zamindars as ‘revenue farmer’. So, theoretically, it is unrealistic to expect any capitalist transformation in agriculture from a system where crop-farmers were deceived of property rights and were subjected to the ‘revenue farmers’. In principles, the Permanent Settlement did not differ with the periodical settlements such as the ‘yearly settlement’, ‘the five years settlement’ and the ‘ten years settlement’. In fact, the very permanent settlement was merely a conversion of the ‘ten years settlement’. Theoretically, if there were any higher thought behind the Permanent Settlement than those behind the periodical settlements the existing ‘ten years settlement’ could not get the autostatus of Permanent Settlement, as it happened. It means, in principle, the Permanent Settlement was not different from the haphazard periodical settlements. However, the tendency of handing over the land ownership to the wealthiest banians derived entirely from their increasing demand of land-rent. It imposed the burden of unfavorable and unaffordable rent on the shoulders of the zamindars by extreme over estimation of land. In most cases the traditional zamindars became unable to pay the permanently fixed over rent, and eventually were left out of their property rights by the ironic ‘sun-set-law’. Thereby, property rights were handed over to the highest bidding speculators, the wealthiest banians, who had no previous connection with land control and were given the license to squeeze the raiyats.’8 Moreover, the necessary economic flexibility, which is must for any capitalist transformation, did not exist throughout the period. Rather, the colonial intervention had stopped the normal process of the overall capitalist development, because, the banian capital had been shifted from economic activities to land control. M.R. Tarafdar has rightly pointed out that the Permanent Settlement of 1793 was a sort of aristocratic feudalism. The British associates, Bengali dalal (speculator), fariah (middlemen) or the banians could be attentive to trade, commerce and even industries at last; but being under the mechanism of the Permanent Settlement, they tilted to the acquisition of landed property. Thereby, the probability of building up of a commerce-industry based social class by the formation of capital for trade and industry came to a halt for a long time. Thus the country turned into practically an agrarian one. 9And, only land was commercialized. 4.0 Consequences of the Permanent Settlement Under the Permanent Settlement, the pre-British landed authorities were replaced by the new banian zamindars, hitherto unknown and unrelated with the agrarian system. On the other hand, it imposed the burden of unfavorable and unaffordable land-rent on the shoulders of the zamindars and also neglected the benign role of the pre-British landed authority. The newly born urban oriented banian zamindars soon became absentees in their zamindari and turned into a parasitic raentier class. It is widely held that the propitious outputs of the Permanent Settlement were gained by the bhadralok while the peasants fell in a process of prolatarianization. Now the question is - who were the bhadralook? The Bengali word 7
From 1767 to 1790, population was declining fast due to recurring famines and scarcities which made mortality rate much higher than birth rate. See for details, Sirajul Islam, op. cit., 1992, Vol. 2, p.14-27. 8 Sirajul Islam, op. cit., 1992 p.14 9 M. R. Tarafdar, Madhyayuger Banglay Prayukti O Samaj Vivartan (Technology and Social Evolution in Medieval Bengal), Bangla Academy, Dhaka, 1993, p.41.
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bhadralok literally referring to as "well-mannered person" used to denote the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose in Bangla during the colonial period. Mukherjee (1977) suggests that neither ‘bhadralok’ nor ‘babu’ describes straightforward communal or caste categories. These terms reflected, instead, the social realities of colonial Bengal, the peculiar configuration that excluded, for a variety of historical reasons (Sen, 1976), the vast majority of Bengali Muslims and low-caste Hindus from the benefits of land ownership and the particular privileges it provided. The two biggest factors that led to the rise of the bhadralok were the huge fortunes many banians made from aiding the English East India Company's trade, and English education. And finally, many of them owned zamindari under the joint venture of the Permanent Settlement and the revenue-sell law. Thus, under the Permanent Settlement, while the ‘microscopic’ bhadralok found occasions of making fortunes and thereby upgrading their status, the peasants were fell in a process of proletarianization. 4.1. Rise of peasant property and its death Sirajul Islam has rightly observed that if the Permanent Settlement had created classes of tenure-holders in between the riyats and zamindars the series of tenancy laws had created differentiation and landlessness in the peasant society. However, the rise of proja or peasant property through the successive Rent Act of 1859, Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, Tenancy Amendment Act of 1928 and the Amendment Act of 1938 introduced new elements in the organizational structure of traditional peasant farming. It is widely accepted that the Acts were introduced to provide the peasantry with land occupancy right. But it was not the case that all cultivators acquired the legal status of occupancy-raiyat. Because, the Acts were designed to accommodate the political pressures, exerted by an economically ascendant upper stratum within the peasantry’.10 Before the Permanent Settlement, land could not be bought and sold at peasant levels. But, after creating the a speculative land markets under the Permanent Settlement, the series of tenancy legislations by legalizing the transferability of land, in deed, gave peasants only the selling rights of their lands, which within a short time made them landless forever. So, in real judgment, the tenancy acts gave peasants the right not to possess land but to dispossess them. It tended to the concentration of landed property in the hands of those who were socially and financially powerful. However, land was now ‘bourgeois landed property’ in the sense that Marx used the term in his critique of Guizot 11. The rural society was differentiated into landed jotedars at the top and landless bargadars at the bottom and a host of intermediate interest in between. Thus, under the operation of the various tenancy legislations the peasant society was differentiated so much so that a large section of the peasants became landless, and thereby, ‘the free tenant of Bengal as productive entrepreneur ceased to exist’12. The Report of the Land Revenue Commission of the Government of Bengal, popularly known as Floud Commission revealed an unambiguous picture of differentiation among the peasants (see Figure 1).
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K.K.Sen, ‘Agrarian Structure and Tenancy Laws in Bengal 1850-1885’ in: Perspective in Social Sciences, vol. 2, Calcutta, p.56. 11 Alavi and Shanin, Introduction to the Sociology of “Developing Societies” , Macmillan, London 1982; cited in, Hussain Zillur Rahman, ‘Landed Property and the Dynamic of Instability’, (unpublished PhD thesis), Victoria University of Manchester, October 1986, p.134. 12 Ratan Lal Chakraborty, ‘Rural Indebtedness in Bengal 1935-1947’, (unpublished PhD thesis), University of Dhaka, 1988, p. 73.
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Figure 1
Source: Report of the Land Revenue Commission (Floud Commission), 1940, Vol. 5, Table VIII (b), Bengal Government Press, Alipore.
The rising differentiation in the rural society was also statistically noticed by Ishaque’s Plot to Plot Survey (1944-1945) which found only less than 16% of rural households owning more than 5.0 acres of land and the rest of the society was of small and marginal farmers, sharecroppers and landless laborers (see Figure 2). Figure 2
Source: H. S. M. Ishaque, Agriciltural Statistics by Plot to Plot Enumeration in Bengal, 1944-45, Part-I, 1946, Alipore.
4.2. Rise of labor market and barga system As a result of land concentration on one hand and absolute landlessness on the other, there also developed an agricultural labour market. However, a considerable number of marginal peasants and artisans, being deprived of their occupations entered into the labour market and adhered to a new class known as ‘day-laborer’ and, thereby possessed a new degraded status in the society than before which adversely affected their social life. A spectacular increase occurred between 1880s and 1940s, and on a conservative estimate, some 7 million peasants
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and artisans had joined the ranks of the wage-laborer by the middle of the 20 th century.13 Thus, they encountered various challenges in relation to access and participation vis-a-vis social status. On the other hand, many people who became landless or highly marginalized, held land at barga (share-cropping) terms and thus was absorbed into a new class known as bargadars or adhiars (share-croppers). Bhaduri suggests that the agrarian economy was controlled by a small number of large landlords who by taking lion’s share of the crop from their sharecroppers, and by lending at high rates of interest, kept the latter having no alternative source of credit, in a state of permanent indebtedness and subordination 14. Perhaps, the inter-generational transmission of poverty could be traced back to this period of structural changes in agrarian relations. 4.3. Decline in ‘social capital’ and rural wellbeing The pre-colonial structure though exploitative was, somewhat, economic reality and social order of the day. Peasants were familiar with traditional structure and fairly seemed as ‘noncomplaining’ against that. Shirin Akhtar (1982) observed that the continuation of the zamindari in the same family for generations had naturally fostered closer ties between the hereditary zamindars and their projas who lived in the same village and ploughed the same land for years. Those traditional zamindars were replaced by new banian zamindars hitherto unknown and unrelated with the agrarian system. The Permenent Settlement thus neglected the benign role of the pre-British landed authority. For instance, zamindars’ initiatives for building roads, bridges, serais, pathsalas, tols and resolving the problems of law and order in their realm, and even repairing the loss of property through theft and robbery began to disappear and, thereby, ruining the constructive forces of the village economy. The old networks of mutual support and the social capital were shattered. On the other hand, zamindars’ governing authorites were eliminated under the Permanent Settlement which led to multitude of structural tensions. 4.4. Decline in rural productivity From ancient period down to the so far industrial advent in the British era, Bangla was the general storehouse of folk or rural crafts and cottage industry. The villages, inhabited by peasants, artisans, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, potters, fishermen, baniks and beparis (traders), traditional healers and, so on, were by and large self-contained while the inhabitants were bound together by the enduring institutions of kinship. If we look at the economic growth of seventeenth century Bangla, it can be seen that the possibility of capital formation was not least. Irfan Habib says, “Though our evidence is not as firm as we should like it to be, there are some grounds for holding that the techniques in textile crafts were not absolutely stagnant.”15 The luxurious style of living, the pageantry and majesty of the considerable zamindars boosted indigenous arts and crafts. Forster noted that the private wealth was usually expended on the spot where it had been acquired, and though severity and oppression might have been exercised in the accumulation, yet, by its quick circulation, through luxury expenditure the country at large was improved and embellished, without any decrease of the general currency.16 Thereby a fine quality cotton textiles, exquisite silks, jewellery, decorative 13
Willem van Schendel, “Economy of the Working Class”, in: Sirajul Islam, op cit., 1992, p. 565. Anthony Beck, ‘Poverty and Power Survival in Three Villages of West Bengal, India’, (unpublished Ph.D thesis), SOAS, University of London, p.74. 15 Irfan Habib, “Indian Textile Industry in the 17th Century”, in S. C. Sarkar, Felicitation Volume, New Delhi, 1975, p.186. 16 G. Forster, A Journey from Bengal to England, 1, p.6. 14
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swords and weapons etc. were produced by the indigenous entrepreneurs. 17 Huge quantities of muslins, mulmuls and cosses were exported from Bangla to the markets of Europe. 18 By collapsing the pre-British landed authority and, on the other hand, by creating absentee zamindars the above mentioned arts and crafts were brutally declined. It may be pointed out that most of the newly born zamindars left village for cities and entered into politics and non-commercial professions. The rent, paid by the peasants was thus spent in cities. One immediate impact of it was that the wealth of villages was being drained to cities, thereby, wrecking the village economy. Moreover, zamindars’ spending on luxury articles, social and religious ceremonies which had positive effect on the economic life of the rural community was also reduced significantly. Bibliography -
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Akhtar, S. 1982. The Role of Zamindars 1707-1772, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Beck, Anthony ‘Poverty and Power Survival in Three Villages of West Bengal, India’, (unpublished Ph.D thesis), SOAS, University of London. Chakraborty, Ratan Lal ,1988 ‘Rural Indebtedness in Bengal 1935-1947’, (unpublished Ph.D thesis), University of Dhaka. Forster, G. A Journey from Bengal to England, 1. Habib, Irfan, 1963. The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556-1707, Asia Publishing House, London. Habib, I. 1975. “Indian Textile Industry in the 17th Century”, in: S. C. Sarkar, Felicitation Volume, New Delhi. Hussain Zillur Rahman, 1986. ‘Landed Property and the Dynamic of Instability’, (unpublished Ph.D Thesis), Victoria University of Manchester. Imperial Gazetteers of India Islam, Sirajul, 1987. “The problem of the Madhyasvatvas in Nineteenth century Bengal”, Joournal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Islam, Sirajul, 1979, The Permanent Settlement in Bengal-A Study of its Operations 1790-1819, Bangla Academy, Dhaka. Islam, Sirajul (ed.), 1992, History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol. 2, Dhaka). Jahangir, B. K., 1979. Differentiation, Polarisation and Confrontation in Rural Bangladesh, CSS. Report of the Land Revenue Commission Bengal, Alipore, Volume I.
Schendel W. v. and Faraizi, A. H. 1984, Rural Labourers in Bengal 1880 to 1980, Rotterdam. Schendel, W. v. 1992 . “Economy of the Working Class”, in: Sirajul Islam, (ed.), History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol. 2, Dhaka. Sen, Binayak 1992. “Industrial Entrepreneurship”, in: Sirajul Islam (ed.) History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, Vol 2, Dhaka. Sen, K.K. ‘Agrarian Structure and Tenancy Laws in Bengal 1850-1885’ in: Perspective in Social Sciences Vol 2, Calcutta. Sinha N.K. (ed.), 1967. The History of Bengal, Calcutta. Tarafdar, M. R. 1993. Madhyayuger Banglay Prayukti O Samaj Vivartan (Technology and Social Evolution In Medieval Bengal), Bangla Academy, Dhaka.
Shirin Akhtar, The Role of Zamindars 1707-1772, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, (Dhaka 1982), p.187. Imperial Gazetteers of India, Bengal, II, 428; J. Z. Holwell, Interesting Historical Events, Part I, p.202.
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