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CHAPTER-IV
SOCIAL RELATIONS
The rural society in the Punjab was comprised of an agricultural
community which lived in villages. A village was the smallest unit of
the administration. The term „village‟ normally used to a consolidated
agricultural community and implied a distinction from other types of
settlement patterns. The village was the predominant type of human
community during British Rule and had been so for the last three
millennia and continued to be so.1 People have spoken for a long time
of the „village community‟, and the expression has taken on somewhat
different meanings since the beginning of the nineteenth century. The
first stage is that of the now famous descriptions by British
administrators in the first thirty years of the century. They described
the village as a „little republic‟, self-sufficient, having its own
functionaries, and surviving the ruin of empires2. In the Victorian
period, „village community‟ took another meaning related to the
supposed communism of primitive peoples or of Indo-European pre-
history. Marx shifted the stress from political autonomy to economic
autarchy. While he finally attributed ownership of the land to the king,
so that only possession in common lands remained to the communities,
he considered them as a „unit of production‟ which were consequently
subject of division of labour.3
H. Calvert in his book, Wealth and Welfare of the Punjab,
mentioned that in 1935-36, there were around five lakh villages in
1 David L. Sills (ed.) International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. XVI, The Macmillan,
New York, 1968, p 18 2 Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus, Oxford, 1970, p 158 3 Ibid.
207
colonial India, which were almost the same in the early 20th
century.4
The Punjab contained, in 1901, three cities; Delhi, Lahore and
Amritsar, with more than I,00,000 population, 53 towns with more
than 10,000, and 99 more than 5,000. Village numbered 43,660, of
which 14,127 contained 500 inhabitants or more. In the Punjab plains
the village was as a rule a compact group of dwellings; but in the
south-west and the hill tracts it comprises a number of scattered
settlements or hamlets, grouped together under the charge of a single
headman for fiscal and administrative convenience.5 Table 4.1 shows
the proportion of urban and rural population at the various censuses.
TABLE 4.1
PERCENTAGE OF RURAL/URBAN POPULATION6
Year Urban Rural
1868 10.4 89.6
1891 10.7 89.3
1901 10.6 89.4
1911 9.8 90.2
1921 10.3 89.7
1931 12.4 87.6
1941 12.8 87.2
The majority of the population lived in the rural area. The
gradual decrease in the rural population was due to various factors such
as shifting of peasants to cities as skilled and un-skilled labour. The
4 We assume that one of the major causes behind unincrease of the village, was the territorial
adjustments of the colonial state; for example, the separation of Burma from colonial India. 5 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 280 6 Census of India, Punjab, 1891, p 93; Census of India, Punjab, 1901, p 169; Census of India,
Punjab, 1911, Vol. XIV, part-I, p 97; Census of India, Punjab, 1921, part-I, pp 34-42; Census of
India, Punjab, 1931, Vol. XVII, part-I, p 317; Census of India, Punjab, 1941, Vol. VI, p 51
208
majority of the people living in rural area primarily depended upon
agriculture as their profession.
This exercise uneven distribution as between the towns and
villages indirectly shows the economic backwardness of the
population. The Britishers did not build up any industrial base in
Punjab; hence, there was no large scale migration towards the towns.
The decrease during the decade 1901-1911 in the urban population was
owing to the outbreak of the epidemics which took an extra ordinarily
heavy toll of life in the towns.7
The population of the Punjab, including native states, further
increased to 34 million by 19418 which was an increase of 42 per cent
on 1901.
TABLE 4.2
VILLAGES AND TOWNS IN PUNJAB9
Years Villages Towns Percentage of Rural
Population
1849 28,879 59 91.2
1901 43,660 155 89.4
1921 34,630 171 89.7
1931 36,011 177 87.6
1941 37,213 191 87.2
The villages differed in their size and spacing in different parts
of the Punjab. During the British rule the small towns, decayed and
7 Census of India, Punjab, 1911, p 96 8 Census of India,Punjab, 1941, Vol. XVII, Table II, pp 6-9 9 Selection from the Records of the Government of India (Punjab), Calcutta; 1856, No. XI, p 10,
Census of India, Punjab, 1901, p 169; Census of India, Punjab, 1911, Vol. XIV, part-I, p 97;
Census of India, Punjab, 1921, part-I, pp 34-42; Census of India, Punjab,1931, Vol. XVII, part-I,
p 317, Census of India, Punjab, 1941, Vol. VI, p 51
209
most of the large towns grew rapidly.10
The stagnation of the smaller
towns forced the population to migrate either to the villages in order to
toil as agricultural labourers or to big cities in order to work in the
factories which were coming up but at slow pace or search for some
other avenues.
The relation between the village communities has been focus of
many debates in both colonial and postcolonial literature. Colonial
literature is replete with images that are now recognized as
stereotypical, often mythical, such as the belief in self-sufficiency of
the village or it‟s being a „little republic‟. For instance, a House of
Commons Report of 1812, described the typical village “as occupying
large acres both waste and arable land; having offices such as that of
headman, revenue collector, accountant, and police boundary man, and
with an internal economy that remained largely unchanged.” Besides
being a unit of administration, the village was also the main source of
revenue in India from Ancient period.
Baden Powell in Administration of Land Revenue and Land
Tenure in British India, remarked that the „village‟ was an aggregate of
cultivated holdings with or without some waste area, belonging to, or
attached to it: and usually it had a central site for dwelling houses
congregated together. The village, moreover, often boasted a grove, or
at least a single tree under which local assemblies will take place.11
It
is understood that the country districts were almost everywhere divided
up into groups of holdings, which were called‟ villages‟ or
10 Neeladri Bhattacharya, Agrarian Change in Punjab, 1880-1940, Ph. D Thesis. JNU, New Delhi,
1985, pp 553-93 11 Baden Powell, Administration of Land-Revenue and Tenure in British India, Esi-E, 1978, pp 66-
67(Reprint, originally published in 1907). The „District‟ (sometimes called Collectorate) was the
administration unit into which each province was divided. In some respects it answered to the
„county‟ in England.
210
„townships‟.12
The „village‟ is not always, strictly speaking, itself the
unit estate. It may happen that a connected group of co -shares have
come to be owners of an estate comprising several geographical
villages, and that the different branches of the family have not divided
the whole so as to make the separate shares consist each of one or more
entire villages. Each branch may have taken its share partly in one
place, partly in another. Hence the real unit, for revenue purposes at
any rate, was the Mahal or a group of lands held under one and the
same title; and registers are prepared to show the list of lands brought
together for this purpose on paper, but actually lying, some here and
there, possibly through half a dozen mauza on the map. Still, there are
a very large number of cases in which a single village is also a mahal,
or estate.
The existence of the village was noticed from the earliest times
to the present time. Studies in social evolution have shown how
nomadism was given up for village life once settled agriculture became
a way of life.13
In India, the village (gram) finds mention in ancient
texts and later epics. It was distinguished from the city (nagar) and the
town or the fortress (pur), while all three stood in opposi tion to
habitations of recluses in the forests (aranya). In the Vedic age the
economy was mainly pastoral, villages were, however, ubiquitous.
According to Basham, the Indian village had not changed much from
what it was like during the first millennium to what it was in mid-
nineteenth century.14
In ancient times the villages were usually walled or stockade, as
they are still in many parts of the Deccan, while most villages in the
12 See, Baden Powell, Short Account of the Land Revenue & Commrece of British India, Clarendon
Press, 1894, p 22 13 See, Barrington Moore for the nature of village life under different political regimes. 14 A.L.Basham, The Wonder that Was India, Sidgwik and Jackson, 1954, p 150
211
north are now open and undefended. The village was a cluster of huts,
small and large, often grouped round a well or a pond, near which was
a small open space with a few trees. In ancient India villages, often had
clubrooms, which served as rest houses for travellers and as centres of
social life; later the village temples took the place of these halls.
„Then, as now, the villages formed a self maintained community and
often had an energetic communal life.‟15
The Arthshastra (400B.C.-
200A.D.) provides us with a classification of the King‟s duties related
to administrative affairs of the village, for example, a new village
could be brought into existence by enabling people to migrate from one
place to other. Kautilya‟s Arthshastra also remarked about the village
life and its administration.16
The Epic Mahabharata (400 B.C-
400A.D.), similarly spoke of types of habitation and settlements,
interrelations between and within villages, and identified them for
purpose of governance. Manusmriti, the book of Brahminical laws
(100A.D - 300A.D.) classified villages in terms of their size and
habitation. Even the Kushan relics of 200 A. D. depicted aspects of
village life. Cholas were also famous for their village administration.17
In the medieval times, Al-Biruni‟s celebrated Kitab-ul-Hind
gives us an account of the village organisation, which was based on
caste. Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in the early sixteenth
century, commented on the rapid appearance and disappearance of
hamlets and villages. A detailed study of the growth and character of
the village from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries has been
discussed by Irfan Habib in his book on the Agrarian System of Mughal
15 Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy; Lord and Peasant in the Making of
Modern World, Boston, 1967 16 Kautilya, The Arthshastra, ed., rearranged, translated and introduced by L.N. Rangrajan, Penguin
Books, 1987, p 57 17 Vandana Madan, (ed.), The Village in India, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, pp 2-5.
212
India.18
He relies on documents particularly from all parts of India,
although his focus is peasant rights and tenancy, the information
indirectly brings out the nature of social and cultural life in the villages
of medieval times. The role of the Panchayat as the head in everyday
life is mainly emphasized. What was said by a revenue manual of the
early nineteenth century of the Delhi and Agra region would have bee n
as true in the seventeenth century.” The cultivating peasants ( asamis),
who plough up the fields, mark the limits of each field, for
identification and demarcation, with borders of [raised] earth, brick
and thorn, so that thousands of such fields may be counted in a
village”.19
In rural areas the village watchman was entrusted, under the
supervision of the village headman and the higher revenue officials,
with the duty of registering birth and deaths. Though almost invariably
illiterate, this agency was so closely supervised in British Districts that
the registration was, in the mass, exceedingly accurate, and its results
were in close agreement with the census returns.20
The first important
feature of the old economic order was the division of the Province into
the villages where the large numbers of the people lived and continue
to live from ancient person to this day. The isolation of the self -
sufficient village was the unit of old Indian economy and “it is to the
village that we must go to study the conditions in which men live and
work who are still under the old dispensation.”21
Confirmation of the tentative hypothesis that settlement
patterns were tribally influenced comes from the Lohare District
Gazetteer for 1916: “In the older Jat village of the Majha it will be
18 Ibid., p 4-5 19 Irfan Habib, Agrarian System of the Mughals, Bombay, 1963, p 135 20 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 281 21 B.S. Saini, The Social and Economic History of the Punjab, 1901-1939, Delhi, 1975, p 39
213
generally found on close inspection that the houses are divided off in
some sort of order according to the pattis, tarafs or other internal
subdivision observed in the village constitution.”22
The people of the villages and pattis are often said be descended
from a common ancestor. Thus, the four patis of a village will be said
to have been established by four brothers, the descendants of each man
forming the basic population in each patti. Such groups bear a name
which is thought of today as a “family name”.23
Conditions in this village must have been typical of most in the
tract and the general wail of the people to Mr. Darling was of the
"drought and slump." Prices of food grains and fodder rose in 1928-29
and after April 1930 came the catastrophic fall in prices owing to the
agricultural depression, so that the peasant was doubly hit. It will be
seen that in the barani area they rose from 60 seers to the rupee in
1927 to 30 seers in 1928 and 1929, while in 1930 they fell in 80 seers
and in 1931 to 160 seers. The following table shows the changes in the
quantities of some food grains, obtainable for a rupee, in the district
from 1927 to 1931:-
Crop. 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931
Srs. C. Srs. C. Srs. C. Srs. C. Srs. C.
Wheat .. .. 8 1 7 14 7 8 12 4 17 9
Barley .. .. 10 8 10 7 9 2 16 4 23 13
Jowar .. .. 9 11 12 8 8 0 11 15 19 2
Bajra .. .. 9 8 9 11 7 3 12 9 20 11
Gram .. .. 9 13 9 9 7 4 10 9 16 11
22 M.N. Srinivas (ed.), India’s Villages, pp 165-66 23 Ibid, p 166
214
Another important feature of the old socio-economic system was
the village community. It is defined by Mr. Douie as a body of
proprietors, who owning a greater part of the village lands as common
possession held themselves responsible jointly for the payment of
revenue.24
The members of the proprietary body were often uni ted by
real or fictitious common descent and for this reason strangers were not
admitted to the brotherhood. The village custom in the matter of
inheritance and pre-emption were accordingly dictated by this feeling.
But during the British rule, the feeling of the reluctance to admit
strangers was subordinated to the need for meeting immediate demand
for land revenue claimed by the government and outsiders were in such
circumstance allowed to share “rights” which had become burdens.”25
The Unionist party had its social base mainly in the rural area, it
was wedded to the betterment of the rural Punjabis at the cost of the
urbanites. As such immediately after coming into power it took
programme of social and economic upliftment of the ruralites. In the
very first session of the Legislative Assembly the leader of the
Unionist party declared that the object of the Unionist Party was to
bring down the distribution of taxes between the over-taxed
agriculturists. 26
The population of the Punjab- the land of Five Rivers- which has
often proved the best of all recruiting grounds for the Indian army,
falls generally in too three groups- Hindu, Sikh and Muslim- but the
differences between them are rather religious than racial, at any rate if
the Pathans and Baluchis of the western Punjab be excluded. For the
Punjabi Muhammadan who provided such an important element in the
24 J.M. Douie, Punjab Settlement Mannual, 1930, p 62 25 Trevaskis, The Punjab of Today, vol. I, p 14 26 Punjab Legislative Assembly Debates, vol. I, p 947
215
Indian army is commonly of Rajput extraction, as are many of Sikh
rulers, while the Jat who from perhaps the most important element in
the population of the Punjab may be either Hindu or Sikh or Muslim,
through the last are in the minority, and the typical Punjab Jat is
probably a Sikh.27
The population in Punjab, unlike other provinces, was divided
into three major religions and several minor one, as is shown in the
Table 4.3
TABLE 4.3
RELIGION-WISE POPULATION IN PUNJAB in 1901-194128
Year Hindus Sikhs Muslims
1901 1,04,78,721 21,30,987 1,41,41,121
1911 87,73,421 28,83,729 1,22,75,477
1921 87,79,651 31,10,060 1,29,55,341
1931 81,25,202 45,38,220 1,33,32,460
1941 80,31,454 48,44,346 1,35,26,912
According to the census of 1941, the proportion of the major
communities per 10,000 of the population was 5340 Muslims, 3018
Hindus and 1429 Sikhs, i.e., 53.40 per cent Muslims, 30.18 per cent
Hindus and 14.30 per cent Sikhs. It is evident that the Muslims formed
the majority in the province.
The Hindus were in majority in most of the districts east of the
Ravi whereas the Muslims dominated the rest, with the Sikhs
concentrated mainly (but not as the largest community) in Lahore and
27 J.H.Hutton, Caste in India, oxford, 1963, p 37 28 Census of India, Punjab, 1891, p 93; Census of India, Punjab, 1901, p 169; Census of India,
Punjab, 1911, Vol. XIV, part-I, p 97; Census of India, Punjab, 1921, part-I, pp 34-42; Census of
India, Punjab, 1931, Vol. XVII, part-I, p 317; Census of India, Punjab, 1941, Vol. VI, p 51
216
Jullundur divisions. Believers of different religious were there, more or
less, among all the major three social groups like the Jats, the Rajputs
and the Khatris and it were their norms and habits rather than religion,
that determined the life pattern of the Punjabi society was always more
egalitarian and mobile and whatever casteism existed there was
confined mainly to urban centers. In rural areas society was still
organized rather on traditional lines than on that of religion.29
Since its different segments were found in all three main
religious groups, therefore for the sake of convenience Punjabi society
has been divided into four large occupational groups; (i) priests and
professionals, (ii) the trading, (iii) agriculturists and (iv) artisans and
landless labourers, although in actual life there is considerable
overlapping of roles, especially among the Sikhs and the Hindus
priestly and commercial groups, as well as among the Jats and Rajputs
of different faiths.
The peasantry in Punjab was not a homogenous one. The
differentiation and stratification with the peasantry was the main
feature of the Punjab agrarian structure.30
Commercialization,
indebtedness, land revenue demand, sub-division of land and rising
prices effected the various section of Punjab peasantry differentiation
leading to big differentiation in land-holdings. This differentiation is
quite evident from the report of an enquiry conducted in 1939. The
report was as follows:
29 Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. XX, p 267 30 C.H. Philips, Select Documents on the History of India and Pakistsn. The Evolution of India and
Pakistan, (1858-1947), p 320
217
TABLE 4.431
SIZE OF HOLDINGS IN PUNJAB IN 1939
Size of holdings % of owners % of total land
From 0-1 acre 20.2 0.8
1-3 acre 28.6 5.2
3-5 acre 14.9 6.2
5-10 acre 16.9 13.1
10-15 acre 7.3 9.1
15-20 acres 3.6 7.2
20-25 acres 2.2 55.6
25-50 acres 3.9 14.8
50 and above 2.4 38.0
Total 100.00 100.00
The above table shows that a big chunk of land was in the
hands of big landlords. Some of them were non-cultivators owners and
lived in town as absentee landlords. Some small peasant proprietors
had lost their land either to money lenders or to landlords and they
were forced to work as tenants. there was a large number of
agricultural labour belonging to lower castes Sikhs such Majhabis etc.
on the contrary 83.3 per cent peasant proprietors had holdings of less
than 10 acres. Besides this there were large number of land less tenants
and their number was maximum in the districts of Multan and
Montgomery.32
There was a large number of agricultural labour in the
31 Bhagwan Josh, Communist Movement in Punjab (1926-47), p 5 32 Ibid, p 8
218
province.33
The small peasant proprietors, tenants and agricultural labour
were economically the most oppressed due to the exorbitant land
revenue, price-rise and indebtedness. In order to improve their
conditions the peasants from lower agricultural classes sought other
means to compensate the poor returns of land.34
The Punjab had the main recruiting ground for the Indian Army
and war had always offered opportunities for employment to the
martial classes of the province. The Sikh Jats, the major tribes of the
tract under survey, had traditions of service in the British Indian Army
going for as far back as the eighteen fifties when the first regiments of
the Ludhiana Sikhs were formed. It was there for natural to except
when the recent war broke out that they would made the biggest
contributions in men from this tract. A notable fact, however, was that
during that war not only the martial but the non-martial classes as well
availed themselves of the opportunities for employment and joined the
army in large numbers.35
It was, however, not the military tradition but the economic
factors which were responsible in the largest measure for recruitment
from the poorer sections of the village society such as the menials and
even the artisans. The following table shows, by religion and tribes, the
number of persons who joined the Army before and during the recent
33 Percentage of four agricultural classes in Punjab was as follow:
(a) Non-cultivating owners 5.4%
(b) Cultivating Owners 48.5%
(c) Tenant Cultivator 31.8%
(d) Agricultural Labour 14.0% The Tribune, March 16, 1975
34 In 1870 the land was sold at the rate of Rs. 10/- per acre. But gradually the price of land increased
to Rs. 100/- per acre. H. Calvert, The Wealth and Welfare of the Punjab, p 219 35 BEIP,„Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, p 7
219
war up to December, 1942:
TABLE 4.5
RELIGION, TRIBE AND NUMBER OF PERSONS IN THE ARMY
Religion and
Tribe
Joined before
the War
Joined during
the War
Total
Sikhs
(i) Jats
(ii) Chamars
(iii) Chuhras
(iv) Karigars
(v) Others
Total
195
6
6
11
4
222
299
111
60
20
26
516
494
117
66
31
30
738
Muslims
(i) Arains
(ii) Julahas
(iii) Others
Total
21
--
6
27
36
25
71
132
57
25
77
159
Hindu 2 25 27
Grand Total 251 673 924
Above Table 4.5 shows that before the war only Sikh Jat
recruited in the army but during the World War II other castes also had
been recruited in the army. Before the war only 222 Sikhs of all castes
recruited in the army but during the war 516 persons joined the army.
Same thing happened in the Muslims but not in Hindu community.
Another 33 persons, whose religion and tribe could not be verified,
joined the Army in 1945.36
There the large number of peasants took up jobs in the army. The
income from this profession to their homes improved their conditions
36 Ibid.
220
and it became easy for them to pay land-revenue. The shifting of
people from agriculture to army had reduced pressure on the land.37
A good deal of money was flowing into the tract from those
working outside either in the army or in the other occupations. A
general idea of the size of income from the army can be formed the
tract that when on general duty a sepoy on an average could send Rs.
10, a Lance-Naik Rs. 15, a Naik Rs. 20, a Havildar Rs. 25, a Jaimadar
Rs. 50 and an Subedar Rs. 75, per month; these amount increase when
the soldiers went on field duty. During a period of 19 months, from
April 1943 to November 1944, the twenty villages received, by money
orders from those in service outside (mostly by way of family
remittances from soldiers), Rs. 3,86,366, thereby giving an average per
month of Rs. 20,335 for the villages, Rs. 1,017 per village and Rs. 15 -
10 per remitter, this being the average remittance from all absentees,
i.e., soldiers who joined before December 1944 and others employed
outside their villages.38
The general picture of the villages during the war was one of the
rise in money incomes without a corresponding rise in the real
incomes. The rise in money incomes was due to the rise in the prices of
agricultural produce and the larger recruitment to the Army. It should
be normally have led to an increase in the real incomes also and to a
higher slandered of living but conditions during the war were
abnormal; both producer and consumers goods were short in supply
and even money could not, in many cases, buy the article badly needed.
The villagers, therefore, found that there were not sufficient stocks in
the market on which to spend his increased income and, making a
37 For this see K.L. Tuteja, Sikh Politics, (1920-40), p 26 38 BEIP, „Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, p 8
221
virtue out of necessity, he began to amass savings, he did, of course,
invest in land, cattle and house construction wherever he could; he
took land on mortgage and he also went in for luxury articles whenever
he could have them. But even so, there were surplus in income to spare
and the only things that could be done with them were to keep them.
To some extent, therefore, the villager was „forced‟ to save. It would of
course, be wrong to say that all the savings of the villagers were
„forced savings‟ because the war did teach the villager the virtue of
savings.39
As for the cost of living of “soldiers”, it has already been
pointed out that increase in the cost of food, lodging and dress are
automatically matched by an equal rise in the money value of items
furnished for the solider. This means that the soldier who has these
items furnished for him has his cash income available for service
items, miscellaneous items and the acquisition of assets. Though we
have no index to measure it, the position seems a favourable one in
respect of cost of living as compared with the groups who must buy
food, lodging and dress.40
Two important castes in the Punjab who are much more often
Hindu than Sikh or Muslim are the Khatri and Arora caste, which stand
in a reciprocal relationship very similar to that of Rajputs and Jats. The
Khatri at any rate claim to be of Kshatriya origin, but the principal
pursuit of both these important and numerous cases is trade.41
The Hindu trading classes fall into three major groups, the
Khatris, the Aroras and the Banias. As may expected in the martial
39 Ibid. p 32 40 BEIP, Impact of Rising Pr ices of Various Social Strata in the Punjab, Pub No. 82, 1944, p 8 41 Denzil Ibbetson, A Glossary of the Tribes an caste of the Punjab and North West Frontier
Province, Vol. II, Language Department Punjab, 1970, p 501
222
Punjab, it is the Kashatriya status which was the most valued,42
and the
Kashatriyas were represented both by the landowning Rajputs,
particularly in the eastern sub-montane districts, and by the urban
Khatris of the central and north-western plains.43
However, for
centuries, there was no social bond between the two and the Khatris,
strangely enough, claim the Kashatriya status and enjoy high social
eminence, although almost everywhere they were engaged in
commercial and clerical pursuits.44
Although the Khatris were
essentially a trading caste like the Aroras and Banias they stand higher
than either of these in social hierarchy.45
They were also largely employed in civil administration. The
Hoshiarpur District Gazetteer records, “the great majority of the
Khatris in the district are money-lenders or traders, very few are land-
owners expect by recent traders‟ purchases. As a group they are
extremely thrifty and acquisitive. They were also in the vain in
receiving modern education, and they enter government services of all
kinds, except the army.”46
The Aroras occupy nearly the same social status as the Khatris
and were mostly Hindus.47
A few, who embraced Islam, were known as
Khojas. They were scattered all over the province, but in term of
regions they mostly inhabited Multan, Rawalpindi and the Lahore
divisions and the Ferozepur district.48
Aroras were better known as
traders and money-lenders than as farmers, but industry and capacity
42 M.A. Sherring, Hindu Tribes and Castes, Cosmo Pub., Delhi, 1974, p 76. 43 Denzil Ibbetson , op.cit., vol. II, p 507 44 Punjab Government, The Land of the Five Rivers, p 331 45 Denzil Ibbetson, op.cit., p 507 46 Hoshiarpur District Gazetteer, 1904, p 55 47 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, Census of India, 1921, Vol. XV, part II, p 132 48 P.H. Kaul, Census of India,1911, vol. XIV, part I, p 445
223
tell in farming as on everything else.49
Though they seldom plough
their land themselves, they supervise their labourers with thoroughn ess
and rarely allow their land to be wasted by tenants.50
Since they were the primitive capitalists, wherever they went,
they introduced certain progressive influences. They were often
responsible for the tube-wells that were sunk. In Mianwali it was an
Arora who introduced gram in Thal, to the great advantage of the tract.
In Lyallpur and Rawalpindi the managers of experimental farms were
mostly Aroras. M.L. Darling writes that “As long as 1859 the
comparatives prosperity of Multan was due mainly the efforts of the
non-agricultural Aroras51
, who by his labour and capital greatly
improved the productive power of the soil; and even now the Aroras,
or Kirar as he called, is better than the ordinary landlord not only in
Multan but also in the adjoining districts of Dera Gazi Khan,
Muzaffargarh and Jhang.52
However, the most important profession of the Aroras was trade
and money-lending. In trade they were mainly shop-keepers.53
But they
took to other professions as well as. In 1921 they owned 24 and
managed 27 industrial concerned54
and worked as artisans and workers
in different fields.55
In fact, the Aroras contributed much to every field
of life except politics. In spite of his relatively weak physique he is
active and enterprising, industrious and thrifty. As a Jhang proverb
says,
49 M.L. Darling, Rusticus Liquator , Oxford, 1929, p 230 50 M.L. Darling, The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, 1925, P 158 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid, p 157 53 Darling, op.cit., 1929, p 233 54 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 412 55 Ibid, p 380-81
224
“Lak Bandha Arorian to Munna Koh Lahore.”56
(when an Arora girds up his lion he makes it only two miles to
Lahore).
The word Bania is derived from a Sanskrit Bania or trade, and
the Bania by caste as his names implies, live by commerce.57
They
were divided into three main sub-divisions; Aggarwals, Oswals and
Maheswaris, who usually do not smoke, eat or inter -marry with one
another.58
The „Bania’ of the village lived at a respectable place called the
„Haveli’. In spite of this, one or two houses in the villages belonging to
the peasants of a more economically rich and high buildings with flat
roof sometimes of two stories and having a lofty gateway of red brick.
In the villages, the proprietors, Banias, and Brahmans lived in the
centre, while the menials resided on the outskirts of the village.59
In trading castes in the villages occupy a lower position than the
landowning classes, but in the towns they ranked higher. The most
important were the Banias in the south-east, the Khatris in the centre
and north-east, and the Aroras in the south-west. All these were Hindus
or, rarely, Sikh. The principal Muhammadan trading classes were the
Shaiks and Khojas..60
However the Bania of the Punjab were mainly of the Aggarwals
sub-caste.61
The majority of them were Hindus, but quite a number of
them had embraced Jainism. This different in religion affiliation,
however, constitute no barrier to marriage and inter -dinning among
56 Denzil Ibbetson, op.cit., p 16 57 Punjab Government, The Land of the Five Rivers, p 332 58 Imperial Gazetteer Provincial Series, p 233 59 Settlement Report of Karnal District, p 120 60 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 288 61 Punjab Government, op.cit., p 331
225
them.62
These were the non-agriculturists caste in the Punjab. The non-
agriculturists were at liberty permanently to alienate land through
sales, exchanges, gifts and wills. Permanent alienation by them to any
one not belonging to this tribe (including the non-agriculturists) would
require the sanction of the Deputy Commissioner.63
Temporary alienation of land to non-agriculturists upto a
maximum period of 20 years could be made, but after the lapse of 20
years the land would revert unencumbered to the alienation.64
This
provision of the Act created a serious discontent among the business
communities of the province, because it prevented the exploitation of
the peasants.65
But the Act could not fulfill the government's
expectations, because the money lender, after margining the land of
their clients, confined their attention only to yield and not to the land.
In other words, land still remained in the hands of its original owners.
But under the land alienation act, a new class of agriculturist money-
lenders emerged. This class was interested in capturing the land
holdings of their clients. This system led to evasions of the provisions
of act through Benami transaction by which transfer were nominally
made in favour of agriculturists while the real profit was reaped by
moneylenders.66
The Unionist party highly pleased in passing these Acts.
Speaking about the Acts Ch. Chhotu Ram declared the Acts would
most benefit the backward and poor classes like Kisans, Mazdoors and
the untouchables.67
In another occasion Sir Chhotu Ram condemned the
previous governments and tried to win the hearts of the Zamindars. He
62 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 344. 63 M.M. Islam, op.cit,. p 272 64 P.K. Singla, "British Administration in Punjab 1897-1919 and its reaction. New Delhi, 2003, p
179 65 M.L. Darling, 'The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, 1925, p 156 66 Administration Report of Punjab and its Dependencies, 1918-19, Govt Press Lahore, 1920, p 19 67 Jat Gazette, July 12, 1939, p 6
226
said that “the Govt. of these days were autocratic and irresponsible
which could not be moved except when they were face to face with
serious threats…. I raised the cry in the hope that the government
might in order to avert this threat agree to make other reasonable
concessions to the Zamindars”.68
In fact the Unionist party wanted to
maintain itself the champion of suffering peasantry of the Punjab but
the facts told a different tale. The reason for this being the Unionist
party denied the fact of a dichotomy of interests between the big
landlords and the petty peasants.69
Sir Chhotu Ram declared that there
was no difference between moong and moth (two kinds of pulses).70
Therefore, these acts were „golden acts‟, for the rich
agriculturist and agriculturist money lender who were in a stronger
position than ever before, these laws did not touch the fringe of the
problem and the exploitation contained space. The political parties i.e.
the Congress and the Hindu Mahasabha, the National Progressive party
condemned these Acts even when they were in the shape of bills. They
raised the slogan, “Hinduism is in danger”.71
Now, the ordinary villager goes to a bania to borrow money. The
bania says, he will charge only one anna in the rupee per mensem. The
villager is never able to realize the consequences such a bargain. He
cannot calculate what an anna is the rupee means. He does not know
that the rate of interest comes to 12 annas in the rupee per annum,
which means 75 percent per annam. Honorable members of this House
can easily realize the heavy burden that is thrown on the villager who
68 PLAD, vol. XIX, p 47 69 PLAD, vol. I, p 949-50 70 Ibid. 71 PLAD, vol. XI, p 249
227
borrows from a bania.72
Some local proverbs prove this in respect of the social and economic
relation between peasant and money-lenders
Bania bhar gya khothi main,
Baalak rovain roti nein.
This proverb popular in the area of the south-east Punjab
another was popular in the area of central Punjab:
Kanjar Kirad Kutta Da;
Swa Na Kije Sutte Da.
(Kanjar and Kirad term were represent to Bania, Bania were
compared with the Dog and if those are sleeping don‟t believe on these
both.) These type of proverbs shows the relation of the peasant and
money-lender in the rural area.
Moreover, these crafty money-lenders evade the provisions of
the Land Alienation Act in many ways. They mortgage the lands of
their debtors to others zamindars on agreement that they should pay the
money advanced in fixed installments. Those zamindars also, in their
turn, fail to pay the installments at the fixed installments. Those
zamindars also, in their turn, fail to pay the installments at the fixed
time whereupon the Insolvency Courts come to the help of the money
lenders and the land is attached and sold. The condition of the
zamindars is pitiable. Three consecutive crops have failed. The non-
agriculturists are wise and cunning. And on the top of all this, comes
the ruling given by Mr. Justice Dalip Singh, which is sure to prove
72 Punjab Legislative Council Report 1924, p 338. “The money-lenders charge very high rates of
interest and also use various deceptive methods to entangle the zamindars. For example, when a
zamindar comes to a sahukar to repay his debts the sahukar takes out his account book and says:
"You borrowed Rs. 50, and the interest on that sum is only Rs. 15, which means that you owe me
Rs. 75. As a personal favour I remit Rs. 5, and you may pay the remaining sum of Rs. 80." The poor zamindar ignorant of any calculation pays and goes his way well satisfied and feels obliged
to the crooked money lender for Rs. 5.”
228
very disastrous in its results.73
Any measurement of cost living of agriculturists is complicated
by the familiar facts of use of barter and their considerable measure of
self-sufficiency. There are at least two approaches to the problem. One
is to assess the agriculturist‟s consumption of his own produce at the
going sale price and enter this figure on both income and expenditure
sides of the account. This will show his income in respect of these
commodities to have risen in the same proportion as his cost of living
in respect of these commodities. On the other hand, if his consumption
of his own produce can be taken as fairly constant, variations in his
economic position can be read from the changes in cash income and
cash expenditure. The former method is more strictly correct, but the
latter method is more feasible and is employed here.74
This agriculturist family, with a cost of living index of 190 for
the 1942-43 crop year, shows the lowest rise of living of any group
studied here. This given us the problem of explaining, not why prices
should be lower in the villages, a fact easily understood for agricultu ral
commodities produced nearby and for the services of cobblers, barbers,
etc., who lived in the villages, but why the proportionate rise should be
less75
After agriculture, money lending was the most important
occupation in the province. In 1930 there were at least 40,000 persons
who depended solely or in part upon money lending.76
The ratio of
Punjab money lender to its population was 1 to 100 and in India it was
73 Ibid, 1929, vol. XII, p 556 74 Paul Green, Impact of Rising Prices of Various Social Strata in the Punjab, The Board of
Economic Enquiry, Punjab, Pub No. 82, p 8 75 Paul Green, Impact of Rising Pr ices of Various Social Strata in the Punjab, The Board of
Economic Enquiry, Punjab, Pub No. 82, pp 9-10 76 H.Calvert, op.cit, p 255
229
1 to 367. Thus, this business of money lending was running down the
rural economy of the province.77
In 1921 the total strength of Aggarwals in the Punjab was
3,25,000, the majority of them living in the south-east of the
province.78
They carried on a flourishing business and dominated the
economy of this region. However, the main occupation of the
Aggarwals was money-lending or banking for which they were known
in the Punjab. Indeed they had a strong hold over the farmers, and
performed functions of cardinal importance in village economy. 79
The following is a statement showing the acreage and the
price of cultivated land mortgaged annually since 1939-40 in the
twenty villages:-
TABLE 4.680
MORTGAGE OF LAND DURING II WORLD WAR
Year No. of
cases
Area
Mortgaged
Area
Revenue
Assessed
Rs. a. p.
Mortgage money
Rs. a. p.
Mortgage
price
Per acre
Rs. ½
1939-40
1940-41
1941-42
1942-43
1943-44
1944-45
1945-46
Half Year
163
155
231
257
572
679
158
170
156
273
316
1,019
905
197
283 1 9
266 12 0
425 7 3
534 1 0
1,598 15 0
1,457 5 0
291 12 0
27,308 1 0
30,171 11 0
68,399 14 0
114,986 14 6
587,894 1 9
505,543 0 0
153,376 0 0
161
193
251
364
577
559
799
77 Ibid, p 367 78 Punjab Government, op.cit., p 332 79 Ibid, p 322 80 Ibid, p 20
230
The area mortgage in 1940-41 was 14 acres less than that
mortgaged in 1939-40, but thereafter it increased steadily to 316 in
1942-43 and steeply to 1,019 in 1943-44 after which year it fell to 679
in 1944-45 and only 158 acres in first half of 1945-46. During the war
the percentage rise in the mortgage value of the land had been greater
than in its sale price. In 1939-40 the mortgage value of an acre of land
was 43 per cent of its sale value, but by the first half of 1945-46, it was
62 per cent of the latter. The average mortgage value of land showed in
increase of 20 per cent in 1940-41, 56 per cent in 1941-42, 126 per
cent in 1942-43, 258 per cent in 1943-44, 247 per cent in 1944-45 and
264 per cent in the first half of the 1945-46 when it stood at Rs. 799
per acre.
In the first session of the new Assembly an important Act as
was passed. According to the provisions of this act lone which previous
became automatically double the amount when advanced irrespective
of the period now stood replaced. It could not be now double under the
new act, actually debt conciliation Boards were established in the
districts to give relief to the debtors. It worked very well and provided
substantial relief to the suppressed rural cultivators.81
By the end of
1939, there were 29 debt conciliation Board functioning in the
province. They received 40720 applications from debtors during this
period involving a debt of about Rs. 563 lakhs and 27060 applications
from creditors are covering a debt of Rs. 27 lakhs.82
Unionist party constantly pleased that no land revenue should be
charged from those who owned either upto 2 acres of canal irrigated
81 B.S. Saini, op.cit., p 229 82 H.Calvert, I.C.S. a great writer on rural debt in Punjab, remarked “a rural Jat was born in debt and
died in debt (as cited in H.S. Bajwa, Fifty years of Punjab politics (1920-70), p 51
231
land or 5 unirrigated acres, or those who paid land revenue upto 5/ -.83
Actually, a cultivators paying Rs. 5/- as land revenue with in service
was much better off than the Rs. 25/- but without any member of the
family in service.84
Therefore, when the Unionist party got majority, it
tried to implement its ideas of limited abolition of land revenue. The
Unionist Govt. allowed special remission on account of low prices or
bad crops in districts where the system of sliding scale of assessment
of land revenue had not yet been introduced. In 1937 the remission
were given to the extent of Rs. 95000 and in 1938 it was Rs. 4,58,000
for the rabi crops.85
During the years 1937-38 remission of Rs. 3.6237 crores were
given due to hailstorm and famine while it was only Rs 1.4737 crores
between 1934-37.86
The rate of land revenue was lowered from 40-46%
in Gurgaon, Jhelum and Lahore districts to 23.2% in Fasur from 22%
to 16% in Chunian 33.5% to 15% and in Amritsar from 22% to
15.3%.87
By 1942, the Punjab cultivator had become the lowest “land
rule” payer in the country.88
On March, 13, 1942, Ch. Chhotu Ram
remarked on the floor of the Legislative Assembly that they further
wanted to reduce the land revenue and the objective could be achieved
only if the provincial Govt. was allowed by the central Govt. to levy
full taxes on the capitalists of the Punjab who had been enjoying
almost total immunity from local taxation.89
But the claim is belied by the facts. The Unionist party made no
effects to implement this programme. It would not prove workable
83 Punjab Past and Present, oct 1976, p 345 84 PLAD, vol. XIV, p 331 85 18 month of Provincal Autonomy in the Punjab, (1/4/35 to 30/9/37), p 4 86 Mitra, Indian Annual Register, vol. I, p 188 87 PLAD, vol. XIV, p 856 88 PLAD, vol. XIX, p 184 89 Ibid, p 330
232
because the poor and illiterate agriculturists would not be able to
maintain their accounts, more so when traders with an annual turnover
exceeding Rs. 10,000 were finding it difficult to maintain their
accounts for assessment under the General sales Act.90
The
Agricultural markets products act passed in 1939, was mainly intended
to prevent mal-practice in the markets whereby the ignorant cultivator
had been defrauded of his just dues.91
Other less important trading groups among Hindus were the
Bhatias, who were confined to the western districts, the Suds and
Bohras in the Sub-Himalayan districts and the Pahari Mahajans and
Bohras of the Himalayan area.92
However, among the Muslims the
Khojas and Khakas of the west were the only trading castes. The
Khojas were of great importance so far as trade was concerned. The
term Khoja is of Persian origin and was conferred upon converts so all
classes, through it was usually confined to Khatris, Aroras, Brahmans
and Bhatias. The term Khaka was somewhat similarly used.93
However, like other communities, the Khojas too sometimes
took up other occupations, like agriculture, transport and government
employment. Their position in Muslim society was rather like the
Khatris among the Hindus. However, since the Muslims are usually
very orthodox and refrain from talking interest, they could not progress
like their Hindu counterparts in the Punjab.94
The Rajputs formed more or less, the landed aristocracy of the
province. Big landlords hardly existed in the Punjab and the Rajputs
90 PLAD, vol. XIX, p 327-28 91 The hartal were organized against this bill in 1941. Home (Pol.) File No. 18/5/41, poll (I). 92 Ibid, p 331 93 Ibid, p 333 94 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 380-383
233
were indifferent farmers. By religion they were mostly Muslims, who
formed 70.7 per cent of the Rajputs population of the province while
only 27.7 per cent were Hindus.95
The low hills and sub-montane regions of the districts of
Gurdaspur, Sialkot and Gujarat had many Rajputs tribes, of whom
some were Hindus and the rest, more or less, recent converts to Islam.
In the Jhelum and Rawalpindi districts numerous Muslims tribes were
found with Rajputs status. The highest percentage of Rajputs was in
Rawalpindi 21%, Kangra 14%, and Jhang 13%. Hindu Rajputs were
found mainly in Kangra and Hoshiarpur, whereas their Muslim
counterparts were mainly in Rawalpindi-Jhelum, Montgomery-Jhang,
Bahawalpur, Hissar and Karnal.96
From the above distinction of tribes the Rajputs might be
classified under two heads; one was the Rajputs of the hills and another
was the Rajputs of the plains. But many classes of the Rajputs were
three both on the hills and in the plains, and, for many reason, they had
common methods of the way of life, manners and customs. Normally
the same class enjoyed different social status in different parts of the
country. However, Sir James Lyall, writing on Kangra remarked “Till
lately the limits of caste do not seem to have been so immutably fixed
in the hills as in the plains. The Raja was the fountain of honour, and
could do much as he liked. I have heard old men quote instances within
their memory in which a Raja promoted a Ghrith to be a Rathi, and a
Rathi to be a Rajput for service done or money given.” Again “A rich
man of a Rathi family marry his daughter to an impoverished Raja, and
his whole clan gets a kind of step and becomes Thakur Rajput.” This
95 Ibid, p 325 96 P.H. Kaul, Census of India 1911, vol. XIV, part I, p 437-438
234
system among the Rajputs of the hills exhibited some of the usual
features of the society organized on a system of hypergamy. Their
feeling of pride forbids a Rajput to marry his daughter to any but a man
of equal status or preferably superior status.97
On the other hand they had to buy husbands for their daughters
while, on the other hand, the Rathis will not give them daughters
without exacting a price. So they were miltched both when marring and
when giving in marriage98
. As a result, a Rajput of ordinary fortune
could not expect to be married for less than Rs. 800 or Rs. 1,000, and if
he had to purchase his bride, the amount will be nearer Rs. 2,000.99
This shows that in the 20th
century relation between the society were in
tension.
The Rajputs were very important in the Punjabi society. The
majority of them were Muhammadans. They did not ranked high as
cultivators, but furnished many recruited in the army under the general
designation of Punjabi Muhammadans. The Hindu Rajputs were found
mainly in the north-east corner of the province, and in the Himalayan
and submontane tracts, the Rajput tribes of the plains having the most
part accepted Islam. As a body the Rajputs stand higher than the Jats in
the social system, and this had prevented their adherence to the
leveling doctrines of Sikhism.100
However, the Rajputs was notorious for bad husbandry and
extravagance. He is, by common consent, the worst cultivators in the
province. If he is of pure descent, he is forbidden to touch the plough,
and even he was not bound by this rule, where the Jat plough deep he
97 H.A. Rose, Census of India 1901, vol. XVIII, p 320-21 98 Ibid. 99 M.L. Darling, Rusticus Liqutors, p 7 100 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 287-88
235
will only scratch the surface of the soil. His hedging and weeding are
equally superficial. A settlement officer remarked that the general
untidiness of his fields, the absence of rich crops, and the numerous
pathways, which a short detour would save, proclaim the Rajputs
village even before the owner appears.101
The real disadvantage of a Rajput cultivators was his regards for
Izaat, which unlike a Jat, prevented him from taking any help from his
wife. In case his orthodoxy involved serious economic disabilities. For
instance, having no one to bring them their meals to the fields, Rajputs
were often tempted to stay at home till the morning meal was over.
However, for the Rajputs, the other most popular source of income was
entered in the army and the police.102
The Jats were in every respect the most important among the
agricultural groups of the province. In 1921, their total population was
a little short of 5.5 millions. They were divided into three groups, the
Muslims, the Sikhs and the Hindus,103
comprising 47.3&, 33.4% and
17.3 of the Jat population.104
The Muslim Jats were confined mainly to
the western districts, the Sikhs Jats to the central districts and the
Hindu Jats to the south-eastern districts of the province.105
All joined
together constituted 27 per cent population. Therefore the Jats of the
Punjab enjoyed a different status and influence in their respective
religious groups. Among the Hindus the social position of the Jats was
below that of the Brahman, Rajputs and Khatris.106
The Muslim Jat too
was below the Ashrafs, the Baloch and the priestly tribes, and could
101 M.L. Darling,, The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, p 24-25 102 M.L. Darling, Rusticus Liqutors, p 65 103 Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer, vol. XX, p 287 104 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 344 105 Punjab Government, The Land of the Fiver Rivers, p 324 106Denzil Ibbetson, op.cit., vol. I, p 427
236
not substantiate a claim to Rajput decent. Of all these three religions of
the Jats, the position of Sikh Jats was the highest.
The Jats comprise a vast congeries of tribes, all practically on a
level of equality; through some of them have a vague and undefined
sense of superiority over the rest. Usually the Jats practice Krewa
marriage and do not wear scared thread,107
but the practice does not
always follow precept; and among the lower Hindu and Sikh castes
remarriage was allowed, while in the Himalayas women were sold from
hand to hand, and system of temporary marriage prevailed.108
Certain
tribes avoid the former custom without acquiring a status superior to
those who retain it. Similarly, the Jats of a certain village may wear the
scared thread without distinctly raising themselves above the level of
their tribe or village folk. There are no real caste distinctions among
the Jats, and they are well-known for their egalitarian social structure
and attitude. Many Jat tribes have tradition of Rajput origin.109
But
neither territorial sovereignty nor the avoidance of widow re-marriage
and the refusal of a bride-price can raise a Jat to the level of Rajput.
Another point of interest was that most Jat Sikhs did not have that rigid
system of hypergamy in regard to their exogamous groups as the Hindu
Jats had.110
But marriage rules in relation to the ranked village would be
observed in order that a daughter be given only to a man of an equal or
a more respectable village. Sikh Jats who live north of the Beas in the
Manjha usually do not give their daughters in marriage to those who
live south of it in the Doaba and Malwa. This was because of certain
107 H.A. Rose, Census of India 1901, vol. XVII, part I, p 324 108 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 280 109 H.A. Rose, op.cit., vol. XVII, part I, p 324 110 Ibid, pp 325-26.
237
traditional differences in the types of work associated either the women
of different regions. For instance, the women of the latter had to sweep
the cattle dung and carry it in basket, while the Majha women will lose
her status if she dies this, and this work is usually done by sweepers.
There were other differences of custom also. In the Doaba Jat women
milk the cattle and help draw the water. The Jhinwars do not always do
this and assist their men in sowing. But in the Majha all they do in the
field was to pick the cotton and cook for their men.111
The Jats, as a rule, married outside the exogamous groups of his
father, mother and mother‟s mother and step-mother. But the marriage
must be within the caste. However, there are minor variations from
section to section, depending on the amount of orthodox Hindu
influence.112
As an institution, caste plays a far less important role in the
social life of the people than in the other parts of India. Its boost bonds
were stronger in the east than in the west, and generally in the towns
than in the villages, so that in the rural area of the western Punjab
society was recognized on a tribal basis, and caste hardly existed.113
Socially the landed classes stand high, and of these the Jats were the
most important. The Jat or Jaat as he is termed in the south-east of the
province, was essentially a landholder, and when asked his caste
usually replies „Jat Zamindar’. The Jats were divided into numerous
tribes and sects, and many of these hold considerable area which were
divided among village communities.114
In every aspect, the Jats were the most important tribe in the
Punjab. They are excellent cultivators, industrious and thrifty.
111 M.L. Darling, Rusticus Liqutors, p 175-76 112 H.A. Rose, Census of India 1901, vol. XVII, part I, p 326, 331-333. 113 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 287. 114 Ibid.
238
However, the Sikh Jats, in comparison to other Jats, had a higher
income from land. The Sikh Jats were more ambitious, self -assured and
progressive in outlook and adopted new methods of agriculture. Upto
the middle of the 19th
century large area of the Western and South-
Western Punjab and parts of Montgomary, Sirsa and Hissar were
virtually without any settled village community. The inhabitants were
the shifting semi-pastoral tribes. The Sikhs were the first to bring to
peace and order and sometimes even minor irrigation facilities to parts
of Gujranwala and Multan. The British further accelerated the process
through a better enforcement of law and order and improved irrigation
facilities.115
However, the Sikh Jats were the most advanced community
among the Jats due to their military and agricultural acumen. The
increasing literacy among Jat Sikhs made them eligible for government
posts also. Establishment of co-operative societies and the Land
Alienation Act made it possible for the Jat Sikhs to take over the
money-lending, business as well. These further added to their land and
wealth, which in turn raised their status in society.
Other important agricultural segments of the Punjab were the
Pathans, Mughals, Meos, Quereshis, Sayeds and Sheikhs.116
They only
part of the Punjab, where they formed the dominant agricultural tribe
was the Chach country in Attock and Mianwali districts. This tribe,
most probably, immigrated to the Punjab during the Pathan rule over
India and made these regions their permanent abode. Because of their
economic and education backwardness, the Pathan tribes remained
relatively unimportant. But they are a proud people and consider
115 S.C. Sharma, Punjab: The Crucial Decade, p 110. 116 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 344
239
themselves superior to others. Many of them found employment in the
army and the police or got engaged in small trades.117
The next important caste was that of the Bloch, with 5,31,000
population.118
The Bloch tribal system was intact and their chiefs still
exercised a considerable authority under this system. The Bloch had
preserved his tribal characteristic, hospitality, courage and fidelity to
his words. They mostly dominated the districts of Muzaffargarh,
Multan and Jhang. But their status too differed from region to
region.119
Another agricultural tribe was that of Meos, living on the
borders of Rajputana and in the Ferozepur district. But economically
and culturally they remained extremely backward.
The artisans located in the region, also had a several grading,
among them; the sunars (goldsmith) occupied the highest position
owing to their economic status. Then came the barhis (the carpenter),
lohar (the blacksmith, kumhar (the potter), nai (the Barber), dhobi (the
washerman), kahar (the lootic).120
At the lowest rung of the social
hierarchy were the chamars (tanners), chuhras (scavanger) and dhanks
(weavers). These were all considered as untouchables, and their
residential quarters were located outside the village and they were not
allowed to mix with members of the upper castes.121
The improvement on the economic condition of the members of
the artisan and menial groups was reflected to some extent in the
change of their status. The employers became more careful in their
treatment of the artisans and menials because the latter were no longer
117 S.C. Sharma, op.cit., p 110 118 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 344 119 Punjab Government, The Land of the Fiver Rivers, p 328 120 Denzil Ibbetson, The Glossary and Tribes of Castes, (Reprinted by Language Department, Patiala,
1995,) p 188-89. 121 Ibid., (Reprint in 1993) , p 188-89
240
wholly dependent on income from land and could throw up their job
and maintain the pre-war standard of living without working for them.
The Karigar, who could do the job of a carpenter, a blacksmith and a
mason had a rush of work and was able to build up small nest -eggs
from the savings. The Sunar was not so lucky but he, too, might get his
chance after the war. The village shop-keeper, however, lost, because
his activities had to be restricted due to war-time control. The high
price and the disappearance of the quality cloth brought into
importance the weaver who again became an indispensable organ of the
village society.122
The mobility and sphere of women somewhat enlarged. It was
due to education system because the girls had to step out from their
village for education to nearby villages. They were learning a lot from
education through which society could change and it impacted the
women to a marginal degree.
In order to measure the rigidity- flexibility dimensions of the
caste system prevailing in the rural society, it can be said that, in a
majority of rural south-east Punjab the social distance between high
and low castes had to some extent been narrowed in1940s, but
untouchability still prevailed in the society.123
The traditional pattern
was however, common. „We must not en ter the Zamindar’s house: we
wait outside and call; if not one comes, we come back when someone
is there. If the Jat happened to touch the chamar then Jat washed his
clothes and bathe.124
The menial‟s position was not too bad and was rapidly
122 BEIP, „Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, pp 32 123 Similar views is taken from Dharamvir Arya, Arya Samaji and ex Senator, whom continuously
discussion by me on the role and relevance of Arya Samajh at Chandigarh. 124 M. L. Darling, Rusticus Loquitor, PP 62, 94-95
241
improving.125
The tanner, the carpenter, and the blacksmith had all
greatly improved their position: the sweeper too could earn more, but
he was an extravagant fellow and spent all he got. The barber and the
carpenter might now be found amongst the money-lenders. The dhobi
or washer man was doing as well as anyone, for far more washing was
done-probably twice as much as before.126
The landlord‟s condition was more of less improved from the
nineteenth century, but the enquiries (1930) suggested that in the last
ten year there had been no marked change for the better. There were
the land lords who were both good and bad. The reason for this was
that the ordinary word for „good‟ in Hindi-achcha-had no moral
significance, but only material, the condition of a village moneylenders
was also decreasing. „These are not days,‟ he grumbled. The old days
were better.127
Especially was it so with the Rajputs, the Sainis were
honourable me (sharif) this was a complement of their surroundings-
and paid back something. „It is very difficult now days to get anything
back from the Zamindars„.128
Several changes in attitudes, thinking and customs became
visible in food, dress and social behaviour. New food items started to
be used for example, vegetable and tea. There was some change in
apparel for men with the adoption of trousers, hats, shirts and a hosiery
items like gloves, socks and mufflers. In the social sphere, English
words found their way in every day parlance. Mobility and social
space, especially for girls, increased to some extent. The tr aditional
125 F. L. Brayne, Batter Villages, 1937, P 26 126 M. L. Darling, op.cit, P 65 127 There was a popular saying about the village money-lenders in this respect. „ Tuta Bania jab
janiye jab Kahe purani bat. (You may know a Bania has come to a grief when he talks of old
times.) Final Report of the Revision of Settlement of the Sirsa District, in the Punjab, 1879-83,
Calcutta Central Press, Calcutta, 1884, P XXII. 128 M. L. Darling, Rusticus Loquitor, P 65-95
242
lower groups also became mobile and track to new occupations. The
distinction of caste, however, though a minimal degree of change.
Social customs also reflected subtle changes with the passage of time
and the impact of colonial rule.129
The war disturbed the prevailing harmony among various groups
of the rural society and intensified the tension between the landlords,
artisans and the menials. The menials did not remain unaffected by
their increased professional income and the money received from their
relatives in the army or the other occupations; they stopped rendering
„begar’ and other services witch before the war they rendered to the
landowners without any obligations on account of their absolute
dependence on the land. The landlords in turn, acting through the
agency of the panchayats, withdraw concessions such as collection of
fuel from the fields, picking „sag‟ etc. formally allowed to the menials.
The old basis of reciprocal cordiality in social relationship was thus
knocked out and any assistance given by one class to the other was
invariably considered as a special favour. Among the artisans, the
carpenters and the blacksmiths became economically better off than a
small cultivator and were, therefore, able to shed their feeling of social
inferiority.130
In the traditional multi-structured society of India, the status and
characteristics of different castes groups came to be rather permanently
associated with certain arts and crafts required by the different
segments of the society. Craft like spinning, weaving, oil pressing and
sugar manufacturing were mostly performed by Julahas and Telis. But,
usually, these constituted a supplementary domestic industry in the
129 Radhakamal Mukherjee, Economic Problems of Modern India, Vol. I, London 1939, p 47-48 130 BEIP „Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, p 28.
243
peasants‟ household, which formed a part of the self-sufficient
economy. Secondly, other craftsmen were blacksmiths, carpenters and
shoemakers, who were maintained collectively by the village
community, by allocating to them a certain share of peasant‟s crops,
rigidly fixed by tradition, and sometimes also a small plot of land.131
All the tribes, the Chamar, Meghwal, Dhed, Julaha, Paoli,
Mochi engaged in weaving coarse cloth and working in tanned leather
in the Punjab, were originally the same race, or at all events closely
connected, and perhaps of aboriginal descent. The chamars were
divided into several distinct sections which did not inter -marry with
each other. The Chandor Chamar will not associate with the jatiya
chamar, who (they Said) work in leather made from camels or horses
skins, which was an abomination to the former. On the other hand, the
Marwari chamars settled at Delhi who makes tours in the Punjab in the
cold weather selling leather ropes in the villages refuse to have any
connection with the local chamars, who (they said) tan leather and eat
the fresh of animals that have died; while they work only in leather
already tanned.132
The chamars were mostly Hindus and Sikhs; the Muslim
chamars were known as Mochi. They were tanners, leather workers,
field labourers, and often performed menial jobs in the village. The
Chuhras (Hindu) and Mussalli (Muslim) were quite often working as
ordinary labourers rather than sweepers and scavengers.133
They were
mostly unskilled workers. These people held land as owners or
occupancy tenants, and sometime, in order to retain their services and
sometimes for the village community, they were given land in certain
131 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 344-45 132 Radhakamal Mukherjee, Economic Problems of Modern India, Vol. I, London 1939, p 47-48. 133 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 380-81
244
villages out of the community land.
At Lahore, both the Hindu and the Mohammedan goldsmiths
related from one craft guilds, which has fixed the charges for particular
classes of work. Such rates were strictly adhered to by member of the
Northern and Western India there was a guild of traders of all castes,
consisting of representatives of each caste, who decided cases related
to trade.134
Women were far more conservative; but the influence of the
Islam had brought about the adoption of the trouser instead of the
Hindu skirt, which was only general in the south-east. Here again local
and tribal customs vary. The Rajput women, Hindu as well
Muhammadan, wear the trouser, and Gujars the petticoat, while many
Sikh and Hindu Jat women wear both. In the wilder parts of the central
area the skirt was little more than a kilt, but the more elaborate
garment was coming into fashion. The wrap or chadar was universally
worn; and the purda system compelled most Muhammadan and many
Hindu and Sikh ladies of the better classes to wear, when compelled to
leave the house, an ungainly and uncomfortable vail (burka) which
cover the whole form.135
The Gurgaon districts of the Punjab may be mentioned as one
notable instance where this welfare work was beginning to be extended
to the villages, as part of an intensive campaign of rural uplift
organized by a most enthusiastic deputy commissioner and his wife-
Mr. and Mrs. F. L. Brayne. This village work was undertaken by lady
health visitors of whom there were four that time. They advised
pregnant women on necessary precautions and on the selection of a
134Radhakamal Mukherjee,op.cit., p. 52-53. 135 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 293
245
good dai, etc. Dais were trained by the Lady Health Officer at the
district headquarters. 136
The ordinary peasant house was not uncomfortable, through
hardly attractive. Built of mud, with a flat roof, and rarely decorated, it
was cooler in summer and warmer in winter than a house of brick or
stone. In the large villages of the Central and South-East Punjab the
dwellings are close and confined, but in the south-west a ruder and
more spacious type was found. Houses of stone were found mainly in
the hills and slate roof only Himalayas. Brick (pakka) houses in the
villages were rapidly increasing in numbers, but in comfort were
hardly an improvement on the old.137
Among these castes who migrated to the canal colonies the
Chamars headed the list. The motivation was not economic alone. This
migration was due to social reason also, because in new local ities they
could raise their status.138
Mazhbis or Sikh sweepers held the lowest place on the social
scale but were, nevertheless, one of the most useful members of the
community. Their duties, like the Hindu and Muslim Chuhras,
comprised the cleaning and sweeping of houses and streets and the
collection of cow dung. The latter task, however, was usually
performed by their wives.139
Experienced and trained “Siris” (permanent agricultural
labourers on a fixed shares as well) could not be found easily in spite
of the increase in their shares as well as liberal concessions given to
them by way of larger advances whenever required. In every village
136 Report on the Royal Commission on Agriculture,1928, p 488 137 The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908, vol. XX, p 293-94 138 L. Meddelton & S.M. Jacob, op.cit., p 180-81 139 Ibid.
246
cases were mentioned of “siris” deserting their masters and the latter
finding it difficult to get back the advanced of wages made to the
former.
The wages paid in kind to artisans and labourers for the various
agricultural operations were the same as before the war but more often
the cultivators made an attempt to get work done for cash rather than a
kind in spite the rise in cash wages. Cash wages were thought to be
economical because, firstly, greater control could be exercised over the
worker whose services were hired for cash than on one working for
customary kind wages and, therefore, he could be made to put in more
time than before, and secondly, the weights fixed by custom for wages
in kind were not properly defined.140
The following table shows the pre-war and the current (1944-45)
average rates of wages for the more important classes of labourers in
the tract:
TABLE 4.7
AVERAGE RATES OF WAGES FOR DIFFERENT
CLASS OF WORKERS141
Class of Workers Rate of Wages per Day
Pre-war Current
Field Labourer Half Day
Full Day
Karigars
Weavers
Rs. as. P.
0------4-----0
0------6-----0
0-----13-----0
1------0-----0
Plus 10 Kacha
seers of grain as
„pan‟ i.e. 1—4--0
Rs. as. P.
1------0------0
1------12----0
2------8-----0
2------8-----0
Plus 15 Kacha
seers of grain as
„pan‟ i.e. 4—0—0.
140 BEIP,„Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, p 10 141 Ibid.
247
Table 4. shows that during the IInd World War the wages of a
labourer were increased because due to war non-martial castes
recruited in the army and their income grew, because the number of the
labour was continually decreased in the rural area.
Tenancy the number of big non-cultivating owners (with, say,
over 100 acres) being nominal and the consequent absence of the class
of landless tenants, the tenancy problems, as commonly understood,
did not exist in the tract. No change was noticed as regards terms of
batai cultivation (which continued to be half and half) and the sharing
of costs of production. The relation between the non-cultivating
landowner and the owner-tenants on the whole remained cordial
because both of them were in most cases relatives. It was an
undeniable fact that the position of peasant proprietor was better than a
tenant as several factors were in favour. The size of holding was
generally large; his cultivated areas were relatively better; and their
economic condition was comparatively sounder than that of tenant. For
political consideration and imperial interest, the British government
was conducive to him. Concessions and exemptions offered by the
government, or in other words, almost every initiative of government
regarding agriculture went largely to the favour of the peasant
proprietors.142
Thus, the myth has taken place that the Punjab was
primarily a land of Undifferentiated peasant proprietors.143
Besides these rural proprietors, there were also tenants closely
associated with the village agrarian production organization. Many of
them were decedents of those, whose ancestors helped the village
proprietary body in the foundation of new villages. Many again were
142 NAI, Department and Agriculture, Land Revenue-A, April 1901, Proceeding no. 25-26. 143 M.L. Darling, op.cit,. p 4
248
related to the proprietors by ties of kinship and assisted them in
repelling the attacks of common foes. 144
Cash rents nearly trebled on the chahi and more than doubled on
the barani soils. The area under cash rents decreased due to the fact
that while formerly the non-cultivating owners used to lease out land,
take to other occupations within or without their village and save
themselves the bother of looking after the land, now with the raising
prices of food they thought of advisable to grow their own cereals
rather than buy them and did not, therefore, lease the land as freely as
before.145
The following table shows the acreage and the price of
cultivated land sold annually since 1939-40 in the twenty villages:
TABLE 4.8
ACREAGE AND PRICE OF CULTIVATED LAND SOLD
Year No. of
sales
Area sold
(Acres)
Revenue
assessed
Rs. a. p.
Price paid
(Rs.)
Price per
acre
1939-40
1940-41
1941-42
1942-43
1943-44
1944-45
Half Year
1945-46
128
143
184
108
114
213
35
132
176
155
129
217
183
26
189-15-9
291-11-3
229-12-0
215—1-0
323—8-6
203—1-0
47—11--0
51,215
80,273
74,548
74,467
197,077
175,653
33,347
377
456
481
577
908
960
1283
Average
Per year
142 157 240-0-0 105,628
144 Himadri Banerjee, op.cit, p 5 145BEIP, „ Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, p 13
249
Above table 4.8 Shows that the price of the land increased
drastically during the war and it reached at high level in the 1945-46
and land price was Rs. 1283/- acre, but on the other hand, it was only
Rs.377 in 1939-40. The area sold rose from 132 acres in 1939-40 to
176 acres in 1940-41, then fell in the next two years to 155 and 129
acres respectively, rose again to 217 acres in 1943-44 and fell to 183
acres in 1944-45.
The price of land as shown in the table above was as average
price for all classes of land. The price of chahi land rose from Rs.
1,212 per acre in 1939-40 to Rs. 1,515 in 1940-41, fell to Rs. 1,159 in
1941-42 and then rose again, being Rs. 2,974 in 1943-44, which meant
an increase of 143 per cent. The price of barani land rose from Rs. 245
per acre in 1939-40 to Rs. 667 in 1943-44. i.e., by 172 per cent.146
There was a noticeable change in the attitude of the villagers.
They generally wanted to earn more and spend less in order to have
surplus budgets. As capital investments had to be postponed on account
of a prohibitive rise in the prices of iron, cement, wood and bricks, and
as the supplies of consumers‟ goods were short, the surpluses flowed
into the savings. In a way it was good because it was expected that
after the war, goods would be available in plenty and the villagers
would be able to buy more with their savings.147
It is of some to inquire how the savings were used or kept by the
villagers. A part of them found its way into the purchase of land which
is considered the safest investment by the zamindars. Another part
went into War Loans and Defence Bond, partly under pressure. The
index for judging the ability of the individual to contribute towards
146 BEIP,„Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, pp 19-20 147 Ibid, p 32
250
these loans was the land purchased, taken on mortgage or redeemed by
him. An appreciable part of these savings was kept in cash at home,
because it was feared that if deposits were placed with the Co-
operative Societies or the Postal Savings Banks, they might broadcast
the reaches of their owners and induce the Government to adopt
measures to grab a part the savings was utilized for redeeming
mortgaged lands and shaking off past indebtedness. It appears that
wherever old liabilities could be built up by the use of cash, the
villagers utilized their increased income to di so. This increase in
prosperity percolated to the lower groups of society also. Artisans and
menials had their due share of it; the wages of field labourers also rose,
as some of them left to join the army. The relations between the
landowners and the landless class became even less cordial and the
harmony of village society was disturbed.
The villager, of course, suffered on account of the controls on
the distribution of necessaries like sugar, kerosene oil , cloth and
capital requirements like iron, cement, bricks, etc., but his difficulties
were in no way as great or formidable as those of the urban people.
Moreover, the war time conditions must mean some inconvenience for
all classes which should be weighed and balanced against the profitable
opportunities it offered to particular classes. In the case of the rural
agricultural class as a whole, I would perhaps be correct to say that
benefits far outweighed the losses.148
The increased income of the villagers in general and the peasants
in particular eliminated the need for credit. If a cultivator had to
borrow at all during the war, he could not get unsecured debt at any
rate of interest and had invariably to mortgage his land. But for the
148 BEIP, „Punjab Village During the War‟, Pub No. 91, pp 33
251
war-time prosperity, the Debt Legislation, which had considerably
curtailed the facilities available to the agriculturist for borrowing
freely from the only rural credit agency, viz., the non-agriculturist
money-lenders would have been put to severe test. The co-operative
credit societies were able to recover many of their outstanding debts.
Redemption of mortgaged land, of course, absorbed a large percentage
of the rural savings.149
After the Second World War, the social relation in rural society
of the Punjab was tensed due to some reason. During the War a number
of persons recruited in the army to all castes from the Punjab. So the
economic conditions of the people of the Punjab had been raised due to
the money came from in the form of pay. Because of this, the economic
status of the many families of the rural Punjab had been increased. So
the relation of the rural society was not in a normal position. All these
were due to the policies of the British colonialism.
149Ibid, p 34
252
CONCLUSION
The British East India Company which emerged as a political
power after its geographical expansion upto mid-nineteenth century,
start the economic exploitation by their economic policies. After 1857,
the time popularly known as the British Raj in India witnessed a new
face of the Britishers not only in politico-administrative field but also
in agro-economic area. The subtle ways of the drain of wealth
perpetuated till the rule ended. But a benevolent face is also seen in the
means of growth of agriculture production by way of adoption of
agricultural technology to sustain and promote the growth. But the
underline idea was not save the peasantry of the Punjab under study,
but to help the cultivation to grow more raw materials for the benefit of
the British.
Colonial rule had great impact on the region of the Punjab. The
Punjab was annexed by the East India Company in 1849. When the
Britishers came to this region, they did not so merely as traders.
Instead, they came, to quote K. W. Jones with „mature Imperial
consciousness‟, which indeed determined their policies in the newly
acquired province. About a hundred years earlier when the British East
India Company henceforth the Company conquered Bengal, it
represented an important extension of the system of mercantilism under
which the upper most object of the Company had been to collect more
and more wealth by expending trade and by direct pillage and loot on
the strength of control of state power. With the beginning of the
nineteenth century, however, the British industrial bourgeoisie
gradually hegemonies the society and the politics in England and this
led to an important shift in the nature of the British rule in India. In the
253
new conditions, the underlying objective of the colonial state was to
consolidate its rule in different parts of the country not only to enlarge
the volume of trade, but also to have an access to raw materials
necessary for production on industrial goods in England.
Keeping in view this aspect, the British government gradually
„converted the Punjab into an agrarian appendix of the Brit ish
metropolis. Large amount of capital were invested by the government
in building canal irrigation system in West Punjab which brought new
areas under cultivation, and greatly increased agrarian production. In
this region of canal colonies, agriculture was actually transformed into
a capitalist venture where production was geared to the market, and
was not merely an activity pursued for the purpose of subsistence. A
major part of the agricultural produce was transported through the
newly established railway system from the Punjab to port cities for
export to the overseas market. This included export of grains and raw
cotton to Britain in large quantities which naturally made this province
particularly important for the metropolis.
Agrarian policy of the British government was not uniform in all
Indian provinces, it was changed with the passage of time and as well
as specific regions. The aim of the policy was suppression and
exploitation of the colonial people. The first stage of suppression
shifted towards exploitation in the second stage. Several factors were
responsible for this shift, for example, the very geographical conditions
of the area, potentialities for agriculture, colonial needs, nature of
peasantry, colonial understanding of land-rights and political hold over
the territory an others.
The Punjab with its ample agricultural potentialities like the
fertile thirsty plains, under-utilized rivers and hardworking peasantry,
254
regarded by its British conquerors as more valuable than the discovery
of the richest mines. A great portion of the available uncultivated land,
however, was situated far away from the centers of trade and lines of
communication or was not within the reach of canals or wells and even
of seasonal rainfall. The expansion of cultivat ion in such tracts could
be affected only through large scale canalization of the measures
specifically suited to their local circumstance.
At the outset of the British rule, about one-fourth of the total
area was under cultivation, and sixth to one fifth was regularly
irrigated. The agricultural resources of the province were not only
highly under-utilized; the area under cultivation was also unevenly
distributed. Development of agricultural science and technology under
towed agricultural development in the Punjab under British rule.
Initiative in this direction was taken in the days of the Board of
Administration. The new varieties of the crops gave higher yield than
the indigenous varieties. The new varieties of wheat, Punjab 11, Punjab
8A and wheat No. 265 yielded produce worth Rs. 15 per cent more
than the native varieties. Increasingly greater attention was paid to it in
the later years. High yielding verities of crops like wheat, cotton and
sugarcane were either brought from other counties or were evolved in
various research institution in the Punjab and elsewhere Punjab 8A and
Punjab 11; that of cotton were American 4F- Egyptian varieties; and of
sugarcane were Poona and Coimbatore. Some new crops such as tea,
flex and potatoes were also introduced. In the period under study,
the three-fourth population of the Punjab depends on the agricultural.
The population of the Punjab in 1901 was 24,367,113 or 8 per cent of
the total population of the Indian empire. The increase in the
population of the province during the period 1901 to 1941 was 40.8 per
255
cent. Throughout our period, from 50 to 60 per cent of the total
population was directly and solely engaged in agricultural and pastoral
pursuits. Since the employment opportunities in the non-farm
avocations did not grow equal to the growth in the population,
increases pressure fell on land and the only device left was to bring
more area under cultivation which augmented the total cultivated area.
Agricultural innovations in the 20th
century made considerable
headway and experimental farms were established at important places
in the province. The more sophisticated, durable and light iron
implements like the sugarcane press, Persian-wheel, fodder-cutter,
harrow and the iron plough became very popular. New techniques of
sowing and rotation were evolved to renovate the soil. For the
prevention and increase of the productive power of the soil, the
devastating activities of the chos and the water-logging were checked.
Live stock was improved by cross-breeding of strong and more
efficient cattle. Use of organic manure also increased. Even the
inorganic fertilizer steadily increased in use in the last quarter of
British rule.
Was not the result of expansion of irrigation alone, in 1868,
about 14 million acres 66.6 per cent of the total cultivated area was
unirrigated. In 1900, the unirrigated area was about 19 million acres
forming 68 per cent of the total land under cultivation. For the
significant extension of the cultivated area, however, the growth of
irrigation and colonization of the vast uncultivated tracts was of the
foremost importance. The canal system like, the Lower Chenab Canal.
Lower Jhelum Canal, Triple Project, Satluj Valley Project, Haveli
Project, and part of Sirhind Western Jamna and upper Bari Doab Cana l,
brought water to the arid, thinly populated and sparsely cultivated
256
regions in the south- western and south-eastern plains of the Punjab. In
the south-western Punjab, alone with irrigating the already cultivated
land, the expansion of irrigation led to established of flourishing canal
colonies known as Lyallpur, Shahpur, Ganji Bar, Nili Bar, Sidhani,
Sohag-Para, Chunian, Jang Upper Chenab and Upper Jhelum- covering
altogether an area of about five million acre. The canals added
considerably to the agricultural prosperity of the dry south-eastern
districts of Ferozepur, Sirsa and Hissar as well. Irrigation both by the
government canal and private works, particularly the wells, increased
rapidly over the period.
As the area under irrigation increased, the percentage of the
matured over the sown area also went on increased. Annual
fluctuations in the cropped area in normal years decreased
successively. In addition to bringing marginal land under crop and
cultivation it also encouraged the cultivation of more remunerative
crops and adoption of techniques of intensive cultivation. In the
already well cultivated central and eastern districts, expansion of
irrigated acreage brought security to the crops against scarcity of
rainfall and drought like conditions
The area under irrigation increased in the Punjab. In 1901 the
irrigated area was 5,473,359 acres, but in 1936-37, it increased and
reached 15,604,704 acres near about three times had been increased in
the Punjab province. The cultivated area of the Punjab province was
irrigated by canals.
The British government introduced some new things in animal
husbandry with a motive to improve and promote the methods and
technique. The effort was made to improve the condition of the live-
stock in the region to the west of river Sutlej. The most important step
257
in this direction was the importation of the bulls from Hissar, Hansi
and Sirsa for the improvement of cattle wealth, the veterinary college
of the Punjab was established in the Lahore. The output of the Hissar
Cattle Farm was limited, while the demand for stud bulls may expect to
increase. During the British period, south-east Punjab was main hub of
the live stock. Many cattle fair organized in this track like Jehazgarh
Cattle Fair, Hansi cattle Fair and Rohtak Cattle fair. But the scarcity of
the fodder was a setback for the live-stock in this region.
Agriculture was the main occupation of the majority of the
people in Punjab during the British rule and it continues to so even
today, though its share in the gross national product has decreased.
However, it is a regrettable fact that agriculture during the British
period was in very backward state. Agriculture was not a very lucrative
profession and even the large size of land holdings held by the
zamindars was no criteria to determine their prosperity nor was the
higher amount of land revenue paid by the meant greater prosperity of
a peasant. The condition of the tenants was still worse. This was
substantiated by the findings of the board of economic enquiry, Punjab,
which showed "tenant was at the bottom of his resources, he practically
got very little after meeting his rent. Peasant proprietors and tenants
played an important role in agrarian society.
The loans for agricultural improvements also were given on th e
security of land to those persons who had a right to make that
improvement. The concession and exemptions offered by the
government to those constructed irrigation works and effecting other
improvement of land also went largely to the peasant proprietors . In
fact, the system of public investment and incentives given in
agriculture was such in which greater advantage to the peasant
258
proprietors was inbuilt. Unionist party constantly pleased that no land
revenue should be charged from those who owned either upto 2 acres
of canal irrigated land or 5 unirrigated acres, or those who paid land
revenue upto 5/-. Actually, a cultivators paying Rs. 5/- as land revenue
with in service was much better off than the Rs. 25/- but without any
member of the family in service. Therefore, when the Unionist party
got majority, it tried to implement its ideas of limited abolition of land
revenue. The Unionist Govt. allowed special remission on account of
low prices or bad crops in districts where the system of sliding scale of
assessment of land revenue had not yet been introduced. In 1937 the
remission were given to the extent of Rs. 95000 and in 1938 it was Rs.
4,58,000 for the rabi crops. During the years 1937-38 remission of Rs.
3.6237 crores were given due to hailstorm and famine while it was only
Rs 1.4737 crores between1934-37. The rate of land revenue was
lowered from 40-46% in Gurgaon, Jhelum and Lahore districts to
23.2% in Fasur from 22% to 16% in Chunian 33.5% to 15% and in
Amritsar from 22% to 15.3%. By 1942, the Punjab cultivator had
become the lowest “land rule” payer in the country.
A comparison between the years 1911-12 and 1918-19 given in
the statement shows that the total area held by occupancy tenants and
tenants-at-will had increased from 14,767 acres in 1911-12 to 792,147
acres in 1918-19. It can be easily concluded that there was a great
demand for land, but this increase did not improve the plight of
cultivators owing to high rents, and the ability of the landlord to exact
a fifty per cent share in land instead of reasonable cash rent. But the
condition was not better of a peasant comparison to a peon.
According to Mr. Morland it was better to be a peon than a
peasant under the Mughal kings in 16th
-17th
centuries. That may or may
259
not be true, but it was literally true that in the Punjab, where the level
of the agricultural „prosperity‟ was higher than in other parts of India,
the meanest peon was better off than an average peasant owning less
than 5 acres (58.3 per cent of the total number of owners), and much
better off than a tenant cultivators (tenant cultivate about 60 per cent of
the land in the Punjab). A peon earned about Rs. 200 in a year. The
average net income per acre in 1932-33 according to the Punjab Farm
Account, was Rs. 20.4, or a little more than Rs. 100 for 5 acres (Rs.
11-14 per acre in 1931-32 and Rs. 7-13 in 1930-31). Even in 1928-29,
or before the collapse of prices, the average income per acre did not
exceed Rs. 33. The tenant, it goes without saying, earn much less than
peasant-proprietors. To a great many peasants in the Punjab in British
period the earnings of a Government peon were untold wealth.
On March, 13, 1942, Ch. Chhotu Ram remarked on the floor of
the Legislative Assembly that they further wanted to reduce the land
revenue and the objective could be achieved only if the provincial
Govt. was allowed by the central Govt. to levy full taxes on the
capitalists of the Punjab who had been enjoying almost total immunity
from local taxation. But the claim is belied by the facts. The Unionist
party made no effects to implement this programme. It would not prove
workable because the poor and illiterate agriculturists would not be
able to maintain their accounts, more so when traders with an annual
turnover exceeding Rs. 10,000 were finding it difficult to maintain
their accounts for assessment under the General sales Act. The
Agricultural markets products act passed in 1939, was mainly intended
to prevent mal-practice in the markets whereby the ignorant cultivator
had been defrauded of his just dues.
The Unionist party highly pleased in passing these Acts.
260
Speaking about the Acts Ch. Chhotu Ram declared the Acts would
most benefit the backward and poor classes like Kisans, Mazdoors and
the untouchables. In another occasion Sir Chhotu Ram condemned the
previous governments and tried to win the hearts of the Zamindars. He
said that “the Govt. of these days were autocratic and irresponsible
which could not be moved except when they were face to face with
serious threats…. I raised the cry in the hope that the government
might in order to avert this threat agree to make other reasonable
concessions to the Zamindars”. In fact the Unionist party wanted to
maintain itself the champion of suffering peasantry of the Punjab but
the facts told a different tale. The reason for this being the Unionist
party denied the fact of a dichotomy of interests between the big
landlords and the petty peasants. Sir Chhotu Ram declared that there
was no difference between mong and math (two kinds of pulses).
The non-agriculturists were at liberty permanently to alienate
land through sales, exchanges, gifts and wills. Members of the
agricultural tribes would enjoy the same liberty but only if the alinee
was a member of the same tribe in the same district. Permanent
alienation by them to any one not belonging to this tribe (including the
non-agriculturists) would require the sanction of the deputy
Commissioner temporary alienation of land to non-agriculturists upto a
maximum period of 20 years could be made, but after the lapse of 20
years the land would revert unencumbered to the alienation. This
provision of the Act created a serious discontent among the business
communities of the province, because it prevented the exploitation of
the peasants. But the Act could not fulfill the government's
expectations, because the money lender, after margining the land of
their clients, confined their attention only to yield and not to the land.
261
In other words, land still remained in the hands of its original owners.
But under the land alienation act, a new class of moneylenders
emerged. This class was interested in capturing the land holdings of
their clients. This system led to evasions of the provisions of act
through Benami transaction by which transfer were nominally made in
favour of agriculturists while the real profit was reaped by
moneylenders.
Now, the ordinary villager goes to a bania to borrow money. The
bania says, he will charge only one anna in the rupee per mensem. The
villager is never able to realize the consequences such a bargain. He
cannot calculate what an anna is the rupee means. He does not know
that the rate of interest comes to 12 annas in the rupee per annum,
which means 75 percent per annam. Honorable members of this House
can easily realize the heavy burden that is thrown on the villager who
borrows from a bania.
Moreover, these crafty money-lenders evade the provisions of
the Land Alienation Act in many ways. They mortgage the lands of
their debtors to others zamindars on agreement that they should pay the
money advanced in fixed installments. Those zamindars also, in their
turn, fail to pay the installments at the fixed installments. Those
zamindars also, in their turn, fail to pay the installments at the fixed
time whereupon the Insolvency Courts come to the help of the money
lenders and the land is attached and sold. The condition of the
zamindars is pitiable. Three consecutive crops have failed. The non-
agriculturists are wise and cunning. And on the top of all this, comes
the ruling given by Mr. Justice Dalip Singh, which is sure to prove
very disastrous in its results.
262
As a cumulative result of the new conditions and the response of
the people to them, the gross cultivated area over the total area in the
Punjab increased from 23 per cent in 1849 to 45 per cent in 1901 and
53 per cent in 1947. The irrigated area over the gross cultivated area
similarly rose from 28 per cent in 1868 to 33 per cent in 1901 and 52
per cent in 1940. In 1939-40, the Punjab formed about 12 per cent of
the total as well as the net sown area in British India. But it had 30 per
cent of the total irrigated area and 45 per cent of the area irrigated by
the government canals. Of the total irrigated crops 29 per cent were in
the Punjab; followed by United Province, 22 per cent ; Madras 18 per
cent; and Sind 18 per cent. Much more than this, the Punjab had
respectively 46 and 63 per cent of the total irrigated area in British
India under wheat and cotton. The yield per acre also increased by 50
per cent on irrigated land. As a result, the Punjab became the foremost
grain exporting province in British India in the 20th
century. Thus, with
the advancement of agricultural science and technology as well as
irrigation in the Punjab it became agriculturally the best developed
region of India.
The cultivated area did not expend everywhere. In some tracts
there were signs of consideration. The cultivation in bet areas
decreased considerably with the construction of large scale canal
irrigation works because the flow of the water in the river channels
decreased which reduced the area under sailab cultivation. The
excessive canal irrigation often resulted in water logging along the
course of the main canals and turned the fertile fields unproductive.
The movements of peasantry from the populous districts to the canal
colonies also caused decrease in cultivation in the home districts.
The extension of the irrigation and the availability of cultivable
263
land to be brought under cultivation were obviously the basic factors
which determined the growth of agriculture in different regions. The
most noteworthy characteristic of agricultural developments thus was
that it was primarily a development in the sense of increase in acreage
under cultivation effected through the various irrigation projects. In
other words, comparatively less attention was paid to intensive
cultivation.
Mir Maqbool Muhammad, PLC member, informs the Council
that the zamindars of the province from two-thirds of the total
population. But the annual average income of a zamindar ranges
between Rs. 40 and Rs. 60 While an average expenditure on feeding
and clothing alone of a Punjab prisoner is Rs. 92. It shows that about
one half of the population of this province cannot afford even the
miserable standard of feeding and clothing of prisoners. Consequently
it is quite obvious that the zamindars specially require the immediate
help and consideration of both the Government and the Public. It is
admittedly true that land and the average produce of the zamindars are
decreasing day by day. Moreover the zamindars are crying under the
heavy burden of loans and at the same an ordinary zamindar to pass his
days of life. Owing to these circumstances the death rate has
considerably increased. It is gratifying that the Government is prepared
to do everything reasonable for the betterment of the zamindars but I
feel there is still much to be done in this connection. For a few co -
operative societies or dairy Farms would not solve our rural problem.
There should be a definite programme before the government for the
purpose. Wherever in Europe or America the zamindars have made any
real progress you would see the reform started with a definite
programme set up by a committee of the type.
264
The general picture of the villages during the war was one of the
rise in money incomes without a corresponding rise in the real
incomes. The rise in money incomes was due to the rise in the prices of
agricultural produce and the larger recruitment to the Army. It should
be normally have led to an increase in the real incomes also and to a
higher slandered of living but conditions during the war were
abnormal; both producer and consumers goods were short in supply
and even money could not, in many cases, buy the article badly needed.
The villagers, therefore, found that there were not sufficient stocks in
the market on which to spend his increased income and, making a
virtue out of necessity, he began to amass savings, he did, of course,
invest in land, cattle and house construction wherever he could; he
took land on mortgage and he also went in for luxury articles whenever
he could have them. But even so, there were surplus in income to spare
and the only things that could be done with them were to keep them.
To some extent, therefore, the villager was „forced‟ to save. It wou ld of
course, be wrong to say that all the savings of the villagers were
„forced savings‟ because the war did teach the villager the virtue of
savings.
The improvement on the economic condition of the members of
the artisan and menial groups was reflected to some extent in the
change of their status. The employers became more careful in their
treatment of the artisans and menials because the latter were no longer
wholly dependent on income from land and could throw up their job
and maintain the pre-war standard of living without working for them.
The Karigar, who could do the job of a carpenter, a blacksmith and a
mason had a rush of work and was able to build up small nest -eggs
from the savings. The Sunar was not so lucky but he, too, might get his
265
chance after the war. The village shop-keeper, however, lost, because
his activities had to be restricted due to war-time control. The high
price and the disappearance of the quality cloth brought into
importance the weaver who again became an indispensable organ of the
village society.
Therefore it can well be concluded that the tools and methods of
colonial state in Punjab worked as two-edged sword further the rural
society. The British colonialism penetrated its root deep into the
agrarian exploitation of the rural society by enhancing the capacity of
its coffer with more and more revenue collection by various means as
referred in two different chapter of this study and also by creating a
divide into the Punjab society with its colonial tools. In one way it
succeeded in collecting more and more revenue and also agricultural
produce for the industries in Britain, on the other hand, it successfully
divided various communities. The money-lenders and peasantry was at
dagger‟s head, the Congress and Unionist party also became political
enemies, organization like Hindu Mahasabha created communal
disharmony and urban and rural society saw a clear divide due to the
British tool of colonialism in Punjab. The fallout of the Second World
War created dissension and discontentment in the rural society as has
been discussed elsewhere in this study.
266
GLOSSARY
Anna 1/6th part of a rupee.
Bail Oxen.
Bajar Retail market, shopping centre.
Bajra Millet.
Bandobast Settlement or arrangement. Colloquially the
arrangements for any undertaking.
Bania A Hindu, trader-cum-money lender.
Banjar Waste or fallow land.
Begar Forced labour
Benami Transfer in the name of the fictitious person
Bhus Wheat straw.
Bigah A measure of land.
Chahi Irrigated from well
Chara Straw.
Charasa Leather bucket
Gur Raw sugar.
Guru Hindu religious teacher spiritual guide.
Hakim The indigenous practioners of medicine.
Hollow Gohn.
Jowar A kind of millet
Kharif Autumn harvest.
Khuta Mud receptacles.
267
Kirar Contemptuous term for Hindu Money-lender
Killa A acre.
Kup Storage of straw.
Mandi Market for a particular article.
Maund A measurement unit of 40 seers.
Moongfali Groundnut.
Nahar Canal.
Nahari Irrigated from a canal
Pargana Sub-division of a tehsil.
Patwari Village accountant.
Persian Wheel Rahat.
Rabi Spring crop.
Seer A measurement unit, V40 th part of a maund.
Shahukar A small scale dealer, trader and Money-lender.
Taccavi Cash loan for productive purposes.
Tehsil Sub-division of a district.
Wajib-ul-arz Rights to take the water.
Zaildar Official for collection of revenue in the villages.
Zamindar Owner of land.
268
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272
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