THE AGRARIAN RIOTS IN INDIA.
THE agrarian discontent in Bengal, which has now, by the latest telegrams, appeared in four counties, may be a mere worry ; but it also may turn out a very serious affair, so serious that it may be worth while to explain to our readers roughly what it is. It might be briefly described as a revolt of the tenantry against enhancement of rent, but it is unhappily mixed up with other and much more perplexing questions. When Lord Cornwallis pro- jected the Perpetual Settlement, or fundamental law of tenure in Bengal, there can be little doubt that he intended to turn the Zemindars or rent collectors and nobles into- English country gentlemen, paying a quit-rent to the Sovereign power, but able to evict their tenantry as they chose. The whole power, however, intellectual and moral, both of the Civil Service and of the India House, was applied to resist this plan as a criminal injustice, and although a pledge was given that the Zemindar who paid his quit-rent should never be disturbed, the tenantry were invested with a nearly similar right, subject to some indefinite liability to- enhancement if the country grew rich. After one terrible- struggle under the new law, which lasted twenty years, and in which many of the oldest houses in Bengal went down under their load of debts and mortgages, the expected results, began to accrue. The land rent was regularly paid, com- petition arose for land, and a conflict began between Zemindars and tenantry which has never ceased. Efforts were made to, raise rent even on the hereditary tenants, and were desperately resisted, while the new tenants were, as they expressed it, "left only their skins." Moreover, under the perfect peace main- tained by the British Government, the people began to mul- tiply in the ratio first revealed by the new Census—that is, to multiply like Chinese—the pressure for land became exces- sive, the prices of produce continually increased, and the fight between tenants and landlords waxed continually warmer. Usually it was carried on in the Courts, but eases are known of landlords dying of snake-bite if they took too much rent ; and in the Eastern counties, the resistance sometimes amounted to
civil war, the tenantry and the Zemindars' retainers fighting the question out with clubs, bill-hooks, and very rarely, muskets. Happen what might, the quit-rent was always paid, a Govern- ment sale for arrears not only extinguishing the landlord's rights, but all rights under him ; and the Government looked on very happily, as at a combat of rats and mice which had no political meaning. Three processes were, however, going on all this while which very materially altered the relation of the contending parties. The population, in the first place, was doubling, and every new man wanted land, labour on the soil for bare wages being to the Bengalee the last depth, we will not say of de- gradation, but of discomfort. The notion that "whose is the sweat, his is the soil," is very deeply rooted in Bengal, and so is the idea that the Sovereign ought to protect the lowest class ; and not finding either idea work, getting no land, and fearfully low wages, the labourers without land bid for /and with a hunger like that of Irishmen or Neapolitans. Then, under a civilised Government, fighting went gradually out of fashion, and every dispute was sent to the Law Courts, where of course wealth told, and the tenantry, right or wrong, had very little chance indeed. Thirdly, especially in the East, the tenants in great numbers became Mussulmans, and as all Mussulmans, like all Freemasons, are brethren when convenient, and will not be oppressed beyond a certain point, the outbreaks of resistance to en- hancement became much more frequent and dangerous to the Zemindars. An Act, again, popularly called Act 10, of 1859, stripped the Zemindars of many of their feudal privi- leges, such as that of compelling any tenant to attend the Estate Office by force, and though full of compensations, still created an impression among the tenantry that the Sovereign was on their side,—an impression greatly deepened by their long fight and final victory over the Contract Law, the only clearly unjust enactment ever proposed in the Indian Legislature. Then came a rush of prosperity hardly broken by the Mutinies, which did not affect Bengal Proper ; then a new struggle by the landlords to get their share of this prosperity ; and finally, the wholly unexpected triumph of the Road Tax. This Tax, intended to fall equally on land- lord and tenant, fell on the tenant entirely; but the Act im- posing it gave him compensation by strengthening him against illegal cesses, and by registering him and his rental enabled him to defy false witness as to the rent he had hitherto been paying. An idea, too, spread among the tenantry, not un- natural from their point of view, that as the State was now taking cesses from them direct, the landlords had no right to do so any more, two sets of extortioners being unbearable, and as always happens in India, they elected to choose the State.
Meanwhile the Zemindars, well aware of all that was going on, and well aware also that this Mohammedan tenantry could and would combine in an instant for resistance, resolved to antici- pate the Road Act, and fight for at least one final enhancement. They carried their cases before the local County Courts, and won them, probably quite fairly, for Bengal grows richer and richer; but the tenantry never believe in the Moonsiffs—many of whom are quite competent and impartial, but many of them timid, and a few corrupt—and only accepted their decrees as signals of action. The Mussulmans of Pubna, say 800,000 souls, formed a Union, resolved not to pay rent at all except to the British Magistrate, sent out parties to warn all villages in the county, and despatched messengers into Dacca, the richest county in India, where their example was immediately followed ; and to Tipperah, a half-civilised district, where also, however, the cry was raised, "We are the Queen's tenants." Very few out- rages were committed, though, no doubt, a certain amount of coercion was used to compel unanimity ; but the cry itself is a new and most dangerous one, meaning nothing less than this,— that the people will pay the land tax, but that they will have no more landlords, an offer which shows that their revolt has no political meaning, but which excessively embarrasses the Government. It has been our policy in India for a century never, if we can help it, to come thoroughly athwart the masses, who alone can crush or embarrass us ; to keep friends with them, and to remain cold and distant to the nominal holders of the soiL This policy has failed in parts of India where the feudal system still has power, but it has succeeded in Bengal ; succeeded so well that in the Delta, as in Russia, the Zemindars are politically powerless. One word from the Viceroy, and they would disappear under a rush of the tenantry, just as the nobles of Russia would have done, had they resisted the emiancipation of the serfs. But on the other hand, the Government, though drawn towards the
Itenantry, cannot allow the whole principle of property to be upset, and its pledges to the Zemindars to be broken, in order to be left face to face with some eight millions of tenants, from whom, as it well knows, the full rent would never be forthcoming. It has had quite enough of " khas mehals," or estates held under direct management, which never pay, which are eaten up bit by bit by the neighbouring Zemindars, and which the Revenue Board in that vast area very often cannot find. In 1856, we think, it was discovered that the Board had lost some 300 or more estates, lost them as if they had been pearls dropped into a chalk-pit, and could never find them again. The Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Campbell, was therefore probably wise when he despatched troops and police to the disturbed districts, ordered all men to be quiet under penalty of military repression, and promised redress through the Courts. Our only doubt is whether he should not have sent down a local Commission, as while the affair remains in the Courts they will undoubtedly proceed on legal principles, without the slightest reference to political danger, which is considerable,—first, because if the tenantry insist on paying their rents into Court, the whole judicial and financial machinery will break down ; and secondly, because the rioters may at last refuse to pay rent altogether. We can neither imprison a nation nor distrain upon a Presidency, and should have to employ force on a scale that would very soon revolt English opinion. Even as it is, if the movement spreads, we shall probably have to cut the knot in a more or less high-handed manner, either by registering the tenants and their rent and forbidding any increase, or by compelling the Zemindars to forward all receipts to the magistrate, to be by him distributed to the people,—a device which, we perceive, one magistrate has adopted for himself.
Another and very singular device is attributed to Sir G. Campbell, which is quite in keeping with his character for originality and daring, but on which we confess ourselves unable to pass a definite opinion. He has appointed several Ryots Justices of the Peace. Hundreds of them are a great deal more competent, as far as knowledge goes, than the Zemindars themselves, and if the plan succeeds, it would solve untold difficulties in the interior. But we are greatly afraid the J.P.'s will hold themselves bound, not to do justice, but to protect the poor, and in that case the value of all property might be irreparably impaired. It is like appointing Mr. Arch and his colleagues Magistrates in Essex. They might win the confidence of the multitude, and so calm down the Union movement ; but they might also head it, and by over- awing the police make government impossible. The step has been taken, however, and we have only to wait and see whether, in addition to every other annoyance, we are to have an anti-rent movement throughout that portion of the Empire which alone makes India profitable. If the new spirit spreads to the opium districts, Mr. Grant Duff's prosperity budgets will cease, and next year may show a very sad tale.
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