1. Raja Todrmal
was the Minister for revenue in the Court of Akbr.
Building upon the foundations laid by sher
shah, Todarmal introduced a system of land
reforms, the essence of which was an assessment of the land revenue
according to the extent of cultivation, the nature of the soil and the
quality of the crops. he set up a scheme of
laborious measurement, analysis of possibilities and calculation of
prospects. The actual demand was adjusted to meet seasonal price and
cultivated area variation. Though at times it broke down and was deployed
unevenly within the Moghal Empire, it is the
underlying basis of the later day revenue systems. The British became the
pupils of the Moghal School,
being impressed by the range and thoroughness of the system. In spite of
false starts and harsh application in the early days, the British could
build up a rural administration not only stable but generally equable and
equitable.
2. The Moghal revenue administration demanded precise
measurement of productive cultivated land . A
number of units came into force. The Ilahi gaz, a measure of length and standard guage was used throughout the Moghal
Hindustan in long, middling and short forms, each divided into 24 equal
parts and each was called a tussuj, equal to 8,
7 or 6 barley-corns. The gaz is equal to two
spans of 16 gerths each. There were however
variations of the length of the gaz even with Moghal India. The bigha is a land measure of 60*60 gaz.
A larger unit was the Kos
or Karoh,each
consisting of 50 Ilahi gaz
or 400 poles, each of length 12.5 gaz. Thus the
Kos is a length of 5000 gaz.
Abul Fazal states
that there were significant variations in the length of the Kos in different parts of Moghal
India.
3. Raja Todarmal was not however the first to generate a
revenue system available in all parts of the empire. Much befire him, others have had their notable
contributions in the regard in different parts of the country. Kautilya's Arthasastra in
the Mourya period was one of the earliest to
recognize the relevance of land revenue collection from productive
farmlands, in villages with settled population of farmers. The Sukra neeti talks of
recognition of revenue estimation from cultivated land according to the
fact the land is watered by tanks and lakes, by rivers, by wells and
sluices apart from dry farming rainfed areas
and the nature and number of crops raised in each parcel.
4. An area of
significant development of land information for revenue levies is the Tamilnadu agricultural plains. Though Tamilnadu has been occupied at least since the
Neolithic age, early settlements of a shifting character were confined to
the Kurinji or the hills, gradually
down-migrating over centuries to the pastoral foothills or mullai by early Christian era. Thr
further occupation of the river plains and the agriculturally fertile
deltas led to sedentary population living amidst riverine
farm country. Peasant technology led to use of irrigation through
different methods and raising of more than one
seasonal crop, apart from tree crops. By mid-10th century,
with the advent of the later Cholas, specially
Raja Raja productive cultivated land
constituted a major source of land revenue for the upkeep of the Chola mandalam. Farm
villages came to be precisely defined. As per Chola
stone inscriptions and numerous copper plates, a villagecame
to be defined as comprising~wet lands, dry
lands, ur(cultivators), village site, houses,
houses house gardens, manram(meeting place),
wastelands for grazing cattle, tanks, cow pens, hedges, forest land,
barren lands, brackish, lands streams, channels, rivers, arabic land near rivers, pits of water, trees.
"(Subbarayalu) Villages were further
grouped as brahmadeyas (Brahmin Villages), Vellala Villages (farmer villages), taniyur, devadana
villages (figted to Brahmins, temples and those
who have rendered recognized state service. Hundreds of descriptions are
noted in inscriptions and copper plates of temple donations (of land or
land income), endorsed by the state that give precise locations and
measures of lands donated, together with their boundary limits. Though
verbal, these description of individual plots of
land give indication of an early system of cadastral plans.
5. The land
measurement units used in Tamilnadu however
differ from those prevalent in the northern plains. The smallest unit
used is a viral (finger). 12 virals (9")
make a chaan and 24 Virals
(18") make a muzham (cubit). A muzhakol (cubic pole) is 9 or 12 ft. long and is used
as a measuring rod. The smallest land plot is a 12 ft. square called a Kuzhi. Hundred Kuzhis make
a Kaani and five Kaanis
is veil, somewhat similar to the northern bigha.
Land as small in extent as 1/52.4288 millions of a veli
was measured in the productive Cauvery valley
in the Chola Period (equal to 1/500000 th of a square foot, (Burton Stein). While the basic
cultivated field plot was a veli, and a village
was defined as stated in the above para and
comprised many farm plots, that were as far as possible rectangular or
square in shape, except where natural features like water channels formed
the bounding limits. The basic agrarian unit was nadu
comprising many villages. With land reclamation in the newer delta
fringes, new nadus came into existence, though
of lower fertility than the core Chola
heartland. The Chola system of land management
went on a decline post-fourteenth century. (Heitzman)
but the basic framework and structure remained intact to become the basis
of the later British cadastral and revenue surveys.
6. In the
well-watered Travancore and Malabar, a compact
village was not the agricultural unit. The tarawad
of the Namboodri and Nair constituted the land
unit, with Izhavas and Tiyars
as the main farm labour. The hills and slopes
terrain with a network of backwaters and lagoons lent to a hierarchy of
land rights of the Janmis that were
multilayered. The land was held on lesser forms of tenure, and
sharecropping was quite common. Land was devoted not only to rice farming
but also a variety off tree crops. The traditional system did not undergo
any major change with the coming of the Islam, nor did it get disturbed
by the arrival of the Portuguese and the Dutch. However, a gradual
break-up of the larger tarawads did
materialize. Temple
lands and garden lands were given patta by the Travancore maharaja since mid eighteenth century.
Actual survey by traverses or baseline and offset system did not
materialize till independence. A somewhat similar land ownership system
evolved in the Lakshadweep
with the government pandaram. Lands not being held in private property, but it is
the trees that were owned. The middle class Vellala
Identification of the Tamil Country finds its reflection in the Okkaliga and Lingayat land
ownership in larger plots in the semi-dry Mysore
Maidan.
7. A major step taken
by Shivaji in western Maharashtra for land administration was
to have a survey of the lands and then to assess the rents and dues
payable by the cultivators. White the land ownership in Deccan was in large land holdings, in Konkan they were in much smaller tillable plots on
slopes and valley sides. Land surveys were carried out at different times
and basically followed the system of Malik Ambar in Moghal Deccan. The main features of this system were the
classification of land according to fertility, ascertainment of their
produce, fixing the government share, collection of rents in the of aboney and abolition of intermediate collecting
agents. Three fifths of the share of the crop produce was left to the
farmer. Using the tagai and istawa
principles new lands where brought under the plough and the farmer was
subsidized with seeds and cattle. Land revenue varied from year to year depandant on assessment by village officers like Karnams and tatatis, the
local Kuikarnis and Patels
managing the village administration. However, there are
large variations dependant on jagirdars.
Salsette (Suburban Bomaby)
for example had nine different tenure systems within an area of 16 sq.
miles. When the British took over similar such principles and methods
were developed locally in different parts of Central and Northern India, and these with remarkable internal
variations are too traced here. In Portuguese Goa,
there evolved a communido system unique to
itself.
8. When the British
set themselves the task of ground level detailed large and medium scale
surveys, they took to precise direct measurement of distance and directions
dbtween each night's camp, that took the form
of route surveys in traverses, often using Gunther's
Chain and tape and taking measures along sides and diagonals. This
technique of establishing a framework for observation formed the basis of
different scales of mapping in a map graticule.
Rennell, Darlirymple,
Robert Kelly, Buchanan and others did pioneering work in this regard.
These surveys were carried by trained local surveyors and collectors and
the data gathered were sent to Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.
Since the Surveyors were appointed by the London Office and the
Cartographers at Central Office had little control on data sent to them
led to great disparlties in survey standards,
and a chaos.~The Company management though
aware of the chaos did not know how to materialize and the three surveyor
generals moved in different directions. Many manuscript maps went missing
and field offices often did not get the maps.
9. Using indigenous
methods for land measurement and assessment of revenues, based upon a
decision of the company and the Surveyor General at Calcutta
to accept the assessment in Eastern India
as permanent settlement for all time, and there was a need to assess new
wastelands newly reclaimed in Sunderbans and 24
paragamas. The local Zamindari
System facilitated to an extent permanent settlement. In Madras
Presidency, since even the Jagirs were not so
large zamins, and the land holders were mainly
of a ryotwari system, a different guideline was
established for the Madras revenue surveys, and these were later
introduced to Bombay Presidency in 1772 with little change. This
settlement done by the extra-ordinary work of great surveyors like Thomas
Munro, Read, Col. Mackenzie and Dickinson became basis for a temporary
settlement, with opportunities for constant reviews at intervals. The
data base was highly comprehensive going into the plot size, soil and its
taram, slope, water access, crops seasonally,
ownership etc. The Madras Adangal even today is
the standard adopted gradually all over the country. The Sat-bara of Bombay Presidency is of a very similar order.
The baffling problem of land survey was the subject of futile experiments
in Bangal, but in Madras reached a viable practical
solution, dependent on standard supervision. With insufficient resources,
the British mapping of India
proceeded in Crisis-driven, anarchic manner.
10. In the early
decades of the 19th century, under the regulation of William
Lambton and later George Everest, the primary and secondary triangulation
networks began taking shape with minimal linear measures and precise
angular measures to cover the whole country with a network of triangles,
interconnected. The priority given by the Company Directors and the
Indian Surveyor-Generals no doubt provided a pivotal role in unification
and helped in creating an image of imperial space, unique and precise in
the world. This system imposed from above did not contribute in any
manner to the build up a co-rodinates revenue
and cadastral survey system in the country at the grass root level, and
then building it up. The twain shall never meet, in the decades to follow
proceeding on different planes and the Survey of India gradually lost
sight of one of its primary tasks leaing it in
the hands of talatis, revenue Inspectors and
Collectors. The cartographic anarchy was complete and the Surveyor
Generals combined into one group, who unfortunately never realized the
importance of ground level surveys.
11. Now, there is a
growing reaslization and desire to link the
triangulation network not only with the topographical map grid, but also
to bring the cadastral plans into its fold. Having flown high in the
regime of map projections, photogrammetry
aerial surveys and photos, and the latest in satellite imagery maps of
high power of spatial resolution. Survey of India is struggling to come
to terms with grass root level linkages. Problems are many: the grid used, the projection for plane table level survey plan
the search for control points to merge the two and others. On the front
of the cadastral plans, shrinkage due to age of the old handmade paper it
is drawn on, subsequent plot level changes and what is
worse changes in the physical landscapes by way of erosion or
accretion. The job is gigantic and full of challenges.
12. Having made a
brief and spotty review of the cadastral and revenue surveys that had
come to stay in different parts of the country, it is time to turn to
cadastral plans of villages and towns and revenue maps of villages. It is
nit very easy to visualize when the first Indian cadastral and revenue
survey maps came into being. It can at best be a broad onjecture. Since Pallava
and Chola days inscriptions and copper plates
of donations reveal a widespread network of agricultural villages,
careful demarcations of village fields and land rights and their precise
delineations with boundary fixtures by measurements correct to virals. This necessarily leads to believe that
cadastral plans and maps of adjoining fields in relation to natural
features like rivers, wells canals and tanks had come into vouge. In all probability, none of them have come
down the centuries to us, possibly because they were in palm leaf
manuscripts. Yet this land of the farmers of many centuries are not
bereft of some,rare,
pieces of evidences, and if some concerted work is initiated more such
map plans may get revealed. The adjoining map is one such of a field area
(not the full village) on the south banks of the Pennar
River close to Tirukoilur in Tamil Nadu, that shows the gifted devadana
lands to the Siva and Vishnu temples as placed in the natural environment
as per inscriptions. The square and rectangular plots of farmlands were
of the Chola Period imprinted in the later day
British cadastral surveys and plans. A map drawn from Frank Perlin's collection is again a part of the village
field plan belonging to Fasli 1193 (AD 1784) on
paper in Chitnis Modi
Script presented to and accepted as a piece of evidence in a civil
litigation for land rights between two farmers. The place is south of and
close to Pune in Maharashtra, and is known as Vadhana. The planalso
provides measurement . Themap
is eproduced and rendered in English. Belonging
to a relatively late period, somewhat similar to Moghal
land reform methods, this Maratha Map, of the Peshwa
Period reflects the land reforms effected by Chhatrapati Shivaji. A
cadastral map in a part of native western Nepal, that is dated Ad 1830
with distinct boundaries and their revenue estimates is also shown. Just
before the British introduced their cadastral survey and map in Maratha aldn by the beginning of the 18th century,
revenue and village locations in the hills within a forest belt of the sahyadri was a difficult task but the Maratha
Cartography had an answer in their graphic mapping of valley heads, as
shown in Map. Cadastral plots even within urban areas found map
expression in the local language, as can be seen from Map of Jaiphalwadi, in the heart of the city, which today is
a multistoreyed built up area, though strangely
bearing thesame name. Themicroland
form facets that find a place in elaborate details in
an extra-ordinary, well conceived cadastral survey details, as
contained in Adangal is well expressed in the
map of Vanamadevi in coastal Tamilnadu that I have myself surveyed in 1951. A
similar map of a village in Bihar dated
1832 is also shown.
13. Drawing his data
base from Abul Fazl's
Ain-i-Akbaree, the eminent historian, Irfan Habib mapped on the
present day map format, the revenue villages of Akbar's
subhas as defined by Raja Todarmal.
The maps are conomic as well as political, and
the moghal Atals is
an authentic alnd record of Akbar's
times. Jean Baptiste Joseph Gentil,
the military advisor of the Nawab of Oudh, with the aid of three Indian artists compiled a
large Moghal Atlas in 43 tblios
of the entire Moghal empore,
subhawise, together with a listing of sarkars and praganas, again
the data base being provided by the Ain-i-Akbaree,
rather than by direct surveys of the revenue villages. Two of the Indian
artists who helped Gentli were Niwasi Lal and Mohan Singh,
both Hindus. The Atlas was completed around AD 1770. The map beside is an
illustration of one such subha. The maps are
drawn employing indigenous cartographic methods, though they carry
scribe-work in French. A unique feature of the Atlas is the wealth of
marginal illustrations of life style, people, flora and fauna, war
ammunitions and even traditions. The Atlas, held in Paris archives, is a treasure house of
the Moghal period.
14. Marathas in 18th
century excelled in the preparation of area maps of revenue villages for
the aid of native rulers. They became quite handy in the first half of
the nineteenth century, when the British revenue surveys carried out
their work in Konkan and Western
Desh. There are many such maps, a
few of which are taken for illustration in this paper. The Bavda Jagir (Map) in Kolhapur
area is in colour, and distinguishes between Khalsa and Inak (grant)
villages and the map is in devnagari script. A
revenue map of Vijaydurg is in two scripts; the
text is in devnagri but the unique marginal
legend in Modi. The legend gives details of the
colour code and groups of villages according to
revenue control (Map) such as "Amal Bavdekar". Two similar maps of South
Konkan also exist, one of which
depicts forest areas in decorative tree symbols. Interestingly, there are
no revenue villages in the forested areas. An interesting map of Bardol state nerar Solapur in India pargana
is an inam group of 30 villages (Map). The map
is striking in that distances are estimated through a series of evenly
spaced concentric circles around the main place, Bardol,
at distances of one Kos
each. A revenue village map of North Konkan (Map), used by Cohn Mackenzie
during the Anglo-Mysore war of 1799 was
prepared by the Marathas in the second half of eighteenth Century in Modi script. An interesting feature of this map is
the extensive depiction of hills, ghats,
forests differentiated as per density, variety of vegetable cover. This
map delimits revenue villages and names them.
15. The brief analysis
adequately demonstrates that pre-British India has its own systems of
cadastral and revenue mapping. What has come to light is but a small
fraction. Indian Cartographers and revenue officials have much to delve
in the past and unearth our own heritage of revenue measures and systems.
