British land policy as well as legislations had shown favour to those peasant proprietors who had numerical strength, higher social status and better economic condition than their fellow neighbours. In this category belonged many Jats who with their strong tribal connections universally enjoyed a privileged social status in the rural society. They had long remained a very powerful force which found frequent mentions in the writings of numerous British settlement and district officers over the years. The Government held that the loyality and contentment of such peasant proprietors was of far greater importance than any other thing as they could able to consolidate the stability in rural society of the Punjab. To serve their ends, they wanted to follow such policies and introduce such legislative measures which sought to strengthen their position against any others. The Punjab Alienation of Land Act partly underlined their line of actions.
Though, the Act protected agricultural land from passing to the hand of non-agriculturists classes, yet it failed to solve the problem of indebtedness. Because, the Britishers neither wanted to protect the agriculturists from evictions nor to improve their conditions but to eliminate the non-agriculturists money-lender from the land market for the benefit of a few agricultural communities. It was expected that the provisions of the Act would save the agriculturists from expropriation of their ancestral holding but practically, the Act was a sort of clever device of the British to divide the people of the rural areas into two groups- agriculturist and non-agriculturist. With it, a new class of agriculturist moneylenders came into being who replaced the non-agriculturist moneylender.
In these circumstances, the economy was more or less disturbed and affected the life of cultivators. The hard hit peasantry came under the grip of the shrewd money-lender. He charged a high rate of interest from him. Many instances of this form can be seen in the agricultural records. As a result tenants and share-croppers, as a homogeneous class, were usually impoverished and indebted. Consequently, Rs. 31 per head debt was noticed in the four districts of the south-east Punjab. Ultimately, we can only remember the famous statement: cultivator’s birth was in debt, live in debt and died in debt.
The landlord and tenants played an important role in agrarian society. To show their roles, in comparison with the other categories, especially with the tenants (as the non-cultivating proprietors were less interested in this matter), the two tables are viewed together.
Table: 4.3
Comparison between the Roles of a Landlord and a Tenant
A Landlord A Tenant
(i) Kept finer-breed of cattle, wastage of minimum human and cattle power and produced maximum. (i) Except a larger one, unable to keep strong and efficient cattle (due to poverty) and the wastage of both power (man and cattle) in his case was maximum;
(ii) Levelled ground, rooted out weeds, followed careful rotation, allowed more fallows and used more organic manure; (ii) Did very little in these regards;
(iii) Ploughed better, used better seed sand artificial fertilisers; (iii) Tilled his land not so good as a peasant proprietors and scarcely use high yielding seeds and artificial or organic manure.
(iv) Bricked his well and equipped with the iron Persian wheel. (iv) Left his well unbricked and performed his agricultural activities with the traditional apparatus;
(v) Tried to apply latest scientific and technology innovations. (v) Lagged far behind in this respect than a peasant proprietor.
It was an undeniable fact that the position of landlord was better than a tenant as several factors were in his favour. The size of holdings was generally larger; his cultivated areas were relatively better; and his economic condition was comparatively sounder than that of tenant. Actually the small tenants were worse off in every respect. Viz – agricultural implements, plough, cattle etc. than the self-cultivating peasant proprietor. They, in majority case, ploughed under the system popularly known as dangwara (agricultural partnership), where two tenants each owned one bullock ploughed their respective holdings on alternative days, which resulted in a lesser number of ploughings than by the owners.
Mainly two groups of land have been identified in the Punjab those having 1-20 acres and those having over 25-50 acres. Former is taken because 1-20 acres are easily accessible and operated and latter is being taken because above 25 acres cannot be easily operated, would have to take support from laborers, and had long-term consequences. As for as the first is concerned, all the districts, excluding Hissar, had almost 18 per cent of the land which is held by owners of 1-20 acres, or slightly more (up to 1-2 percent) in operation. These agriculturists were hard working and did their agriculture work on their own.
In the second category (25-50 and above), the uniform pattern was that the landlord holdings, between owned and operated, were decreasing. It means these owners did not do their work of own hand but by the help of tenants and laborers. The following table showing the percentage of the holdings those owned and operated of the various size of categories in the south-east Punjab. Table 4.4 shows that:
TABLE 4.4
PERCENTAGE OF HOLDINGS OWNED AND OPERATED IN VARIOUS SIZE CATEGRIOUS IN SOUTH–EAST PUNJAB IN 1920
Districts Owned 1-20 acres
operated Increase/
decrease in Percentage owned 25-50
operated Increase/
decrease
Hissar 15.6 14.7 (-5.7) 7.2 5.6 (-22.2)
Rohtak 18.4 19.8 (+7.6) 3.2 1.5 (-53.1)
Gurgaon 18.4 19.4 (+6.9) 2.5 0.8 (-68)
Karnal 18.5 18.7 (+1.0) 2.5 2.1 (-16)
Ambala 18.8 19.6 (+4.2) 1.8 0.5 (-72)
In a review of the district wise position in the 1920s, it may be noted that the increase between owned and operated ranged to 1-7 per cent in the first category in the south east Punjab. However, in the second category, the south-eastern districts registered a decrease range 16-72.
There were mainly two types of tenants in the south-east Punjab: (i) those which were held by tenants with rights of occupancy under the Punjab Tenancy act (XVI of 1887) and (ii) those which were held was tenancies-at-will.
Occupancy Tenants:
The principle generally adopted was to define tenant right by a term of occupancy, and an occupation of twelve years was assumed to fonder a hereditary right. The rent of tenants with right of occupancy was liable to enhancement of reduction in accordance with fixed rule. So long as the fixed rent was paid, the occupancy of the tenant could not be challenged. An occupancy tenants had a right to hold his land as long as he paid the rent fixed by the Government and to pass it on to his descendants on the same terms.
Tenants-at-will:
Tenants-at-will usually held land for a term of year. As a rule, agreement was made for an agricultural year. His rent fixed by an agreement between him and the landlord. This was in short how tenant -at-will was an annual tenant and his rent was determined by agreement between him and the landlord. He had practically no security of tenure. The only protection granted to him law was that he could be ejectment only after issue of notice through a court of law. These notices were issued at a particular season of the year and opportunity was given to the tenant either to contest his liability to ejectment or to claim compensation for permanent improvement made by him as a condition precedent to the relinquishment of the land if he wished to do so.
It was a practice with the owners to change the tenants every year. There were even instance of tenants having been changed after six months. The owner was afraid in case he continues giving land to the same for six consecutive years; he might lose the occupancy of his land to the tenants. There were many cases found where the owner had rented the land on the batai system to a tenant but in the village revenue records maintained by the Revenue Patwari, the owner himself was recorded as the cultivator. The area under occupancy rights in the Punjab province was 10.3 percent in 1887 -88, which decreased to 8 percent in 1935-36. However, the area under tenant -at-will substantially was increased from 28 percent to 49 during the same period.
the artisan’s classes left their traditional occupation had shifted towards agriculture.
Cash rent was characteristic in the south-eastern region
However, the relations between tenants -at-will and landlords were different from region to region and depended on the availability to tenants. In 1911-12, the number of tenants -at-will ejected annually did not exceed 0.06 percent of the total number. Disputes between the two were mostly ascribed to settlements. However, other causes were also at work. The commissioner of Ambala found that landlords feared the long continued unbroken possession by a tenant, which might mature into occupancy right. On the other hand, since the tenant's profits rose with the rise in yield and prices, there was a growing reluctance to return the land to the owner. The number of different types of tenants i.e., occupancy tenants and tenants-at-will that existed during this period is as given in the statement.
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 areas 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 rent. And the ability of the landlords to exact a fifty percent share in land instead of a reasonable cash rent. This tendency placed the cultivators in debt. The amount of his debt expressed in term of his land revenue was two or three times as great. Table 4.5 Shows that the statistics of the tenancy and land holding and tenants:
TABLE 4.5
DISTRICT WISE STATISTICS ON TENANCY AND LANDHOLDINGS
Districts % of Area Held by Subtenants % of Area Irrigated by % of Ownership Holding with
Kind Rent Kind + Cash
Rent All Source Canals More than 25 Acres Less than 15 Acres
Hissar 19 46 12 11 16 70
Rohtak 10 26 18 14 6 83
Gurgaon 9 34 12 4 5 88
Karnal 18 30 28 16 6 88
Ambala 23 31 04 – 4 91