Author : Wahid Ahmad
Lawrence Arrival
In the late nineteenth century Kashmir, the farmer stress was at its absolute peak, This was prompted mainly by the huge indebtedness among farmers to local money lenders known as Waen in the form of a verbal contract known in Kashmiri as wadd. Huge arrears had accumulated in the revenue department due to non-payment of revenue to the state.
As already discussed, in 1885 Maharaja Pratap Singh’s accession coincided with Russian threats to the north and suspicions of dealings between Kashmiri and Russian agents.
There were other political changes taking place in the state, such as the British passed on the control to a State Council, from April 1889 until 1905 under the control of a Resident. The counsel made many reforms in the state.
Lawrence was highly sympathetic to rural Kashmiri cultivators because their situation was such that they often used the phrase: Bata Bata Paidi Pati. "We are crying for food and the tax collector is after us".
Lawrence believed, like many other Kashmiris that city dwellers were lazy and feckless and relied on the state to support them. An old proverb which he quotes claimed that city people live by "nalam, kalam ya halam" (lying, writing or begging).
It might be expected that the traditional state officials and the urban elite, might have wielded a disproportionate influence on Lawrence and cause him to weight the Land Settlement in their favor. In fact, the reverse was the case, he by-passed local officials and made his assessment by direct observation, coming down firmly on the side of the cultivators and opposing the traditional tyranny of the middlemen.
With regard to the religious diversity, His conclusion was that there was a striking degree of mutual religious tolerance in Kashmir in the 1890s. This was largely due to the rather heterodox form of Islam practiced locally.
According to Lawrence “Kashmiri Sunnis are only Mussalmans in name. In their hearts they are Hindus, and the religion of Islam is too abstract to satisfy their superstitious cravings”
Existing administration
In the major part of Kashmiri history, the land was regarded as the absolute property of the State, and every year allotments were made to the cultivators.
Coming down 1859 the land was parcelled out among Kardars, who were land agents of the State, with immense powers. It was the Kardars duty to get the largest possible amount of grain for the State.
Every year the Kardar would arrange units for the cultivation of the estate. The unit was known as Nafrei, which consisted of a man his wife and one adult son. After the Kardar had made his annual distribution of the land, the village passed into the hands of a person known as Shakdar whose duty was to sit in the village and watch the crops. Over the shakdars was an official known as Sazawoly. When the harvest-time came a regiment known as the Nizamai paltan moved out into the villages to enforce the State’s claim, and this regiment was always supplemented by Sepoys from the regular army.
The system of farming out groups of villages to chakladdrs continued till 1873, when an attempt was made to introduce a three years’ Raiyatwari settlement.
In 1880, an assessment on villages, was made, known as the Assamiwar Khewat, and the basis of this assessment was supposed to have been the average of the collections of the three previous years.
This was a major assessment before the Lawrence but it had some limitations such as:
1. The assessment team never visit the villages to take into account the nature of soil, irrigation and other factors.
2. No attempt was made by the assessing officers to distribute the land revenue of a village over the holdings, and this most difficult and delicate work was left to the Patvari and Lambarddr.
3. Enormous arrear statement had accumulated against villagers, this was because
a. The revenue was considered as a joint responsibility of the village, therefore if an assami absconds or defaults, the Lambardar promptly throws the revenue liabilities of the absconder onto the other Assamis.
b. Disproportionate appropriation of revenue on some villages and categorization of other villages as Sakim-ul-hal. The villages under the Sakim-ul-hal category were exempt from the revenue, in view of the loss inflicted on them due to famine.
Under the name giriftani the Tehsildar every year would decide the amount of the arrears to be paid by the cultivators.
What was to be settled?
Therefore the new settlement team was to resolve the following issues
1. To distribute the village land among the individual cultivators.
2. To fix the revenue to be paid by the cultivators.
3. Rights of the landholder such as hereditary and selling & mortgaging.
4. The nature of tax payment such as whether cash or kind?
Challenges
Initially, the settlement team faced
1. Opposition from villagers and the revenue officials from Lumberdar to Tehsildar. Many times the revenue official interrupted the assessment process in the villages. As Lawrence stated that
“The villagers cannot believe that anything will be done to ameliorate their serfdom and the officials know that anything done for the villagers must necessarily affect their perquisites”.
Resources he could use:
1. The rules and methods laid by the earlier settlement team led by Wingate. The settlement of the Kashmir valley was commenced by Mr Wingate, I.C.S, in 1887, when Lawrence was appointed as in April 1889 Wingate had completed two tehsils in Ganderbal.
2. The 1880 assessment, which introduced the notion of Assamiwar Khewat.
The Settlement fell into Phases
1. The first stage was to encourage all to return to their own villages. People had fled from their villages after the severe famine of 1877-79 and never returned to. When people began to see the benefit of the Settlement in neighboring villages they gradually began to return, and by 1891 even the most reluctant were reinstated in their original villages. Lawrence talks about the Wandering disposition among Kashmiris, which was the tendency to migrate instead of enduring.
The work of settling the Assamis of Kashmir was somewhat like that placing men upon a chess board. Not only were the fugitives to the Panjab to be replaced by their villagers, but men who had left their ancestral lands for other villages in which the assessment was light and the headmen was influential, had to be brought back.
2. The second stage of the Settlement was to visit and survey each village to make a realistic assessment of the revenue which could be expected from it. This was exciting for Lawrence as he got the opportunity to visit every corner of the valley. Lawrence had a small team to help him in this work - one British and two Indian assistants. In the evenings he sat around campfires listening to the folklore, proverbs and songs of the old Kashmiris.
Lawrence found it more difficult to talk to the elite class. Their traditional authority and status were undermined by Lawrence's dealings directly with the villagers.
The assessment included a consideration, of factors such as altitude and topography; trees - number and description; area of holding and type of soil; source of irrigation etc
It is interesting to examine the mechanics of the survey. Each village was mapped on a scale of twenty-four inches to the mile, or 220 feet to the inch, on cloth-backed paper marked in 5-inch squares.
3. After the total revenue demand for a village had been assessed, it was broken down between the assamis. Asami has been defined as the people recognised by the State as the lawful occupants of the land and recognised by the Kashmiris as the rightful owners.
In case of a dispute, evidence was to be recorded on the spot, and the case was to be decided by the settlement officer. In the case of Hindus or Sikhs, no final entry was to be made until the orders of the settlement officer were obtained.
Besides the ordinary Assami, there were many privileged holders of land variously known as Chakdar or Mukararidar- people who had acquired landed property under deeds granted by the State. Most of these grants are formed of parcels of land taken from several villages, and the privileged classes made a strong effort to have their grant separated off as a distinct estate. This was avoided and, the Chakdar or Mukararidar was treated as an assami of the several villages in which their estates lie, and the land was to be assessed at the ordinary rates of agricultural land.
Lawrence was not in favour of conferring the right to sell and mortgage land on the Musalmans of Kashmir. According to him, they were ignorant and very short-sighted. They were poor, and would most certainly squander the wealth which would at once be handed over to them.
4. Having agreed on the assessment figure, the next decision was whether to accept payment in kind. Originally Lawrence wanted a solely cash settlement. The first group of objectors to this suggestion was the local officials. More seriously in Lawrence's view, the numerous poor people of Srinagar objected since they depended on the influx of government grain and rice to the city. Eventually, he agreed to accept some rice and maize, but no pulses, cotton or oilseed and he worked out a scheme to phase out gradually this payment in kind.
Lawrence had not been in favour of the collection of grain because of the difficulties of its carriage, storage, and sale. It became clear, however, that payment in kind was necessary to save lives and to retain the credibility of the Settlement.
5. Having finally determined the revenue of a village for ten years, and obtained the sanction of the State, Lawrence announced the new revenue scheme. At first, the revenue officials, the Lambardars and the patwaris urged people to refuse the new revenue, and a few villages declined to accept the assessment. But within six months from the time of the new assessments, villagers came in and begged for admission to the benefits of the settlement.
The traditional authority of patwaris and lambardars has been declined. The lambardar was to be held responsible for the collection of the village's total revenue payment, and in return would be paid a salary of 5% of this sum. The patwari was no longer recognised by the villagers who had appointed him to it. Instead of one- or two-year local appointments, a smaller number of permanent officials were to be appointed by the Government.
Conclusion
The New Settlement was a major breakthrough in the rebuilding of Kashmir’s economy. Beggar was abolished, means of connectivity were improved, Villages were repopulated and the area-under-cultivation also increased significantly. Efforts were made to improve irrigation commercialize fruit production and introduce new crops such as sericulture.
Analysing Lawrence’s approach it could be inferred that he was overwhelmed by the miseries of the Kashmiri people, but on the other hand he wanted to be loyal to the British establishment and to the Maharaja.
Considering all the facts it is evident that personal charisma and motivation had a significant influence on his administrative career.
The ethnographic love to engage with people and appreciate their narrative in whatever form is something that was of great help to his cause. As Lawrence said “As for my six years in Kashmir, I would live those years fifty times over”