Two portraits.
Warren Hastings must be regarded in two different aspects. In 1766, whilst residing in England, his portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and represents a mild, benevolent, and intelligent English gentleman. Twenty years afterwards another portrait was painted, which represents a stubborn and vindictive official, from whom all traces of the mild gentleman had disappeared.9
British rule in Bengal provinces.
§6. The first task of Warren Hastings was to introduce British administration into the Bengal provinces. The work had been easy enough when dealing with the population of towns, who were dependent on the East India Company for employment and protection. But dealing with provinces having a population of twenty or thirty millions of Hindus and Mohammedans, who knew very little of the British, and very little of their laws or ways, was a very different matter, and demanded extreme tact and caution.
Land revenue.
Warren Hastings began the work of government with the reform of the land revenue—the backbone of all administration in India. In those days the task was beyond the strength of any Englishman or body of Englishmen. During the Mahratta invasions and sudden changes of Nawabs the collection of the revenue had fallen into utter confusion, and it was impossible for Europeans to understand local rights or wrongs.
Zemindars and ryots.
The bulk of the land revenue in Bengal was collected by middle men, known as zemindars, from tenant farmers known as ryots. The zemindar was half a landlord and half a revenue collector. He generally possessed some hereditary land which was the family demesne; but outside the demesne were the landholders or ryots, from whom he collected the rents. The zemindar was not a landlord in the eyes of the ryots, because under Mogul law he could not raise the rents. Still he was a great man within his zemindary. He was magistrate, judge, and controller of the village police; and he had armed followers in his pay, who helped the village police in pursuing robbers and collecting rents. He had the right of hunting, fishing, and cutting wood, throughout his zemindary. Moreover, he levied irregular cesses, benevolences or aids, from the ryots, to defray the expenses of a birth or marriage within his own family, or to meet the demands of the Nawab in an emergency like a Mahratta invasion.
British zemindar at Calcutta.
The changes in the status of Bengal zemindars may be gathered from what is known of old Calcutta. Before the battle of Plassy the East India Company itself was nothing more than a Bengal zemindar, and held the settlement at Calcutta on a zemindary tenure. The Company was pledged to pay to the Nawab a fixed yearly royalty for their little territory. A British civil servant was appointed to represent the Company as zemindar, to bear the name and fulfil the duties of the post; and he collected the ground-rents within the Company's bounds and paid the yearly royalty to the Nawab. He could not raise the rents, for that was forbidden by Mogul law, but otherwise he was all powerful. He administered justice, criminal and civil, like the Justices of the Choultry at Madras. He also raised an additional income by farming out certain trades as monopolies, levying octroi duties on provisions, and taking fees for the registration of marriages, and sale of houses, boats, and slaves.
Auction sales of Calcutta lands.
After Plassy the British zemindar at Calcutta cared nothing for Mogul law. He raised the rents within the Company's bounds by the simple process of putting the leases up to auction; and the eagerness of the Bengalis to hold lands and sub-let them to under-tenants led to much competition and a large advance of rents. The zemindar who carried out this innovation was no other than Mr. Holwell, the same gentleman who was accepted as Governor of Calcutta on the morning of the day that ended in the Black Hole disaster. During that terrible night Mr. Holwell seems to have imbibed hatred and contempt for Moguls and Nawabs. Whilst Clive was shilly-shallying with Mir Jafir, Holwell was urging the deposition of the Nawab, the annexation of the Bengal provinces, and the radical measure of putting up all the zemindaries to public auction.10 This scheme was ignored at the time as the dream of a madman; but nevertheless, within fifteen years, or half a generation, it was seriously considered by Warren Hastings.
Mogul revenue records.
Mysterious disappearance.
The revenue records of the Moguls had always been singularly complete down to the minutest detail. The holding of every ryot and the area of every zemindary had been measured and remeasured; the average value of the yearly produce of every field had been calculated; and the yearly rents payable by the ryots and the yearly revenue payable by the zemindar had been fixed in each case on the basis of the average harvests. All these details had been entered at length in the Mogul records. But the revenue records which contained all the details respecting the land in the Bengal provinces had mysteriously disappeared when they were most wanted. A Mohammedan contemporary says that they were all destroyed when Mir Kasim fled into Oudh. Possibly they may have been thrown into the Ganges and carried out to sea.
British collectors.
Warren Hastings did perhaps the best he could under the circumstances. By the stroke of a pen he converted the British supervisors into British collectors of revenues; and thus brought the new collectors into direct contact with the zemindars, who collected yearly rents from the ryots or tenant farmers. The next work would have been to re-measure all the lands and to make fresh estimates of the average yearly value of the produce of each field. This work had been carried out within the Company's zemindary at Calcutta, and many frauds and errors had been discovered and corrected. But what was possible in an estate, was impossible in a territory considerably larger than the British isles. Warren Hastings had no means at his disposal for re-measuring the lands and revaluing the yearly produce, and it was utterly impossible to get at the actual facts as regards rents and revenues. Not only were the records lost, but the revenue administration was in utter confusion; the ministers exacted what they could from the zemindars, and the zemindars in their turn oppressed the ryots. Moreover, no reliable information could be obtained from ryots or zemindars, who were alike suspicious of British intentions and mortally terrified by the British invasion. The new British collectors, with the help of native officials, arrived at some approximate estimate of the rents paid by the ryots in each zemindary, and then every zemindar in possession was called upon to pay a certain lump sum as yearly revenue for the whole during a term of five years. If he accepted a lease for the five years, well and good. If he refused, the lease was sold to the highest bidder, with no other reserve than that of requiring him to give the necessary security for the yearly payment to the British collectors.
Disastrous results.
Auction sales of zemindaries.
The experiment proved a failure. The revenue demands had been fixed too high. Such was the passion for local influence, that many zemindars had agreed to pay a larger revenue than could be realised from the rents. Vast amounts were lost as arrears that could not be realised. Many zemindaries were sold by auction, and were bought up by native speculators who were ruined in their turn. When the five years' leases had run out no attempt was made to renew them; but zemindaries were let on yearly leases until some permanent system could be devised, and this arrangement continued in force until the end of Warren Hastings's administration.
Judicial reforms: Mohammedan criminal courts.
§7. The system of judicial administration introduced by Warren Hastings was equally cautious and experimental. Bengal zemindars ceased