Memoir on Thar and

eginning of January; the increased time now required to accomplish those duties, may
be attributed to increased cultivation, as well as to the Kardars being obliged to be much
more particular in visiting the different fields, and reporting the details of their
proceedings, now than formerly, as increased recorded information enables greater
checks to be brought to bear on them and their transactions generally.
“In alluding to this subject in 1850, I ventured to suggest a fixed assessment, in lieu of
each field being visited annually, with a view of relieving the cultivators from the
inconveniences of delay in having their fields assessed, as also of saving the assessors the
great labour now requisite to effect the assessment of the different Kardarates. On that
occasion, however, the landed tenure was not mentioned, which further experience shows
to be of far greater importance than the assessment itself.
“There is only one native revenue officer in the Thurr and Parkur, who has had any
experience in revenue matters there, viz. the Kardar of Nuggur Parkur, who has filled the
situation he now holds with great credit since 1844. On speaking to him regarding a fixed
assessment, he urged as objections, the difficulty of adjusting the levy without each field
being first measured; 2ndly, that numbers of fields are cultivated and then left fallow,
while fresh land is brought under cultivation, and used till that previously relinquished
has recovered from its exhaustion.
“There would doubtless be some difficulty from these causes, as also from a general
deficiency of knowledge of the size, quality of land, and other particulars of each field;
on the other hand, a permanent land tenure, with a fixed assessment, or quit-rent, appears
well calculated to improve, and, as far as possible, redeem the Desert from what it now is.
If land were granted to Rajpoots, for instance, at a quit-rent, they would assuredly take a
greater interest in it. Their energies would be called forth for the improvement of what
they would consider their own, in proportion to the permanency of the tenure; at present,
there is an entire absence of all stimulus to exertion.
“What appears requisite for and suitable to the class of persons of whom I am speaking,
is an assessment system which shall, as far as possible, place the cultivators on the
footing of peasant proprietors, paying an annual quit-rent for as much land as each family
can cultivate. Modifications in the amount of the quit-rent might be made periodically, or
the right of doing so, if requisite, reserved, without interfering with the permanency of
the tenure by which the land is held.
“Wherever tribes or families have cultivated land for many years, or even for shorter
periods, the recognition of their right to continue to do so at a quit-rent, revisable
periodically as circumstances may render expedient, appears to me desirable as a
stimulus to industry, and the sure means of increasing and improving cultivation. All that
Government would appear to require is the payment of a given share of the produce; it
matters little whether such be levied as a quit-rent, so far as the interests of the State are
concerned or otherwise, while it makes a most material difference to the cultivator,
whether he holds his land free from all the interferences and petty annoyances
inseparable from the present system or not.
<strong>Memoir</strong> on the Thurr and Parkur Districts of Sind. Copyright © www.panhwar.com
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