Memoir on Thar and

way as to protect the cultivators from oppression. I say almost the only mode, because the
system of farming the land revenue of the Desert to even the chief of the district,
appeared to me obviously objectionable for the following reasons:—
1stly.—Our want of knowledge, until of late years, of the number of fields
cultivated and their capabilities, obviated the possibility of making more than a
guess at what we had a right to expect a farmer to offer. The same ignorance
would, of course, prevent the application of any satisfactory check to excessive
gain, and make the farmer feel independent.
2ndly.—The independence of the different tribes and clans, and their petty
misunderstandings amongst themselves, as well as with the local chiefs, made it
objectionable to give the farm of the land revenue to the heads of either one or the
other ; while if a stranger took it, he was sure to be looked on with suspicion and
dislike, was very likely to be thwarted, and in the common course of nature, the
truth of which the history of ages confirms in the East, in his turn would be pretty
sure to extort as much as possible from the cultivators. Added to this, his
ignorance of people and localities must alike add to his difficulties, and the
people’s contempt for him.
129. The only chance of farming the land revenue of the Desert with success would have
been to lease the lands of the different hamlets or thurrs to the heads of the different
tribes or clans occupying them; and even then the absence of fixed boundaries, and the
independence of some of the members of those communities, would have proved
formidable obstacles to the working of the system. Taking all things into consideration,
therefore, it appears very doubtful whether any plan could have been hit on better adapted
to the primitive state of society in the Thurr, or better calculated than the one lately in
force to put things in training for a land revenue settlement. The fixed revenue settlement
now introduced, with the entire concurrence of chiefs and people, could not have been
introduced many years sooner; it required years of training before so great an innovation
could be brought forward with any chance of success. It may be argued, that the
Government revenue suffered in the mean time; on the other hand, we were securing the
good opinion of all the inhabitants, high and low, and making the name of the British
Government so looked up to for justice and liberality, that any measure proposed, or
arrangement made, even though not understood, was thenceforward popular, from a
belief that anything emanating with the British Government must be liberal, wise, and for
the benefit of the people; besides which we were collecting, under the old system, data
indispensable to the introduction of a fixed revenue assessment, the mode of recording
which elicited the approbation of the Commissioner * in 1855, and materially assisted in
* It should never be hastily concluded, because the country is comparatively barren or thinly populated, that therefore
such divisions are uncertain or unknown. In the Thurr districts, for instance, every one of the widely scattered fields,
and even every sand hill, has its name and owner; and all are registered by the Guzeratee accountants employed there,
with a degree of system and accuracy unknown in any of the more fertile districts in Sind. It is very probable that
careful inquiry will show that, in many similar localities, where no names or divisions are now known to us, they exist,
and are well known to the inhabitants, however scattered the latter may be.
<strong>Memoir</strong> on the Thurr and Parkur Districts of Sind. Copyright © www.panhwar.com
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