DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

390 ECONOMIC BASES OF RELIGIOUS TENSIONS [10.6
revived jizya tax and anti-Hindu bent were a fiscal necessity. With the
British, the need was to suppress the aspirations of the new Indian
bourgeosie for at least a share of political control. It happened that
the Muslims formed a third of the population but with less than a ninth
of the total wealth ; this share of the wealth, moreover, stagnated in
semi-feudal landholdings, without turning into modern capital (banks,
factories, share-investment). That is, the title derived from previous
feudal tenure, as did the rather inefficient cultivation ; but real
control vested in the hereditary money-lender parasitic upon the landlord,
the dalal middleman who had a monopoly of the marketing, and the
corrupt estate stewards, so that evolution into capitalist agriculture was
effectively blocked. The religious tension covered a real
economic tension, beyond the reach of theology, exploited by the foreign
rulers.
Caste was related to economic strata. The brahmins paid a lower tax
on the whole for the same amount of land. In part, this was claimed
as of ancient privilege. The brahmin, who might be illiterate in U.P.,
would threaten to spill his own blood, kill a child, burn alive some old
woman of his family, or fast to death ; the sin would fall on the head
of the feudal lord. Sometimes, this action was taken in support of a
pretender to land title (DR. 1. app. XIV). Descendants of the ancient
Nagva (at present the grounds of the Banaras Hiridu University)
grantees of Govindacandra Gahadavala (Chap. Ill, note 15) resorted to
extreme measures to preserve and extend their privilege of tax-free
cultivation :
“...the inhabitants of some villages such as Nugwah, where about 2000 Brahmins
live together and are all in good and easy circumstances so as to enable them to carry
on their tillage and agriculture to advantage. The extent of land in the said village is
about 1500 Beegahs, and as this does not suffice for their exertions, they extend their
cultivating operations throughout 20 other villages as Paykasht (contract) Ryots, but
in every one of them they show their wanton licentiousness is regard to the payment
of the revenue, keeping themselves always ready and prepared with a razor (for selfmutilation).
I have heard that 203 of them sacrificed themselves before Meer Sharf
Ally, a former Amil’s Pallankeen, on which occasion there arose such a tumult, that
the Meer was glad to seek his safety in a precipitate retreat, shortly after which,’
however, Raja Cheyt Singh despatched among them a Mohammedan Jamadar who
punished them severely.” (DR. App. H, pp. xxiii-xxiv).