Raja Todarmal was the Minister for Revenue in the court of Shahnshah Akbar. Building upon the foundations laid by Sher Shah, Todarmal introduced a system of land reforms, the essence of which was an assessment of the land revenue according to the extent of cultivation, the nature of the soil and the quality of the crops. He set up a scheme of laborious measurement, analysis of possibilities and calculation of prospects. The actual demand was adjusted to meet seasonal price and cultivated area variation. Though at times it broke down and was deployed unevenly within the Moghal Empire, it is the underlying basis of the later day revenue systems. The British became the pupils of the Moghal School, being impressed by the range and thoroughness of the system. In spite of false starts and harsh application in the early days, the British could build up a rural administration not only stable but generally equable and equitable.
Raja Todar Mal
The Moghal revenue administration demanded precise measurement of productive cultivated land. A number of units came into force. The llahi gaz, a measure of length and standard gauge was used throughout the Moghal Hindustan in long, middling and short forms, each divided into 24 equal parts and each was called a tussuj, equal to 8,7 or 6 barley-corns. The gaz is equal to two spans of 16 gerths each. There were however variations of the length of the gaz even with Moghal India. The bigha is a land measure of 60*60 gaz. A larger unit was the Kos or Karoh, each consistion of 50 llahi gaz or 400 poles, each of length 12.5 gaz. Thus the kos is a length of 5000 gaz. Abul Fazal states that there were significant variations in the length of the kos in different parts of Moghal India.
Some of the key land measurement units used by the village accountant the Patwaris are given below:
- 8 Kanals = 1 acre
- Acre is also called quilla or ghumaon
- 20 marlas = 1 kanal
- 160 marls = 1 acre
- 1 marla = 9 square karams
- 1 marla = 272 square feet
- 1 karam = 5.5 feet
- 1 acre = 4 bigas
- 1 acre = 1 and 3/5 bigas
- 1 Biswa = 440 sq. Feet
- 1 Beegha = 20 Biswa / 22500 sq. Feet
- 1 Beegha = 209 Are ( Gwalior Chain)
- 1 Biswansi = 22 sq. feet.
- 1 Biswa = 20 Biswansi
Raja Todarmal was not however the first to generate a revenue system available in all parts of the empire. Much before him, others have had their notable contributions in this regard in different parts of the country. Kautilya’s Arthasastra in the Maurya period was one of the earliest to recognize the relevance of land revenue collection from productive farmlands, in villages with settled population of farmers. The Sukra neeti talks of recognition of revenue estimation from cultivated land according to the fact the land is watered by tanks and lakes, by rivers, by wells and sluices apart from dry farming rainfed areas and the nature and number of crops raised in each parcel.
Even today my land in Badbar is controlled for Reveneue collection through a Patwari who is the lowest state functionary in the Revenue Collection System of the Government. He is responsible to Kanugoh who in turn reports to Tehsildar responsible for maintaining the records of the lands for the whole of Tehsil. All revenue recordable are supposed to be kept securely with the office of Tehsildar. A district may have 3-4 Tehsils under its conrol and is headed by a Dy Commisioner/Collector, the head of the administration for law and order of the District. There are 680 Districts in the country including 22 Districts in Punjab in 2014. My Badbar village presently falls under Barnala District.
Patwaris yield a larger-than-life status in the local community and are notorious for demanding bribe and changing land records at will. With recent computerization of land records, their ability to manupulate records has been limited.
Name of Great-Grand-Father Bhopat Rai born 1845 and my Grand-Father Bhagwan Das (inadvertently Singh) 1875-1920 and my Father Vasdev Singh 1919-1996 is clearly inscribed by the Pstwari in this manuscript copy of Fard above. It is customary to record the names of three generations to avoid conflict in the names of the ownership.
Now it is with the click of a button sitting any where in the world, you can have the copy of the Fard - a document showing the details of the ownership or lease holder or mortgages etc.
The Patwari, however, also continues to issue Girdawari even today.
Girdawari: Which is a record of land cultivation. We in the family see to it that Girdawari stays in our names. If someone else is shown as cultivating the land for an extended period of time, they can claim possession of the land, resulting in a dispute of land ownership. I have been emphasizing in the family discussions about this fact again and again.
After the death of my Dad, the land got transferred to my name and Intkaal was got issued from the Tehsildar. A few technical words connected with the revenue records are explained below:
Intkaal: A notice required after registering or transferring a piece of land in one's name. One has to inform the Tehsil to update their records.
Jamabandi: a Jamabandi is a document meaning 'rights of records' which contains the name of the owners, area of cultivation/land, shares of the owners and other rights. This is revised every five years in our village.
The land continues to be devided on the basis of how the irrigation is done to get the number of crops in a year. Our lands are known as Nehri irrigation of which is done through well laid out canal system. The lands which can not be fed by canals are known as Maru or Marusthal (like desert).
After the partition, we were allotted part Nehri and part Maru pieces of land. We were also allotted another nine acres with a value of 25% of the land and were hence allotted 36 Acres in the Process. Hence the nature of the soil, the cultivation style, irrigation system are still being factorized to impose the revenue taxes. Now a days even the Government is quick enough to wave off taxes in lieu of natural calamities. The crop insurances have since been added. Government has introduced advanced level of education and opened many National level Universities to help the farmers to adopt Farm Technology with heavy machinery, high yielding varieties of seeds and other improvisational techniques to enhance crop yields and their Marketting. This has resulted in Great Green Revolution in the country since 3-4 decades.
Measures Adopted in Green Revolution:
- Use of High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of seeds
- Irrigation
- Use of insecticides and pesticides
- Consolidation of holdings
- Land reforms
- Improved rural infrastructure
- Supply of agricultural credit
- Use of (chemical) fertilizers
- Use of sprinklers or drip irrigation
The job of improvement of lands on the basis of huge statistics maintained by Raja Todar Mal was further strengthened by great Modern day Scientist hailed as the father of Green Revolution Dr M.S. Swaminathan.
Harvinder enjoying the fruits of Great Indian Green Revolution.
To conclude, it will be most befitting to mention in the words of Mr. Justice Shelat who points out that "Todar Mai had the sagacity and foresight to see the unifying effect of a common language for the entire administration. With the end in view, he made Persian the language of all records compelling the Hindu officers who held most of the subordinate posts in towns and villages to learn and adopt that language as their own.
What was immortalised Todar Mai is the system of revenue assessment and land survery which he evolved, a system which drew an equitable balance between the demands of the State and ihe needs of the subject. Though the Mughal Dynasty died out, the system he introduced remained and was followed both by the Marathas and in a large degree by the British.'"
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