Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/255

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In the southern portion of the district, however, it might have been expected that some trace of the original proprietary bodies would have been found. This, however, is not the case, and all the remnants of proprietary communities, such as these referred to, now in existence, trace their origin, a few of them, to dates earlier than three centuries ago, and the greater number of them to a very much more modem period.

The

now held, as might be expected from a perusal of the historical sketch (Chapter II), for the Ihe tenures now mammost part, taluqdari tenure, Ix. the superior propriely taluqdari. tary right resting in one single person the lord of the domain, and perhaps in no district in the whole of Oudh can the ffeudalization of the country be said to have been so complete at annexation as here. The conditions necessary to the quick development of feudal tenures have from the first been especially favourable in this district. The large tracts of waste, the almost total absence of strong proprietary communities capable of resisting the encroachments of the taluqdar, and the isolated situation of the country, cut off as it was from the seat of Government by a river difficult to cross, combined to expedite the acquisition by the lord of that suzerainty which the policy of the British Government has now ^,

estates of Bahraich are

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secured for ever.

suzerailtieT* du°e^ to

The attainment of this superior and independent by the taluqdar was effected in various ways,

Position )

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tract of the waste land alluded to would be made over by the Government or its representative to some emment. enterprising Soldier or courtier, or to some cadet of a house already established, either with the direct object of getting the country under cultivation or in reward for some service rendered, or perhaps with the view of securing the grantee's absence from the court where he had rendered himself troublesome. In such cases as these the lord's position from the very first would be absolutely independent, and all cultivators settled by him would really be in a state of villenage, enjoying no rights but such as were granted by the free wiU of the lord, or were purchased from him. grants of waste lands to nominees of the Gov-

A very

simple example of this tenure exists in the Chard a ilaqa. Eighty , years ago this estate was completely waste, and was P made over to the ancestor of the ex-taluqdar of the present day to make what he could of it. It was not apparently at first made over ill full proprietary right by the king, but the tailuqdar was never interfered with, and the ancestor of every ryot on the estate a very large one has been located by the lord himself, or by those to whom he delegated the work. Under such circumstances no right could possibly exist, on the part of the cultivators which were not created by the taluqdar himself The Nanpara estate, one of the largest in Oudh, was formed in a very The account of its growth will be found in the historical similar way. In this case also far the larger number of the villages which are sketch. now comprised within it were established by the taluqdar himself, and those which were obtained by conquest had been, most of them, settled in a similar way by the person: from whom they tt^ere wrested. Here again the taluqdar was sole lord from the first.

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