Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/256

 BAH

178

officer of the Government, generally in those days a soldier, -would be sent to a particular district, more

In other cases an

^ Or

/„.

„„•„„„

(2) to oommiasions granted to officers of tlie Government for the adthe mmatration of ,

nii

iin,

n

i

than usually lawless and lordless, to restore order, and if possible, exact the revenue due to the State. In payment for these services, and sometimes to enable him to maintain the necessary forces to keep his charge in quiet, he was often granted whole or part of the revenue which he could collect from his district. He was, in fact, a great beneficiary, endowed with all the powers of the Government, from which his grant emanated, for the collection of the taxes, repression of crime, and the general administration of his fief The office and grant so obtained were seldom originally bestowed for more than the single life, but it is not difficult to understand that, in a wild district like Bahraich, both the office and the privileges attached thereto would have a tendency to become hereditary. The lawless bands who had thus been reduced to subjection would after a time gradually come to regard their controller as their natural lord while he on his part, in order to strengthen his position, would be ready to accord the leading men among them substantial privileges on condition of service. Rights, however, apart from those of his own creation, he would be slow to recognise, and in estates which have been formed in the above manner under-proprietary rights not based on grants or purchase from the lord are unknown.

The

great Ikauna estate (see historical sketch) of a fief acquired in this way. Examples. ^^^^^^ ^j^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^-^^ ^^^^^

is

a notable instance

For seven gener^^ ^^^^^ Risaldar, and enjoyed without making any payment to the State the whole of the revenues of his benefice, the fiction being maintained that he was only the servant of the Government. When the office was abolished and the revenue-free grant resumed, the grantee's position had become so strong that he was without hesitation regarded as the lord of the soil. ^

Another somewhat singular mode in which the suzerainty of an estate Or (3) in a grant by '^^p acquired is also illustrated in the same ilaqa. Originating apparently entirely in the favour of the Delhi sovereign, a grant was made to one of the most influential of the Ikauna line of a certain percentage of the revenue of all villages comprised in a very wide area of country outside the limits of the ancestral estate, The grant also detailed certain other dues, to a share of which the grantee was entitled in the same vilIt is noticeable that the taluqdar never apparently obtained any lages. possession of the lands named in the deed, but he seems so far to have exercised his right under it that he sold and bestowed on various parties the right to bring under cultivation certain areas of land hitherto waste, conferring on them all the rights within those areas which have generally been considered the perquisites of the owner of the soil. The right thus exercised by the lord of dispo'sing of the waste lands of the country declared to be included in his fief tallies almost exactly with the right of approvement exercised by the great feudal lords in Europe. The tenures thus created will, however, come more particularly under examination when we consider the nature of birts, similar suzerainty over several the state of a certain percentage of the re-

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