Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/267

 BAH

189

was doled out according to the generosity or close-fistedness of the The recipients were denominated " dehabirti," and it was open to the zamindar to remove these men from their office and appoint sub-

but

it

donor.

stitutes.

This again was a zamindari right in some instances, one biswa of land in each man's cultivation being set apart for the zaiswa. mindar or birtia. Like the " anjuri " it is not taken by non-Brahman zamindars. The same amount of land is also set apart by each cultivator for the pandit, whose duty it is to name the propitious time for sowing. We will now describe the muqaddam or farmer. status of the thrifty and industrious muqaddam varied from that of a head-man temporarily appointed by the revenue of the authorities to carry on the agricultural management of a village, and invested with no rights of any kind and no authority save that which he derived from the express commission of those who appointed him, to that of a quasi-zamindar, possessed of privileges no less valuable and no less recognised than those of the landlord

The

The status muqaddam.

proper.

depended on various circumwhich was doubtless length of tenure. A muqaddam appointed for a season or for a special purpose might, favoured by the course of events, retain his hold on the village until by prescription he acquired a standing fully as good as that of the zamindar. He would gradually establish his right to ndiikdr, dih, and all other zamindari rights

The

different degrees in their positions

stances, the chief of

in the event of the revenue authorities holding his village direct. He would even acquire the right to sell and mortgage, and such transfers would be held good. It was, however, only in the khalsa lands or villages held direct from the nazim that such complete rights as these were, or, from the nature of the case, could be acquired. It is not seldom that we find even in the lords' estates men in the manatyement of villages calling themselves muqaddams but, unless the origin of their incumbencies can be traced to a time antecedent to the incorporation of the village in the estate, the tenure will be found to have nothing in it of a proprietary character, and the muqaddam himself to be nothing more than a head steward removable at pleasure and claiming no privileges other than those accorded him by the taluqdar.

In the khalsa

villages,

on the other hand, the continual changes of the

district officials allowed the origin of the tenure to fall

In the khalsa

villages

more quickly into oblivion and inasmuch as the class from which these farmers were almost universally taken is that of the most industrious cultivators, it was directly to their interest to maintain the muqaddams in their position even when doubts

presorip

might

exist as to their exact status.

and duties of chaudhris in some estates corresponded in great measure with that of muqaddams of this class, the main difference being that chaudhris, as a rule, had the management of five or six villages, while the latter's charge was confined to one or at the most two.

The

position .