Page:The Garden of India.djvu/189

178 CHAPTER VI. FIFTEEN MONTHS OF ZAMI'NDARI' POLICY [1856-1857].

"SiiPAE^ dupasse,^^ says Lamennais, "le present est muet sur Vavenir,^' and it is practically impossible to understand the present, or to devise schemes for modifying the future con- dition of Oudh, without a general acquaintance with the more salient features and more important issues of the con- troversies regarding the land questions of the province, which have filled so many Blue Books and excited so much acrimony during the last twenty years or more. In this chapter and the next it will be attempted to give something like a connected view of the course of the discussions which, since annexation, have been carried on concerning the rights in the soil of Taluqdars, zamindars, under-proprietors, and cultivators.

The modern history of Oudh may be said to begin with the deposition of Wajid Ali Shah, and its formation into a Chief Commissionership under Sir James Outram. The first phase of this modern history lasted little more than fifteen months, during which the administration was carried on upon the lines laid down in the Government of India's letter of the 4th of February 1856. This very able State- paper is an excellent embodiment of all that was best in the system of political philosophy preached and practised by