Kashmir by Sir Younghusband Francis Edward (libby ebook reader txt) 📖

and American specialists are employed under the ministers. The finances of the State are controlled by an Accountant-General from the British service. The operations for assessing the land revenue are under a Settlement Commissioner, a member of the Indian Civil Service. The public works are under the charge of a retired engineer from the Public Works Department of the Government of India. The forests are controlled by a Conservator of Forests from the Indian Forest Department. And under the State Engineer is the Chief Engineer of the Electrical Department, a Royal Engineer Officer, who in his turn has under him a large staff of Englishmen, Americans, Canadians, engaged in carrying out the great schemes for converting water power into electric power, and by means of the latter draining the water-logged portions of the valley, reclaiming land, and preventing floods.

This, in brief outlines, is the administrative system in the State. At the head is an hereditary ruler. Immediately responsible to him are a group of Indian officials mostly born, educated, and trained in the adjoining British province of the Punjab. The local executive is likewise chiefly presided over by Government of India native officials; and in charge of technical departments are European and American specialists.

What is chiefly remarkable is the very small number of Kashmiris who are employed. Though the majority of the inhabitants are Mohamedans, very few Mohamedans are employed in high positions. Though the Kashmiris are very intelligent, extremely few have posts in the State service; and this anomaly, though remarkable, is paralleled in many other native States. They are most of them dependent on officials trained or at least educated in British provinces. The Maharaja of Kashmir realises, however, the necessity of educating and training his own subjects, and most of the smaller officials and many of the clerks in the offices are State subjects.

And these are the men with whom visitors to Kashmir come mostly in contact. Immediately under the Governor of Kashmir are officials known as tehsildars, in charge of tehsils or small districts, and under them again are naib-tehsildars in charge of groups of villages; and, finally, we come to the lumberdars, or head-men of the villages. These officials with their attendants collect revenue, keep order, and administer justice in small cases. But for the administration of justice there is also in the Kashmir provinces a Chief Judge holding his court at Srinagar, and minor judges known as munsiffs.

The chief revenue is derived from the land, and is assessed according to a system which will presently be described. Out of a total revenue for the whole State of one hundred lakhs of rupees, the revenue from land amounts to over forty lakhs.

Customs is another principal source of revenue. The receipts for the Kashmir province for the last three years were—

Rs. 3,99,155 = £26,610 Rs. 4,84,235 = £32,282 Rs. 5,51,102 = £36,740

and for the whole Kashmir State—

Rs. 7,62,582 = £50,839 Rs. 8,93,438 = £59,562 Rs. 10,09,647 = £67,243

In describing the history of the people we have seen that one of the greatest reforms effected in the reign of the present Maharaja has been in the system of assessing and collecting the land revenue—a reform which was carried into effect mainly by Sir Walter Lawrence, who in his work on Kashmir has described at length both the old system and the one which has given it place. Of every village, with its village lands, a map was made on a scale generally of 24 inches to the mile—that is large enough to show every field accurately, and even the trees on the fields. Then in the village registers all necessary facts relating to each field were recorded, such, for instance, as the area, the class of soil, the source of irrigation, the number and description of trees on it, the name of the owner, the name of the person who cultivated it, and the amount of rent payable by the tenant, if any.

Of these entries the most important, as regards assessing the amount of land revenue to be paid, was that regarding the class of soil. This is now classified as A, irrigated land, (1) producing rice regularly; (2) producing rice occasionally, but not in every year; (3) producing other crops than rice; and B, unirrigated land, (1) manured; (2) level unmanured; (3) sloping unmanured.

The name of the "owner" was entered, but "owner" is really an incorrect term, for all land in the Kashmir valley is "owned" by the State. The actual holders have a right of occupancy as against the State as long as they pay its dues, and are practically sub-proprietors; but they have no right of alienation or mortgage.

At each harvest an official called a patwari, made a field to field inspection, and recorded in a Register the crops found in the fields. These proceedings gave the assessing officer a record of crops which formed an aid to assessment. The officer then estimated by observation, inquiry, and experimental cuttings, the yield of average fields of each class. The following are examples of some of the rates of yield:—

  Per Acre. a. Unhusked rice— lbs.   lbs.   1. In villages affected by floods 1240 to 1520   2. In villages above the floods but not too near the mountains 1760 " 2600   3. In villages close to the mountains and affected by cold winds and cold water 1360 " 1800 b. Maize on unirrigated land—   1. By river 1200 " 1600   2. Between river and mountains 1100 " 1500   3. Near mountains 800 " 1200 c. Wheat on unirrigated land—   1. By river 640 " 720   2. Between river and mountains 560 " 640   3. Near mountains 500 " 560

All this information furnished the basis on which the amount of revenue could be fixed. In old days the State claimed half the gross produce as it was stacked on the field at harvest time, and various perquisites of officials reduced the share left to the cultivator to only about one-third. Moreover, in collecting the revenue in kind there was much room for abuse and loss to both the State and the cultivator, and endless vexation. It was therefore the object of the new settlement to have the revenue paid as much as possible in cash rather than in kind, so that the occupant of a field would be able to know for certain what he would have to pay, and would not have cormorant officials hanging over his field at harvest time; and also so that the State on its side might know precisely what amount of revenue to expect in a year, and not have the trouble of collecting in kind with all its attendant risks and cost. What had to be fixed, then, was the money value of the grain which the State would otherwise have taken from the cultivator.

The settlement of this amount in the case of every single field in the whole of Kashmir was, necessarily, a gigantic operation and took six years to carry out. But the information collected regarding its area and bearing capacity showed, with considerable degree of accuracy, what each field could produce. The average cash value of this amount of produce in an ordinary year was then determined, and the State had then to say what proportion—whether two-thirds as before, or an half or a third—they would take. Lastly, had to be decided for how many years they would agree with the occupier to take this fixed amount of cash—whether for ever, as in Lord Cornwallis' settlement of Bengal, or for thirty, twenty, or ten years.

Mr. Lawrence, though making very great changes, had naturally to also use caution. He could not at once fix the whole revenue in cash. Some had still to be taken in kind. And he could not safely make his settlement for more than ten years, for his calculations of the produce of a field and of the money value of that produce might at this first settlement often be unfair, either to the State or the occupier.

At first even the villagers, who were most to be benefited, distrusted the settlement and hampered the operations, and the old style petty official, now happily extinct, encouraged them in their distrust. But gradually, under Mr. Lawrence's influence, the attitude of the villagers changed. When they saw that for ten years to come the amount the State was to take was to be fixed and at a diminished rate, that only a small part was to be taken in kind, and enough was to be left to them for food, and that thereby the ever-present sepoy was to be removed from the villages, the people began to realise that some good was to come of these operations for settling the revenue. Ruined houses and desolate gardens were restored, absentees returned, and applications for waste land came in faster than was for the time convenient.

At the end of the ten years a second settlement was made, and this time with much diminished troubling, for not only were people and officials better disposed, but there were now available much more reliable statistics as to the produce of the fields. The yield of each field and the money value of the yield could now be fairly accurately known; and the proportion of this money value of the yield which the State should take had now to be fixed. Formerly, exclusive of perquisites for local officials, the State would take half the yield. But it was now decided to take only 30 per cent of the gross yield, and to take the money value of it instead of the actual produce in kind as in old days. Each occupier was then given a small book containing a copy of the entries in which he was interested, the area of the field, the rate he had to pay, and so on.

The all-round incidence of the new land revenue proper is Rs. 3. As. 2. (or 4s. 2d) per acre cultivated; and the rates varied from Rs. 12 (16s.) per acre on some of the less irrigated (market garden) land, to ten annas (tenpence) per acre on the poorest unirrigated land in the coldest part of the province.

The period of the settlement was fixed at fifteen years.

CHAPTER XI

PRODUCTS AND MANUFACTURES

What Kashmir is principally known for to the outside world is its shawls; but the wool from which they are manufactured is not produced in Kashmir itself: it comes from Tibet and Chinese Turkestan. It is the soft down lying under the long hair of the Tibetan goat. Kashmir does, however, produce a coarser wool of its own. Kashmir villagers keep immense numbers of sheep, for round their villages and on the mountain uplands there is an abundance of rich grass, the leaves of the willow trees and of irises furnish winter fodder, and these animals are not only thus easily fed, but also furnish their owner with clothing, with food and with manure, and by crowding in the lower portion of his house keep him warm in winter. They are shorn twice in the year, once in early summer and again in the autumn. The wool is of good quality, and in the winter months the women spin it, and the men weave it into blankets and into the well-known "puttoo" cloth, in which sportsmen in Kashmir clothe themselves, and for which, since the Swadeshi movement, there has been a great demand in India.

Silk is another and increasingly important product. The whole of the valley is covered with mulberry trees, and for many centuries sericulture has been practised in the country. But it is only recently that it has been placed on a really business-like footing. Now good "seed," i.e. silk-worms' eggs, are imported fresh every year from France and Italy—about six-sevenths from France and