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Updated: May 12, 2025
At that moment something intercepted the sunshine, and a dark shadow fell across the floor. I looked, and saw a native standing on the threshold, salaaming and waiting to be spoken to. He was not one of our men, but a common ryot, clad simply in a dhoti or waist-cloth, and a rather dirty turban. "Kya chahte ho?" "What do you want?" asked Isaacs impatiently.
For years these exactions or feudal payments by the ryot to the Zemindar have been commuted by the factories into a lump sum in cash, when villages have been taken in farm, and this sum has been paid to the Zemindar as an enhanced rent. In the majority of cases it has not been levied from the cultivators, but the whole expense has been borne by the factory.
He paused and, after acknowledging the man's salám, remarked that he ought to make an effort to pay a part at least of what was due. Nagendra asked him to call next day with the receipts in question. Again the ryot affirmed that he owned nothing and appealed to the Bara Babu for corroboration. Samarendra was taken aback. "Yes," he stammered, "you did pay me something about a month ago."
The Damghanians, meeting a Tazarian ryot coming in with a donkey-load of these huge carrots, cannot resist twitting him regarding the minars; but the now practical Tazarians no longer mourn the absence of minarets in their village, and when twitted about it, reply: "We have more minarets than you have, but our minarets grow downward and are good to eat."
The old assumption that the interests of the ryot must be confided to official hands is strenuously denied by modern educated Indians. They claim that the European official must by his lack of imagination and comparative lack of skill in tongues be gravely handicapped in interpreting the thoughts and desires of an Asiatic people.
It is the grand theory of the civilians, under whose advice, I very much fear, Lord Canning has unfortunately acted; and you will find in many parts of India, especially in the Presidency of Madras, that the population consists entirely of the class of cultivators, and that the Government stands over them with a screw which is perpetually turned, leaving the handful of rice per day to the ryot or the cultivator, and pouring all the rest of the produce of the soil into the Exchequer of the East India Company.
Formerly, when one of his gomashtas had beaten a ryot and taken a rupee from him, Nagendra had cut ten rupees from the gomashta's pay and given it to the ryot. Hara Deb Ghosal wrote to Nagendra: "What has happened to you? I cannot imagine what you are doing. I receive no letters from you, or, if I do, they contain but two or three lines without any meaning. Have you taken offence with me?
Peafowl too are very destructive, and what with these and the ravages of pig, deer, hares, and other plunderers, the poor ryot has to watch many a weary night, to secure any return from his fields. On rejoining each other at the nets, we found that five deer and two pigs had been killed. Pat had shot a boar and a porcupine, the latter with No. 4 shot.
Another man may then be sent, and the same course is followed, until all the force in the station have had their share. The ryot is afraid to resist. The police have tremendous powers for annoying and doing him harm. A crowd of subservient scoundrels always hangs round the station, dependents, relations, or accomplices.
Conceive to yourselves what must be the situation of a ryot, when he sees everything he has in the world seized, to answer an exaggerated demand, and sold at so low a price as not to answer one half of that demand, when he finds himself so far from being released, that he remains still subject to corporal punishment.
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