A FEW THOUGHTS ON FEUDALISM IN
(Lecturer,
All
mankind passed through several distinct stages in the development of the means
of production. In the infancy of civilization, every group of mankind passed
through the nomadic, the pastoral and the agricultural epochs. Clans and
tribes, knit together by blood relationship, living by hunting and fishing, had
common property in hunting grounds and in fishing waters and in places of
shifting habitation; and they moved with their herds and flocks compelled by
hostile tribes or by the diminution or scarcity of food and fodder. The growth
in numbers of the tribe and the formation of large family units, after the
disappearance of nomadism and promiscuity, and after
the emergence of the field and the family, necessitated the settling down on
fixed habitations, the villages. The transition from food-gathering to
food-growing, from the stone and the arrow to the plough, was a step towards
the formation of families which were undivided for generations together as
social and economic units. The German Mark, the Russian Mir and
the South Indian
The
idea of communal property was constantly referred to by Hindu law-givers and
Hindu commentators: like Manu, Yajnavalkya, Apastamba, Gautama, Sayana, Savara and Jaimini. All of them expressed the view that the king was
entitled to a share of the produce of the land in return for his protection of
the life and the property of his people. The king was never empowered to sell
the peasant’s land for default in the payment of his revenue. Broadly speaking,
the distraint or the sale of land was alien to the
Hindu code of property. (‘Land Tenures in the Madras Presidency’, by Soundararaja Iyengar, pages
11-12.) That land was originally owned by groups and not by individuals, and
that individual proprietorship came into vogue at a very late period have been
proved by the investigations both of Vinogradoff in
It
was tacitly understood that each head of a family unit, in the tribal
brotherhood; should hold, in separate possession, the land on which his own
family expended labour, and should enjoy the, results
of the family’s labour, as long as he and his family
contributed their share of revenue to the larger pool that was paid to the
sovereign. It was inevitable that the tribal brotherhood should soon split into
such units, these units having lived together generation after generation, till
they became unwieldy for a single roof or for a single kitchen. Each family
inherited a unit of ancestral property which it did not think at or once of
getting separated from the property-units of the other families. It was partly
time-honoured custom, and partly the consciousness of
the economic advantage of collective labour. Sir
Henry Maine said: “As a fact, however, a division rarely takes place even at
the death of the father, and the property constantly remains undivided for
several generations, though every member of every generation has a legal right
to an undivided share in it.” (‘Ancient Law’ by Sir Henry
Maine.) It could be stated as a general rule that each original village
community was founded by a single assemblage of blood relations.
In
spite of the admission of strangers into the community, and the division of labour arising out of the differentiation of occupational
groups (which later hardened into castes), the tradition of common ancestry is
still preserved in the memory of many a village community. Mountstuart
Elphinstone, who studied South Indian communities in
particular, expressed the view that, in a large number of villages, there were
only single families of landholders who branched out into more members; their
rights over lands were collectively held; and no landholder could sell or
mortgage his rights without the previous consent of the entire village; and the
share of an extinct family returned to the common stock. (‘History of
Here
is an illuminating passage from one of the District Gazetteers of the Madras
Presidency:
“Thus,
the prevalence of co-ownership marked most of the village communities in
ancient
The original organization of production
was within the framework of the caste system which, historically, was the
Indian version of a class structure, and which was part of Indian feudalism
while it , lasted, as well as part of its sequel in history when feudalism
began to split and burst. The privileges of some and the penalties of others
prescribed in Manu Smriti clearly reveal the
status once enjoyed by the privileged classes, vis-a-vis the producing classes in a feudal
order. The Indian social scene still carries with it the historical residues of
these privileges and penalties. The ruling castes–the
Kshatriyas and the Brahmins–had rights over men and things, with little or no
corresponding duties, comparatively speaking; while the producing classes–the Dasas, the Sudras, the Chandalas, the Pariahs, etc.,–had duties, with little or no
corresponding rights, comparatively speaking. The caste system, which was the
basis or the background of production, consumption, exchange, and distribution
in ancient Indian Society, certainly, for a long time, contributed to the
development of the productive powers of society. It was a partnership of the
Monarchy and the Church in a protracted phase of Indian feudalism. By
supervised agriculture and supervised industry, in their primitive simplicity,
the village community, in supporting Indian feudalism, supplied the surplus
necessary for the state apparatus: for the maintenance of public
works, and for the patronage of largely religious architecture, largely
religious art, and largely religious literature. The hereditary division of labour, based on the inequitable Varnasrama
Dharma, with its legal immutability aided by the immobility of social
classes the autonomous and self-sufficient village communities in their
seclusion, cherishing, and crushed under, the tenets of an unchanging Dharma;
the outcastes, the possible relics of cross-breeding, suffering with mute
resignation the disabilities of slave, serf and chandala
rolled into one: these were the basic characteristics of the historically
not-so-distant primitive Hindu society. The priest and the patriarch, the Brahmin
and the Kshatriya, who lived on the surplus labour of the rural artisans and peasants, represented the
main exploiting classes. To these were added, in succeeding chapters of Indian
history, wherever Kshatriyas did not exist or Kshatriyas ceased to rule, rulers
and leaders of men who belonged to the Sudra caste, who displaced or
supplemented the Kshatriyas, who behaved exactly like the Kshatriyas, and who
exploited the labour of others exactly like the
Brahmins and the Kshatriyas. It was easier to displace or to supplement the Kshatriya than to displace or to supplement the Brahmin in
the early feudal epochs, but that too was done in several patches of the Indian
continent, and Sudra spiritual leaders held the souls of their fellow-men in
fief, and joined the historical exploitation of the labour
of others. This socio-religious fabric of caste ideology was the breeding
ground of Indian feudalism in which men, of whichever caste, who could exploit
the labour of others did not scruple to live by such
exploitation.
Every
ruling class has its own methods of creating an institution of servile labour for exploitation. Long before the outcastes had been
brought to serfdom there was some type of slavery in ancient India. Dr. Winternitz says that, though Megasthenes
emphatically states that there was no slavery in India, “both the Artha Sastra and
the Dharma Sastras know different kinds of
male and female slaves.” Law-givers like Apastamba, Gautama, Narada, Manu, Yajnavalkya, and Brihaspati recognised the existence of this institution, and laid down
regulations for it. We have many references to slavery in the Jatakas, and in the Artha
Sastra. Shri Radhakumud Mukherjee noted in his
‘Hindu Civilization’ the following types of slaves: a captive in war (dhvajahrita), a slave for food (bhaktadasa),
a hereditary slave (grihaja), a slave
acquired by purchase (krita), by gift (datrima), or by inheritance (paitrika),
and a slave under debt (dandadasa). “Every
slave, penal included, was allowed to work out his ransom... The sudra helot had come into his own, under
state control, to make large scale chattel slavery unnecessary for food
production.” (‘An Introduction to the Study of Indian History’ by Kasent, page 120)
In
the course of the development of Indian feudalism, the tribal chieftain
(belonging to any of the castes) gained predominance over hundreds of villages,
by virtue of military prowess or seniority of leadership in patriarchal
society. By virtue of this ascendancy he acquired the right to a contribution
from the wealth the villagers produced. Whether it was blackmail or tribute, he
robbed the village communes of a goodly portion of their produce, and used it
to perpetuate his ascendancy over them, and to wage wars on his rivals within
and without his dominion. When larger areas came under his control he delegated
his power to lesser chieftains or he farmed out the revenue to contractors.
Instead of paying them monetary allowances for their services, which was not
feasible in a predominantly agricultural economy, he simply distributed the
authority to collect revenue and to retain a portion of it as remuneration. The
vanquished chieftains were allowed to pay tribute which was a percentage of the
revenue collected by them. Thus, these intermediaries who owed fiscal and military
obligations to their super-lord became the overlords of areas and parts within
the kingdom. The authority of these intermediaries was derivative and dependent
on the fulfillment of certain prescribed conditions. So long as they conformed
to the conditions and terms of the commission and transmitted the stipulated
portion of the proceeds, they enjoyed their suzerainty over the village
communities. If the intermediary found himself oppressed or humiliated, and was
strong enough to challenge the super-lord, he raised the banner of revolt and
carved out a kingdom of his own. Else he kept faith. There were innumerable
feudal wars with their source in feudal ambitions. This process was in
operation again and again, in this or that area of the Indian continent,
right down to the times of the disintegration of the Mughal
Empire.
In
the pre-feudal period the village commune was an autonomous unit in which the
upper castes, consisting of property-holders and priests, enjoyed
self-government on a communal basis, and organized production and municipal
services by the division of labour between various
occupation groups. The village community had to admit, in the course of time,
new-comers who were brought in either as agricultural labourers
or for other essential services. The influx of strangers might have added to
the differentiation of classes, because the older inhabitants enjoyed
privileges while the new-comers had to accept duties as the only means of
livelihood. The allocation of distinct functions to various groups led to
hardening of the caste structure and the rigid preservation of the privileged
castes from encroachment by the lower castes. These functions were
given legal sanction of a quasi-religious nature in Manu Smriti
and in other juridical codes of Hinduism.
Broadly
speaking, there were three co-ordinate and simultaneous claims on the land: (1)
the customary claims of the peasants in the village; (2) the delegated or
derivative claims of the intermediary; and (3) the superior claims of the
sovereign. This classification involves three types of conflicts: (1) between
the super-lord and intermediary; (2) between the intermediary and the village;
and (3) among the peasants themselves.
In
England the king was both landlord and sovereign. And the barons were not only
landlords but a combination of legislative, executive and judicial authority
within the area of the feudal estate. There was no clear-cut distinction
between taxes and rents. The position was no doubt gradually altered between
the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries. From the signing of the Magna Carta there broke out a series of revolts which compelled
the king to recognize the rights of the tenants as proprietors. The barons
collectively fixed their cash payments to the king, and transformed the
arbitrary rule of the sovereign into a system of common law, hammered out in
the baronial struggles. The king ceased to be the landlord, and became only the
sovereign who ruled with the consent of the barons. The rent charges were fixed
as definite taxes payable according to contract. These collective, economic
struggles of the barons gave rise to constitutional rights which, through the
centuries, evolved into the fabric of the British Constitution.
The
European manor was an organization which regulated the rights of the village,
the rights of the separate peasant-holders and the rights of the overlord. The
peasants were bound to the overlord through the obligations of personal service
to him. He was sovereign of the estate, and took a personal interest in the
agricultural process and regulated its operations constantly to his advantage.
The rights of the overlords always came into conflict with the rights of the
peasants. As a result of struggles like the Peasants’ Revolt, and by reason of
the development of the money economy, personal services were commuted into
money rents, and the serf became a tenant. The enclosure movement in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was another factor which transformed medieval
agriculture in England. And thereby the rights and obligations of peasants
underwent another transformation. The open field system was superseded, and the
modern rural hierarchy of land-owners, tenants and agricultural labourers came into being.
Indian
feudalism was based on a different conception of sovereign authority. The
European monarch passed on to his barons power over persons as well as power
over property in land, in return for allegiance and military services. This
Roman conception of dominium was alien to India. The king here never
created subordinate barons with proprietary rights over land, for, in theory,
the king was not a supreme owner of land. He was the lord of the earth, not a
proprietor of the soil. What he delegated was the revenue-collecting power. And
even that power was not hereditary, for the intermediary could be removed at
the king’s sweet will and pleasure. The king was not primus inter pares, and
the baron was not a partner in sovereign authority. There could, therefore, be
no baronial struggle, and the barons never combined to fight for their
collective rights. The Indian baron could take up arms and repudiate loyalty to
the king, and if he was powerful enough he could defeat royalty, and assume the
insignia of royalty himself. Thus the conflict of interests, when it arose
between the king and the intermediary overlords, did not produce constitutional
and political developments. The Indian overlords could never oppose the
sovereign, acting in unison as a coherent body, for their position had no legal
sanction nor basis in contemporary and customary jurisprudence. They were of
different grades, had no standing armies, rarely met together to discuss
affairs of state, and had not sworn common allegiance to a single sovereign.
The geographical vastness of the open Indian continent, compared to the small
sea-girt area of England, and the incidence in Indian history of perpetual
invasion of local sovereignty by external authority, compared to the seclusion
of Britain after 1066 A. D., contributed to the absence of the factors of
baronial solidarity and of monarchical continuity in India, and there was no
appropriated power, which an evolving State could constitutionally inherit,
consolidate and increase in India till the British left in 1947.
The
European manor consisted of both the peasants’ lands and the overlords’ domain,
and the overlord constantly depended upon the peasants and the serfs for
various services in his domain. Indian feudalism, on the other hand, was merely
fiscal and military. The peasant was not the direct serf of the overlord, and
was not bound to offer all kinds of services at his beck and call. He was a
member of the village community which enjoyed autonomy, and regulated the
rights and obligations of its members, without outside interference, and the
community was under the guidance of its village elders. When the overlord or
revenue-farmer was oppressive in his demands, the peasants non-co-operated, and
even left the village to settle down in a distant part of the country, for the
land was abundant and their freedom of movement was not restricted by customary
law. Normally, the overlord demanded a small share of the gross produce of the
land, though, in times of war, the sovereign directed him to collect more,
regardless of the interests of the peasants. The revenue-farmers had their own
land which was cultivated by hired labour and by
slaves, for the overlord had to be sure of an uninterrupted supply of food
grains in times of famine, drought or other calamity. And when the sovereign
required land for his own purposes he bought it from the villagers. “That the
ownership of the soil was not vested in the sovereign is proved by a variety of
arguments. One of these is remarkable, being drawn from the fact that the
emperors purchased land when they wanted it. Akbar
purchased land for the forts of Akbarabad and Illahabad; Shah Jahan for the
fort of Shahjahanabad; and Alamgir
for the fort of Aurangabad and for mosques. When the jagirdars got possession they paid milkhana
to the zamindars. There is a native saying that
the land belongs to the zamindar and the revenue to
the king. And, according to Mahommedan law, the
sovereign has a right of property in the tribute or revenue; but he who has
tribute from the land has no property in the land.” (‘Field and Holding,’ page
741)
Individual
family claims and obligations were determined on customary lines, and the
collective or co-operative village had to part with a big fraction of the final
produce of the soil to the overlords or revenue-farmers who exercised their
power by virtue of their military force. Though this super-imposition of a
military hierarchy over groups of villages was common to both European and
Indian feudalism, India did not witness those economic and political conflicts
between baron and king, or between baron and peasant. Most of the conflicts in
Indian history had for their objects the exercise of rights over the village,
not the exercise of rights within the village. Unlike European overlords who
enforced their decrees in regard to large-scale farming, enclosure, etc., and
in the enforcement expropriated the peasants, the chief
interest of the Indian overlords was only for a lager share of the products of
the soil.
Until
the introduction of the ryotwari system
by the East India Company in the nineteenth century land in India was not a
commodity with a saleable value, for private property in land was rarely
desired or accumulated by the peasants due to very high assessment. Land could
become saleable only if it yielded a surplus or rent to the proprietor after
meeting the cost of cultivation. The assessment in India was always high, and
most of the peasants lived at a bare subsistence level; “In the northern
portion of the (Madras) Presidency, comprising the Telugu districts, there is
no reason to suppose that the conditions were originally different from those
that existed in other parts of the Madras Presidency. These northern districts
were the first to be occupied by the Mahommedans, and
formed the seat of their government, and, on account of the high taxation
levied by them, the lands lost their saleable value; and the continuance of
that state for centuries effaced all traces of disposition of lands from the
memory of men. Therefore, at the time when those districts came first under the
power of the English, no traces of sale or other disposition of lands could be
found. (‘Mirasi Papers’, page 338)
The
East India Company started by becoming a revenue-farmer in Bengal and in Andhra
in the eighteenth century. And this power was subsequently expanded into full
sovereignty by force of arms. The Company transformed the revenue-farmers or zamindars into hereditary landlords. In accordance with
English laws and usages, the Company conferred proprietary rights over
revenue-farmers and former intermediaries. The next step was to introduce
village settlements and individual assessments of revenue. Individual pattas conferring proprietary rights were
granted to the ryots, and land thus became a
marketable commodity. The village community which was a co-operative union of
peasants was broken up, the functions of the village panchayat
or sabha of elders were usurped by
the British bureaucracy. Even the services of the village functionaries came to
be paid in monetary allowances instead of mirasi
or manyam. Status was superseded by
contract. What was once held rigid by custom was dissolved by money. And the
village community, broken up and disorganized, was thrown headlong into the
melting pot of bourgeois economy, and became a pitiable victim of the depredations
of English merchants and their Indian hirelings.
The
attempt of Free India today to revive Panchayats and
to create co-operative farms is, in one sense, an attempt to retrace history.
There is disaster in it in that sense, if it amounts to a reverter
to feudalism just around the corner. The validity of the plea of decentralisation of power arises only after the valid centralisation or concentration of power in a coherent
modern statehood, after it has eliminated not only all traces of feudalism in
the countryside but also all possibility of lingering exploitation, feudal or
capitalistic, in the villages. Decentralised power in
the villages, without an earlier centralisation or
concentration of power in coherent statehood, and without the elimination of,
or without absolute control over, exploiting elements in the villages, means
only power to the exploiters or power in the hands of a mere bureaucracy. Panchayats and co-operative farms will then end up as fine
bureaucratic machinery in the firm grip of the exploiters of the countryside,
or in the uncertain grip of an untrained bureaucracy. Decentralisation
of power, without first achieving power from such exploiters or power over such
exploiters, and without first settling the identity or the character of those
who are to wield it, and blindly hoping for the best, is to plunge back into
feudalism after fashioning a Constitution which is gallant only in the reading
of it.