Rule by records : land registration and village custom in early British Panjab

When the British took the Panjab in the 1840s their first act was to assess the land revenue and prepare registers of landholdings for every village. Registration was designed both to preserve local illustrations in a new legal mould and to provide Government with continually updated information about village society. A dual regime was initiated; village records defined the idiom for official land transactions as well as forms of representation through field maps and genealogies; district reports defined the authorized version of knowledge about local conditions. What was designed to preserve was transformed; what was assumed to be flexible became rigid. Between local knowledge and knowledge about India there was no transparent relation. Rule by Records analyses the formation of this regime by focussing on the process of land registration in a locality of villages at the start of British rule. The village records are treated like a window looking both outwards at society and inwards to the mentality of imperial rule. When the British took the Panjab in the 1840s their first act was to establish landholding registers in every village, through a system of village records and district reports. Rule by Records examines the formation of this dual system in a particular locality and reconstructs the nature of agrarian relations for the period immediately before British rule, demonstrating the way in which registration transformed what it was intended to preserve. The result challenges established concepts and procedures in both history and sociology. This study examines the establishment of landholding registers in India as imposed by the British, and reconstructs the nature of agrarian relations for the period directly before British rule, demonstrating the way in which registration transformed what it was intended to preserve. Richard Saumarez Smith. 2 Maps On Lining Paper. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [429]-437) And Index. Includes Some Passages In Urdu (urdu In Roman).