Bengal, 1908
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Bengal
(more precisely designated. Lower Bengal). —
(1 The arlicle was written before the changes were carried out which constituted the new Province of EASTERN Bengaland Assam. These were determined upon to lighten the excessive burden imposed upon the Government of Bengal by the increase of population, the expansion of commercial and industrial enterprise, and the growing complexity of all branches of administration. The Province had hitherto comprised an area of nearly 190,000 square miles, with a population of over 78 millions, and a gross revenue amounting to more than 1100 lakhs. In these circum- stances, the relief of the Bengal Government had become an administrative necessity, and it was decided that it could be afforded only by actual trnnsference of territory and not by organic changes in the form of government. Accordingly, on October 16, 1905, the Divisions of Dacca, Chittagong, and Rajshahi (except Darjeeling), the District of Malda, and the State of Hill Tippera were transferred to the newly formed Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, the area under tlie jurisdiction of the Bengal Government being thus reduced by 50,000 square miles and its population by 25,000,000. The five Hindi-spenking Native States of Jashpur, .Suiguja, Udaipur, Korea, and Chang Bhakar were at the same time transferred to the Central Provinces ; while the District of Sambalpur with the exception of two za/iiTiiJdris, and also the Oriya-speaking States of Patna, Kalahandi or KarQnd, Sonpur, Bamra, and Rairakhol in the Central Provinces, were attached to Bengal. The result of these transfers of territory is that the Province as now constituted comprises an area of 148,592 square miles, with a population of 54,662,529 persons. In order to show the effect of this change in the constitution of the Province, footnotes have been added, wherever possible, giving statistics for the new area ; and the States, Divisions, Districts, and towns transferred from Bengal have been indicated by asterisks. )
The largest and most populous Province in India. It lies between 19° 18' and
28° 15' N. and between 82° and 97° E., and contains four large sub-
provinces, Bengal proper, Bihar, Chota Nagpur, and Orissa. The two
former comprise the lower plains and deltas of the Ganges and the
Brahmaputra. Chota Nagpur is a rugged tract and jungle, broken by
deep ravines and river valleys. The greater part of Orissa belongs to
the same formation as Chota Nagpur ; but along the coast there is a
narrow belt of alluvium, formed from the silt deposited by the rivers,
which drain the hills as they find their sluggish way to the sea.
The Province is bounded on the north by Nepal and Tibet, and by
the mighty chain of the Himalayas ; on the east by Assam and the
continuation of the range of hills which divides Assam from Burma ;
on the south by the Bay of Bengal and Madras ; and on the west by
the United and the Central Provinces.
The whole Province forms a Lieutenant-Governorship with an area ' of 196,408 square miles, of which 84,728 square miles are included in Bengal proper, 44,259 in Bihar, 24,306 in Orissa, and 43,115 in Chota Nagpur. These figures include an unsurveyed tract of swamp and jungle on the fringe of the delta, the extent of which is about 6,600 square miles. Of the total area, 157,796 square miles are British territory, while 38,612 square miles lie in the Native States attached to Bengal : namely, Cooch Behar, Sikkim, Hill Tippera*, and the Tributary States of Orissa and Chota Nagpur.
According to Hindu legend, king Bali of the Lunar race had five sons, begotten for him on his queen Sudeshna by the Rishi Dirghatamas : namely, Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Pundra, and Suhma. Each of these sons founded a kingdom that was named after him. Vanga ^ or Banga is said to have occupied the deltaic tract south of the Padma, lying between the Bhagirathi and the old course of the
^ Of the total area of 148,592 square miles now included in Bengal, 35,576 square miles are in Bengal proper (including 5,700 square miles in the Sundarbans", 43 524 square miles are in Bihar, 41,789 in Orissa, and 27,703 in Chota Nagpur. Altogether, 115,819 square miles are British territory and 32,773 square miles are Native States.
The word Vanga first appears as the name of a country in the Aitareya Aranyaka (2-1-1), where its inhabitants are represented as eaters of indiscriminate food, and as progenitors of many children. Brahmaputra, and to have been conquered by the Pandava Bhim and also by Raghu. The inhabitants of this region are described in the Raghubansa as hving in boats, and as growing transplanted rice for their staple crop. In the time of Ballal Sen the tract immediately to the east of the Bhagirathi was called Bagri, and Banga occupied the eastern portion of the delta. The tract west of the Bhagirathi was known as Rarh, which in Prakrit was softened to Lala. Possibly Bengal or Bangala is a combination of Banga Lala, and, in any case, there can be no doubt that the word is connected with the ancient Vanga. During the period of Muhammadan rule the term was applied specifically to the whole delta, but later conquests to the east of the Brahmaputra and north of the Padma were eventually included in it.
Under the British the name has at different times borne very different significations. All the north-eastern factories of the East India Company, from Balasore on the Orissa coast to Patna in the heart of Bihar, belonged to the ' Bengal Establishment,' and as its conquests crept higher up the rivers, the term continued to be the designation of the whole of its possessions in Northern India. From the time of Warren Hastings to that of Lord William Bentinck, the official style of the Governor-General was ' Governor-General of Fort William in Bengal.' In 1836, when the Upper Provinces were formed into a separate administration, they were designated the North-Western Provinces, in contradistinction to the Lower Provinces ; and although they, as well as Oudh, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, and Burma, were sometimes loosely regarded as forming the Bengal Presidency, the word was ordinarily used in this sense only for military purposes, to denote the sphere of the old army of Bengal, as distinguished from those of Bombay and Madras. In its ordinary acceptation, the term now covers only the jurisdiction of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The term ' Bengal proper ' has a still more restricted meaning, and indicates, roughly speaking, the country east of the Bhagirathi and Mahananda, where the prevalent language is Bengali.
Rents wages and prices
The conditions which determine the rent paid by the actual culti- vator to his immediate landlord vary widely in different parts of the Province, and even in different estates. In some large according to rates current throughout a village, while in others lump-rents prevail. In Orissa and the Santal Parganas the rents have been fixed by Settlement officers. In Bengal proper, lump-rents are generally paid, except for newly reclaimed lands, and inquiry often fails to detect the existence of any standard rates known to the people. In large estates in Bihar, on the other hand, it is usual to find the rent calculated according to rates applied to different classes of soil or to particular crops. Generally speaking, the principal factors which affect the incidence of rent are the fertility of the land, the density of population, the antiquity of the hold- ing, the social position of the tenant, and the position and character of the landlord. Where the population is dense, there is a keen demand for arable land and rents rule high. On the other hand, rents which were fixed some years ago are lower than those recently settled, because prices and rent rates have steadily increased for many years.
A Brahman, again, usually pays a lower rate than a man of low caste. The highest rents prevail where the landlord is a petty proprietor or a middleman resident in the village. Specially high rent rates are usually paid for land under special crops, such as sugar-cane, pan, mulberry, and poppy. The cultivators have been protected from arbitrary rent enhancement and eviction by the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, but, owing to the apathy and ignorance of the peasantry, the Act has remained a dead letter over a great part of the Province. In Bihar, especially, the tenant is still very much at the mercy of his landlord, who rarely gives him a written lease. In Eastern Bengal conditions are different. Documents are far more freely interchanged, the demand for cultivators to till the land is keen, and the tenant has the best of the bargain.
Little accurate information is available in Bengal regarding rates of rent, but the following are the average rates per acre ascertained by Settlement officers. In Eastern Bengal Rs. 4 is paid in Tippera*, and Rs. 5-12 in Chittagong*, where rents rule very high; the ordinary minimum and maximum rates probably range from Rs. 3 to Rs. 12. In Orissa rents vary from Rs. r-8 to Rs. 4, the average being Rs. 2-8. In Central Bengal they run from Rs. 3-4 to Rs. 8-1 1, the average being Rs. 5-8, and in North Bihar the limits are Rs. 1-14 and Rs. 4-5, the average being about Rs. 3-2 an acre. In Chota Nagpur the rents are much lower, varying from 8 annas to Rs. 2, with an average of Rs. 1-4, while in the Santal Parganas the average is Rs. 4-4, the limits being Rs. 3-12 and Rs. 6-12. The rates of rent for special crops occasionally rise much higher, the maximum rates recorded for tobacco being Rs. 37-8 ; for sugar-cane, Rs. 18 ; for potato and poppy, Rs. 20 ; and {ox pan, Rs. 75.
Rent is extensively paid in kind in Gaya, Shahabad, and Patna Districts, where the character of the country renders the maintenance of an elaborate system of irrigation necessary ; but to a less extent such rents are to be found throughout the Province. Different methods of payment prevail; sometimes the grain is divided on the threshing-floor, or the standing crop is appraised, while sometimes a fixed payment in grain is made irrespective of the yield. In Bengal newly reclaimed lands are often tilled by temporary settlers, who contract to raise a crop and give the landlord half of it ; they erect temporary shelters for the season, and throw up the land at the end of it.
Wages for all kinds of labour are lowest in Bihar and highest in Bengal, Orissa occupying an intermediate position. The actual daily rates for skilled and unskilled labour in the different sub-provinces and in the three chief cities are shown below : —
In Bihar there has been a nominal rise of 7 per cent, in the wages of unskilled labour during the last decade, and in Bengal of 14 per cent. ; in Orissa, on the other hand, wages are reported to have fallen 12 per cent, during the same period. In Patna city they have increased 9 per cent., while a decrease of 2 per cent, has taken place in Dacca*. The wages of skilled labour have increased by 11 per cent, in Bihar, 15 per cent, in Orissa, and 5 per cent, in Bengal ; they have increased in Calcutta by 20 per cent., while in Patna and Dacca* they are reported to have fallen by 5 and 13 per cent, respectively.
The remuneration of village servants is fixed by custom. In Bihar each artisan takes his recognized share of grain when the crop has been reaped and brought to the threshing-floor ; he often holds in addition a small plot of land rent-free, in_^ remuneration for services rendered to the zamtnddr. In Orissa the village employes serve a fixed circle of from 30 to 50 families and receive small monthly payments of grain and money, with other customary perquisites. This system is not found in Bengal proper, where the village organization, with its com- plete equipment of servants and artisans, never seems to have been developed.
The rise in wages has not kept pace with the increase in the price of food-grains, for, whereas during the last twenty years the price of rice has risen by 38-5 per cent., the wages of unskilled labour have risen by only 15 and of skilled labour by 25-4 per cent, during the same period. The fact is that wages are largely governed by custom, and it seems probable that the increased demand for labour due to the development of railways and to industrial expansion has had more to do with the rise in wages than the increase in the price of food-grains. The payment of day-labourers and village artisans and servants in kind also tends to keep down wages in spite of high prices.
The average prices of certain staples at important centres during the last three decades and for the year 1903-4 are shown in Table IV at the end of this article (p. 347). The increase during the years 1890-1900 was due to the famines of the decades, which caused a heavy drain of food-stuffs from this Province, The masses are much better off and enjoy a more generous diet in Lower Bengal and Orissa than in Bihar and Chota Nagpur. The annual cost of living per head of an average adult cultivator is estimated at Rs. 15 in Bihar, Rs. 20 in Chota Nagpur, and Rs. 35 to Rs. 45 in Lower Bengal and Orissa. An ordinary hut costs from Rs. 5 to Rs. 40, and a well-to-do family has three or four of them. The furniture consists of mats, one or two wooden boxes, bamboo baskets, earthen pots and pans, and brass utensils. To dress himself and his family costs a well-to-do cultivator from Rs. 10 to Rs. 15 per annum, while he may spend Rs. 5 or Rs. 10 in brass and silver ornaments. The landless day-labourer is generally attached to the household of his master, and lives in a wretched hut on his employer's land. He gets one full meal at midday and a scanty breakfast and supper.
The middle classes comprise those who live on land rents, members of the learned professions, merchants and shopkeepers, and persons in Government or private employment. The joint family system which furnishes a common fund for all the members is a relief to those earning small salaries. Their food consists of rice, pulses, vegetables, fish, gh'i, oil, milk, sugar, flour, and sweetmeats, and occasionally meat. The ornaments of a married woman of this class are usually not worth more than Rs. 50. One or two bedsteads, a few cane or wooden stools, a few cheap boxes, some coarse mats, together with a number of brass and bell-metal utensils, make up the furniture of an ordinary house, except in the towns, where it may include a table, a couple of chairs, and one or two benches. The cost of living in Calcutta is estimated at Rs. 50 to Rs. 70 a month for an ordinary family, and in the country at from Rs. 30 to Rs. 50.
There is no doubt that the standard of living has improved of late years in North and East Bengal, where better clothes are worn, earthen- ware is giving place to brass-ware, and vegetable oils to kerosene. In Bihar progress is slower, though the improvement in communications has facilitated migration to Bengal, where the remarkable industrial expansion of recent years has created a great demand for labour. The same causes have benefited Chota Nagpur, but here the people are primitive in their habits, and they have not yet taken to growing produce for export on a large scale ; the Bengal-Nagpur Railway has, however, done much to open up this part of the country. The middle classes suffer from high prices, unless they have an interest in land, as many of them have ; and this is probably the class which has made least progress.
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
