Village Community System

Both in the Zelnindari territories and in the Haveli territories there existed from time immemorial theVillage Community system, a simple form of selfgovernment which protected the cultivators of everyvillage from the oppression of the Zemindars and the Government. This ancient institution-ancient in the days of Manu-had survived the wreck of dynasties and the downfall of empires, had secured peace and orderin villages in times of war, and struck the servants of the East India Company in the eighteenth century asa unique and excellent institution.
A village, geographically considered, is a tract of country comprising some hundreds or thousands ofacres of arable and waste land; politically viewed, it resembles a corporation or township. Its proper establishment of officers and servants consists of the following descriptions. The potail, or head inhabitant, who has the general superintendence of the affairs of the village, settles the disputes of the inhabitants, attends to the police, and performs the duty, already described,of collecting the revenues h h i n his village, a duty which his personal influence and minute acquaintance with the situation and concerns of the people renders him best qualified to discharge ; the curnum, who keeps the accounts of cultivation and registers everything concerned with i t ; the talliar and totie, the duty of the former appearing to consist in a wider and more enlarged sphere of action, in gaining information of crimes and offences, and in escorting and protecting pa,rsons travelling from one village to another, the province of the latter appearing to be more immediately confined to the village, consisting, among other duties, in guarding the crops and assisting in measuring them ; the boundary-man, who preserves the limits of the village or gives evidence respecting them in case of dispute ; the superintendent of tanks and watercourses distributes the water therefrom for the purpose of agriculture; the Bramin, who performs the village worship; the schoolmaster, who is seen teaching the children in the villages to read and write in the sand; the calendar Bramin, or astrologer, who proclaims the lucky or unpropitious periods for sowing and threshing;the smith and caryenter, who manufacture the jmplements of agriculture and build the dwelling of the ~ y o;t t he potman, or potter ; the washerman ; the barber ; the cowkeeper, who looks after the cattle ; the doctor ; the dancing-girl, who attends at rejoicings ; the musician, and the poet. These officers and servants generally constitute the establishment of a village ;but in some parts of the country it is of less extent,some of the duties and functions above described beingunited in the same person; in others it exceeds thenumber of individuals which have been described.6c

Under this simple form of municipal governmentthe inhabitants of the country have lived from timeimmemorial. The boundaries of villages have beenbut seldom altered, and though the villages themselveshave been sometimes injured, and even desolated, bywar, famine, and disease, the same name, the sarnalimits, the same interests, and even the same familieshave continued for ages. The inhabitants give themselvesno trouble abouh the breaking up and divisionsof kingdoms; while the village remains entire, theycare not to what power it is transferred or to whatsovereign it devolves ; its internal econon~y remainsunchanged ; the Potail is still the head inhabitant, andstill acts as the petty judge and magistrate and collectoror renter of the village."The above extract is of the utmost importance,as it gives us an insight into the constitution ofself-governing Indian villages, not in the mysticdays of ancient Hindu rule, but in the eighteenthcentury; not described in old Sanscrit works likeManu, but depicted by the servants of the EastIndia Company in official documents from actualIndia Company in official documents from actualand inquiry.
It shows us at a glance'OW the great agricultural population of India tilledheir lands and manufactured their commodities in~iieiro wn self-contained little republics through thousandsof years, while dynasty succeeded dynasty andelupires rose and fell. Happy it were if the Britishadministrators of India had preserved and fosteredand reformed these ancient institutions, and thus continuedto rule the people through their organisedassemblies.
Two causes, however, operated from thecommencement of the British rule to weaken the oldvillage communities. An extreme anxiety to enhancethe land revenue to its very utmost limits inducedthe administrators to make direct arrangements withevery individual cultivator.' An equally unreasonableanxiety to centralise all judicial and executive powersin their own hands led the modern rulers to virtuallyset aside those village fu'ctionaries who had solong exercised these powers within the limits of theirown villages.

Deprived of their functions, the villagecommunities rapidly fell into decay, and the Indianadministration of the present day, better organised inmany respects than the administration of the past,suffers from this disadvantage, that it is more autocratic,and rests in a far less degree on the co-operationof the people themselves.