other books by the author of the plebeians

forthcoming Books from the author of “the plebeians who would be kings”

"Suresh Pratap Singh,Kaithi,Katehar"

1.Cornwallis revised by Ram Rup Singh in the alluvial ‘Mahaal’ of Kaithi.

There have been some brilliant revenue administrators in north India since the days of Akbar the great, like his own minister Raja Todar mal and about the same time, Sher Shah the Suri emperor himself. Later on Lord Cornwallis of East India Company was blessed with Jonnathan Duncan, who did brilliant settlement operations in Bengal and Bihar,before being sent to do the settlement in the ninety-four parganas of Benares between 1789 and 1793,at first on a quinquennial basis, which, later turned into permanent. But it was done in such a haste that many inaccuracies accompanied it. At the same time it was not done on the basis of revenue villages but its main basis was “mahaal” which consisted of either a full villages(revenue or otherwise) or even parts of some villages, like the alluvial areas formed settlement of a few adjoining villages,which may be falling in different districts. Thus separate maps of the settlement of a village were made ,that of the high-lands and those of the riverine and alluvial areas, which were bound to shift with the change of the meander of the river every monsoon. Under Bengal Alluvial Regulations there were sections for the changing pattern of the realization of the revenue cess, as the position may settle just before 15th of December, every year. And there was a provision for quinquennial settlements every five years.
In Kaithi the change of course of river Gomti in 1980 created much problem after 626.04acres of the village land went on the other side of the river and the district magistrate and the collector of the other side insisted, as per the Bengal Alluvia Regulation(which was not deleted as such) that the entire block of the shifted land ,now attached to their side of villages has become a part and parcel of his district,he wrote to the State government in Lucknow.
Anyway, in the history of revenue law making, the Uttar Pradesh government had defined the “Village” for the first time under section 3(25) of the UP ZA & LR Act and it said that what belonged to the tenents and cultivators of Village Kaithi on the day of vesting(of the Zamindari rights of former Zamindars in the State of Uttar Pradesh)i.e. on 1.07.1952,shall belong to Village Kaithi ,in perpetuity.
It was a tough fight for the Kaithi tenents.and on 13.01.1981,the revenue secretary passed orders as per the new act, passed by the Assembly. The brilliance of Thakur Ram Rup Singhji with his vast experience in the work of settlement was able to turn the tide on the collector across the river and against the Bengal Alluvial Regulations laid down by the hard work of Duncan as ordered by Cornwallis.
I intend publishing the entire story of how we achieved this result, through the various GOs of the government from that of Dashrath Singh’s and G.C. Chaturvedi’s in 1954 to that of Sri Athar Hussain in 1971,as a future guidance for the Kaithi cultivators as well as for the UP government’s revenue officials as well as for the Board of Revenue who seldom come across such tricky situation for their peaceful confabulations between them and not allow the conflict to turn ugly for lack of proper guidelines.