The Bigger Picture

Could we see the difference between Baden-Powell’s two types of village tenures - the raiyatwāri village and the joint village - as the difference between farming in the alluvial plains and farming in the more difficult terrain ? In this context, we need to note the circumstance highlighted by Filippe Nery Xavier; he points out that wherever or whenever the sovereign or his agents are extortive in their collection of tax or tribute, the very idea of property tends to get extinguished. [Xavier, 1907 : Bosquejo Historico das Comunidades das Aldeas dos Concelhos das Ilhas, Salcete e Bardez, Vol. 1, 75] Deccan has chronically suffered from low crop productivity and frequent droughts. Its plight has been described in several narrations, and archaeobotanical studies. In such circumstances any stable village tenure system in that territory would have been under threat. In fact Arcamone categorically speaks of “the farmers of the hinterland, hard pressed by debts or taxes, renounced the land and the king, fled with household utensils and cattle, and came to this peninsula so that they may be able to cultivate it for their livelihood.” (Fernandes, 1981: Uma Descrição e Relação de ‘De Sasatana Peninsula in IndiaeStatu’ Textus Inediti, 94)