AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

V SUNDARAM

        'Thirupporur and Vadakkupattu - Eighteenth Century Locality Accounts', jointly authored by M D Srinivas, T G Paramasivam and T Pushkala and published by Centre for Policy Studies Chennai is a very valuable contribution to the economic, social and cultural history of South India. The Chengalpattu Survey of 1767 - 1774 signalled the first attempt made by the English East India Company to understand the ways of living and life of the Indian people before firming up and streamlining the modes of effectively controlling and administering them.

        Chengalpattu District encircles the city of Madras in a wide arc on three sides, stretching about 180 kilometers long and at places up to 80 kilometers wide. Fort St George in Madras was the seat of British colonial power in South India. In October 1763, Mohammed Ali, the then Nawab of Arcot, presented the areas falling in Chengalpattu District to the British East India Comapany which categorized these areas as the Jaghire.

        These Jaghire lands were considered as strategically very important by the British. In order to determine the value of these lands and also to device the appropriate ways of governing the Jaghir, the British Government undertook a detailed survey of more than 2100 localities comprising it. This survey was done by a British engineer, Thomas Barnard ( 1746 - 1830 ). He commenced his work in February 1767 and completed the survey in November 1774. Thus he took more than seven years to complete his landmark survey.

        M D Srinivas, T G Paramasivam,T Pushkala have carefully analysed the data collected by Thomas Barnard in Chengalpattu District relating to details of the inhabitants of the area, their habitation, land use pattern, cultivation, trade, production and distribution. These records were sent to the Madras Board of Revenue for purposes of preservation and record in 1775 - 1776. They are now available in the Tamil Nadu Archives, Chennai in the form of longhand registers. There are 39 volumes in the Board Of Revenue Miscellaneous Series and 10 volumes in the Chengalpattu District Record Series, containing valuable survey data. It goes to the credit of these three pioneering and brilliant scholars at the Centre For Policy Studies Chennai that they have collected the complete archival data of Barnard Survey from these archival registers and compiled it into a usable data frame. They have come out with some seminal findings in the light of analysis of data compiled by them.

        Before I deal with their landmark findings, I would like to briefly deal with some bare facts and details of the survey done by Barnard. The Jaghire region consisted of 15 SIMAIS. Kovalam, Chengalppattu, Kavanthandalam, Kanchipuram, Manimangalam, Uthiramerur, Periyapalayam, Ponamallee, Ponneri, Salappakam, Sattumangalam, Thrippatchur, Karunguzhi, Perambakkam and Sriharikotta. This survey volumes have been divided according to Simais. Each Simai constitutes a separate survey district. The 15 Simais were further divided into 250 Maganams. There is no doubt whatsoever that these divisions of 18th century Chengalpattu were only a historical continuation of the traditional division of Thondamandalam into Kottrams and Nadus dating back to the days of the Cholas and even earlier. According to the authors of this book, The Taluk of today seems to be co-terminus with the Simai.

        Data relating to a total of 2138 localities belonging to the 15 Survey Districts ( Simais ) are recordered in these registers. Data relating to 40 localities in the Thirupatchur Simai do not find a place in the available register. Localities of the so-called Home Farms of Mylapore and Thiruvottiyur are not covered. Almost all the localities covered in the survey fall in the Kancheepuram and Thruvallur Districts of today ( originally the un-bifurcated Chengalpattu District ).

        The point to be noted is that the present Taluks of Thiruthani and Pallipattu are not covered by this survey. Thomas Barnard prepared the English records of his survey with the help of his dubash Rajasri Chengalvaraya Mudaliyar based on the more detailed Tamil palm-leaf accounts, which were kept in every locality. Barnard wrote about these accounts in his letter dated 10 November, 1774 addressed to the Governor of Madras Presidency in Fort St George : 'To accomplish what was required of me, in reporting the state of the country, and the improvements which might be made, I had recourse to the records which are kept in every locality of the transactions, with relate to revenue, cultivation and trade. The existence of any such materials was I believe unknown, when Col.Call sent me out, the insight I obtained of this matter, was furnished by the dubash interpreter appointed by Col Call'.

        The extract I caused to be made from the records, contain the quantity of disposal, and appropriation of the grounds in every locality, the number of inhabitants with their possessions, and privileges, where they are entitled to any, also the total of cattle in every locality. The revenue account consists of the neat produce of each locality adjusted according to a standard fixed at the time of DOAST ALLY for ascertaining the rights of the cultivators. This produce is shown for five succeeding years from 1761. In some places I have obtained a similar account of the administration of DOAST ALLY and SUBDER ALLY. But it has not happened often.'

        The Center for Policy studies Chennai and the Department of Palm Leaf Manuscripts of the Tamil University, Thanjavur have to be congratulated for collaborating in the production of this unique book based on the Palm Leaf manuscripts collected by Thomas Barnard. For Thirupporur Simai complete Tamil accounts relating to land, 'revenue' in kind from land and other aspects of land administration are available. For Vadakupattu Simai, the available records are not complete.

        Thomas Barnard in his letter of November 1774 states: 'The revenue account consists of the neat produce of each locality adjusted according to a standard fixed at the time of DOAST ALLY for ascertaining the rights of the cultivators.

        The physical details relating to how the total amount of food grains was distributed among various categories of workers, artisans and producers by way of Sutantirams and Merais in the localities (Simais) of Thirupporur and Vadakapattu give us an insight into the principles and ideology underlying the organization of society and communal administration. According to the authors, it was a very just and equitable arrangement which provided for reasonable sustenance with dignity to every individual economic unit in the locality.

        The following vital points emerge from this study:

        1. Most of the accounts by British Civil Servants relating to agricultural production and levels of productivity are prejudiced, one-sided and not based on facts. With facts and figures, the authors of this book have clearly proved that both levels of agricultural production and productivity were very high in the localities studied and compared favourably with the best levels reached at that time in other parts of the world.

        2. All the artisans like weavers, carpenters, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, braziers, silversmiths were adequately provided for in the locality budget.

        3. Households consisting of oil pressers, woodcutters, shoemakers, stone-masons, lime-burners, salt-makers, arrack distillers, basket makers, cotton refiners, engravers, perfume makers received their due share of the total agricultural produce.

        4. The importance of households providing various administrative, cultural and other essential services to the community was duly recognized and provided for.

        5. Barbers, washer men, kanakkapillais (registrars and accountants), Palayakkarar (militia men) were all part of the total number of beneficiaries included in the annual society's budget.

        6. Medical men; Pandaram households, Brahmana households engaged in scholarship and religious, cultural and temple services of various kinds received their due shares from the total agricultural produce.

        7. Muslim households formed only 1.2% of the total. Practically there were no Christian households.

        8. In short grain allocations made included law and order, registry, education, health, culture and religion, apart from the artisan and industrial activities.

        In the light of critical analysis of the survey records available, the authors have rightly concluded: 'We have so far been led to believe, on the basis of rather tenuous historical evidence, that India of that time was poor, scientifically and technologically backward, and a socially and politically dysfunctional nation. The locality accounts of the Chengalpattu Survey present a picture of Indian society and polity that is the exact opposite of these images of poverty and dysfunctionality presented by most British and European writers and authorities'.

        Even as Thomas Barnard was locating and collecting his data based on locality palm leaf records in Tamil in Chengalpattu District, Francois Quesnay (1694-1774), a leading economist among the Physiocrats in France and a contemporary of Bernard, had just presented his famous Tableau économique, which has been hailed as a revolutionary work in the history of economics. In his Tableau économique, he presented his detailed famous zigzag diagram, a circular flow diagram of the economy that showed who produced what and who spent what. This table was Quesnay's way of trying to understand and explain the causes of growth. Tableau defined three classes: landowners, farmers, and others, called 'sterile' classes, who consumed everything they produced and left no surplus for the next period. Quesnay believed that only the agricultural sector could produce a surplus that could then be used to produce more the next year and, therefore, help growth. Industry and manufacturing, thought Quesnay, were sterile. Interestingly, though, he did not reach this conclusion by consulting his table. Instead, Quesnay constructed the table to fit his belief. Indeed, he had to make his table inconsistent in order to fit his assumption that industry provided no surplus.

        Long before Quesnay, the wise administrators of India's countless villages had thought about and evolved a feasible scheme of production and distribution, founded on the principles of equity and natural justice in each village. This fact has been clearly brought out by the three authors in this landmark book. The quantitave information available on a large scale about our country's past has not been adequately mined because its relevance has not been appreciated by most of the economists and social theorists committed to the pernicious philosophy of anti-Hindu pseudo-secularism.