Ancient Rights and Future Comfort: Bihar, the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, and British Rule in India [Paperback]

This book analyses the character of British rule in nineteenth-century India, by focusing on the underlying ideas and the practical repercussions of agrarian policy. It argues that the great rent law debate and the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 helped constitute a revolution in the effective aims of government and in the colonial ability to interfere in India, but that they did so alongside a continuing weakness of understanding and in effective local control. In particular, the book considers the importance of notions of historical rights and economic progress to the false categorisations made of agrarian structure. It shows that the Tenancy Act helped to widen social disparities in rural Bihar, and to create political interests on the land.This text analyses the character of British rule in nineteenth-century India by focusing on the underlying ideas and the practical repercussions of agrarian policy.'Robb deserves congratulations for his ability to imbue the reader with a sense of the purpose and results of the Bengal Tenacy Act that is not overwhelmed by specifics and obscurities. This book deserves a welcomed place alongside the earlier classic studies of agrarian and revenue law in colonial India.' - Christopher V. Hill, South Asia: The Journal of South Asian StudiesChapter 1 Property, classes and the state; Chapter 2 Official will and administrative capacity; Chapter 3 A necessary reform; Chapter 4 The great rent law debate; Chapter 5 Custom and the law; Chapter 6 The magic of property; Chapter 7 The politics of land; Chapter 8 Keeping the record; Chapter 9 Colonial rule and agrarian structure; Chapter 10 Rents and rights; Chapter 11 Peasants, property and nation;P.G. Robb School of Oriental and African Studies, LondonUS? 1997 Peter Robb