Mirasi System as Social Grammar
- State, Local Society, and Raiyat in the 18th – 19th South India –
Tsukasa Mizushima
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology
Faculty of Letter, The University of Tokyo
Mirasi System as Social Grammar
- State, Local Society, and Raiyat in the 18th – 19th South India –
Tsukasa Mizushima
Records on late pre-colonial South India present us a texture of complicated but well-patterned relationship. The texture was woven from various materials different in color and length and was made into a distinctive pattern. After experiencing several sets of changes in the colonial period, however, that texture was entangled and each dissolved material was woven into a different pattern. This paper is an attempt to describe comparatively the conspicuous features of these two textiles, one the late pre-colonial and the other the late nineteenth century, by using several sets of village-level records.
The studied area is Ponneri, located to the north of Madras or Chennai in Tamilnadu State, India (see Fig. 1). Relevant information would be supplemented from the other parts of Chingleput, South Arcot, and Tiruchirapalli.
The main sources utilized here are, chronologically, the village accounts compiled by Barnard[1] (Barnard Report:1760s-70s), the revenue accounts prepared by Place[2] (Place Report:1790s), the Permanent Settlement Records on Zamindaris, Poligars, and Pagodas in the 1801, the village-level census of Madras in the 1871, and the Settlement Registers[3] of Ponneri in the 1870s (to be abbreviated SR 1870s). The first three will be used for analyzing the late pre-colonial period and the last two for the late nineteenth century.
I. Late Pre-colonial Period
In the transient period between the Mughal rule and the British rule south India was in the political turmoil. Local powers, such as the nawabs of Arcot, Gengee, nayaks of Madurai, Tanjavur, small and big palaiyakarans etc., all struggled hard to have more gains by collaborating or opposing each other. The late comers to this political stage, the British, the French, the Marathas, the Mysoreans, and the Nizam, further complicated the political scene. Despite the political instability, however, the late pre-colonial records indicate the strong consistency of the economic structure. We will examine below the conspicuous features of the period.
Fig. 1 Location Map of Ponneri (from 1971 Census)
I-A. Village Types: State vs. Non-state
The village accounts compiled by Barnard in the 1770s indicate an extensive existence of villages managed by those other than the state. The most important was the prevalence of villages placed under poligars[4] [palaiyakaran]. Out of the hundred fifty villages in Ponneri seventeen were classified as Mocassah or the villages owned by poligar/s. Seven (or eight) more villages were rented by them, and another was a Shrotriam (a village rented on a privileged rate) granted to one of them. To put together, twenty-five (or twenty-six) villages were under the poligars’ control (see Fig. 2).
Around the same number of villages were placed under the various categories of people or institutions as well. First came the nattars[5] or the representatives of the people in the nadu. They held six Shrotriams. They were followed by Brahmins with five Shrotriams, Pagodas with three Shrotriams, Vellalers with two Shrotriams, and another for Pillai (probably the title of village accountant). Some officials also had a few Shrotriams. A Deshmuk (a high official of the state) residing in Vellumbacum village in Ponneri had three, and a Stala Majumdar (probably an official in temple administration) had two. To sum up, as many as fifty villages or one-third of the total were not under the direct management of the state but independently managed by some individuals/institutions.
Irrespective of the different management types, however, almost every village in the concerned area had a similar internal structure (see Fig. 3). The most conspicuous was the regular existence of both poligar-ship and mirasidar-ship[6]. Not only Barnard but also Place noticed the prevalence of poligar- and mirasidar-ship in every village they surveyed, and the identities of poligars/mirasidars with their shares were recorded accordingly. As these two classes played key roles in the period, we will make an attempt to clarify their position in the society next.
I-B. Poligar
First we will take up poligar-ship by examining Table 1. The table indicates the names of the poligars with the number of villages under their jurisdiction. From it the following findings are obtained. Poligars like Advy Basavarajah, Advy Vencataputy Rajah, Anoopumbatt Goorvarajah, Coloor Vencatrajah, and Muddycoyel Tappelrajah took the poligar-ship in a good number of villages. There were, on the other hand, a number of poligars with just a village or two under them (see Fig. 4).
These figures indicate the co-existence of poligars with distinctively different scales, which was also true with other poligars in Chingleput as indicated in Table 2. Whereas several poligars had a large number of villages, we can find a considerable number of poligars with one or two.
Those poligars with hundreds of villages under their jurisdiction must have exerted a state-like control over the region with many military followers. Such poligars were truly the professional militaries and were quite often titled as Raja or Naick. They were the successors of the Nayak-ship in the post-Vijayanagara period. The tiny poligars, though numerically dominant, were on the other hand kind of petty policemen who performed the duties in the small locality.
Another striking feature was the entry of agricultural castes into the poligar-ship. Poligar-ship of as many as twenty villages was in the hands of Vellalers or the leading agricultural caste (see Table 1). This finding poses somewhat different problem, which was related with the important forces working in the period. Those Vellaler poligars, who were either the residents of the concerned villages or those from the neighbourhood, were recorded as the mirasidars in their own villages. Their caste background as agriculturists was totally different from the military background of other professional poligars, whose titles were either Naick or Rajah.
These Vellaler poligars took the poligar-ship in the villages located in the middle of Ponneri as shown in Fig. 5. Such spatial concentration in the center of the locality needs some interpretation. One of the motives of their entry into poligar-ship was definitely an economic one. Some economic gain could be expected by acquiring poligar-ship. Though we cannot verify fully, the relative importance of the central part must have been higher than others not only economically but also politically. These conditions propose us another possibility, that is, the emergence of village leaders as military leaders. We will come back to this point later.
Fig.5 Distribution of Poligar-ship held by Different Castes in Ponneri
I-C. Mirasidar as Village Leader
Early colonial records widely acknowledged the overlordship of mirasidars. Mirasidars were considered to be the owners of village. They were the controllers of the village production
activities as well. The Tamil equivalent of mirasidar is kaniyatchi-karan or the person of inheritance. As they owned their village in shares, they were called as karai-karan or the person of share. Mirasi right was known to be salable, mortgageable, and inheritable. According to Karashima’s study on the sale documents examined by Ellis and Sancarya, many transactions of mirasi right were observed in the late pre-colonial period. The transactions were not only between the people of different villages but also between the different castes. Karashima concluded that it was common for mirasi rights to be held by outsiders, which gave threat to the solidarity of the village communities and accelerated their disintegration as well.[7] Sources in our hands give us information about the results of such transactions.
Table 3 indicates the residing places of mirasidars in the 144 villages recorded in the Barnard Report in the 1770s. Out of the 119 villages where the mirasidars’ residing place were known 107 villages were held either by the resident mirasidars (80) or by those in the neighborhood (27). Those living in relatively remote villages, but not very far, held eight more villages. In a word mirasidar-ship in most cases was held by the mirasidars living in the proximity.
Further investigation is possible by the Place Report in the 1797, which listed the mirasidars’ personal names with their respective shares. Totally 534 mirasidar names in Ponneri were recorded. Assuming the same personal name signifies the same person, 382 mirasidars can be counted. Out of them 361 mirasidars or 91 % held the mirasidar-ship in just a village or two[8] (see Fig. 6). These evidences lead us to the conclusion that the mirasidars were of the village-level.
I-D. Mirasidar vs. State
There were a few important exceptional cases that need to be analyzed. The first was the case of absentee mirasidars. We can find a few villages the mirasidar-ship of which were held by those living in Madras. The second was the case where the mirasidar-ship was purchased by Nawab Mahfuz Khan.[9] These cases indicate first of all that the mirasidar-ship, to which some privileges were attached, had become an object for investment. The Nawab’s case, on the other hand, has by far more important implication. It is significant that the Nawab did not usurp mirasidar-ship by force but had to purchase. The autonomy of mirasidar-ship from the state will become a point to be discussed later.
I-E. Mirasidar vs. Poligar, Shrotriamdar
As stated above, poligars and various shrotriamdars took the management of many villages independently from the state. To clarify the position of mirasidar it is necessary to investigate the differences among the mirasidars, poligars and shrotriamdars. The related evidences were:
1. none of the shrotriamdars except two[10] held mirasidar-ship,
2. whereas many villages were held by the poligars either as Mookasah, Rent, or Shrotriam, no mirasidar-ship was owned by any poligars,
3. the caste composition was distinctively different between the poligars on one hand and the shrotiamdars and the mirasidars on the other. Most of the poligars had the titles of either Naick or Rajah. The shrotiamdars and the mirasidars were, on the other hand, dominantly Mudalis (Vellalers) or Brahmins[11] (see Table 4 & Fig. 7).
The first evidence implies that shrotriamdar-ship was of secondary or supra-village level whereas the mirasidar-ship was of the primary or village level. Though no information about the grants of privileged shrotriam tenure is available, it is certain that those shrotriamdars like Nattars, Pagodas, Deshmuks, or Stala Karnams [temple accountants] performed some roles to assist state control in the local society.
The second and the third evidences, along with the evidence that most of the poligars in the area had just one or two villages under their jurisdiction, indicates that the difference between most of the poligars and the mirasidars lay not in the social level but in the social role each played in the local society. While the former took charge in keeping peace and order, the latter controlled the social relation in the village.
I-F. Mirasidars and their Power Base
How, then, was the mirasidars’ control over the agrarian relation in the village sustained? A few answers could be hinted. First was the dominance of their fellow caste members in the respective villages. This was, however, not necessarily the case so far as the numerical dominance was concerned. The percentage of mirasidars’ fellow caste men in the respective villages[12] indicated in Table 5 shows that not a small number of villages (i.e. 32 villages out of 150 villages) were without any fellow men of the mirasidars.
If the numerical strength did not necessarily count at the village level, how was it in an area larger than a village? It was neither Parru nor Simai but Magan that was commonly used in the eighteenth century Chingleput as a unit larger than a village. Early colonial records used it regularly in referring to the concerned area. Magan, which generally consisted of several or tens of villages[13], was supposed to be a social entity with some distinctive features. As our task here is, however, not to clarify the features but to examine the mirasidars’ power base in a wider area than a village, we will adopt Magan as the unit for analysis.[14]
Table 4 indicated above shows the distribution of Mirasidar castes in the respective Magans. Unfortunately the caste identification of a considerable number of mirasidars cannot be ascertained, so that the situation in the period is not easy to reconstruct. Even after excluding the unidentified cases, however, it can be observed that all the Magans had at least a few mirasidar castes. Only Ponnary (Ponneri) Magan showed an exceptional dominance of Mudalis (Vellalers) among the mirasidars. This dominance could be, however, probably denied if the unidentified cases were clarified.[15] The first possible answer, i.e. the numerical dominance of fellow castemen, was thus found to be negative.
I-G. Mirasi System as Social Grammar
If the mirasidars’ power was not based upon the numerical caste/communal dominance, what mattered instead? How could the individual mirasidars sustain their mirasidar-ship in the village where they often did not have any fellow caste members? What the available evidences imply to us is the established notion of mirasidar-ship itself.
As noted earlier, even the Nawab could not usurp the mirasidar-ship by force but to purchase it. Such established notion about mirasi right as observed here was not the isolated one. Actually the eighteenth century village accounts were none other than the accounts of various mirasi
rights that covered the entire sphere of local society. Village product was elaborately distributed in
shares among the different categories of people and institutions in the local society. Not only the mirasidar-ship but also every share in the product was acknowledged as mirasi right. Though each village had different proportional rates in these shares, the notion of share or mirasi system itself was intact and uniform. The mirasi system, under which each share was linked with some role in the local society, was the system that provided every one in the period with the way of living, wealth, esteem, status, and power. It operated in this sense as a social grammar to express oneself in the society.[16]
If the mirasi system operated in an autonomous way in the period, our next task is to clarify the positions of the state and the local society in relation to the system.