NDA (I) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 129 of 150

Correct — A, Lord Cornwallis. Charles Cornwallis was Governor-General from 1786 to 1793, and the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa was made permanent by regulation in 1793, at the end of his term. It converted the zamindars into proprietors of the land in exchange for a revenue demand that was fixed for ever, so that any later increase in the value of the estate stayed with the zamindar and not with the Company. The demand was rigid in the other direction too: it had to be paid by a fixed date whatever the harvest, and a zamindar who defaulted lost his estate to public auction under the notorious sunset clause. Cornwallis's name also attaches to the wider Cornwallis Code of 1793 and to the separation of revenue and judicial functions.

• (b)Lord Ripon — Ripon was Viceroy from 1880 to 1884, nearly ninety years later. He is remembered for the resolution on local self-government of 1882, the repeal of the Vernacular Press Act and the Ilbert Bill controversy, not for land revenue in Bengal.
• (c)Robert Clive — Clive belongs to an earlier phase. He won Plassey in 1757 and secured the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1765, which gave the Company the right to collect the revenue in the first place. The system for collecting it was still being improvised when he left, and the settlement of 1793 came a quarter of a century after his time.
• (d)John Adam — John Adam held office only as acting Governor-General for a few months in 1823, three decades after the settlement. He is a deliberately obscure name placed here to unsettle a candidate who is not sure of the other three.

The Company tried three broad revenue systems in India and each is tied to a person and a region. The Permanent Settlement of 1793 under Cornwallis covered Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and settled the revenue with zamindars for ever. The Ryotwari system, associated with Thomas Munro and Alexander Read, settled directly with the individual cultivator in Madras and later much of Bombay, and was periodically revised. The Mahalwari system, associated with Holt Mackenzie and R. M. Bird, settled with the village or mahal in the North-Western Provinces and the Punjab. Knowing which of the three is being described is usually enough to answer the question.

The reasoning here is chronological before it is anything else. Clive is the 1750s and 1760s, Cornwallis the 1780s and 1790s, John Adam 1823 and Ripon the 1880s, so a candidate who has fixed even rough decades to the four names can reach 1793 without recalling any revenue detail. The consequences are worth carrying alongside the fact, because that is where the follow-up questions come from. The Company got a secure and predictable income and a loyal class of landlords; the fixed demand meant that its share of a growing agricultural surplus shrank steadily over the nineteenth century; and the ryot beneath the zamindar was left largely unprotected, since the rule requiring zamindars to issue written pattas to their tenants was never backed by any machinery to enforce it.

• Cornwallis was Governor-General from 1786 to 1793; the Permanent Settlement was made permanent by regulation in 1793.
• It covered Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and made the zamindar the proprietor of the land.
• The revenue demand was fixed in perpetuity, and default by the due date led to the estate being sold under the sunset clause.
• The 1793 Cornwallis Code also separated revenue and judicial functions in the Company's administration.
• Ryotwari settled with the cultivator, Mahalwari with the village — the two alternatives to be kept apart from this one.

• Attaching the settlement to Clive because he obtained the Diwani, which is the right to collect but not the system of collection.
• Confusing Cornwallis with Wellesley, who followed him in 1798 and is associated with the Subsidiary Alliance.
• Assuming a permanently fixed demand meant a light demand — it was rigid, and remission for a failed harvest was generally refused.

NDA asks for the Governor-General behind a named policy, or gives the year and asks which settlement it belongs to.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ryotwari system of land revenue is chiefly associated with

  • (a)Lord Cornwallis
  • (b)Thomas Munro
  • (c)Holt Mackenzie
  • (d)Lord Wellesley

  Answer(b) Thomas Munro — with Alexander Read, he settled the revenue directly with the individual cultivator in Madras.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Permanent Settlement, a zamindar who failed to pay the assessed revenue by the fixed date

  • (a)was granted remission for that year
  • (b)had his estate sold by public auction
  • (c)was transferred to another district
  • (d)had the demand recalculated for the next decade

  Answer(b) had his estate sold by public auction — the sunset clause allowed no remission for a bad harvest.