Land acquisition, landlessness, and the building of New Delhi

Radical History Review

Volumn , Issue 108, 2010, Pages 91-116

  Johnson, David A ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 78049264967     PISSN: 01636545     EISSN: 15341453     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/01636545-2010-005     Document Type: Article

References (108)

1. For a detailed analysis of how the British used and reshaped this South Asian royal ritual,
2. See Bernard Cohn, "Representing Authority in Victorian England," in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
3. For excellent historical monographs on the building of New Delhi,
4. See Anthony King, Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power, and Environment (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976);
5. Thomas Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002);
6. Robert Grant Irving, Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker, and Imperial Delhi (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981).
7. High-ranking members of the government of India, the India Office, and George V had kept the transfer a closely guarded secret. This secrecy allowed them to avoid prolonged Parliamentary debates, which could have led to the rejection of the proposal, and the element of surprise gave the announcement greater force in India.
8. R. E. Frykenberg has written that this secrecy, because it excluded Parliament from the decision-making process, almost caused a constitutional crisis.
9. R. E. Frykenberg, "The Coronation Durbar of 1911: Some Implications," in The Delhi Omnibus, ed. Frykenberg and Narayani Gupta (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 225-246.
10. After New Delhi began to be built, the existing city of Shajahanabad, or Delhi, became commonly known as "old Delhi."
11. David Johnson, "A British Empire for the Twentieth Century: The Inauguration of New Delhi, 1931," Urban History 35 (2008): 462-484.
12. Amartya Sen's forword to the 1996 republication of Ranajit Guha's A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of Permanent Settlement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), ix-x.
13. Ranajit Guha, Rule of Property for Bengal, 9.
14. Thomas Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj: Northern India in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 55.
15. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
16. Michael Mandelbaum, Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government (Philadelphia: Public Affairs, 2007).
17. Ibid, 110.
18. Ibid., 63-65.
19. The phrase government of India is used throughout this article to refer to the British colonial government in India.
20. Lord Hardinge, the viceroy most responsible for the building of New Delhi, used the correspondence between Curzon and other high-ranking officials as just one of several reasons for reversing partition.
21. As scholars such as Mrinalini Sinha have shown, Bengal's anticolonial movement was damaging to British rule because it exposed the inherent contradictions in British imperial policy that consistently favored Europeans over Indians.
22. Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The "Manly Englishman" and the "Effeminate Bengali" in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).
23. Lord Hardinge and his Executive Council to Lord Crewe, August 25, 1911, Home Department Records, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter NAI).
24. Hardinge, his executive council, and the secretary of state for India carried on long discussions concerning how best to reverse Curzon's disastrous partition policy. At the center of this discussion were the transfer of the capital and the importance of Delhi as the traditional seat of empire in India.
25. Frykenberg, "Coronation Durbar," 226.
26. Frykenberg, "Coronation Durbar,", 235.
27. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.
28. Johnson, "A British Empire for the Twentieth Century."
29. Lord Hardinge to Lord Curzon, October 30, 1912, Lord Hardinge Official Correspondence (Nehru Memorial Museum, New Delhi), hereafter Hardinge Correspondence.
30. Lord Hardinge to Lord Curzon, October 30, 1912, Hardinge Correspondence.
31. Hardinge to Lutyens, March 28, 1913, Hardinge Correspondence.
32. Hardinge to Baker, August 30, 1913, Hardinge Correspondence.
33. Hardinge to Lutyens, August 4, 1913, Hardinge Correspondence.
34. These ancient cities included Qila Lal Kot, Qila Rai Pithora, Siri, Jahan Panah, Tughlakabad, and the Purana Qila.
35. H. C. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 1911 (Lahore: Government of Punjab, Government of India Press, 1912), copy consulted at NAI.
36. H. C. Beadon, Final Report of the Third Regular Settlement of the Delhi District, 1906-1910 (Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette, 1910), NAI copy.
37. The first and most famous of the land settlements had been the Permanent Land Settlement of Bengal passed in 1791 under Lord Cornwallis, the governor-general. As Beadon, the settlement officer for the Delhi District, stated, "A resettlement of a district is desirable when the assessment is burdensome on the people, or has become so light that government is losing revenue to which it is entitled." The reports provided a baseline for determining appropriate land revenues by (re)classifying land quality and land ownership.
38. Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj, 48.
39. Geoffrey F. deMontmorency, "Report," March 18, 1912, Records of the Home Department, Delhi Branch, May 1912 files, file no. 52, NAI.
40. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 103.
41. The cultivated area was divided by the British into "irrigable" and "unirrigable" tracts. Of the irrigable tracts, the land was further divided into "land irrigable from wells" (chahi), "land irrigable by canals" (nahri), and "land irrigable from other sources" (abi).
42. Bands allowed irrigation in hilly areas where down-slope retaining walls trapped rainwater during the monsoon and winter rains. About twenty-four hundred acres of hill country in the Delhi District were irrigated by bands, or less than 1 percent of the cultivated area.
43. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 1911, 129.
44. Ibid., 123.
45. Ibid., 1911, 109.
46. Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj, 48.
47. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 1911, 104-105
48. Ibid., 135-136.
49. Chief Commissioner of the Delhi District, Delhi Administration Report for 1913-1914 (Lahore: Superintendent of Government Printing, 1914), 17-20, NAI copy.
50. P. J. Marshall, Bengal, the British Bridgehead: Eastern India, 1740-1828 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 149.
51. Ibid., 150.
52. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 1911, 117.
53. "New Delhi Autocracy," Bombay Chronicle, February 13, 1931.
54. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision, and Irving, Indian Summer.
55. In the nineteenth century, British medical officers devised a measurement called a "spleen count" to determine the general health of an area. High fevers, such as from malaria, often left victims with enlarged spleens. By measuring the spleens of individuals in a specific location, medical officers could estimate whether the area was prone to malaria outbreaks.
56. Punjab Gazette, 1911, Notification no. 775, December 21, 1911, India Office Records, British Library, London, hereafter IOR.
57. Hansard: House of Commons Official Report, series 5, vols. 34-35, 39-42, 45-47, 51-56, 58-65, and 76 (London: Department of Chamber and Committee Services, The Stationary Office, 1912-1915).
58. Criticism of the project arising from British circles continued well into the 1920s, with Lord Curzon, who arguably saw New Delhi as a symbol of his failed policies in Bengal, being the most vociferous critic.
59. J. Addison, "Report on Land Acquisitions at Delhi by Mr. J. Addison, the Special Land Acquisition Officer," Records of the Home Department, Public A, August 1915 files, file no. 8, NAI.
60. J. W. Meares, The Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (Calcutta: Government of India, Legislative Department, Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1907), 19-22, NAI copy.
61. Ibid., 20.
62. Geoffrey F. deMontmorency, "Proposed Grant of Land Elsewhere as Compensation to the Hereditary Land-Owners and Tenants of Villages in the Neighborhood of Delhi, Who Will Be Expropriated in the Course of Land Acquisition Proceedings Connected with the New Capital," March 14, 1912, Records of the Home Department, Delhi Branch, Part A, May 1912 files, proceedings no. 15, NAI.
63. Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj;
64. Marshall, Bengal, the British Bridgehead.
65. and Guha, Rule of Property for Bengal
66. Geoffrey F. deMontmorency, "Grant of Compensation in Land to Expropriated Landowners in the Delhi Area," June 27, 1912, Records of the Home Department, Delhi Branch, August 1912 files, proceedings nos. 72-73, NAI.
67. A. M. Stow, Senior Secretary to the Financial Commissioner, Punjab, "Proposed Grant of Land Elsewhere as Compensation to the Hereditary Landowners and Tenants of Villages in the Neighborhood of Delhi," June 1, 1912, Records of the Home Department, Delhi Branch, Part A, May 1912 files, proceedings no. 15, NAI.
68. The Karnal District had 3,281 acres and the Rohtak 1,683 acres to accommodate dispossessed Delhi residents, a number far short of what was needed.
69. The British improved and expanded the Mughal canal systems of the Punjab using the rivers Jehlam, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej, which flowed northeast to southwest. The government of India then auctioned these canal lands. The term Bari comes from combining Beas and Ravi. These irrigation works required large capital investments but often paid high returns even in bad years.
70. F. C. Bourne, "Final Settlement Report of the Lower Bari Doab Canal Colony, 1927-1935," IOR copy.
71. H. J. Maynard, "A Note," February 4, 1914, Records of the Chief Commissioner's Office, Delhi District, Revenue and Agriculture files, file 108/1914, Delhi State Archives, Delhi, India (hereafter Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA).
72. DeMontmorency, "Grant of Compensation in Land to Expropriated Landowners in the Delhi Area."
73. DeMontmorency's suggested land scale in the Lower Bari Doab Canal Colony: half an acre in Delhi was equal to five acres in the canal; one-fifth of an acre was equal to ten acres; five-tenth of an acre was equal to fifteen acres; ten-fifteenth of an acre was equal to twenty acres; etc.
74. DeMontmorency, "Grant of Compensation in Land to Expropriated Landowners in the Delhi Area."
75. H. B. Holmes, "Grant of Compensation in Land to Expropriated Landowners in the Delhi Area," July 16, 1912, Records of the Home Department, Delhi Branch, August 1912 files, proceedings nos. 72-73, NAI.
76. Thomas Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj: The New Cambridge History of India, volume 3, part 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995);
77. Bernard Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
78. Hon'ble Mr. H. Wheeler to Secretary of the Government of the Punjab, August 19, 1912, Notification 803, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
79. Special Land Acquisition Officer to Imperial Delhi Committee, August 26, 1914, no. 386-L.A, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
80. The canal colony was divided into squares or rectangles of twenty-five acres, which they let for settlement. At times colony officers would let land at half a rectangle, but they preferred letting one rectangle.
81. Hon'ble Mr. H. Wheeler to Secretary of the Government of the Punjab, August 19, 1912.
82. Many of these muafis and jagirs were given to Delhi residents who aided or remained loyal to the British during the 1857 uprising.
83. Official Correspondence between W. M. Hailey, Chief Commissioner of Delhi, and Michael O'Dwyer, Lt. Governor of the Punjab, January 26, 1914 and February 19, 1914, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
84. H. J. Maynard, "Note," February 4, 1914 (see above, note 57).
85. "Memorial of Ramji Lal and 33 Others, Expropriated Landholders of Mauza Manglapuri, District Delhi, Praying for the Grant of Sunarwali Bir in the Jhajjar Tahsil of the Rohtak District, Punjab," April 13, 1914, proceedings of the Department of Revenue and Agriculture, August-Dec. 1914 files, IOR.
86. "Abstract Showing the Statement of the People, Whose Lands Are Acquired for Imperial City and Required to Settle and Cultivate the Lands on Lower Bari Doab," Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
87. Geoffrey F. deMontmorency to William Hailey, May 14, 1917, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
88. J. Addison, Special Land Acquisition Officer, to William Hailey, Chief Commissioner Delhi District, December 20, 1913, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
89. The Gurdwara is adjacent to the main government structures in New Delhi and remains an important and thriving religious and communal center for Sikhs. This land-acquisition case generated dozens of memorials written by Sikhs demanding protection of the Rikabganj Gurdwara from town planners who removed a wall to make room for a new road. The British eventually rebuilt the wall and moved the road due to the Sikh community's concerted efforts.
90. "Abstract Showing the Statement of the People, Whose Lands Are Acquired for Imperial City and Required to Settle and Cultivate the Lands on Lower Bari Doab."
91. R. H. Craddock to H. C. Beadon, June 19, 1912, Records of the Home Department, Delhi Branch, June 1912 files, deposit no. 15, NAI.
92. The permanent land settlement was meant to encourage Indians to improve their lands since they now held title to it. At the same time, the British were extremely cognizant of their rights to the land revenue. Land revenues were consistently set by the British at the highest rate they believed the land could bear.
93. Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 82-83.
94. Secretary of Imperial Delhi Committee to Secretary Government of India, May 15, 1915, Records of the Home Department, Public Branch, Department of Revenue and Agriculture files, August 1915 files, part A, proceedings no. 8, NAI.
95. Court of the Divisional Judge, Delhi, Compensation Case no. 39 of 1913, Mohd Amir Khan, Azmat Ullah Khan, and Naimat Ulah Khan, residents of Chitli Kabar, Delhi versus The Secretary of State for India in Council, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.
96. Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (New York: Verso, 2001).
97. Davis argues that late nineteenth-century famines were caused by the incorporation of the tropical zone into a global capitalist market centered on London.
98. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 1911, 168-171.
99. Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 33-41.
100. Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 111-112.
101. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia, 78-85.
102. Bose and Jalal, Modern South Asia, 7.
103. Davis estimates, using figures provided by six different sources, that between 1876 and 1902 about 12.2-29.3 million people died in India due to famine.
104. Beadon, Gazetteer of Delhi, 1911, 117.
105. Marshall, Bengal, the British Bridgehead, 149-150.
106. Chief Commissioner of the Delhi District, Delhi Administration Report for 1913-1914.
107. Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts, 9.
108. Memoriam to Chief Commissioner, Delhi, from Shamsher Parkash, January 29, 1917, Delhi, 1917, no. 15, Chief Commissioner Revenue and Agriculture Records, file 108/1914, DSA.