History and incidents of occupancy right : together with an introduction dealing with land tenure in ancient India

'Land Tenure' and 'Occupancy Right have for long exercised the minds of monarchs and governments all over, particularly in an agricultural country. The book seeks to present in a clear historical perspective the various vicissitudes the occupancy right had witnessed from the earliest times. Our Hindu kings had naturally allowed the proprietary right in agricultural land to vest in the cultivator himself. In spite of the practice of a regular payment to Treasury of what was supposed to be a voluntary offering by the Ryots for the numerous services rendered by the state, the crown never assumed ownership of such a land. The author recounts graphically the fluctuating fortunes of the tiller under the various Muslim rulers who for reasons of administrative convenience and extension of patronage caused the emergence of a new inter mediate class of landholders. But by and large the occupancy right of the grower was not interfered with until the grant to the East India Company of the Dewani of Bengal, Bihar & Orissa by Shah Alum. The establishment of a good government & improvement in commerce effected by the British made things much worse.The book deals thoroughly with protective guarantees offered by act X of 1859.