From little king to landlord: property, law and the gift under permanent settlement

Abstract

This paper concerns the set of issues surrounding the imposition in south India of a Permanent Settlement in 1803 for the local "nobility" -- the "ancient zamindars and polygars." I focus here on the "little kings" themselves, their transformation into "landlords", and the implications of the new political economy for the old political logic in which law, property, and the state were linked in very different ways. I look in particular at the problems concerning "alienation" under the Permanent Settlement, the fact that landlords, in contravention of the principles of profit and management, continued to make gifts of land. I conclude by examining the implications of my narratives for a consideration of colonial state and society, with respect in particular to the praxis of culture and the discourse of law. I demonstrate that all colonial transformations were, for inherent structural reasons, incompletely realized.