History has branded Zamindars as swindlers of public property and the system of hereditary landlords per se is abhorred for being ‘high-handed’. However, here is a Zamindari that reached out to the needy in the poverty-stricken western Chittoor.
Known for its chequered history, Punganur Zamindari was the first to come under the British rule in 1799 on the death of Tipu Sultan of Mysore, while the others in Rayalaseema came only the next year. In his latest book titled ‘Famines and famine relief measures during 19th century’, K.S.S. Seshan, a retired professor and head of history at the University of Hyderabad, has thrown new insights into the Punganur Zamindari’s way of addressing The Great Famine.
Punganur remained the only Zamindari in Rayalaseema after the then Collector Thomas Munro dispossessed all other Palegars. Among the Zamindaris of Chittoor district, Kalahasthi, Karvetinagar, Kangundi belonged to Arcot and not in the ceded districts, like Punganur was.
With foreword written by Marxist historian Irfan Habib, the book was released recently with special focus on Punganur and the people-centric relief measures during The Great Famine of 1876-78.
In an exclusive interview to The Hindu, Prof. Seshan explained how the British rule was marked by frequent, severe and widespread famines, though they occurred even in the pre-colonial era. “The British administration aimed at making more profits and hence famine relief was meagre. In fact, the Zamindars had more empathy for the victims, which was conspicuously absent among British administrators,” observed Prof. Seshan, who hails from Chittoor district.
People were forced to eat leaves and roots during the ‘Dhathu Karuvu’ (named after the Hindu cyclic year ‘Dhathu’), but the British reduced the daily wages instead of giving relief work to the poor. On the other hand, the Zamindar waived collection of land tax and even organised ‘Langar Khanas’. It triggered interest those days as the Governor of Bengal Sir Richard Temple came to Punganur and wrote to the administrators of Madras Presidency on how the local ruler had thrown open his sprawling palace to the poor.
Prof. Seshan finds a lesson or two in Punganur Zamindari for today’s administrators. “Today’s parameters like price rise and monsoon failure should serve as signals of imminent scarcity and administrators should take steps to prevent famines, rather than addressing them on their onset,” he said.
