about 1750, never been subject to a land tax.^87 It had a variety of
other mercantile and judicial taxes, but land in Malabar—
according to British investigators themselves—never paid
revenue of any kind till the peace was wholly shattered by the
Europeans, Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Even during Tipu’s
period, the actual receipts from Malabar were fairly small.
The major dispossession of the various categories of
revenue assignees (starting from those who had assignment for
the performance of military duties, and who formed the local
militias, and going on to those who performed police duties, etc.)
started as soon as the British took over de facto control of any
area, (i.e. in Bengal and Bihar from 1757-58 onwards). The turn
of the Chakeran Zemin and the Bazee Zemin came slightly later.
By about 1770, the latter had also begun to be seriously
affected. By about 1800, through various means, a very large
proportion of these had been altogether dispossessed; and, most
of the remaining had their assignments greatly reduced through
various devices. Among the devices used was the application of
the newly established enhanced rate of assessment even to the
sources from which the assignees had received the revenue. This
device, to begin with, implied a reduction of the quantity of the
assigned source in accordance with the increased rate of
assessment. The next step was to reduce—in most cases—the
money value itself. The result was that the assignee—whether an
individual or an institution—even when allowed a fraction of the
previous assignment, was no longer able (because of such steep
reduction) to perform the accompanying functions in the manner
they had been performed only some decades previously. Those
whose assignments were completely abrogated were of course
reduced to penury and beggary, if not to a worse fate. Naturally,
many of the old functions