ART. IV.-RURAL POLICE AND DECENTRALISATION.

IN so

N these days, when Indian administration has become so com

plicated and so expensive, the difficulty must be met by decentralizing, whether it be by limiting the amount to be spent to a certain assignment, or by assigning nothing, and letting the locality raise all that is needed by local rates and taxes. Roads have already been made a local charge, and some steps might be taken to make police the same. In the course of doing this, if an organisation of self-government could be started, even though at first that organisation were unable to stand alone, a great advance in administrative and political progress would be gained, as well as a means devised of supplementing the State's finances.

Nowhere in India is there such an absence of all village organisation as in Bengal. Consequently, when it is most wanted, as in times of famine, the country has to be flooded with a foreign executive, and an extempore organisation erected at most ruinous cost. It will be the object of this paper to consider whether the defect cannot be cured by introducing an organisation which could be used as a small beginning of local self-government, as a means of raising locally the cost of police charges, and finally, as a most important help to the executive when carrying out extraordinary measures, such as famine relief or census.

It is now five or six years since the present Chowkidari Act was introduced into Bengal, and in spite of the many difficulties experienced in working it, no one disputes that it has produced a great improvement in the condition of the rural police. At present there is some one, at least in most villages, legally and practically responsible for the payment of the chowkidars, namely, the village punches; and they are not only responsible for his pay, but they are his immediate superior authority, to whose notice he must bring all occurrences; and they, in their turn are bound to report his delinquencies, and, if need be, convey to the thannah the information he has failed to give.

The Act was framed in the spirit of making the position of the punch an honourable one, and for this end the magistrate alone is allowed to control them, while the police are denied that power. But unfortunately the magistrate is given no means of mediate communication with, and supervision over them, except the regular police. Hence, necessarily, much recourse has been compelled to be had to the police. It is only through them that new appointments can be made in the case of casualties and retirements; and therefore in their hands rests the important function' of selection.

Again, in all the executive measures to enforce payment of the chowkidars and to demand accounts, to decide questions between the punches and the chowkidars, whether chowkidars shall be dismissed, and if so, who shall be appointed, the magistrate must look to them for advice, and that advice must nearly always prevail.

But not only has the present law the fault of compelling the magistrate to use the police to coerce the punches into a performance of their duties of collection, but it provides absolutely no means of superintending that performance. A punch may be keeping no accounts, may be most unfairly assessing the villagers, and may be abusing its authority in many ways; but, except when a scandal arises, calling for magisterial enquiry, things must go on unchecked. Under the present system the magistrate can only say, the punches must pay their chowkidars, but how they manage to do so, he cannot make his concern. He has no organisation given him for this purpose, and he can only look to what is practical. The result of this may be very diverse; a weak punch cannot possibly collect its dues, and the post consequently becomes one of serious pecuniary liability. Each member is scheming to get rid of his office, and those who have nearly the sole power of selecting for the onerous post, and through whose favour exemption at times may be gained, must exercise great authority. Again, a strong punch, composed of high caste men, will throw the burden of the assessment on their poorer fellows and very lightly tax themselves and their friends and relatives.

At present there is no pretence of there being any means either to help the weak punch, or to supervise and correct the conduct of the strong one. Yet the law requires the assessment list to be published annually, and the magistrate is empowered to revise it on the application of ten rate payers. Unfortunately, however, the magistrate has more important work to do than revise assessment lists, and this provision of the law is almost necessarily a dead letter.

Shortly, the defects of the present law seem to be

1. It does not really secure that the sum assessed is collected, or if collected, that the chowkidar really receives it as wages. The reason of this is that the punch pay the chowkidar direct, and the only proof of payment or non-payment is the word of the chowkidar. Consequently, the temptation to put pressure on the latter to take less than his pay and acknowledge full payment is irresistible. This leads to all kinds of abuses, and frequently to criminal charges. 2. A necessary consequence of the above is that either the chowkidar is too subservient to the punch, or he is at open war with them. Neither state is desirable. For if he is consenting to forego his pay, he is under-paid, and more liable to temptation if he is

fully alive to his rights, and asserting them, it means often fighting and distraction n the village.

3. The law provides no intermediate agency between the magistrate and the punches. From this discipline often suffers, and the chowkidars are not amenable to the authority of the police. Unless the chowkidar is guilty of an offence punishable by law, it is hard to reach him. Fines can hardly be inflicted, for the order must be to the puuch to deduct the amount; and it is more than doubtful if such an order carries anything more with it than a book entry.

4. Lastly, perhaps the greatest defect is that the law makes no provision for the payment of chowkidars in small villages. The houses are too few, or the inhabitants too poor, to pay Rs. 3 a month, and consequently they cannot be brought under the law at all. Again many villages have to be left in their old state, because they are too poor to pay for two Act chowkidars, and one would not be enough.

Now it seems to us that the only difficulty in making the country pay for its police has been surmounted, that is, the diffi culty of introducing a general system of raising local rates by direct taxation, and of entrusting the collections to a purely local body. Why not then systematise what is now so full of inequalities, and so fruitful of confusion? Why should not all the chowkidars of the country be brought under the Act, and a thoroughly efficient control given to the authorities over both the chowkidars and the punches? The hesitation to adopt a policy of thoroughness is based on good motives. Government is afraid to subject such a large and important body as the punches represent to strict executive authority, as it would necessarily have to be exercised under present arrangements. If the magistrate had now to control and supervise them, he would have to use a more or less corrupt amlah and police; and the result would be oppression, disgust and even disaffection.

However, does it not savour of the fable of the ostrich hiding his head in the sand, and so thinking himself concealed from his pursuers, when one expects order and good management under the present arrangement, or rather want of it? It is so charmingly simple. Take almost any four or five men of a village, dub them a punch, and tell them, without any outside advice or guidance, to assess and collect a tax from all their fellow-villagers. If they come and bother you and say they can't make their fellows pay, tell them that's their look out; if on the other hand the petition comes from the other side, the answer practically is, you must make the best terms you can; who is to go and enquire into your petty grievances?

For the remedy of the above defects we would propose

1. That a punch be formed in every village, big or small, and that they have much the same powers and responsibilities as at present.

2. That so many villages as entertain some twenty chowkidars be formed into a union, with a circle or union punch of three members.

3. That the magistrate, consulting with the union and circle punches, determine the number of chowkidars to be kept for each village.

4. That the pay of all the chowkidars be made a general charge on the union, and each punch have its allotted share to assess and collect.

5. That the money to be raised in each union be somewhat more than the bare pay of the chowkidars, so as to meet contingent charges of all descriptions.

The administrative head of the union would be one of the members of the union punch. A circle would include some ten villages, and it would nearly always be easy to find a few good men in such an area of selection. The headman should be paid from the union funds, and it would no doubt be necessary to compel a man to serve under a penalty. The term might be the same as that for the village punches-three years, or perhaps two years— so as not to render the retirement of the union punches synchronous with that of the village one. The headman's duties would be purely supervision, and from their nature would prove neither irksome nor distasteful. The village punches would do all the work of collection, and the headman of the union punch would, with his two co-adjutors, be a supervising authority. Upon the headman would devolve all the purely executive work, and the two other members would with him form a consultative body. This headman, or, as he might be called, the tehsildar, would be the pivot of the system. He would receive pay as explained below, and would in return be answerable for the working of all the subordinate village punches. Before going further into his duties, we will examine the financial part of the scheme.

The thannah having been divided into convenient circles, so calculated in size as to require some 20 chowkidars, the exact number actually needed would be budgeted for. Their pay at Rs. 3 each, and a mate at Rs. 4, and a tehsildar at Rs. 5, plus say 10 per cent for contingencies, would form the budget for the union. It might stand thus-Rs. 19 x 3 + 4+ 5 = 66. To this Rs. 66 add 3+ 10 per cent and we have Rs. 72-8. This then would form the whole budget of the union. The next duty would be to distribute it amongst the villages contained in the union, and in doing this

some local knowledge would undoubtedly be required. The villages where rich people lived would have to pay a large share, and those where poorer people lived a small one. A large and popular village, inhabited by poor people, might require two or three chowkidars, but the neighbouring one, composing perhaps a bazaar and containing the homes of wealthy people, though much smaller, might be assessed much higher. At present there are often most gross inequalities of taxation, but under the proposed plan these should disappear, and with them some of the difficulties of collection.

Each village punch, month by month, would have to hand over its allotted share to the tehsildar; and he, proceeding to the thannah with the united collections, would pay all the chowkidars, and besides hand over the 10 per cent to the police for remittance to the magistrate. This would form a fund This would form a fund to meet chowkidaree contingent expenses, and could also be used toward defraying some part of the expenses of the district police. To give an idea of what the 10 per cent contribution would amount to, let us suppose there are 2,000 chowkidars in a district. Their monthly pay would amount to Rs. 6,100, and consequently 10 per cent on it would give Rs. 610, by no means an insignificant sum monthly.

The two principal objections that might be raised are the entertainment of paid tehsildars and the levy of the 10 per cent. To meet these it can be urged :-that without some such paid functionary the affairs of the punches will ever continue to be mismanaged; and mismanagement means confusion and often oppression. With their help proper and fair assessments can be made, and the money duly collected, and there will be some guarantee that all is not in hopeless confusion, only the weakest being made to pay, while the rich and the refractory are too strong to be compelled to do so. Moreover, the advantage to the general administration of having such men trained to act in general union with the executive will be very great. They will, in a way, be true representatives of the people, and yet there is no reason why they should not be kept strictly up to their duties. These duties will be light and of an honourable kind, and there will be lots of margin to compel strict efficiency without making the post unpopular.

The question might be raised-whether men could be found fit for the post. In our opinion they could, especially in many districts, which are most prosperous, and in which so many men of the middle class have come to the front. Men of all classes might be chosen: retired Government servants, intelligent tradesmen, petty zemindars and such like. To those who know rural Bengal it is wonderful how many