Note 17 — CHAPTER 7
Reading edition
The indigenous Mina affords here an excellent practical illustration of Manu’s axiom, that “the right in the soil belongs to him who first cleared and tilled the land” [Laws, ix. 44]. The Rajput conqueror claims and receives the tribute of the soil, but were he to attempt to enforce more, he would soon be brought to his senses by one of their various modes of self-defence—incendiarism, self-immolation, or abandonment of the lands in a body. We have mystified a very simple subject by basing our arguments on the arrangements of the Muhammadan conqueror. If we mean to follow his example, whose doctrine was the law of the sword, let us do it, but we must not confound might with right: consult custom and tradition throughout India, where traces of originality yet exist, and it will invariably appear that the right in the soil is in the cultivator, who maintains even in exile the hakk bapota-ka-bhum, in as decided a manner as any freeholder in England. But Colonel Briggs has settled this point, to those who are not blinded by prejudice.