Florence Nightingale's Indian letters : a glimpse into the agitation for tenancy reform, Bengal, 1878-82.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Florence Nightingale's Indian letters : a glimpse into the agitation for tenancy reform, Bengal, 1878-82. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

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    wisdom and benevolence of Philip Francis or Cornwallis, of Canning or Lawrence, once more animates the thoughts and acts of our present administrators, we may see the rise of a prosperous middle class and a prosperous peasantry in India, and we shall hear less of desolating famines in future than we have done in the past. Many of the difficulties still remain and these words of Rames Chandra have not lost their force to-day. If the ryot is the proprietor of the soil as indicated by the conferment on him of occupancy rights, why should the landlord come forward for his twenty per cent of the sale price of the tenant's land and thus lower the price of the land itself? And there is slight guarantee against eviction granted to the korfa ryots who are the real tillers of the soil. Although a number of amending Acts have tried to remove some of the grievances, the chances of litigation have not lessened on that account and the protection of the law is, by the very nature of circumstances, distant and illusory. Our legislators have so long consulted custom and expediency rather than equity and principle. We have seen that even after the passing of the great Rent Act, Act X of 1859, and partly on account of it, the position of the ryots was intolerable. The better minds of India and England felt for the ryot and it was in this connection that letters were ex- changed between my father Prasanna Kumar Sen, Vakil and Attorney of the Calcutta High Court, and Florence Nightingale. Her concern for India was not slight and in the intervals of a busy life devoted to