Common Lands in Colonial Punjab: Continuity and Change

Abstract

"This paper will examine the history and transformation of common lands in the Punjab in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Common lands in the nineteenth century were a category of long fallow or banjar kadim held and managed by the proprietary body or the malikan deh in the Punjab villages mainly for the purpose of pastoral and non-pastoral activities. They were therefore central to a system of village management which arranged the cultivated land in scattered strips and held on shares by the biswadars on a private, individual or family basis; and the waste in compact large holdings as communal property again held on shares. The biswadars thus held the entire land of the villages as members of the proprietary body. The common lands in the Punjab underwent change both as a category of land-use and as a class of property in the nineteenth century as a consequence of pressure on the villages exerted by factors external to them and due to internal change."