HARKING BACK: Master bureaucrat who codified what the poor earned

In the financial life of the law of the Punjab, Tupper played a very important role, yet one can confidently say that very few know about him. It goes without saying that the fields of home affairs, revenue collection and agriculture were the most important in the initial years of British rule; they brought peace, law and order, money and food to the State and propelled it to become one of the most important in British India. Sir C.L. Tupper was the mind behind this success.

If you visit the office of the Punjab chief secretary at the Civil Secretariat in Lahore, you will see the names of all those who served in that office. After the fall of Sikh rule, the East India Company set up a Board of Administration on the March 3, 1849. It was headed by Col Sir Henry Lawrence with the other two members being C.G. Mansel and Sir Henry’s brother Lord John Lawrence. Working with the brothers, Mansel was caught in the severe disagreements between the brothers and he resigned. In his place on Nov 15, 1851 came Sir Robert Montgomery.

By Feb 11, 1853 the Company decided that it was better to have a single-person rule and the Board was dissolved and John Lawrence was made the chief commissioner of the Punjab. He was to play a leading role in securing the Punjab in the 1857 Uprising, was honoured, and returned to become a Lord, only many years later to be made the viceroy of India. The Company lost control and the British government stepped in on Aug 2, 1858 after passing the Government of India Act 1858.

In December 1858, the State of Punjab was headed by a secretary to the government of the Punjab. It was an unstable period and 18 new secretaries were appointed to this post in 31 years, or each averaging one year and seven months. Finally, a new configuration was designed, one that still persists, and the very first chief secretary was appointed on March 31, 1890. That gent was C.L. Tupper, who had twice stepped in as a secretary when things got a bit out of hand. For the next five years, Tupper was to rule and organise the working of each and every department.

But this column is going to concentrate on his lasting contribution -- the compiling of the Punjab Customary Law Manual, which laid down Punjab’s tribal and local customs. This was used till very recently to settle settlement issues. Just how people were to be paid or crops divided for labour and other such issues were decided according to Tupper’s Manual. Let me explain a few examples, which you will better understand if you have lived and worked in villages. It also laid down how city workers like blacksmiths and carpenters were to be compensated. Their rights were clearly laid down.

It was this codification of rights that made the colonial rulers popular with the poor and dispossessed. For the very first time they knew that a system existed to get justice, and not the whims of the ruler. For example, a lohaar or blacksmith who makes the plough, the ramba and the datri was to be given one wheat-sheaf, or bharri of every harvest, also a quarter (pau) of ghee, two seers of gur and if the owner has grown cotton he can alone pick cotton for one day at the very end of the season.

It might surprise many that these standards still hold though they have been watered down a bit because workers now think in terms of cash. How the landowner converts the value is up to him. The same holds true for carpenters and others who are paid in kind depending on the crop they are working for. Like a sugarcane press worker gets five seers of gur for every maund made, or the ‘sweeper’ gets the hide of any animal that dies. The agu, or sugarcane bundle binder, gets five seers of gur for every acre crop he handles.

The detail of the rural society is utterly amazing, for every section of society has been catered to. Among the over 300 descriptions are the dhobi, the jhewar, the chamar, the village priest, the mirasi, the chowkidar, the maulvi, the bhai of the dharmsala, and so on.

The Tupper Manual then goes on to answer the difficult questions that arise in practical life in the urban and rural areas of the Punjab. It informs us of how the patwari should measure revenue and how difficult questions of crops and cash are to be sorted out.

But the special importance of Tupper’s work is his amazing understanding of Punjab’s social and agricultural life, and how both cash and kind are measured against each other. The tables he produced cater to the possibility of goods of every kind as they face inflation. This makes sure that the poor worker does not get poorer as inflation bites and landlords force on them dubious cash propositions. For this the standard has been set.

For his amazing contribution, and for stepping in every time there was an administrative crisis, C.L. Tupper was knighted and his books were taught to every new colonial officer who came to the sub-continent. To this day, revenue officials in India and Pakistan are made to read his Manual so that they understand the way rural economies function beneath the veneer of social justice.

Sir C.L. Tupper was recalled after retirement and made a member of the Punjab Legislative Council in December 1905. This was when the lieutenant governor of the Punjab was Sir Charles Rivaz, who assumed power in March 1902. He was also made the financial commissioner of the revenue department when things started to go wrong. The old master very soon put things in order. He headed the Punjab Commission, training all officers who joined the Punjab government.

But to this day, one quote of C.L. Tupper is taught to all bureaucrats: “Remember, all bureaucrats inherit the workings of past bureaucrats, and in the process do more harm to the poor than good. The laws allow them, in ever-changing times, to make just and enlightened judgements, and that is what they will, ultimately, be measured by.”