OUR administration’s obsession with preserving colonial institutions is truly mind-boggling. Every now and then a post-Partition administrative change is abandoned in favour of a colonial period model.

When, some time ago, the Punjab government announced the revival of the post of village headman called lambardar (nambardar in the vernacular language), the idea appeared to be so ridiculous that it was dismissed as a desperate bid by a limited mind to prove its capacity to introduce change. Subsequent developments reveal that the joke has gone too far and it merits a discussion.

The lambardar was the lowest functionary in the land revenue system devised by the British rulers for Punjab. His main job was to collect land revenue.

He also helped maintain a rudimentary chowkidari (security) system, kept a watch over strangers coming into the village, and reported to the nearest executive authority, especially if the visitor happened to be a political activist and showed disrespect to the colonial sarkar. He was also supposed to facilitate the recruitment of soldiers. Above all, he enjoyed a certain social status in the durbars of the deputy commissioner and sometimes the commissioner too. Somehow the position was made hereditary. This was the reason that big landlords fought long and costly legal battles before a member of the board of revenue to retain the office in the family and would not give up the lambardari even when they became members of assemblies or ministers.

The office was not without risks. Failure to deposit the land revenue in the nearest treasury could land a lambardar in prison where he could be held for no more than 14 days at a stretch. During the depression that hit the subcontinent after the First World War, small landowners were often unable to pay the land revenue and many of them hid themselves among standing crops during the day and returned to their families after dusk as usually nobody was arrested at night.

By reviving the patwari’s position, the Punjab government has reaffirmed its fidelity to the colonial system.

The situation changed dramatically when land revenue was abolished mainly because the cost of collecting it exceeded the maximum possible yield. The lambardars gave way to elected functionaries, first as members of basic democracies and later on as members of union councils, surely a better replacement in a country that still keeps swearing by democracy.

The people have been told nothing as to what good is expected from the new variety of lambardars.

Now by reviving the position of the patwari the Punjab government has reconfirmed its fidelity to the colonial system.

For a very long time, the patwari, along with the thanedar, was considered one of the most obnoxious symbols of state oppression and corruption. What the patwari did to the land ownership record through the mutation process could not easily be undone by any higher authority. A popular saying was ‘Ooper khaliq bari, neechay patwari’ (up in the heavens rules the Creator, on the ground the patwari). It is said an all-powerful ruler like Ayub Khan deemed it prudent to grease the palm of the patwari even if he had to borrow cash from his military secretary.

The corridors of revenue authorities for long resounded with stories of the patwari’s genius for overcharging for a fard-i-haqqiat and for charging millions of rupees for changing land records to suit parties who wanted to assert the right to pre-emption. The patwari played a key role in the huge evacuee property scandals on the morrow of independence.

Many commentators agitated for an end to the patwari’s tyranny and argued that land records could be maintained like that of other urban property without employing patwaris. This argument became irrefutable with the advent of digital facilities. Thus most welcome were the reports that the patwar system was being replaced with computerised records and that facilities were being created for issuing copies by new land record centres.

Now we are told patwaris are being appointed in some selected circles. In the beginning, they will issue fard (land ownership certificate) and will be allowed to enter mutations only when they have learnt to use computers. The move has been challenged by the Punjab Land Record Authority that has on its rolls 4,500 duly trained field workers whose case for regularisation of services has been pending for years. That there is considerable weight in the PLRA staff’s objection to the revival of the patwar system cannot be denied.

Another outlandish idea floated by some sections of the bureaucracy is that government servants may be given a reward for performing their routine duties, that is, policemen should be given a special reward for catching thieves. For what else are they paid their salaries? The proposal amounts to legitimisng incompetence, sloth and shirking responsibility. There has always been room for rewarding public servants who consistently perform better than most others. Such persons used to be awarded an efficiency bar along with the annual increment. Nothing more is justified.

The process of reversal to the colonial model of administration has been going on for quite some time and the objective is demolition of the administration reform introduced by the Musharraf regime. First the commissioners were reinstated and then the deputy commissioners reappeared. No explanations were offered for these measures.

The kind of administrative changes discussed here suffer from two fundamental flaws. First, no rational working paper is offered to the people to debate the pros and cons of proposed changes; secondly, and more importantly, these changes do not enjoy vitally needed parliamentary sanction. Obviously, the colonial mindset has little respect for parliaments and hence they can be denied any part in governance.

States are rated high or low in terms of the stability or otherwise of their administrative structures. Efficiency suffers when ad hocism undermines administrative stability. What we are witnessing is trifling with the time-tested principles of administrative probity, making management of public affairs subject to authority’s whim and caprice. Such waywardness is bound to cause much misery to the people.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2020