Page 42 - Muzaffargarh Gazzetteer

extinct, but in practice all land revenue settlement was with the landlords
who shifted the burden to tenants.
Peasant Proprietors or Bhai-chara

Bhai-chara meant “brotherhood by custom”. It was applied to those villages
which were held generally by descendants of one clan and whose rights were
determined by custom. It meant that possession of each owner or a group
owner was the measure of the rights. In other words, the wells or holding
were quite independent of one another and had nothing in common. Under
the circumstances in which the tenure system grew in this district it was not
uncommon that share holders possession should become the measure of
rights particularly when the village community did not belong to one compact
family group but a fortuitous congregation of units whom circumstances had
brought together. The introduction of different classes of landlords in the
Sultanate period, the unwanted introduction of inferior owners during Sikh
ascendancy and the settlement of refugees and the colonists after 1947
converted even the village where one clan existed collection of different
classes and groups each being owner of the land under its possession, and
having nothing in common except a joint liability of payment of land revenue
assessed on the estates long ago. How it came to be held as Bhai-chara
despite its colourful character, Settlement Officer of 1857, Captain Graham’s
remarks may be referred to as:
“In practice, each man's holding has become the sole measure of his
right. In the event of disproportion arising between any of the
holdings and the share of revenue assessed upon them, the estate is
liable to redistribution of the revenue, but to no repartition of the
lands. There is no community of possession in such lands, which are
inherited, transferred and possessed in severalty. Each estate is made
up of independent freeholds, and each freehold made up of fields
which sometimes, are contiguous, but more frequently are found
scattered about and inter-mingled with the fields of other proprietors.
The fields are often possessed by men of several different
communities, of distinct families, and tribes having no interest, either
actual or contingent, in common, and no concern with each other but
that of holding fields within the boundary of the same township,
residing in a part of the same hamlet or paying, either through a
common or separate representative, their portion of the revenue
assessed upon the village. Still these men, though maintaining their
individuality, belong to village communities, and the latter are not
unfrequently composed of the descendants of a common ancestor. In
such tenures the grazing land alone is held in common."
Where the land in villages had not been partitioned and the land was held in
Shamlat the term “Bhai-chara Ghair Mukammal” was generally applied. The
number of such villages was largest in the Tehsil Alipur where river front
prevented partition of a common riverain land. There were similar numbers
of old villages in greater Thal. To those where the measure of possession had

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