Page 46 - Muzaffargarh Gazzetteer

The Pati-dari tenure is rare. The few villages classed under that head were
formed more by throwing into one village areas held by different groups of
proprietors.
The following extract from an old Gazetteer will be found interesting:
“It is in many cases simply impossible to class a village satisfactorily under
any one of the ordinarily recognized tenures, the primary division of rights
between the male sub-divisions of the village following one form while the
interior distribution among the several proprietors of each of their sub-
divisions follows another form which itself often varies from one sub-division
to another. Especially in this the case in Muzaffargarh where the village
communities are not as a rule compact family group, the members of which
claim descent from a common ancestor, but fortuitous aggregations of units
whom circumstances rather than nature, have brought together. Owing to
the mode in which inferior proprietorship was formed, viz. by settling
individuals to till the land, it follows that most villages are mere collections
of wells, grouped together for serving purposes but not really knit together in
any way, and that the only real bond in many cases, between the members
of village community in this district is the artificial bond, imposed by our
Government, of joint responsibility for the land revenue. To such
communities as in Multan, so here, neither of the terms pattidari or
bhayyachara, can their original significance be applied with propriety. The
technical sense, however, of the term bhayyachara, which is used to express
a state of things where possession, and not ancestral descent, is the measure
of right and liability, seems to apply more nearly than the term pattidari,
which implies that ancestral right, as derived from a common ancestor, is
the rule by which each man's share in the village lands is determined. The
process by which the existing state of things was arrived at differs materially
from the process implied in the terms pattidari and bhayyachara; but looking
at results along, it is possible to apply the term bhayyachara in its technical
sense to these villages. The extent of each man's possession is the measure
of his rights in, and liabilities on account of the village and this is practically
the essential feature of the bhayyachara tenure.”
The villages classed as Zamindari were few, and can best be understood in
the words of the Settlement Officer of 1857, Captain Graham:
“In practice, each man's holding has become the sole measure of his right.
In the event of disproportion arising between any of the followings and the
share of revenue assessed upon them, the estate excess 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 lie contiguous, but more
frequently are found scattered about and intermingled with the fields of other
proprietors. These 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

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