I will give my reasons in the end after speaking about another matter which is connected with this clause. I think it was Machiavelli who said that one will excuse the murderer of his own father but not the person who will take away his property. Perhaps that is the reason why there is so much discussion about this subject here and elsewhere. Property is not of a single species; property is or various species. I may particularly point out to you Sir, and the honourable Members, that clauses (4) and (6) of this amendment refer to a particular species of property, namely zamindari property. I really feel that the word “property” should not be applied to this particular species at all, because when the sanad was granted in 1802, or earlier than that in Bengal when the Permanent Settlement was introduced, the sanad milkiyat intimrari, gave the right to the zamindars to collect the rent only. They were only mere agents to collect the rent and were asked to pay a portion of it as peshkash to the Government. Therefore the belief that the zamindars have got a right of property in this business is far from the truth. It is a well-known maxim that nobody can confer on someone what he does not himself possess. From time Immemorial the tradition and the law of this country has been that the tiller of the soil, or the society of which he has been a member, is the owner of the village or the particular holding. Therefore, when only the right to collect the rent was conferred on the zamindar it can never be said that a kind of property was conferred upon these gentlemen because the grantee himself had no proprietory right in that land.
