54 SOCIAL SCUBNTlst aggregate loss which amounted to 28 kharwars and twelve traks per hundred kharwars.21 In 1877 bad weather added to excessive taxation. The assessment was delayed and the peasants preferred leaving their crops to rot in their fields. As a result villages were deserted and people died of starvation.22 This situation appears to have continued upto 1880. In 1880 under the Assami- War-Khewat the revenue was made payable in cash or kind.23 The method of the Assami- War-Khewat was arrived at by taking the collections 6f two years i.e., 1877 and 1878 into account and the average was struck. Then the gross produce was recorded and one half was taken as the government's share; to this 25 per cent was added as trakee^ The quantity thus obtained in these kharwars was commuted into money at a standard price.25 The following table shows how this Assami-^War-Khewat was arrived at26 Sl. No. Crop Gross 16 Tr ' produc ak Khai FABLE?e ^wars IState »S after ai trakee ^hare Wng State Sh culated ii are cat »rupee L 'S Kh. Tr. Ch. Kh. Tr. Ch. Rs. a. P^ l. Sarson 0 6 0 0 3 0 1 8 0 2. Oilseed 4 13 0 2 6 2 21 11 6 3. Cotton 3 0 It 1 8 i 2 3 3 4. Mung (a kind of pulse) 1 5 T 0 12 li 6 1 9 5. Paddy 1438 0 .0 897 1 0 1844 2 0 Under the khewat system each tehsildar was informed of the amount he was expected to contribute to the total.27 He bonverted this quantity into cash on the'basis of Apee^ two per kharwar and out of every one rupee 10 annas were fixed as his share.28 Then he would give orders fbr the ^collection of $o many kharwars froin each village and the total collections would come to the amount which was fixed at the head quarters or more. Hov/ever, the khewat system of assessment was tio more5 oppressive than the Batai. In the khewat system the peasant was certain to retain ht least a small portion of the produce but therb was constant (opposition to the khewat system of assessment from revenue officials who preferred the collection of revenue in kind, because the khewat system reduced their share in the produce. The Katai system also provided them with an opportunity of appointing subordinate staff, i.e. a watchman, weigh man, etc, who could help them in all the fraudulent practices Tfce influential Lambardars and revenue officials who stood between the state and the peasant, tried their best to prevent any permanent settlement because it went against their interests. Even officials like Dewan Lachman Dass, Dewan of Kashmir provbce, himself a big landlord of the state, wanted the crop settlement to continue.29 In 1882 even the Izadboli (auctioning of tilt villages) was introduced