28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST result of the vagueness in land laws and inadequacy of safeguards provided to the cultivators,, the tyranny of the zamindars continued unabated,, worsening the conditions of the cultivators. Under regulations XXVIII of 1802 while a zamindar was empowered to distrain and sell the crops, he was prevented from doing the same with the cultivators5 cattle and other personal effects. With the help of the courts., the zamindar could attach and manage the defaulters5 holdings and get them arrested. As against these powers of the zamindars., the ryot was left unprotected from any possible abuses by the former. The only safeguard provided to the ryot was a provision allowing him to proceed against the zamindar by regular suits in law courts. But this could hardly prevent the zamindars from playing an oppressive role. Fugitives Forced Back to Farming Realizing the gravity of the situation the government passed another regulation in 1822 stating that the 1802 regulations were not meant "to define,, infringe or destroy the actual rights of any description of landholders or tenants55. However, ^Notwithstanding these regulations, the zamindars continued to take more than what was granted to them, attempting at every turn to assert their right to enhance the rents and also to eject the cultivators. This went on for a long time with the influence of the landholders (zamindars) gaming steadily.5522 To the zamindari ryot of coastal Andhra no better alternative than an abandonment of cultivation and running away from the village was available. Such hapless fugitive farmers when traced out were brought back to their native areas and forced to cultivate their holdings. The built-in institutional handicaps of the exploitative agrarian relations continued well into the twentieth century. One redeeming feature which lessened the rigours of the system was the provision of irrigation by the anicuts which hastened agricultural expansion from the middle of the nineteenth century. True, progress at times was either retarded or slowed down by, among other things, a heavy tax burden, transport bottlenecks and poor water management by the farmers. And paradoxically, agrarian expansion and deteriorating conditions of agricultural labourers went hand in hand during the second half of the nineteenth century. [This articfe is based on chapter II of my Ph D thesis. Changing Conditions and Growth of Agricultural Economy in the Krishna and Godavari Districts, 1840-1890, submitted to Andhra University in 1973. 1 place on record my thanks to my revered teacher and research supervisor, Professor GParthasarathy^ for his guidance and encouragement. I am also grateful to professors Amalendu Guha, Dharma Kumar and S C Gupta for their suggestions and comments on the thesis.]