Although the individuals varied (in our examples,
ryots, Egyptian farmers, white settlers, government officials, etc.), the empowerment of certain groups over others through water control was another story writ large across the land and waterscapes of Britain's formal and informal empire.
In this study, cystic swelling of the scrotum were more common in
ryots followed by agriculturists and students.
As one shareholder said in 1851, "I care nothing about the line or what is done with the money, so only that it is spent to secure the 5 per cent." (74) Thus, the effect of the railway scheme was a massive transfer of wealth from Indian peasants and
ryots to British stockholders of the railway companies.
The Champaran protest enabled Gandhi to move the government to abolish the system and release indigo farmers from their oppression: "The
ryots, who had all along remained crushed, now somewhat came to their own, and the superstition that the stain of indigo could never be washed out was exploded." (4)
Two Naib-Dewans (Deputies of the Nawab in the field of revenue administration) remained directly responsible for the collection of revenue (12) and under their control and supervision Zamindars (somewhat like feudal landlords) collected land revenue from the
ryots (cultivators/peasants).
www.redcarrocks.com; BETH MACARI - Mink, Middlesbrough; THE DIRTY RIVERS - Ku, Stockton, Free in until 11pm; THE IDIOM - Blues at the Bay, Cleveland Bay, Eaglescliffe; BLUE ROSE CODE - Green Room, Stockton, 7.30pm, PS6/PS8 SATURDAY THE IDLE HANDS - Saltburn Cricket Club, PS10, www.wegotickets.com; THE
RYOTS - Georgian Theatre, Stockton, 8pm, SOLD OUT; GEORGE MCINTOSH - Ranch House Club, Thoralby Farm, Skutterskelfe, Hutton Rudby.
Despite this, no one ever paraded the womenfolk of their
ryots naked in the bazaar.
These people are not the weavers, coal miners, timber workers,
ryots, or other groups which might help to comprise the fragmented parts of the subaltern groups as Gramsci defined them, any more than they are the fisher people, cottiers, villagers, slum dwellers, spalpeens, dockers, sex workers, of nineteenth-century Ireland.
The Indian revolt does not commence with the
ryots, tortured, dishonoured and stripped naked by the British, but with the sepoys, clad, fed and patted, fatted and pampered by them.
India's and Ireland's particularity was effectively erased by advocates like George Campbell, former governor of Bengal, who explained enthusiastically to his readers that the trick to penetrating Irish land difficulties lay in understanding that in Ireland "The landholders were rather Asiatic Zemeendars than English landlords, and the occupiers were not English tenants, but rather
ryots holding very small tenures according to custom" (38).