Sir IV. Sleeman pronounced the Meena irre claimable ; but Colonel Younghusband, about 1864, took the Kherar police in hand, and began operations which resulted in complete success. The Meena from the north were the most formidable class with whom he had to deal. The Thuggee and Dacoity Department had been bringing the Meena to justice ever since its operations began, but special efforts and systematic proceedings against them in their homes had never been pur sued so persistently and vigorously as the matter required. An officer was then appointed to con duct, under Colonel Harvey's direction, operations for the suppression of dacoity throughout Northern Rajputana, amongst the Meena, who, in conse queue: of a famine, had been doubly active in robbing the Government mail, and committing other depredations. They made free use of the railway, and had, it is said, resolved in council assembled to continue their mode of life and resist all measures of repression and reform. The mode of proceeding in Native States, when the chiefs act at all against robber tribes, is to drive them away if possible, and this was formerly the system in Jeypore. But the true way of dealing with them is to control their movements at their homes, where they rarely commit depredations. The successful
plan pursued against the Purihar, was to hold the headmen responsible for the presence of the Meena in their villages. None could absent themselves from their respective villages without a leave certificate, or if any did so, they were liable to be seized and punished. The Meena are not of low caste, like the Sansee, the Bhowree, and other thieving tribes. • Colonel Tod, writing in the early part of the 19th century, says the Meena afford an excellent practical illustration of Menu's axiom, that the right in the soil belongs to him who first cleared and tilled the land. The Rajput conqueror claims and receives the tribute of the soil, but were he to attempt to enforce more, he would be brought to his senses by one of their various modes of self defence, incendiarism, self -immolation, or aban donment of the lands in a body. Throughout India, he adds, where traces of originality yet exist, it will invariably appear that the right in the soil is in the cultivator, who maintains, even in exile, the huk bapota-ca-bhom in as decided a manner as any freeholder in England.—Campbell, p. 45; Colonel Brooke in literis ; Tod's Rajas than, i.681, ii. 612, 672 ; Cole. _Myth. Hind. p. 299.