This paper concerns the set of issues surrounding the
imposition in south India of a Permanent Settlement in 1803 for the
local "nobility" -- the "ancient zamindars and polygars." I focus
here on the "little kings" themselves, their transformation into
"landlords", and the implications of the new political economy for the
old political logic in which law, property, and the state were linked
in very different ways. I look in particular at the problems
concerning "alienation" under the Permanent Settlement, the fact that
landlords, in contravention of the principles of profit and
management, continued to make gifts of land. I conclude by examining
the implications of my narratives for a consideration of colonial
state and society, with respect in particular to the praxis of culture
and the discourse of law. I demonstrate that all colonial
transformations were, for inherent structural reasons, incompletely
realized
