DR.

SHAKUNTALA MISRA NATIONAL

REHABILITATION UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW

FACULTY OF LAW

PROJECT- ON

A Comparative Study of Zamindari, Raiyatwari and MahalwariLand

Revenue Settlements: The Colonial Mechanisms of Surplus Extraction in
19th Century British India

SUBMITTED TO
Dr. GULAB RAI

FACULTY OF LAW
D.S.M.N.R.U

SUBMITTED BY
PREETI SINGH
B.COM L.L.B (HONS)

(IX SEMESTER)

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 INTRODUCTION

As agriculture has been the most important economic activity of the Indian people for
many centuries and it is the main source of income. Naturally, land revenue management
and administration needs a proper care to handle because it was the most important source
of income for the state too. The establishment of East India Company worked as the tool
of colonial plunder which operated through monopoly of trade and realization of land
revenue. To annihilate the traditional Asiatic mode of production, the British
Moneyocracy had converted India into its landed estates and hastens the process of
commercial revolution in India.1 They unleashed far reaching changes in Indian agrarian
structure in order to maximize extraction which slowed down the country‟s progressive
development and raised the burden on the Indian peasantry.

To consolidate political sword, the English East India Company inherited the institutional
form of agrarian system from the Mughal. They super-imposed a system over the existing
land settlement pattern in tune with British customs and laws relating to land.
Accordingly, government sponsored cooperative movement through different land
revenue experiments and brought several changes in land tenure, property relation,
agrarian productivity, food supply, marketing, agriculture indebtedness and cultivated
land in British-India.2 Gradually, all these changes transformed Indian economic history
from mercantile phase to finance capitalism.

After gaining full control over Bengal in 1765 (year of Diwanirights acquisition),
Company follow traditional land assessment system in the starting but gradually
modified the existing land settlement from time to time to collect maximum possible land
revenue which was a need of colonial administration. 3 They initiated auction based
farming system as the first experiment in 1772, where land revenue collection rights had
been allotted on contract basis. This farming system slowly developed into three major
land settlements, viz., Zamindari in Bengal, Raiyatwari in Madras and Bombay, and
Mahalwari in North Western Provinces which exposed the „colonial character of British
rule‟ and became the basis of primary accumulation of capital. The basic characteristic of
each system was the attempt to incorporate elements of the preceding agrarian structure.
The existing systems under the colonial policy produced widely different local results and
hybrid forms.4

Indian economy had been colonized on basis of two important things, first, the mode of
production specially the system of surplus extraction existing on the eve of the British
conquests. Other was the nature of the British Imperialism which transferred the Indian
1
Karl Marx, The Future Result of British in India, New York Daily Tribune, June 1853. No.3840, in Marx
and Angles; On Colonialism ,Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow, 1960, p. 85
2
A. R Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1948, p. 41-47
3
Sekhar Bandyopadhayay; From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Orient Longman, New
Delhi, 2004, p. 82
4
Romesh C. Dutt, The Economic History of India: In the Victorian Age, Vol -II, Ministry of information
and Broadcasting, govt. of India, New Delhi, 1963, p. xiiv (Preface Section)
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economy under the impact of the industrial revolution.5 Basically, the comparison of all
the settlement was made on the basis of its territorial boundary, its assessment procedures
and its impact on society and social order. The immediate consequence of implementation
of the Permanent Settlement was both sudden and very dramatic, and one which nobody
had apparently foreseen. By ensuring that Zamindars' (Land Lord) lands were held in
perpetuity and with a fixed tax burden, they became desirable commodities. In addition,
the government tax demand was inflexible and the British East India Company's
collectors refused to make allowances for times of drought, flood or other natural disaster.
The tax demand was higher than that in England at the time. As a result, many Zamindars
immediately fell into arrears. The Company's policy of auction of any Zamindari lands
deemed to be in arrears created a market for land which previously did not exist. Many of
the new purchasers of this land were Indian officials within the East India Company's
government. These bureaucrats were ideally placed to purchase lands which they knew to
be under assessed, and therefore profitable. Historian Bernhard Cohn and others have
argued that the Permanent Settlement led firstly to a commercialization of land which
previously did not exist in Bengal. And secondly, as a consequence of this, it led to a
change in the social background of the ruling class from "lineages and local chiefs" to
"under civil servants and their descendants, and to merchants and bankers". 6 The new
landlords were different in their outlook; "often they were absentee landlords who
managed their land through managers and who had little attachment to their land".

The Company hoped that the Zamindariclass would not only be a revenue-generating
instrument but serve as intermediaries for the political dominance of their rule, preserving
local custom and protecting rural life from the possibly rapacious influences of its own
representatives. However, this worked in both ways; Zamindars became a conservative
interest group. There was a tendency of Company officials and Indian landlords to force
their tenants into plantation-style farming of cash crops like indigo and cotton rather than
rice and wheat. This was a cause of many of the worst famines of the nineteenth century.
In addition, Zamindars eventually became absentee landlords, with all that implies for
neglect of investment on the land. Once the salient features of the Settlement were
reproduced all over India, the political structure was altered forever. The limitation of the
state demand enabled the Zamindars to accumulate capital which expended in fostering
agricultural enterprise, industries, public and private institutions, and in supporting the
poor in the time of distress. The capital accumulated by the Zamindars was widely
distributed and promoted well being of all classes.7

The Raiyatwarisystem instituted in some parts of British India by 1820 was one of
the two main systems used to collect revenues from the cultivators directly. However, the

5
Irfan Habib; Essays in Indian History, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 1995, p.297
6
Bandopadhayaya, S., op. cit. pp.84-87
7
From the private secretary to his Excellency the Viceroy and Governor General in India, Dated 14 th May
1900, Transfer for Disposal, A
Memorial from Mr. R. C., Dutt Regarding Land Settlement, in Bengal Proceedings No. 22, Serial No. 4, p.
21
18 | Page
amount of revenues included undifferentiated land taxes and rents, collected
simultaneously. Where the land revenue was imposed directly on the Raiyts - the
individual cultivators who actually worked the land - the system of assessment was
known as Raiytwari. Where the land revenue was imposed indirectly - through
agreements made with Zamindars - the system of assessment was known as Zamindari. In
Bombay, Madras, Assam and Burma the Zamindar usually did not have a position of
middleman between the government and the farmer.8

John Stuart Mill in 1857 explained the Raiyatwari land tenure system as „the System
where every registered holder of land is recognized as its proprietor, and pays rent
directly to the Government‟. He is at liberty to sublet his property, or to transfer it by gift,
sale, or mortgage. He cannot be ejected by Government so long as he pays the fixed
assessment, and has the option annually of increasing or diminishing his holding, or of
entirely abandoning it. In unfavorable seasons remissions of assessment are granted for
entire or partial loss of produce. The assessment is fixed in money, and does not vary
from year to year, in those cases where water is drawn from a Government source of
irrigation to convert dry land into wet, or into two-crop land, when an extra rent is paid to
Government for the water so appropriated; nor is any addition made to the assessment for
improvements effected at the Raiyat's own expense. The peasants under this system is
virtually a Proprietor on a simple and perfect title, and has all the benefits of a perpetual
lease without its responsibilities, inasmuch as he can at any time throw up his lands, but
cannot be ejected so long as he pays his dues; he receives assistance in difficult seasons,
and is irresponsible for the payment of his neighbors.9

The Annual Settlements under Raiyatwari are often misunderstood, and it is necessary to
explain that they are rendered necessary by the right accorded to the Raiyat of
diminishing or extending his cultivation from year to year. Their object is to determine
how much of the assessment due on his holding the Raiyat shall pay, and not to reassess
the land. In these cases where no change occurs in the Raiyatsholding a fresh Potta or
lease is not issued, and such parties are in no way affected by the Annual Settlement,
which they are not required to attend. John Stuart Mill, Examiner of the India Office,
"Return to an Order of the House of Commons (June 97), showing under what tenures,
and subject to what Land Tax, lands are held under the several Presidencies of
India.1011

The Mahalwari system was introduced by 1822 with the estate or „mahals‟ proprietary
bodies where lands belong jointly to the village community technically called the body of
8
Henry Cotton; India in Transition, B. R. Publishing Corporation, Delhi, 1885, p. 80-81
9
R. C. Dutt‟s Letter to Lord Curzon on the subject of Land Revenue Settlements in Madras, dated 20 th
February 1900, Proceedings No. 20,
Serial No. 2. p. 2
10
Dutt, R. C., The Economic History of India: Under Early British Rule, Vol. II, Routledge & Kegan Ltd.,
London, 1882, First Indian Edition 1960, Publication division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India Press, New Delhi, Reprinted 1963. pp.
11
-4
19 | Page
co-shares. The body of co-shares is jointly responsible for the payment of land revenue
though individual responsibility was not left out completely. The question of introducing
a settlement of land revenue in the ceded and conquered provinces came to be the fore by
the coming of 19th century. However, this system was started only by passing the
Regulation VII of 1822 which the practical implication of Mackenzie‟s minute of 1819.
The system had been broke down because of the excessive state demand and rigidity in its
working and collection of land revenue.In a typically Mahalwari village, the co-sharers
are actually the cultivators. According to J. S. Mill, „the peasant proprietors compound
with the state for a fixed period. The proprietors did not engage themselves individually
with the government, but by villages‟‟.12

When William Bentinck assumed the governorship of India, he made a thorough review
of the scheme of 1822 by which Mahalwari system had been introduced. The government
of Bentinck came to the conclusion that the Regulation of 1822 had caused a widespread
misery. After a prolonged consultation and discussion he passed the Regulation IX of
1833. This regulation made the terms and conditions of the Mahalwari system more
flexible. The new scheme worked under the supervision of Martins Bird. The new system
started a new scheme of land revenue assessment and given the right of internal
adjustments. Unfortunately, the system not worked successfully because the settlement
officers, who were the carrier of the settlement, turned corrupt and evaded the actual rules
and collected the revenue at his own discretion. As a result the system proved miserable
to the agricultural classes. This created widespread discontent and finally the Mahalwari
System failed to create any extensive effect.13

TERRITORIAL ACQUISITION UNDER THREE SETTLEMENTS

Permanent Zamindari settlements were made in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Banares division
of U.P. This settlement was further extended in 1800 to Northern Carnatic (north-eastern
part of Madras) and North-Western Provinces (eastern U.P.). It roughly covered 19
percent of total area of British India. The Mahalwari tenure was introduced in major
portion of U.P., the Central Provinces, the Punjab (with variations) and the central
providences;-while in Oudh villages are placed under taluqdar or middlemen with whom
the government deals directly. This system covered nearly 30 percent of the British
controlling area. The Raiyatwari settlements were made in major portions of Bombay,
Madras and Sindh Province. The principles of this system are also applied to Assam and
Burma. A few hilly tracts in Bengal and the coast strip of Orissa have been temporally

12
Gohit, Rohit Kumar, Social and Economic History of Modern India, Murari Lal & Son
Publication, Meerut, 2007. p.138
13
R. C Dutt‟s Letters to Lord Curzon; Dated the 12th May 1900, Remarks on the Land Settlements in
Northern-India, Proceeding No. 23,
Serial No. 5, p. 29
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settled. This system covered roughly 51 percent of the total British Indian territory.14 One
fifth of the total area.
British India has been permanently settled, viz., about 5/6 of Bengal
and Bihar, 1/8 of Assam, 1/10 of U.P., ¼ of Madras. Of the total land revenue
53 p.c. comes from the first two classes of land, and 47 p.c. from Raiyatwari
tracts.15

All these major areas were subdivided into many tracts for the better management of land
assessment. The three settlements region has been distributed under the in charge of
several British officials and native landlord to look after the function of Land Revenue
System. For example; initially Bengal territories were distributed among twelve major
and many other small Zamindars that not only played the impotent role in land
assessment process but also in local administration. 16 The Madras territories were sub
divided into several tracts of Nellore, Trichinoply, Coimbatore, Tanjore, Arcot etc. The
Mahalwari settlement region like Central Province was distributed through several
divisions of Meerut, Agra, Rohilkhand, Allahabad, Bundelkhand, Varanasi, Gorakhpur,
Lucknow, Faizabad, Kumaun etc.22

The important of landlord group in land settlement area are: (a) Under Permanent
settlement the Zamindars were recognized as proprietors of the soil with rights of free
hereditary succession, sale and mortgage, but subject to the loss of their property on
failure to the revenue on a fixed date. (B)Settlement limited forever the state demand to a
fixed revenue and certain duties or services. (C) System stipulated that the Zamindar
should safe-guard the rights of their tenants by granting those pattas or documents stating
the area and rent of their respective holdings. (D) The Zamindars were made „subject to
such rules as might be enacted by the government for securing the rights and privileges of
the tenants in their respective tenures and for protecting them against undue or
oppression‟. All abwabs, or cesses levied by the Zamindars in addition to the rent, were
abolished. The transit duties and road and ferry tolls were taken over by the government,
but the market tools and profits from fisheries, trees and waste land were left entirely to
the Zamindars. (E) The talukdars of Bengal were raised to the position of Zamindars and
allowed to pay fixed revenue directly to the government. (f) In Madras and Orissa many
petty tributary chiefs have been deprived of their ruling powers and reduced to rank of
Zamindars, subject to the payment of fixed revenue. Basically the Zamindari system was
so-called creator of private property in land.23

14
Bandyopadhayay; op. cit., pp. 82-96
15
Jadu Nath Sarkar, Economics of British India,Kuntaline Press, M.C Sarkar and Sons, Calcutta,1909 ,
p.100
16
Islam, S., The Permanent Settlement in Bengal: A Study of Its Operation 1790-1819, Bangla
Academy, Dacca (Dhaka), 1979. p.322 P. D Shrimali, Agrarian Structure, Movements and Peasant
Organization in Uttar.Pradesh, V.V. Giri National Academy, Manak Publication, New Delhi, 2004,
pp. 33-35 23Bandopadhayay; op. cit., p. 84
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Under the village settlement (Mahalwari) the revenue is settled for a limited period (30
years in U.P. and 20 years in Punjab and C.P.), with the entire body of villagers who were
jointly and separately responsible for the revenue of the whole village. Their head called
the Lambardar17, sign the agreement with the government to pay the revenue on behalf of
the villagers. The assessment of the revenue by the village council is supervised by the
settlement officer of the government, and the village maps and records of rights are
carefully preserved and brought up to date. The government demand is estimated by a
careful calculation of the value of the land, the price of the crops, and the recorded actual
produce of the field. In the Mahalwari settlement, the government deals only with the
middlemen, whether individuals or group of villagers, who were held responsible for the
revenue. Nearly half of the area thus settled is cultivated by these middlemen themselves,
and the other half by inferior tenants subject to the middlemen. The government demand
was formally 90 p.c. of the net assets, but it was now been reduced to 50 p.c., or even
less, except in Bombay, where there was no limit of to the maximum. The net asset is
taken to be the economic rent which the actual cultivators pays to the superior proprietors,
where there is subletting. In other places, the net assets is arrived at by deducting from the
assume price of the crops the approximate cost of production, and little extra for his
luxurious. In the province of Oudh, the government settled the revenue of a group of
villages with a Talukdar or chief. These Talukdars differ from the Zamindars of Bengal in
two respects: (1) the settlement with the former is temporary, and they have no absolute
right over their estates such as the Bengal Zamindars possess.18

Under the Raiyatwari settlement the government deals directly with the cultivators and
recognizes no middlemen. Each village is carefully surveyed, and every cultivator‟s
holding or plot of land in it was marked and separately numbered. Village maps with
accurate boundary lines, classification of the soil, and the names of the occupants, are
carefully compiled and preserved, and the revenue was assessed on each occupant. This
right of occupancy can be inherited and transferred by the peasants; hence there was some
amount of sub-letting even in the Raiyatwari provinces. In other respects the method of
assessment was the same as in the Mahalwari settlement.19

The Zamindari and Raiyatwari areas differed in the pattern of their subsequent
development. One important determinant was investment. In Zamindari area, the
government left the responsibility of making investment to the Zamindars. In Raiyatwari
areas, they implicitly or explicitly assumed this responsibility. Perhaps there was an
element of calculation too behind this discussion. Taxes being fixed forever in the
Zamindari areas, the government could not hope to recover returns to increased asset
value of the land in the form of taxes. In Ryotwari the road remained open. This was one
of the reasons, but perhaps not the only one, why irrigation development occurred to a
greater extent in the Ryotwari areas. Further, revenue farming had already weakened the
17
See For Detail: Maine, H. S., Village Community in the East and West, B. R Publishing Corporation,
New Delhi, First Published 1913, Reprinted 1985.
18
Bandopadhayay, S., op. cit., pp. 92-96
19
Sarkar, J., op. cit., pp.100-105
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official information-gathering system in the villages on the eve of the Permanent
settlement. Consequently, Zamindari areas continued for long to remain statistical back
holes.20

Baden Powell, one of the authorities on land revenue system in British India, summarized
the several interests in land under different system of tenures. In the situation of state
landlordism, there was only one interest in land was categorized into two, the government
and the Raiyats. In Zamindari it was three, the government, the Zamindars, and the actual
cultivating holders. In Mahalwari system the interest in land was categorizes into four, the
government, the landlord, tenant holders and actual cultivating holders. 21 These three
systems underwent lot of conversion during the course of years and this resulted the
intermixing of feature in fact tended towards Zamindari system. Evils of Zamindari
system and absentee landlordism percolated all the tenurial system in India. Subletting
and rack-renting became a common trait even in the Raiyatwari areas. The Mahalwari
system acquired the traits of Zamindari system in Madhya Pradesh and U. P. where the
government laid stress on joint responsibility of the village for land revenue assessment.22

Under permanent settlement the protection of right of the cultivators for which
government had stipulated with the Zamindars in 1793, was long neglected, and has been
secured by later legislation. The occupancy tenants of Bengal and the cultivating village
owner of Bihar, now practically occupy the position of the peasant-proprietors of Europe,
and are subject to the magic of property. The first named class enjoys the entire fruits of
their labour and capital and always a certain position at least, in practice the whole, of the
unearned increment. They have every interest in improving their lands, and agriculture
flourishing under them. Where illegal cesses are still levied by the Zamindars, it is due to
the corruption or weakness of the police, but cannot be necessary consequences of the
Permanent Settlement. Though the settlement was pro-Zamindar, they too hard to face a
number of difficulties. As Daniel Thorner had argued, creation of private property in land
was a misnomer, as the absolute ownership was retained by imperial authority. 23 The
vigilant care of Magistrates is rendering such unauthorized extortion less frequent, in the
same way as it is putting down dacoities. Where a royt is non-occupancy he cannot spent
his capital on improvements, and industry is discouraged. But the Zamindari system is
theoretically favorable to agricultural improvement at the cost of the Zamindar, because
he is the permanent owner can recover his outlay from the land. Moreover Zamindari
estate being large in area, if a Zamindar betakes himself to farming, he can derive all the
advantages of production on a large scale, which is impossible in the small plots of the
Mahalwari and Raiyatwari areas.

20
Tirthankar Roy, „The Economic History of India; 1857-1947, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 58
21
See for more: Baden Powell, B. H., The Land System of British India, Oxford at Clarendon Press, A Set
of three Volumes, London, 1892.
22
Gohit; op. cit, p.138
23
D. N Dhanagre, Peasant movements in India, 1920-1950, Oxford university press, New Delhi, 1983
(cited in)
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Methods of collection of land revenue in the three distinguished settlements were
different. In permanent settlement area naturally the collector collected the revenue from
the Zamindar on a fixed date. The Zamindar were bound to submit the fixed amount on
due date punctually under threat of the immediate sale of the estate. In Eastern India, the
permanent settlement gave proprietary rights to the middle tire, the formally powerful tax
collectors, in exchange for a sum of money that was fixed in perpetuity. 24 In Madras there
is some difference: the Act (II of 1864) says the recovery shall be according to the terms
of the title deed. The land revenue Acts of the provinces where village-estate settlements
prevail, have a different procedure for the recovery of arrears of the land revenue and
other public dues that are provided by law to be recoverable as if they were arrears of land
revenue. Briefly, instead of sale being the first and ordinary procedure, it is only adopted
as the last report. There were a series of measures, beginning with a simple notice of
demand; and only if the others fail can the sale of the estate be ordered. The revenue in
village settlement is made payable by certain installments, and if these are not paid up in
full at due date, the responsible party became a defaulter. In Mahalwari region basically
the headman are primarily and personally liable as defaulter for the land revenue arrears
of their village or section of a village (Patti). These headmen were regulated by the
government official called Tahsildar. In Raiyatwari provinces, in each year before the
collections are closed, an account is prepared, village by village by the village officers
and under supervision of the Assistant collector of the land actually held, and the correct
total dues for the year. This necessitated by the fact that the Rayiyats may have
relinquished some of his land, or taken up new field on application. In Raiyatwari
provinces also there were various items of revenue account to be gone into; certain
remissions which was always allowed for spoiled crops, and certain adjustment with
reference to water rate, this process known as Jamabandi. As regard the actual process of
recovery in arrears, in Madras, the law provides for the attachment and sale of movable
and immovable property, and the imprisonment of the defaulter. Immovable property is
not sold without first issuing a write of demand seeing whether the defaulter can make
some arrangement for payment. The property moreover, need not be sold outright, but
may be taken under management. As to the conditions under which personal arrest are
allowed.25

24
Tirthankar Roy; The Economic History of India (1857 -1947), Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006,
p. 48
25
Baden Powell; Op. cit, p. 238-244
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Similarities among three settlements behind the apparent differences, the Raiyatwari and
the Zamindari system shared certain fundamental similarities. In both cases, the British
had favored certain categories of right holders to the detriments of the others by
conferring on them full and undivided ownership of the land. Other hand in Mahalwari
region the local chiefs (rajahs, Zamindars, talukdars), being of ancient stock or firmly
established were conformed as owner. But most often, it transpired that the mastery over
village cultivated lands, in these regions, traditionally belonged to the undivided
community of farmers, in general presented by the village chief. Here, as elsewhere, the
group of powerful individuals who became full-fledged proprietors did not include all the
cultivators. It consist of a peasant elite like intermediaries of others settlement area that
employed agricultural labour, and whose land were often cultivated by tenants.

25 | Page
 CONCLUSION

Zamindari System was introduced by Cornwallis in 1793 through Permanent Settlement

Act.
It was introduced in provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Varanasi.Also known
as Permanent Settlement System.Zamindars were recognized as owner of the
lands. Zamindars were given the rights to collect the rent from the peasants.The realized
amount would be divided into 11 parts. 1/11 of the share belongs to Zamindars and 10/11
of the share belongs to East India Company.

RYOTWARI SYSTEM

Ryotwari System was introduced by Thomas Munro in 1820.Major areas of introduction

include Madras, Bombay, parts of Assam and Coorgh provinces of British India.In
Ryotwari System the ownership rights were handed over to the peasants. British
Government collected taxes directly from the peasants.The revenue rates of Ryotwari
System were 50% where the lands were dry and 60% in irrigated land.

MAHALWARI SYSTEM

Mahalwari system was introduced in 1833 during the period of William Bentick.It was
introduced in Central Province, North-West Frontier, Agra, Punjab, Gangetic Valley, etc
of British India.The Mahalwari system had many provisions of both the Zamindari
System and Ryotwari System.In this system, the land was divided into Mahals. Each
Mahal comprises one or more villages.Ownership rights were vested with the
peasantsThe villages committee was held responsible for collection of the taxes.

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