Question

about zamindars in 10 points

Answer 1

landlord or official. Zamindar, in India, a holder or occupier (dār) of land (zamīn). The root words are Persian, and the resulting name was widely used wherever Persian influence was spread by the Mughals or other Indian Muslim dynasties. The meanings attached to it were various.

Answer 2

1)Zamindars were assigned to revenue collection, as the rural agents of the government, say the Company, in Bengal and Bihar and were literally considered landholders or a combination of land -owners and tax-collectors.

2)What they collected from the cultivators and what they paid to the government officers, was kept a secret and was often wrangled upon between the two.

3)The difference between what they could squeeze from the villagers and what government officials could squeeze from them, was their living.

4)The settlements of land tax were annual, though based on the measurements of the gteat survey during the regime of Akbar.

5)Zamindars also enjoyed police and magisterial powers.

6)Formerly they might be maltreated, even beaten to make them pay more, but were rarely dispossessed.

7)Lord Cornwallis took a great measure in the settlement of revenue and land 8 in Bengal, when he was appointed as Governor-General in 1786.

8)He himself was an English landlord and believed in authority, stability and fair-play.

9)He finally introduced permanent settlements in 1789, after initially experimenting for ten years only.

10)He treated them as landlords and government agents who were to keep the countryside quiet and were assured the security of tenure, as long as they paid their dues.The same held good for the cultivators as well.