Pre-british land ownership pattern in india
Answers
Land ownership started in the post vedic era. It was based on the community and there was no individual ownership of land. During the Maurya and Gupta periods the king had control over the land but there was individual ownership of ancestral land also. During the medieval times the king would give a grant of land to an individual who could hand it over to farmers on patta.
The land under the Sultanate was divided into three parts :
1. Khalsa : land directly under the Centre.
2. Ekta : land given to officers in lieu of their salary.
3. Land donated to scholars and priests.
Khoot, Mukaddam and Choudhary were the intermediate land owning class. Khoots had the same position as zamindars. Mukaddam and Choudhary were heads of villages and were prosperous farmers. They used to collect taxes from the farmers and deposit it in the Central treasury.
During the rule of Allauddin Khilji State's employees collected taxes from the land owning farmers.
Sher Shah Suri introduced the 'Jabt' system, where tax was based on the size of the holding.
Akbar divided the land into 'Khalsa' and 'Jagir'. The Mansabdars were known as Jagirdars. They derived their salaries from the revenue of the land given to them. There was also a large class of Zamindars. The Zamindars were divided into three categories. The farmers were of two types - 'Khudkashta' and 'Pahikashta'. The former were farmers who tilled their own lands and the latter were landless peasants who tilled other people's land. So there may have been several claimants to the same plot of land.