BharatNotes Bandobast
nounUsage in a UPSC answer
Ahead of the mass gathering, the district administration's painstaking bandobast — deploying paramilitary contingents, erecting medical camps, and coordinating crowd-control corridors — exemplified the kind of anticipatory governance that converts disaster-management doctrine from paper into practice.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
bandobast (n), bandobasts (n pl); No standard English derivatives; used chiefly in Indian administrative English
Root
Persian band (tying, binding) + bast (arrangement) → Hindi-Urdu bandobast (a binding arrangement).
Etymology
From Hindi-Urdu bandobast (बंदोबस्त / بندوبست), from Persian band-o-bast — band ("tying, binding") + bast ("arrangement"); literally "a binding arrangement" — reflecting the formal, contractual nature of the revenue settlement between the state and the peasant.
Memory Hook
Hear "BAND-o-bast" as a band being bound and fastened tight — every player arranged in place: a tightly tied-up arrangement where nothing is left loose.
How This Word Works in UPSC Writing
A revenue settlement, and in Mughal usage the arrangement fixing what the cultivator owed the state. The system associated with Raja Todar Mal, called zabti or dahsala, was settled in 1580 and worked by averaging the produce of each crop and the prices prevailing over the preceding ten years, from which a cash demand per unit of area was fixed for each locality. Three features made it a genuine advance and are the examinable ones: land was measured rather than estimated, using a standardised bigha and a jointed bamboo rod that could not stretch as rope had done; the demand was stated in cash, which pushed cultivators towards the market and monetised the rural economy; and by fixing rates in advance it limited the discretion of the assessing officer. It was never universal, and where measurement was impracticable the state fell back on crop-sharing, estimation or assessment from past records.
Don’t Confuse It With
Zabti or dahsala fixed a cash demand from ten-year averages of produce and price after measuring the land. Ghalla-bakhshi or batai divided the actual harvest between state and cultivator, so the state shared the risk of a bad year. Kankut estimated the yield of a standing crop by inspection rather than measuring it after harvest. Nasaq assessed from past records without fresh measurement. The Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl is the source recording these arrangements.
Hindi Meaning
बंदोबस्त (bandobast); ज़ब्ती (zabtī) and दहसाला (dahsālā) for Todar Mal's system.
Common Questions
- What was the dahsala system?
- Todar Mal's settlement of 1580, which fixed a cash revenue demand for each locality using the average produce and average prices of the previous ten years on measured land.
- What were the alternatives to zabti?
- Ghalla-bakhshi or batai, which divided the actual harvest; kankut, which estimated the standing crop; and nasaq, which assessed from past records without fresh measurement.
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