BharatNotes Taluqdari
noun (uncountable); also adjectiveUsage in a UPSC answer
Dalhousie's Summary Settlement of 1856, which curtailed taluqdari rights in Awadh by imposing direct British revenue collection from village headmen, alienated the powerful landed aristocracy and became a proximate cause of the 1857 revolt.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Word Family
taluqdari (noun/adj), taluqdar (agent noun — the landlord), taluqa (base noun — the estate/sub-district), zamindari (related/analogous noun), raiyat (contrasting noun — peasant tenant)
Root
Arabic/Persian taluq (attachment, estate, dependency) + Persian -dār (holder) + Persian -ī (abstract suffix) → 'estate-holdership'
Etymology
From Arabic ta'alluq (connection, attachment, sub-district), via Persian taluqa (sub-district, attached estate), combined with the Persian agentive suffix -dār (holder). The term entered Hindustani administrative vocabulary through Mughal revenue terminology, where a taluqa was a subdivision of a sarkar. In Awadh, the taluqdars evolved from revenue farmers into powerful landed magnates by the 18th century.
Memory Hook
TALUQ-DARI: a TALUQ is an estate 'attached' to a powerful lord (DAR = holder) — picture a magnate holding a cord attached to thousands of acres of Awadh farmland.
How This Word Works in UPSC Writing
A land-revenue and tenure arrangement in which large intermediary holders, the taluqdars, were responsible for collecting revenue from the cultivators of a taluqa and remitting it to the state. Its significance in GS1 modern history is that it created a powerful intermediary class between the state and the tiller, whose position was confirmed or disturbed by successive colonial settlements, and whose loyalties consequently mattered a great deal in the politics of the nineteenth century.
Don’t Confuse It With
Taluqdari worked through large intermediary revenue holders. Zamindari is the closely related system settled with landlords, and the two overlap regionally. Ryotwari settled revenue directly with the individual cultivator, removing the intermediary. Mahalwari settled it with the village community as a unit.
Hindi Meaning
तालुक़दारी (tāluqdārī); तालुक़दार is the holder.
Common Questions
- What was the taluqdari system?
- A land-revenue arrangement in which large intermediary holders collected revenue from cultivators of a taluqa and remitted it to the state.
- How did taluqdari differ from ryotwari?
- Taluqdari operated through a powerful intermediary class, while ryotwari settled revenue directly with the individual cultivator without any intermediary.
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