Zamindari

🎯 How This Word Works in UPSC Writing

A settlement made with a landlord intermediary. Under the Permanent Settlement of 1793 Cornwallis fixed the demand in perpetuity and recognised zamindars as proprietors, on the reasoning that a secure landed gentry would invest in improvement as it was believed to have done in England, and would form a class loyal to British rule. The second aim succeeded and the first did not. Because the demand was fixed while prices and population rose, the state's real revenue fell steadily, a fiscal error never repeated elsewhere in India. Because payment was enforced by the sunset law, under which an estate was auctioned if the instalment was unpaid by sunset on the due date, many established families were displaced by urban speculators with no interest in cultivation. And because zamindars drew rent through layers of sub-tenure without any obligation to invest, the cultivator was left with neither security nor incentive, which is why zamindari abolition became the first act of post-independence land reform.