Impact of British Land Revenue Policy

British Land Revenue Policy

For Britishers in India, land revenue was one of the most important sources of income. During British control in India, there were three types of land revenue systems in place. They were:

• The Zamindari System
• The Mahalwari System
• The Ryotwari System

Since the grant of Diwani for Orissa, Bihar, and Bengal in 1765, the East India Company’s principal objective has been to collect as much revenue as possible. Several land revenue experiments were implemented to maximise extraction, but the Nawab administration was maintained, with Muhammad Reza Khan serving as the Company’s Naib Diwan.

System of Agriculture

In 1772, Warren Hastings proposed the idea. Under this system, the revenue collection right was sold to the highest bidder.

Permanent Arrangements

In 1789, Cornwallis began a ten-year land revenue settlement with the Zamindars, but in 1793, he made it “permanent,” and the Permanent Land Revenue Settlement was born.

Basic Features

• The Zamindars were given hereditary ownership of the land they controlled. They had complete control over the land, as did their descendants.
• The Zamindari system for cultivators allowed them to sell and buy land.
• There was no direct communication between the state and the peasantry.
• The Zamindars agreed to share the company’s revenue permanently.

Consequently, three parties were involved in the Permanent Land Revenue settlement: the Government, the Zamindar, and the ‘ryot’ or cultivator. The roles of the Government and the Zamindar are defined in this agreement. Still, the part of the riot is not, and the riot is left to the mercy of the Zamindari system for Zamindars, resulting in the riot being the worst affected by this agreement.

Impact of British land revenue policies

Since Zamindars were guaranteed land ownership, many chose to remain in towns. Landlords received money from their agents, who took illicit taxes from the tenants and the official ones.

Because the revenue was locked in stone, the corporation could not benefit from rising produce prices. Peasants and landlords both profited during these periods.

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Ryotwari Settlement

Features

• Land ownership was vested in peasants rather than Zamindars in this arrangement.
• On the other hand, Munro’s approach created a clear separation between public and private ownership. Individual peasants’ landowners who secured the title by paying annual revenue assessments, or cash rentals, to the Government were referred to as the supreme landlord.

As time went on, this became a field assessment system, with rent payable on each field being permanently measured by a general survey of all fields. Then, there would be annual agreements between the Government and the cultivator, choosing to accept or refuse. If he accepted, he would be given a patta, a private property title, and the land would be left fallow if no cultivator could be found.

Evolution of Ryotwari Settlement:

• Alexander Reed began the Ryotwari system experiment in Baramahal in 1792, and Thomas Munro continued it in 1801.
• The situation began to alter in the second phase, in 1820, when Thomas Munro returned to India as the Governor of Madras and imposed the Ryotwari system settlement.

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Third Phase

• Beginning this year, a scientific survey of the land and a new revenue assessment was carried out, resulting in a reduction in the actual tax burden.
• It was decided that the revenue rate would be half the net worth of the land produced and that the settlement would be for 30 years. The introduction of the reform system in 1864 resulted in instant agricultural prosperity and expansion. However, two famines in 1865-66 and 1876-78 disrupted the plan.

Impact of Ryotwari System

• The stringent tax collection system pushed ryots into the hands of moneylenders, even though the cultivator position grew safer.
• Because the Government had grown into a vast Zamindar, it was free to increase revenue whenever it pleased. The collection police officers were left to deal with the cultivator.

Mahalwari System

• It was first introduced in British India’s Punjab, North-West Frontier, Agra, Central Province, and Gangetic Valley
• The Mahalwari system was created by combining the Zamindari system for cultivators and Ryotwari systems
• The land was divided into Mahals in this method. There are one or more villages in each Mahal
• The peasants were given ownership rights
• The village committee was charged with collecting the taxes

The system was improved (by another civilian, R. M. Bird) to allow for a detailed study to determine the revenue of a mahal or fiscal unit based on the net worth of possible field produce. The state was to take two-thirds of the land’s net income, and the settlement was to last thirty years.

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Impact of Mahalwari System

• Peasants did not gain much from removing intermediaries between the government and the hamlet because the government altered the revenue every year
• As a result, irrigation infrastructure has progressed, while the government has reaped the majority of the system’s benefits

Some Other Systems

Talukdar System

•  In Oudh, taluqdar is a great landholder
• But in Bengal, a taluqdar is next to zamindar in the extent of land control and social status

Malguzari System

• The Malguzari System, in which the Malguzar was merely a revenue farmer under the Marathas, governed the land tenure in the former Central Provinces
• When the Marathas came into power in this region, they farmed out the revenues of villages to persons of influence and wealth, who were called Malguzars

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Conclusion

Over-assessment was a common element of all the settlements, given the Government’s central ideology of maximising revenue income. The consequences of the British land revenue policy included payment arrears, more outstanding debt, increased land sales, and dispossession.