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Revenue System (Permanent Settlement (Introduced in Bengal and Bihar …
Revenue System
Permanent Settlement
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Revenue collectors were converted into so many landlords. They were not only to act as agents of the Government in collecting land revenue from the ryot, but also to become the owners of the entire land (over which they were collecting revenue).
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cultivators were reduced to the low status of mere tenants and were deprived of long-standing rights to the soil and other customary rights.
tenancy of Bengal was left entirely at the mercy of the zamindars. This was done so that the zamindars might be able to pay in time the exorbitant land revenue demand of the Company.
The zamindars were to give 10/11th of the rental they derived from the peasantry to the state, keeping only 1/11th for themselves. But the sums to be paid by them as land revenue were fixed in perpetuity.
At the same time, the zamindar had to pay his revenue rigidly on the due date even if the crop had failed for some reason; otherwise his lands were to be sold (Sunset Laws)
Ryotwari Settlement
The establishment of British rule in South and South-Western India brought new problems of land settlement. The officials believed that in these regions there were no zamindars with large estates with whom settlement of land revenue could be made and that the introduction of zamindari system would upset the existing state of affairs. Many Madras officials led by Reed and Munro recommended that settlement should therefore be made directly with the actual cultivators. The system they proposed, is known as the Ryotwari Settlement,
under which the cultivator was to be recognized as the owner of his plot of land subject to the payment of land revenue.
The supporters of the Ryotwari Settlement claimed that it was a continuation of the state of affairs that had existed in the past. Munro said: "It is the system which has always prevailed in India".
The Ryotwari Settlement was introduced in parts of the Madras and Bombay Presidencies in the beginning of the 19th century.
The settlement under the Ryotwari system was not made permanent. It was revised periodically after 20 to 30 years when the revenue demand was usually raised
Mahalwari settlement
A modified version of the zamindari settlement, introduced in the Gangetic valley, the North-West Provinces, parts of Central India, and Punjab, was known as the Mahalwari System.
The revenue settlement was to be made village by village or estate (mahal) by estate with landlords or heads of families who collectively claimed to be the landlords of the village or the estate. .
In Mahalwari areas also, the land revenue was periodically revised. Both the Zamindari and the Ryotwari systems, departed fundamentally from the traditional land systems of the country.
The British created a new form of private property in land in such a way that the benefit of the innovation did not go to the cultivators. All over the country, the land was now made salable, mortgagable, and alienable. This was done primarily to protect the Government's revenue. If land had not been made transferable or salable, the Government would find it very difficult to realize revenue from a cultivator who had no savings or possessions out of which to pay it.
The British by making land a commodity which could be freely bought and sold introduced a fundamental change in the existing land systems of the country. The stability and the continuity of the Indian villages were shaken, in fact, the entire structure of the rural society began to break up