zamindari system
Hereditary tax collectors
The zamindari system was a form of land revenue collection in British India where zamindars—hereditary landholders—collected taxes from peasant cultivators and passed a portion to the colonial government.
The zamindars became a landed aristocracy while tenants often faced exploitation and insecurity.
The system was abolished after Indian independence through land reform legislation.
- land reformsPolicies redistributing agricultural property
- taxationCompulsory government revenue collection
- CornwallisBritish commander, Revolutionary War
- tenant farmerOne who leases farmland
- colonialismDomination through foreign settlement
British Raj · Permanent Settlement · landlordism · feudalism · Mughal Empire · peasant class · sharecropping · tenancy · rent collection · economic exploitation · agricultural production · bonded labor · agrarian economy · Bengal · rent · estate · village · agriculture
- British IndiaBritish Raj, East India Company, viceroy, Raj, governor-general
- Bengal HistoryBengal Renaissance, colonial rule, Calcutta, Kolkata, Dhaka
- Colonial IndiaEast India Company, British Raj, British rule, nawabs, colonial expansion
- land tenurefreehold, leasehold, land ownership, tenancy, land deed
zamindari systemland redistribution
Reassigning property among populations
land reform · agrarian reform · collective farming · cooperative farming