Absentee landlordism
Topic: Land Reforms, the Green Revolution and Farm Subsidies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Absentee landlordism is when people own farmland but neither live on it nor farm it. They lease it out to tenants and only collect rent. Because the owner cares only about rent, nobody puts money into wells, drainage or better seed. Under colonial rule this kept Indian agriculture stuck and left tillers poor. It is one reason land reforms after 1947 aimed at "land to the tiller".
Example
A colonial-era zamindar lives in a distant city and lets his village land to tenants. He takes a large share of their harvest as rent but spends nothing on irrigation. The tenants can be evicted at will, so they don't invest either, and yields stay low year after year.
Don't confuse with
- Rack-renting: this means charging very high rent that leaves the tiller almost nothing. Absentee landlordism is about who owns the land and where they live. An absentee landlord may or may not rack-rent.
- Subinfeudation: this is the growth of layers of sub-lessees between the state and the tiller, each taking a cut. Absentee landlordism involves just one non-farming owner.