Ryot

Also called: Raiyat, Riaya, Muzarian, Kisan, Asami · Topic: Mughal Agrarian Society and Economy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"; Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"

Meaning

Ryot is the spelling used in British records for raiyat (plural riaya), a Persian word for a peasant. Indo-Persian sources of the 16th-17th centuries used raiyat and muzarian, while sources from the Hindi belt used kisan and asami. [2]

• It matters because the peasant paid the tax on the produce, and that tax was the main source of income for Mughal rulers. [2]
• The same word lived on into British rule. So a Mughal raiyat and a colonial ryot are the same person in the documents. [2]

Explanation

One peasant, many names

• No single word was used for the peasant in Mughal times.
• Persian terms (in Indo-Persian sources): raiyat (plural riaya) and muzarian.
• Hindi-belt terms: kisan and asami.
• The British spelling: raiyat became ryot in British records. It is the same word, written the English way. [2]
• So when a question says raiyat, riaya, muzarian, kisan, asami or ryot, it means the peasant.

Two kinds of raiyat

• Khud-kashta ("self-cultivating"):
• They lived in the village where their fields were.

• They owned the land they farmed.

• Pahi-kashta ("outsider cultivator"):

• They lived in one village but farmed in another, on a contract.

• They moved for one of two reasons:

  • By choice: another village offered better revenue terms, such as a lower tax demand.
  • By force: famine or hunger at home drove them out.

• Exam point: pahi-kashta was a contract arrangement. The pahi-kashta did not own land in the village where they farmed.

What the raiyat owned

• Very small holdings. A family rarely had more than a pair of bullocks and two ploughs, and most had less.

Region	Holding size	Meaning
Gujarat	about 6 acres	an affluent (well-off) peasant
Bengal	5 acres	the average ceiling, the upper limit for a normal peasant
Bengal	10 acres	a rich asami

• Land was private property.
• Each peasant owned their land. The village did not own it in common.
• The proof is that land was bought and sold like any other property.
• Fields were marked out with raised earth ridges, brick borders or thorn fences.
• Sources mention "thousands of such fields" in a single village. This shows the plots were small, numerous and owned separately.

How the raiyat related to the state

• Owning land did not mean paying no tax.
• The state's revenue claim sat on top of the peasant's ownership.

• The peasant usually paid through zamindars, the Mughal word for all middlemen, from the village headman to a powerful local chief. [2]

• Under Akbar the zabt system was used, mainly in north India. Zabt was a way of fixing tax by measuring land.

• Land was measured in bighas (a local unit of land area), the crop was classified, prices were estimated, and a cash rate was fixed. [3]
• The demand was commonly about one-third of the average produce, turned into a cash figure. [3]
• Todar Mal, Akbar's revenue minister, studied crop yields, prices and the area farmed over 10 years to set these rates. [2]

• The aim was to replace random, on-the-spot taxes with fixed rates. This was meant to protect the peasant from excess demands and to protect the state from loss. [2]

• Mobility gave the raiyat bargaining power.

• There was abundant land, enough labour to farm it, and peasants could move.
• A peasant unhappy with the tax could walk away to a village with better terms. This was the pahi-kashta route.
• So the state and zamindars had to attract cultivators, not only squeeze them. As a result, new land kept coming under the plough.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the 16th-17th centuries, under the Mughals, especially in the time of Akbar.
• Regions named: Gujarat (about 6 acres meant an affluent peasant) and Bengal (5 acres was the average ceiling and 10 acres a rich asami). Zabt was used mainly in north India. [3]
• Key people: Akbar, Todar Mal (his revenue minister) [2] and Abul Fazl.
• Evidence:
• The Ain-i-Akbari, compiled by Abul Fazl, records Akbar's revenue system. The Ministry of Culture's Indian Culture portal holds and digitises its volumes as rare books. [4]
• Indo-Persian sources (for raiyat, riaya and muzarian) and Hindi-belt sources (for kisan and asami).
• Later British records, where the word appears as ryot. [2]

Don't confuse with

• Zamindar: the raiyat farmed the land and paid the revenue. The zamindar was a middleman who collected it, anyone from a village headman to a local chief. [2]
• Khud-kashta vs pahi-kashta: both are raiyat. Khud-kashta lived in their own village and owned the land they farmed. Pahi-kashta farmed in another village on a contract.
• Riaya vs raiyat: riaya is simply the plural of raiyat. It is not a different class of people.
• Ryotwari: this is a British revenue settlement made directly with the ryot. "Ryot" is the peasant, not the system. In the Permanent Settlement (1793), by contrast, revenue was fixed with the zamindars.

Prelims Hooks

• Raiyat (plural riaya) and muzarian are Persian terms for the peasant. Kisan and asami are Hindi-belt terms.
• Ryot in British records is the same word as the Mughal raiyat. [2]
• Pahi-kashta means a non-resident cultivator working on contract. They moved by choice (better revenue terms) or by force (famine).
• Holding sizes: Gujarat, about 6 acres = affluent. Bengal, 5 acres = average ceiling; 10 acres = rich asami. A typical family rarely had more than a pair of bullocks and two ploughs.
• Peasant land was bought and sold, which shows individual ownership, not communal ownership.
• Trap: Todar Mal (not Abul Fazl) carried out the 10-year survey of yields and prices [2]. Abul Fazl compiled the Ain-i-Akbari. [4]

Mains Points

• The raiyat was not helpless.
• Land was plentiful, and peasants could move to villages that offered better terms.

• This limited how hard zamindars and the state could squeeze them, and it kept new land coming under cultivation.

• Private ownership and a heavy state claim existed together.

• Raiyats bought and sold their fields.
• Yet the state took about one-third of the produce in cash under zabt [3], and collected it through zamindars. [2]

• This shows the Mughal village was neither a self-sufficient commune nor a state-run farm.

• Continuity into colonial rule.

• The British took over the same raiyat/ryot and the same zamindar middlemen. [2]
• So the debates over the Permanent Settlement and ryotwari started from Mughal categories, not from a blank slate.

Related concepts

• Khud-kashta
• Pahi-kashta

Read more

• Peasants and their lands