Temporary settlement
Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"
Meaning
A temporary settlement was a land revenue settlement fixed only for a limited period. After that period, the demand was revised, usually upwards. After 1810, farm prices rose. Under the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, the zamindars kept all of this extra income, and the state got none of it, because its demand was fixed forever. So the territories annexed in the 19th century were given temporary settlements instead.
Example
The ryotwari settlement of the Bombay Deccan, begun in 1818, was a temporary settlement. Lands were resurveyed every 30 years and the revenue rates were revised upwards.
Don't confuse with
- Permanent Settlement (1793): made with zamindars in Bengal under Cornwallis. Its revenue demand was fixed forever and could never be raised.
Related concepts
- David Ricardo
- Ricardian theory of rent
- Rentier
- Bombay Deccan
- Thomas Munro
- Ryotwari system
- Mahalwari system
- Malguzar
- Deccan famine of 1832-34
- Peasant indebtedness