Zamindar

Topic: Mughal Agrarian Society and Economy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Peasants, Zamindars and the State"; Class 12, Ch 1 "Colonialism and the Countryside"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Rebels and the Raj"

Meaning

A zamindar in Mughal India was a landed proprietor: a powerful rural landholder who lived off the land but did not plough it himself. He owned private land called milkiyat, collected land revenue for the state in return for a share, and kept forts and armed men. His high status came from his caste and from khidmat (service to the state).

The zamindar is the key to how Mughal rule actually worked in the village. The emperor's revenue and authority passed through him, and so did much of the money that entered the rural economy.

Explanation

Background: the word and its meaning

• The word is Persian: zamin (land) + dar (holder), so "holder of land". It spread wherever Persian influence went with the Mughals and earlier Indian Muslim dynasties. [2]
• The Mughals used this one word for every kind of intermediary (a person standing between the peasant and the state), from a small village headman to a very powerful local chieftain. [2]
• The meaning changed from region to region: [2]
• In Bengal it meant a hereditary tax collector who kept 10 per cent of the revenue he collected.
• In parts of north India (for example present-day Uttar Pradesh) it meant a big landowner with full proprietary rights (full ownership).

• Elsewhere in the north it could mean the cultivator himself, or one of several joint owners of village land.

• For the exam, follow NCERT: the Mughal-era zamindar did not till the land himself.

• His place in rural society: zamindars were the narrow apex (the small top) of the rural pyramid. There were very few of them, but they held a lot of power.
• Below them came the village headmen.
• Then the peasants (raiyat).
• Then the landless workers at the bottom.

Main features: where his power came from

• Milkiyat (his own private land):
• His holdings were large.
• They were worked by hired labour or servile labour (paid workers, or bonded and unfree workers), not by his own family.

• He could freely sell, bequeath (leave in a will) and mortgage (pledge for a loan) this land. So milkiyat land could be bought and sold.

• Revenue collection:

• He collected land revenue on the state's behalf.
• He was compensated (paid a share) for doing it.

• So state authority reached the village through him.

• Military strength:

• He held fortresses called qilachas.

• He kept armed contingents of cavalry (horsemen), artillery (cannon) and infantry (foot soldiers).

• The "parallel army": the Ain-i-Akbari adds up the armed strength of all zamindars together. Historians call this a "parallel army", meaning a second army inside the empire that was not under the emperor's direct command.

Arm	Number
Cavalry	384,558
Infantry	4,277,057
Elephants	1,863
Cannon	4,260
Boats	4,500

• Who belonged to the class: Abu'l Fazl's data shows three layers.
• A dominant Brahmana–Rajput combine (an alliance of these upper castes that was deeply rooted).
• A large intermediate-caste presence (castes ranked in the middle, in big numbers).
• A "liberal sprinkling" of Muslim zamindaris: thinly spread, but found across the empire.

How zamindaris came into being

• By conquest and dispossession (driving out the existing holder):
• Force alone was not enough.

• The right lasted only if the state confirmed it with an imperial sanad (a formal royal grant or order).

• More often, by slow routes:

• Colonising new land, that is, bringing forest or waste land under the plough.
• Transfer of rights from one holder to another.
• Order of the state.

• Purchase, buying the right with money.

• Sales were brisk:

• Rights could be bought.
• So even "lower" castes could enter the zamindar class.

• Money could beat birth.

• Lineage zamindaris (where one clan or kin-group held a whole tract of land):

• Rajputs and Jats in northern India.
• Sadgops, a peasant-pastoralist caste (they both farmed and herded animals), in central and south-western Bengal.

Results: builder, exploiter and patron

• Developmental role:
• Clearing new land needed money and organisation, and zamindars had both. So they led the colonisation of new land.
• They settled cultivators there and gave them cash loans for seed, cattle and tools.
• They sold the produce of their milkiyat in the market.
• They founded haats (periodic village markets).

• Result: more coin moved around the countryside. This sped up rural monetisation (the shift from barter to money).

• Exploiter? Yes, without doubt. He took a surplus (extra produce) from peasants who did the real work.

• The relationship also carried:
• Reciprocity (give-and-take): the peasant paid, and the zamindar gave loans, land and protection.
• Paternalism: the zamindar acted like a father figure over "his" people.

• Patronage: he funded temples, shrines, poets and festivals.

• Evidence that peasants did not see him as their main enemy:

• The bhakti saints attacked many oppressors, but they did not show zamindars or moneylenders as the oppressors. Their anger was aimed at the state revenue official.

• In the agrarian uprisings of 17th-century north India, peasants often fought on their zamindars' side against the state.

• Take-away: the main line of conflict ran village (peasant + zamindar) versus the state, not peasant versus zamindar.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Mughal Empire in the 16th–17th centuries, especially Akbar's reign and after.
• Region: across the empire. The meaning differed in Bengal, present-day Uttar Pradesh and other parts of north India. [2] Lineage zamindaris belonged to Rajputs and Jats in the north and to Sadgops in central and south-western Bengal.
• Key people:
• Akbar, the emperor whose administration the Ain describes.
• Abu'l Fazl, the author of the Ain-i-Akbari.

• Todar Mal, the finance minister, whose duties the Ain describes. [3]

• Main source, the Ain-i-Akbari:

• It is the third volume of the Akbarnama, written by Abu'l Fazl. It covers Akbar's household, court, army and society. [3]
• It is set out in five sections. The first covers the imperial household, court and treasury. The third covers the judicial and executive arms, methods of land survey, tribal divisions, and the duties of Todar Mal. [3]
• It gives the zamindars' "parallel army" figures and the caste make-up of the zamindar class.

• Copies are digitised as e-books (Vol. II and Vol. III) on the Government of India's Indian Culture portal. [5]

• Administrative setting:

• Akbar's reforms needed a central financial system.
• Next to each provincial governor (subadar, later called nawab) sat a diwan (a civil officer in charge of revenue).

• The diwan supervised revenue collection, prepared the accounts and reported straight to the emperor. [4]

• Other evidence:

• Bhakti poetry, which shows whom peasants blamed.
• Records of 17th-century agrarian revolts in north India.

Don't confuse with

• Jagirdar: under the jagirdar system, the state gave an official the right to collect an estate's revenue and to govern it (jagir = holding land, dar = official). [6] A jagirdar was a transferable state assignee (an officer who could be moved). A zamindar held a hereditary, saleable local right.
• Raiyat (peasant): the raiyat actually cultivated the land. The Mughal zamindar did not plough it himself. His milkiyat was worked by hired or servile labour.
• Village headman: headmen sat below the zamindars in the rural pyramid, even though the Mughals sometimes used the word "zamindar" loosely for small intermediaries too. [2]
• Zamindar under the Permanent Settlement (1793): under British rule the zamindar had to pay a fixed revenue to the Company on time. Many could not pay, and their estates were auctioned off. The Mughal zamindar was a local power with forts, troops and ties of give-and-take with his peasants.

Prelims Hooks

• Milkiyat = the zamindar's personal land, worked by hired or servile labour, and freely sold, bequeathed or mortgaged.
• Qilachas = zamindars' fortresses. Sanad = an imperial grant, without which a zamindari won by conquest did not last.
• Ain's "parallel army" of zamindars: 384,558 cavalry; 4,277,057 infantry; 1,863 elephants; 4,260 cannon; 4,500 boats.
• Ain-i-Akbari = third volume of the Akbarnama, by Abu'l Fazl. Its five sections include land-survey methods and the duties of Todar Mal. [3]
• Lineage zamindaris: Sadgops (a peasant-pastoralist caste) in central and south-western Bengal; Rajputs and Jats in northern India.
• Trap: the bhakti saints blamed the state revenue official, not the zamindar or the moneylender. In Bengal a zamindar kept 10 per cent of the revenue he collected. [2]

Mains Points

• Exploiter and developer at the same time:
• He took surplus from peasants.
• He also cleared new land, gave cash loans, settled cultivators and founded haats.

• This sped up rural monetisation, so a GS-I answer that calls him only a parasite is incomplete.

• Mughal power was shared, not absolute:

• Zamindars together held about 3.8 lakh cavalry and 42 lakh infantry, a "parallel army".
• So imperial rule in the countryside depended on bargaining with armed local men.

• This helps explain the 17th-century agrarian revolts, where peasants often stood with their zamindars against the state.

• Continuity and change:

• Mughal rural society was hierarchical. Caste and khidmat gave status, and the Brahmana–Rajput combine was on top.
• But it was not frozen, because the brisk sale of zamindari rights let "lower" castes buy in.
• The colonial Permanent Settlement later turned the zamindar into a rent-collector who owed a fixed sum to the state. This broke the old give-and-take between zamindar and peasant.

Related concepts

• Milkiyat
• Zamindari consolidation

Read more

• The zamindars