Before the colonial rule, the people who did agriculture were members of the Upper Castes. But they were not owners of the land. The land was in the control of regional kings and zamindars. The zamindars. who were politically strong, were Kshatriyas of such higher caste people. Zamindars were not owners of the land. Their duty was to collect the tax and give it to the government. They got a shore of the tax they collected.
These zamindars collected a got part of the harvest as tax from the farmers. When the British colonized India, they ruled many parts through zamindars. With the intention of maximizing their income, the British brought new land tax systems and reforms. The most important of them were the Zamindari system (Permanent Settlement) and the Ryotwari system. The Zamindars had to pay huge amounts to the government.
So they started collecting big amounts from farmers. The zamindari system was harmful to both zamindars and farmers. As a result agriculture got stunted and ruined. Many farmers left their homes as they could not stand the torments from zamindars. Constant famines, earthquakes, and wars reduced the population considerably.
The British implemented the zamindari system in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. In the regions which they were directly ruling, they brought another land tax system. This is known as ryotwari system. ‘Ryot’ in Telugu means farmer. It was an agreement between the British government and the farmer. There were no middlemen. Farmers gave the tax directly to the government. As per the ryotwari system, the farmers became the owners of the land.
In the ryotwari regions, the tax was comparatively less. So the farmers were ready to invest money in their lands. There was much progress and prosperity in these regions. To know about the present agricultural structure we should know the background of land tax system in the colonial rule. The present system came from the changes that were brought during the colonial period.
