Zamindar is a term used to describe a certain type of landowner in India. The word zamindar comes from the language of the Muslim Persians who invaded India in about A.D. 1000. Zamin means land, and dar signifies the owner of that land. The significance of a zamindar’s position varied in different parts of India. It could mean outright ownership. More often, it meant that the professed owner of the land was more of a tax collector. The owner’s rights depended upon payment to the central government a percentage of the tax the zamindar collected from the peasants who lived on the land.
The zamindar system was the main form of land ownership in Bengal (now the Indian state of West Bengal and the independent country of Bangladesh) and Bihar until a series of land reform laws were passed in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Before the arrival of British colonists, the zamindars were effectively hereditary tax collectors. The zamindars paid 90 percent of collected taxes to the government. The Bengali zamindars were responsible for public order as well as the collection of taxes. The British East India Company attempted to change this system in a number of ways, but the main effect of these experiments was to make the system of tax collection more oppressive for the peasants and less effective for the government.
In 1793, a new arrangement between the zamindars and the colonial government called the Permanent Settlement came into force. Under this settlement, zamindars could have their lands taken away for failure to collect taxes. In addition, the amount zamindars had to pay the government was fixed. At first, this new arrangement caused a big change in the makeup of the zamindars. Bengal’s farming economy had not recovered from a severe famine in 1770. Many zamindars found the taxes hard to pay and thus had their lands taken away and sold to new landowners. As the situation improved over the next few decades, the Bengali zamindars became a wealthy, aristocratic class.
The status and economic condition of the peasants under this new system, however, became worse than it had been before. They were now subject to eviction from the lands they farmed. Many of the Bengali zamindars were absentee landlords and did little for land improvement. The majority of Bengali zamindars were Hindus, but the peasants were mostly Muslim. Shortly after Indian independence in 1947, land reform laws abolished the zamindar landholding system. Many estates were broken up, and the rights of tenants were strengthened.
