The Mahalwari system is used in India to protect village-level-autonomy. It was introduced by

Holt Mackenzie Holt Mackenzie, PC (1786–1876) was a British colonial administrator in India. The son of the Scottish writer Henry Mackenzie, Holt Mackenzie and of Penuel, daughter of Sir Ludovich Grant of Grant. He obtained an East India Company writership in ...

in 1822. The word "Mahalwari" is derived from the

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

word ''Mahal'', which means house, district, neighborhood or quarter. Mahalwari consisted of

landlord A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, the ...

s or Lambardars (also called as Nambardars) assigned to represent villages or groups of villages. Along with the village communities, the landlords were jointly responsible for the payment of taxes. Individual responsibility was not assigned. The land included under this system consisted of all land in the villages, including forestland, pastures etc. This system was prevalent in parts of

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

, the North Western province, parts of

Central India Central India is a loosely defined geographical region of India. There is no clear official definition and various ones may be used. One common definition consists of the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which are included in alm ...

and

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

. The other two systems were the

Permanent Settlement The Permanent Settlement, also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land that had far-reaching consequences for both agricultural met ...

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

in 1793 and the

Ryotwari The ryotwari system was a land revenue system in British India introduced by Thomas Munro, which allowed the government to deal directly with the cultivator ('ryot') for revenue collection and gave the peasant freedom to cede or acquire new land f ...

system in 1820. It covered the states of

Awadh Awadh (), known in British historical texts as Avadh or Oudh, is a region in the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which was before independence known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. It is synonymous with the Kośāla region of ...

and

Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...

, parts of

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sch ...

, and

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

History

During the 1800s, the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

established control over the administrative machinery of India. The System of Land Revenue acted as a chief source of income for the British. Thus, they used land to control the entire Revenue system, strengthening their economic condition in India. The

North-Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1858, the nawab-ruled kingdom ...

and

Oudh The Oudh State (, also Kingdom of Awadh, Kingdom of Oudh, or Awadh State) was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of ...

(

) were two important territories acquired by the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

in modern

. In 1801, the

Nawab of Awadh The Nawab of Awadh or the Nawab of Oudh was the title of the rulers who governed the state of Awadh (anglicised as Oudh) in north India during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Nawabs of Awadh belonged to a dynasty of Persian origin from Nishapu ...

surrendered the districts of

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

to the Company. The

amuna Amuna is a village in Sri Lanka. It is located within Central Province. See also * List of towns in Central Province, Sri Lanka External links * {{KandyDistrict-geo-stub Populated places in Kandy District ...

and the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

valleys were acquired by the British after the

Second Anglo-Maratha War } The Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805) was the second conflict between the British East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. Background The British had supported the "fugitive" Peshwa Raghunathrao in the First Anglo-Maratha War, ...

Governor-General of Bengal The Governor-General of India (1773–1950, from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, commonly shortened to Viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom and after Indian independence in 19 ...

Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings Francis Edward Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, (9 December 175428 November 1826), styled The Honourable Francis Rawdon from birth until 1762, Lord Rawdon between 1762 and 1783, The Lord Rawdon from 1783 to 1793 and The Earl of Moira b ...

conquered more territories of

North India North India is a loosely defined region consisting of the northern part of India. The dominant geographical features of North India are the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the Himalayas, which demarcate the region from the Tibetan Plateau and Central ...

after the

Third Anglo-Maratha War The Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817–1819) was the final and decisive conflict between the English East India Company and the Maratha Empire in India. The war left the Company in control of most of India. It began with an invasion of Maratha te ...

in 1820. The village headman or ''lambardar'' was responsible for all recommendations, land survey, maintaining records of land rights, settlement of the land revenues, demand in the Mahals, and collection of land revenue. Regulation VII of 1822 accredited the legal sanction to these recommendations. In cases where estates were not held by landlords, but by the cultivators in common tenancy, the state demand was fixed at 95% of the rental. However, this system broke down as the state demand was large and rigid. The amount payable by the cultivators was more than what they could afford.

Bentinck, Bird, Thompson, and Broun-Ramsay

William Bentinck, the Governor-General of Bengal and afterwards Governor-General of India (1828-1835), revised the Regulation of 1822, introducing the Mahalwari System. They realized that the result of the Regulation of 1822 was widespread misery. After a prolonged consultation, Bentick's Government passed a new regulation in 1833. The ''mahalwari'' system of land revenue was introduced by Holt Mackenzie and

Robert Merttins Bird Robert Merttins Bird (1788–1853) was a British civil servant in the Bengal Presidency. He is known for the far-reaching "Mahalwari" tax reform. Early life He was the son of Robert and Lucy Bird of Taplow, Buckinghamshire; his younger brother Ed ...

, which made the system more flexible. The process of preparing estimates of produce and rents was simplified. It introduced the fixation of the average rents for different classes of soil. This scheme functioned under Mettins Bird. The processes of measuring land, examining soil quality was improved further. The State demand was fixed at 66% of the rental value and the Settlement was made for 30 years. The Mahalwari system of land revenue under the scheme of 1833 was completed under the administration of James Thompson. The 66% rental demanded proved onerous. In the Saharanpur Rules of 1855, it was revised to 50% by Governor-General

James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (22 April 1812 – 19 December 1860), also known as Lord Dalhousie, styled Lord Ramsay until 1838 and known as The Earl of Dalhousie between 1838 and 1849, was a Scottish statesman and co ...

. However, British officers paid little attention to these rules. This created widespread discontent among the Indians.

History

Bentinck, Bird, Thompson, and Broun-Ramsay

See also

References

Further reading