Inherited Land: The Evolution of Land Markets and Rights Before Independence

Abstract

Land is the most important resource in India and, as a result, always in contention. This chapter takes a long-term view of land markets and land rights—as they evolved through pre-colonial and colonial regimes (with an emphasis on the latter)—to contextualize some of the fundamental struggles over land in independent India. The maximization of land revenue was the primary objective of all pre-independence states, from the Mughals and Marathas to the East India Company and British Crown regimes. There were significant regional variations in the operationalization of these policies—from the more sustainable raiyatwari system used in south and west India to the harsher and more extractive zamindari system used in the east and north—variations that influence agriculture, urbanization, and the political economies of these regions until today. Independent India thus inherited a complex and geographically diverse system of land markets, rights, and fragmentations, created through several centuries of peasant domination and misery, and is still engaged in the task of mitigating and coming to terms with that inheritance.

This paper is excerpted and edited from Chaps. 5, 6, and 8 from the author’s book The Price of Land: Acquisition, Conflict, Consequence (Chakravorty 2013). The book was written with support from Temple University (a sabbatical) and the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.