Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The first century of British colonial rule: social revolution or social stagnation?
- 2 Privileged land tenure in village India in the early nineteenth century
- 3 Agrarian society and the Pax Britannica in northern India in the early nineteenth century
- 4 The land revenue systems of the North-Western Provinces and Bombay Deccan 1830–80: ideology and the official mind
- 5 Traditional resistance movements and Afro-Asian nationalism: the context of the 1857 Mutiny Rebellion
- 6 Nawab Walidad Khan and the 1857 Struggle in the Bulandshahr district
- 7 Rural revolt in the Great Rebellion of 1857 in India: a study of the Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar districts
- 8 Traditional elites in the Great Rebellion of 1857: some aspects of rural revolt in the upper and central Doab
- 9 The structure of landholding in Uttar Pradesh 1860–1948
- 10 Dynamism and enervation in North Indian agriculture: the historical dimension
- 11 Peasants, moneylenders and colonial rule: an excursion into Central India
- 12 The return of the peasant to South Asian history
- Glossary
- Index
9 - The structure of landholding in Uttar Pradesh 1860–1948
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The first century of British colonial rule: social revolution or social stagnation?
- 2 Privileged land tenure in village India in the early nineteenth century
- 3 Agrarian society and the Pax Britannica in northern India in the early nineteenth century
- 4 The land revenue systems of the North-Western Provinces and Bombay Deccan 1830–80: ideology and the official mind
- 5 Traditional resistance movements and Afro-Asian nationalism: the context of the 1857 Mutiny Rebellion
- 6 Nawab Walidad Khan and the 1857 Struggle in the Bulandshahr district
- 7 Rural revolt in the Great Rebellion of 1857 in India: a study of the Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar districts
- 8 Traditional elites in the Great Rebellion of 1857: some aspects of rural revolt in the upper and central Doab
- 9 The structure of landholding in Uttar Pradesh 1860–1948
- 10 Dynamism and enervation in North Indian agriculture: the historical dimension
- 11 Peasants, moneylenders and colonial rule: an excursion into Central India
- 12 The return of the peasant to South Asian history
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
At the end of British rule, with a population swollen to some 63 million, the land of the United Provinces was found to be in the ownership of just over two million persons (2,016,783). Of these the vast proportion, or some 85% (1,710,530), were small men falling in the category of revenue-payers of less than Rs. 25. Their average revenue payment was, in fact, only some Rs. 6. Probably more than half paid Rs. 1 or less, the proprietary share of each being well under one acre. Meeting only some 15% of the total land revenue, these 1,710,530 proprietors must have owned (allowing for the favourable differential assessment for the small owner) no more than a fifth of the agricultural land. A further 13½% (276,111) of revenue-payers paid between Rs. 25 and Rs. 250. The remaining 1½%, a mere 30,142 persons, were responsible for meeting 58% of the land-revenue demand. On any reckoning these constituted the economic elite. But as an elite it was far from homogeneous and spanned vast disparities of wealth. Somewhat more than half (16,758) paid under Rs. 500 each, a further quarter (7,491) between Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000. Of the remaining 5,893 persons paying over Rs. 1,000 each, there were 804 who paid over Rs. 5,000, the membership qualification for the Agra Province Zamindars’ Association.
Taking the United Provinces at large, the landownership structure can be described, therefore, as a pyramid possessed of an extremely broad base but tapering rapidly to a tall, narrow elite pinnacle.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Peasant and the RajStudies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India, pp. 205 - 227Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1978
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