ZEMINDAR

(From the Persian zemin, land.) A title introduced into India by its Mohammedan conquerors, conferred in Bengal, and generally throughout the Mogul empire, on the agent employed to collect that share of the produce of the soil which belongs to it. The zemindars were the great landholders of the Mogul empire; but the nature of their tenure has given rise to much dispute. Whether they were hereditary absolute owners of the soil, or only tenants of the sovereign at a fixed rent by way of land-tax for which they were personally responsible, was a question much agitated by writers on Indian subjects at the period of the " Permanent Settlement" in 1793. By that settlement the rent was to be fixed in the first instance by custom, and the zemindar was then to give the ryot a lease restricted to himself and his a ignees on performance of its conditions; his own share being fixed as before at 10 per cent, of the a e ment, and his hereditary right secured. A zemindary, i. e. the district of a zemindar, is liable to be sold by government for arrears of revenue, and existing leases with the ryots to be set aside. At present the land-tax of India is levied in three methods, which prevail in different districts: — the " zemindar settlement," by which the zemindar is responsible to government; the " mouzawar " or village settlement, by which the collector contracts with the head man of the village; and the "ryotwar" or cultivator settlement, by which the tax is collected immediately from the peasantry. (See, as to the effects of the zemindary settlement,. MilPs History of British India, vol. v.; MCulloch's Edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations, note 19.; Ed. Rev. vols. xxx i. Ixxi.) See Ryots. [s. 1351]