Mahalwari System

Introduced by Holt Mackenzie in 1822, the Mahalwari system was a way of tax collection in British India. Local landlords, or Lambardars, were responsible for tax payments from the village they represented. On one hand, it enabled a more direct form of taxation, reducing the control of large landholders or Taluqdars. On the other hand, the system often resulted in the economic downfall of communities due to the high tax demands.

In this article, you will know about meaning and definition of Mahalwari System, its history, evolution and positive and negative impacts. To explore more interesting UPSC Exam Modern Indian History topics of GS Paper – 1 like What is Mahalwari System, check out other articles of NCERT Class 8 and IAS Notes of IASToppers.   

Table of Content

• What is Mahalwari System?
• History of Mahalwari System
• Evolution of Mahalwari Practice
• Impact of the Mahalwari Settlement
• Conclusion
• FAQs on Mahalwari System

What is Mahalwari System?

• The Mahalwari system was a land revenue system in British India.
• It was introduced to India in 1822 by Holt Mackenzie.
• Originating from the Hindi term “Mahal,” Mahalwari indicates a house, district, neighborhood, or a quarter.
• Mahalwari comprises landlords, also known as Lambardars or Nambardars, who represent either individual villages or clusters of them.
• These landlords, together with the village communities, were jointly responsible for tax payments.
• All types of land within the villages, ranging from farmland to forests and pastures, fell under the Mahalwari system.
• The areas where this system dominated included regions of Uttar Pradesh, the North Western province, some areas of Central India, and Punjab.

History of Mahalwari System

• Lord Wellesley’s assertive polices resulted in significant land acquisitions for the British in North India from 1801 to 1806.  These territories were referred to as the North-Western Provinces.
• Initially, the British intended to establish a settlement following the Bengal model.  So, Wellesley instructed regional officers to establish arrangements with the zamindars where possible, under the condition that they would pay high land revenue.
• When zamindars were unwilling to pay or were unavailable, the British would establish settlements at the village level, prioritizing well-respected village dwellers such as the mokuddums, perdhauns, or ryots.
• The goal was to make these settlements permanent, similar to the ones in Bengal.
• However, in the meantime, there was a strong focus on expanding revenue collection.
• The revenue demand grew substantially, which led to opposition from many influential zamindars and rajas, who had previously enjoyed relative independence.
• As a result, many were ousted from their lands due to the new governance. In some instances, existing zamindars couldn’t gave required payments, and thus their properties were sold by the Government.
• It thus became important to gather revenue directly from the villages via their pradhan or muqaddam (headman). The term used to denote a fiscal unit in the revenue records was ‘mahal’, giving rise to the term ‘mahalwari settlement’ for village-level assessments.
• However, it was possible for one person to hold a number of villages, so that many big zamindars continued to exist.
• Similar to the situation in Bengal, the chaos and forced collection of land taxes provided local officials with huge opportunities and unlawfully seize vast tracts of land.
• Meanwhile, the Government was continually grappling with expenses exceeding income, leading to the abandonment of the concept of a permanent settlement.

Evolution of Mahalwari Practice

• In 1819 an English official, Holt Mackenzie, developed the theory that taluqdars and zamindars were originally appointed by the State, and the real owners of villages were the zamindars.
• Mackenzie advocated for clearly defining their rights and payments through a land survey. His propositions were codified in Regulation VII of 1822.
• This law commanded that every right of cultivators, zamindars, and others should be documented by a government representative.
• Additionally, the amounts payable from every piece of land had to be determined.
• However, in reality, this system was unfeasible. Often, the computations were erroneous, and the tax collectors manipulated them to inflate government revenue.
• The mahalwari system often led to the financial downfall of village communities by levying unmanageable tax assessments.
• In 1833, the authorities decided to abandon the intricate regulation of all rights and payments. Instead, they opted for a rough approximation of the village’s ability to pay taxes.
• Over time, these approximations were based on the rents paid by land tenants to the owners. Using these rents, the Settlement officer would estimate the total revenue that all village or mahal lands could generate.
• Out of this total estimate, a certain fraction – ultimately half – was expected to be paid to the government. These computations were largely speculative and often biased towards higher taxation, thereby increasing the payment obligations to the state.

Impacts of the Mahalwari Settlement

Downsizing of Taluqdars’ Control

• One of the early effects was that the area under the control of the big taluqdars was reduced.
• British officials made direct settlements to form agreements with zamindars (village landlords) to the greatest extent feasible.
• These landlords often received support in courts, but only because the ultimate goal was to extract maximum revenue from them.
• The zamindars were freed from the taluqdars’ claims only to subject them to a full measure of government taxation. This resultant economic strain often led to the downfall of village zamindars.

Land Acquisition by Merchants and Moneylenders

• As a result of this economic turmoil, vast tracts of land started falling into the hands of merchants and moneylenders.
• They displaced the original land-owning farmers, often reducing them to mere tenants.
• This was particularly prevalent in the more commercialized regions, where the land tax had been raised to its peak and the landowners suffered the most from the business decline and export depression after 1833.

Difficulty in Selling Land

• By the 1840s, it became increasingly difficult to find buyers for land being sold due to unpaid land revenues.
• The high tax rates made it impossible for potential buyers to anticipate any profit from the acquisition, similar to what was happening in the Madras Presidency.

Widespread Impoverishment and Uprisings

• In general, the Mahalwari Settlement led to economic hardship and mass dispossession among the farming communities of North India in the 1830s and 1840s.
• This resentment among the communities resulted widespread uprisings in 1857.
• During this period, villagers and taluqdars across North India ousted government officials, destroyed court and official records, and removed the new buyers from their villages.

Conclusion

The Mahalwari System, despite its noble intention of clearly defining land rights and revenue, ended up hurting the very community it sought to organize. High and rigid state demands left cultivators unable to meet payment obligations, ultimately leading to its failure. This policy, while achieving a degree of land redistribution, pushed farmers into a spiral of debt and despair, ultimately triggering social unrest.

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FAQs(frequently asked questions)