Zamindars of Bihar

Maharaja Mitrajeet Singh of Tekari Raj
Rai Hariprasad Lal of Gaya
Kunwar Singh of the Jagdishpur estate
Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh of Raj Darbhanga in 1888.

The Zamindars of Bihar were the autonomous and semi-autonomous rulers and administrators of the subah of Bihar during Mughal rule and later during British rule. They formed the landed aristocracy that lasted until Indian independence in 1947.[1] The zamindars of Bihar were numerous and could be divided into small, medium and large depending on how much land they controlled.[2] Within Bihar, the zamindars had both economic and military power. Each zamindari would have their own standing army which was typically composed of their own clansmen.[3]

The majority of these zamindars usually belonged to Hindu communities such as Rajputs, Bhumihars, Brahmins, Kayasthas or Muslims.[4]

The Forward Caste Zamindars also participated in the politics of state of Bihar, and had significant presence in politics in the first few decades of independence. However, since 1970, they started losing this presence and according to DM Diwakar, former Director of AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences, they were converted into "silent onlookers" by 2020, amidst assertion of Backward Castes and Dalits.[5] Bihar's land reform drive of 1950s led to liquidation of the large landholdings of the big landlords. In the wake of this change, many well to do peasant communities started increasing their landholdings at the cost of big Zamindars. Although, the benefits of these reforms weren't percolated down to the lowest strata of Bihar's society, the Schedule Castes, many new landlords of the post reform period hailed from groups such as Koeri, Kurmi and Yadav caste of Bihar.[6]

  1. ^ "Zamindar | Definition, System, & Mughal Empire | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
  2. ^ Lata Singh (2012). Popular Translations of Nationalism: Bihar, 1920-1922. Primus Books. pp. 5–7. ISBN 978-93-80607-13-9.
  3. ^ Tahir Hussain Ansari (20 June 2019). Mughal Administration and the Zamindars of Bihar. Taylor & Francis. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-00-065152-2.
  4. ^ Jha, Hetukar (1 October 1977). "Lower-Caste Peasants and Upper-Caste Zamindars in Bihar (1921-1925): An Analysis of Sanskritization and Contradiction between the Two Groups". The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 14 (4): 549–559. doi:10.1177/001946467701400404. S2CID 143558861. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference HT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Chetan Choithani (2023). Migration, Food Security and Development: Insights from Rural India. Cambridge University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-1009276771. Archived from the original on 29 August 2023. Retrieved 18 August 2023. Although the end of zamindari led to a mass eviction of sharecroppers and tenant cultivators who were the actual tillers of the land, big landlords from high castes also saw their landholdings diminish. A new class of landlords belonging to the upper-middle caste groups such as Kurmi, Koeri and Yadavs- officially categorised as other backward classes in contemporary Bihar - emerged. These were mostly small and middle peasants who were able to consolidate their landholdings and position in society in the midst of zamindari reforms (Wilson, 1999; Sharma, 2005).