ZAMINDAR. HIND., PERS. A holder or occupant of a landed estate. Zamindar was a term orig,inally applied to hereditary Hindu chiefs, but Multammadans extended it to independent princes, liko those of Udaipur and Jodhpur. In comparatively modern times, it has included persons holding assignments of the Government revenue. as well as district and village officers, and collectors of land revenue. In 1793 the Government of India, by an Act known art the l'erpetual Settlement, recognised the zamiudars and independent talukdars of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa as actual proprietors so long as they paid t'ie Government revenuo of nine-tenths of the fixed nett proceeds of the lands (Beng. Reg. viii. 1793, iii. 1794, v. 1795, ii. xxvii. 1803), and the same principle was afterwards applied to Madras (Mad- Reg. xxv. 1802, ii. 1806, iv. 1822). The Bengal settlement has been considered not only a great financial error, but also an injustico to the country.
Village landholders aro distinctly recognised throughout tho whole of the Bengal Presidency, except in Bengal proper, and perhaps Rohilkhand. 'I hey appear to subsist in part of Rajputana, and perhaps did so at no remote period over the whole of it. They aro very numerous in Gujerat, include more than half the cultivators of the Mahratta country, and a very largo portion of those in the Tamil country,. They aro almost extinct in the country south of tho Nerbadda. except in the parts just mentioned. In all the Madras Presidency north of Madras itself, in the Nizam's country, and most of that of Nagpur, in great part of Kandesh, and the east of the Mahratta country, there is no class resembling them. This tract comprehends the greater part of the old divisions of Teliugana, Orissa, and Cantu-a. They are not mentioned in Sir John Malcohn's Central India, and are not known in Malwa. In Hindustan they are conunonly called village Zambadars or Biswadars ; in Behar, Malik ; in Gujerat, Patel ; and in the Dckhan and south of India, Mirassidar. The righta of property in the
land is unequivocally recognised in the present agricultural inhabitants by descent, purchase, or gift.
The zamindari estates in the Madras Presidency have a revenue of Rs. 1,40,60,000, of which Rs. 51,32,090 is payable to Goverument as posh kush or tribute. Arranging them according to their revenues, there are Vizianagratn. Venkatagherri, Pittapur, Shivaganga, Ramnad, Kavetnuggur, Kalastri, Bobbili, Ettiaptimm, Nedavole, and Baharzalli, Devarakota, Wyvur, Jeypur, and others. About the middle of the 19th century the reminder of Bobbili refused the maharaja of Vizianagram his title of Munney Sultan, and his appeal was made to the l'rivy Council. Bobbili has been noted place in its time. It is a zambadari of about twenty square miles in the Northern Circars, in the vicinity of Vizianagram, Vizagapattun, and Chicacole, and the rulers have been amongst the leading men in that part of the country.
Zamindar is used in the Panjab only in the sense of mere proprietor, and not, as in Bengal, to mean a wealthy landholder of a large estate. Also, in the Panjab and Sind. this is a designation of the ordinary cultivator. The reminders or eat tivators of the soil at Jell, ea throughout Cutchi, are the Jat race, who there seldom moved abroad but on bullocks, and never unless armed. A Jat might generally be seen half-naked, seated on a lean bullock, and fortnidably armed with match. lock and io.vord ; but t,o the north and west of Cutch Ganclava, as also in Herat, Kandahar, and Kabul, the Jat are to be seen aa itinerant artisans, like gypsies. — Stirling ; As. Res. xv. p. 239 ; Elphin. Hist. of India, pp. 249, 422.