Permanent Settlement

The Permanent Settlement was a land-revenue arrangement introduced in Bengal in 1793 that fixed the revenue demand on zamindars in perpetuity and recognized them as landholders.

Zamindar: A South Asian landholder or revenue intermediary whose powers and status varied across time and regions. The settlement made Bengal zamindars responsible for paying the fixed government demand.
East India Company: An English joint-stock company that governed large parts of the Indian subcontinent from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. The Company imposed the settlement to stabilize revenue from Bengal.
Bengal famine of 1770: A catastrophic famine in Bengal in 1769–1773 that caused extensive mortality and disrupted agriculture. The famine and revenue practices exposed the dangers of Company rule before the settlement.
Mahalwari system: A colonial Indian land-revenue system that assessed revenue collectively on a village or estate unit. Unlike Bengal’s fixed zamindari demand, mahalwari assessments could be revised periodically.
Charles Cornwallis: A British army officer and colonial administrator who served as governor-general of India from 1786 to 1793. As governor-general, Cornwallis put the permanent revenue arrangement into effect.
Land revenue: A tax assessed on agricultural land or its produce, often collected by a state or its agents. The settlement fixed the state’s land-revenue demand rather than allowing it to rise with cultivation.
Bengal Presidency: A major administrative territory of British India centered on Bengal and governed by the East India Company. The arrangement first applied to Bengal and later to adjoining Company territories.
Absentee landlord: A landowner who lives away from the estate and relies on agents to manage it. Estate transfers and rent collection encouraged landlordism detached from local cultivation.
Ryotwari system: A land-revenue system in which the colonial state assessed and collected revenue directly from individual cultivators. It bypassed the zamindar intermediary central to the Permanent Settlement.
Philip Francis: A British politician and East India Company official who served on Bengal’s Supreme Council and criticized Warren Hastings. Francis’s proposals for permanent land assessments influenced debate over Bengal’s revenue policy.

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