Madhyasvatva

Last updated April 21, 2019

Madhyasvatva (literally meaning "Subinfeudation") was a term used to denote the intermediate rights (lesser nobles, or tributaries to higher-ranking lords) that developed in Bengal following the Permanent Settlement Act of 1793 by Lord Cornwallis.

In English law, subinfeudation is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out new and distinct tenures in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands.

Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others acting like a master, a chief, or a ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers.

Bengal is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Geographically, it is made up by the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta system, the largest such formation in the world; along with mountains in its north bordering the Himalayan states of Nepal and Bhutan and east bordering Burma.

The "zamindars" (or feudal lords) created new offices and rights in between themselves and the peasants or the "Ryots". This practice of land ownership has been described by the nineteenth century revenue surveyors as having similarities with European feudalism of pre-modern times.

Indian feudalism refers to the feudal society that made up India's social structure until independence in 1947.

Peasant member of a traditional class of farmers

A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or farmer, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their personal status: slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of land tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold, and copyhold.

Ryot was a general economic term used throughout India for peasant cultivators but with variations in different provinces. While zamindars were landlords, raiyats were tenants and cultivators, and served as hired labour.

The "taluqdars" rose during this stage in Bengal and in a few generations transformed into petty aristocrats.^[1]

The Taluqdars or Talukders, were aristocrats who formed the ruling class during the Mughal Empire and British times. As owner of vast amount of lands, consistently hereditary, the Taluqdars were responsible for collecting taxes and they played a major role in the progression of the Indo-Saracenic and Indo-Islamic architecture.

The aristocracy is a social class that a particular society considers its highest order. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some—such as ancient Greece, Rome, and India—aristocratic status came from belonging to a military caste, although it has also been common, notably in African societies, for aristocrats to belong to priestly dynasties. Aristocratic status can involve feudal or legal privileges. They are usually below only the monarch of a country or nation in its social hierarchy. In modern European societies, the aristocracy has often coincided with the nobility, a specific class that arose in the Middle Ages, but the term "aristocracy" is sometimes also applied to other elites, and is used as a more generic term when describing earlier and non-European societies.

Sources

↑ Islam, Sirajul (2012). "Madhyasvatva". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

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[1] Islam, Sirajul (2012). "Madhyasvatva". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.