The Permanent Settlement of 1793 was introduced by which Governor General?
- A.Warren Hastings
- B.Lord Cornwallis
- C.Lord William Bentinck
- D.Lord Dalhousie
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Lord Cornwallis. In 1793 he settled the land revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha permanently with the zamindars, who were recognised as proprietors so long as they paid a demand fixed for ever, and the cultivator was left without any recorded right in the land. Option A is wrong because Warren Hastings experimented with farming out revenue to the highest bidder, the system that the Permanent Settlement replaced. Option C is wrong because Lord William Bentinck is linked to the revision of the Mahalwari settlement in 1833, and to social legislation such as the ban on sati. Option D is wrong because Lord Dalhousie belongs to the eighteen fifties and is remembered for the doctrine of lapse, the railways and the telegraph. Fix the pair in your memory as Cornwallis with the Permanent Settlement and Munro with the Ryotwari system.
Read the full article: Land Reforms in India: Tenures, Ceilings and Tenancy
Practice Questions
View allThe Ryotwari system of land revenue is associated chiefly with which official?
- A.Holt Mackenzie
- B.Thomas Munro
- C.John Shore
- D.Lord Cornwallis
Show answer
Working with Alexander Read in the ceded districts and later as Governor of Madras, Munro settled the revenue directly with each cultivator, the ryot, who was recognised as the owner of his field so long as he paid, with the demand revised every twenty or thirty years.
Read the full explanation →Which amendment of the Constitution added the Ninth Schedule in order to protect land reform laws from challenge?
- A.First Amendment, 1951
- B.Fourth Amendment, 1955
- C.Seventeenth Amendment, 1964
- D.Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
Show answer
Courts had begun to strike down zamindari abolition laws as a breach of the right to property, so Parliament inserted Articles 31A and 31B and created the Ninth Schedule, in which a law can be placed to put it beyond challenge on the ground that it takes away a fundamental…
Read the full explanation →Operation Barga, the programme to record and protect sharecroppers, was carried out in which state?
- A.Kerala
- B.West Bengal
- C.Bihar
- D.Maharashtra
Show answer
From 1978 the state government ran a campaign to enter the names of sharecroppers, known there as bargadars, in official records, which gave them a permanent and heritable right to cultivate and a legally fixed share of the crop, and it is quoted as the most effective tenancy reform in…
Read the full explanation →The Bhoodan movement was started in 1951 by whom and at which place?
- A.Jayaprakash Narayan at Sitabdiara
- B.Vinoba Bhave at Pochampally
- C.Mahatma Gandhi at Sevagram
- D.N.G. Ranga at Guntur
Show answer
Walking through the villages of the Telangana region in 1951 he asked landowners to treat the landless as their own kin and to gift a share of their land, and the first such gift at Pochampally began the Bhoodan or land gift movement, later extended as Gramdan, the gift of…
Read the full explanation →Under the Constitution, land and land tenures fall in which legislative list?
- A.Union List
- B.State List
- C.Concurrent List
- D.Residuary powers of Parliament
Show answer
Land, rights in and over land, land tenures, the relation of landlord and tenant, and the collection of rent are entries of List II of the Seventh Schedule, which is why zamindari abolition, tenancy law and ceilings were enacted state by state and why their record varies so much.
Read the full explanation →