Publications
Publications
- 2018
- Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
Revenue Farming Reconsidered: Tenurial Rights and Tenurial Duties in Early Modern India, ca. 1556–1818
By: Sudev J Sheth
Abstract
The meaning of land revenue farming in Indian history has eluded consensus. Some view it as an administrative aberration indicating weak state control, while others see it as a strategy for consolidating authority. This essay traces the historical development of iqṭāʻ and ijārah, two Perso-Arabic terms frequently translated from the sources as “revenue farming estate.” I then suggest that existing perspectives do not capture the broader structure and significance of various entitlements to land revenue. Instead, I suggest that entitlements be schematized according to how regularized the right was, whether it was permanent, and how duty-bound the right holder was. In this formulation, revenue farm refers to a complex of rights and duties secured by contract in which a sovereign transferred the temporary exploitation of a holding for rent in advance. It was one of four tenurial complexes under which entitlements fell, the others being estates from bureaucratic assignment, hereditary occupation or possession by grant/gift, and tributary or chieftaincy.
Keywords
Iqṭāʻ; Ijārah; Revenue Farming; Financial Agents; Mughal Empire; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Property; Finance; South Asia
Citation
Sheth, Sudev J. "Revenue Farming Reconsidered: Tenurial Rights and Tenurial Duties in Early Modern India, ca. 1556–1818." Art. 4. Special Issue on Repossessing Property in South Asia: Land, Rights, and Law across the Early Modern/Modern Divide edited by Faisal Chaudhury. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61, nos. 5-6 (2018): 878–919.