Question

Analyse the rise of the Jotedars and their significance in rural Bengal during the late 18^th century.

Answer 1

1. During the late eighteenth century, while many zamindars faced crises, a group of affluent peasants, known as jotedars, were consolidating their power in rural villages.
2. Jotedars had amassed extensive landholdings, sometimes spanning several thousand acres.
3. Jotedars wielded significant influence over local trade and money lending, exerting immense control over poorer cultivators in the region.
4. A substantial portion of jotedars' land was cultivated through sharecroppers (adhiyars or bargadars), who worked the fields with their own tools and surrendered half the produce to the jotedars after harvest.
5. Unlike zamindars, who often resided in urban areas, jotedars were situated in villages, allowing them direct control over a significant portion of the rural population.
6. Jotedars fiercely resisted attempts by zamindars to increase village revenue, obstructed zamindari officials, mobilised dependent ryots, and deliberately delayed revenue payments to zamindars.
7. In instances where zamindars' estates were auctioned due to revenue default, jotedars frequently became purchasers, further consolidating their authority.
8. Jotedars were particularly influential in North Bengal, although similar affluent peasants and village headmen were emerging in other parts of Bengal, known by different names such as haoladars, gantidars, or mandals.
9. The rise of jotedars inevitably weakened zamindari authority, shifting power dynamics in rural Bengal.