question_answer

How were taxes collected by the British from the pastoralists?

Answer:

(i) Tax was imposed on land, canal water, salt, trade goods and even on animals.

(ii) Pastoralists had to pay tax on every animal they grazed on the pastures.

(iii) The right to collect the tax was auctioned out to contractors. These contractors tried to extract as high a tax as they could, to recover the money they had paid to the state and earn as much profit as they could within a year.

Later on, governments began collecting taxes directly from the pastoralists.