question_answer

Examine how the Ricardo's idea of land-ownership was introduced in the 'Bombay Deccan'.

Answer:

According to Ricardian Theory, a landowner should have a claim only to the ?average rent? that prevailed at a given time. When the land yielded more than this ?average rent, the landowner had a surplus that the state needed to tax. If tax was not levied, cultivators were likely to turn into rentiers, and their surplus income was unlikely to be productively invested in the improvement of the land. Many British officials in India thought that the history of Bengal confirmed Ricardo?s Theory. There the Zamindars seemed to have turned into rentiers, leasing out land and living on the rental incomes. It was therefore, necessary the British officials now felt, to have a different system.

The system of revenue that was introduced in Bombay Deccan was known to be ryotwari settlement where unlike the Bengal system, the revenue directly settled with the ryot in which the average income from different types of soil was estimated, the revenue-paying capacity of the ryot was assessed and a proportion of it fixed as the share of the state. The lands were surveyed every 30 years and the revenue rated increased. Thus the revenue demand was no longer permanent.