Jotedar
Jotedars, also known as Haoladars, Ganitdars or Mandals, were "wealthy peasants" who comprised one layer of social strata in agrarian Bengal during Company rule in India. Jotedars owned relatively extensive tracts of land; their land tenure status stood in contrast to those of under-ryots and bargadars (sharecroppers), who were landless or land-poors. Many jotedars were bhadraloks (upper caste members) who adopted the de jure status of ryot (peasant) solely for the financial benefit that the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 afforded to ryots. Others belonged to the intermediate landowning peasant castes such as Sadgops, Aguris, Mahishyas, Rajbongshis, Shershahabadia and the rural, less educated Brahmins. By the 1920s a gentrified fraction of Jotedars emerged from the more prosperous peasants among the tribes such as Santhals and the Scheduled Castes such as the Bagdi and the Namasudras[1] Jotedars were in actual control of village land and economy.[2]
Jotedars were pitted against in the Naxalite movement.[3][4]
References
- ^ Iqbal, I. (2010). The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840-1943. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-230-23183-2.
- ^ Guha, Ayan (2022-09-26). The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics: Chronicling Continuity and Change. BRILL. pp. 141–142. ISBN 978-90-04-51456-0.
- ^ "The Naxalite Movement that was Not in Naxalbari". Mainstream. Retrieved 2016-04-30.
- ^ "Naxalbari revisited". The Times of India. Retrieved 2016-04-30.