Early Medieval Land Rights
Indian Feudalism
Chapter – 4
- The problem of land rights in early India is influenced by the debate between imperialist and nationalist historians.
- To justify land legislation in British India, administrators argued that royal ownership of land existed in ancient India, supported by scholars like Maine, Bühler, Hopkins, Macdonell, Keith, and V. A. Smith.
- In 1904, V. A. Smith claimed that agricultural land in India was always considered crown property.
- This theory was countered by nationalist historians like P. N. Banerjee and K. P. Jayaswal, who promoted the idea of individual ownership of land, especially in response to British policies on land-holders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
- Jayaswal’s theory on individual ownership was challenged by Ghoshal, though Ghoshal did not extend his analysis beyond certain textual references.
- Recent scholars have analyzed legal texts on land rights but have not examined them chronologically or within the context of political and economic developments.
- Modern scholars often think in terms of absolute rights to land, ignoring the customary variations in land rights across different periods.