What was the main interest of the zamindars under the zamindari system?

Collecting rent from the cultivators

The stagnation in the agricultural sector was caused mainly because of the various systems of land settlement that were introduced by the colonial government. Particularly, under the zamindari system which was implemented in the then Bengal Presidency comprising parts of India’s present-day eastern states, the profit accruing out of the agriculture sector went to the zamindars instead of the cultivators. However, a considerable number of zamindars, and not just the colonial government, did nothing to improve the condition of agriculture. The main interest of the zamindars was only to collect rent regardless of the economic condition of the cultivators; this caused immense misery and social tension among the latter.