Which of the following statements is correct about zamindars and zamindari in medieval India?

Statement A- The dispossession of weaker people by a powerful military chieftain was quite often a way of expanding a zamindari.

Statement B- Zamindars spearheaded the colonization of agricultural land and helped in settling cultivators by providing them with the means of cultivation, including cash loans.

Both statements are correct.

The correct answer is Option 3 - Both statements are correct.

Statement A- The dispossession of weaker people by a powerful military chieftain was quite often a way of expanding a zamindari.

Statement B- Zamindars spearheaded the colonization of agricultural land and helped in settling cultivators by providing them with the means of cultivation, including cash loans.

The Zamindars:

Contemporary documents give an impression that conquest may have been the source of the origin of some zamindaris. The dispossession of weaker people by a powerful military chieftain was quite often a way of expanding a zamindari. It is, however, unlikely that the state would have allowed such a show of aggression by a zamindar unless he had been confirmed by an imperial order (sanad).

More important were the slow processes of zamindari consolidation, which are also documented in sources. These involved colonisation of new lands, by transfer of rights, by order of the state and by purchase. These were the processes which perhaps permitted people belonging to the relatively “lower” castes to enter the rank of zamindars as zamindaris were bought and sold quite briskly in this period.

A combination of factors also allowed the consolidation of clan- or lineage-based zamindaris. For example, the Rajputs and Jats adopted these strategies to consolidate their control over vast swathes of territory in northern India. Likewise, peasant-pastoralists (like the Sadgops) carved out powerful zamindaris in areas of central and southwestern Bengal.

Zamindars spearheaded the colonisation of agricultural land, and helped in settling cultivators by providing them with the means of cultivation, including cash loans. The buying and selling of zamindaris accelerated the process of monetisation in the countryside. In addition, zamindars sold the produce from their milkiyat lands.