In Francis Buchanan's survey of the Dinajpur district in North Bengal, the class of rich peasants were known as _____.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Jotedars
Option (1) Zamindars — Incorrect. The zamindars were the landholders through whom the Company collected revenue; many of them were facing a crisis at the end of the eighteenth century, while the rich peasants were rising.
Option (2) Jotedars — Correct. Buchanan’s survey of Dinajpur describes the class of rich peasants known as jotedars. By the early nineteenth century they held vast areas of land, controlled local trade and moneylending, and exercised immense power over the poorer cultivators.
Option (3) Adhiyars — Incorrect. Adhiyars were sharecroppers who cultivated the jotedars’ land with their own ploughs and handed over half the produce after the harvest.
Option (4) Bargadars — Incorrect. Bargadars is another name for the same sharecroppers (adhiyars or bargadars), the poorer cultivators who worked for the jotedars.
Note: A same/similar question was asked in CUET (UG) in the papers below.
| 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| – | 19-05 S1 | – | 05-06 S1 06-06 S1 | 16-07 S1* |
* A similar question.
NCERT (2026-27): “1.4 The rise of the jotedars … In Francis Buchanan’s survey of the Dinajpur district in North Bengal we have a vivid description of this class of rich peasants known as jotedars. By the early nineteenth century, jotedars had acquired vast areas of land – sometimes as much as several thousand acres. They controlled local trade as well as moneylending, exercising immense power over the poorer cultivators of the region. A large part of their land was cultivated through sharecroppers (adhiyars or bargadars) who brought their own ploughs, laboured in the field, and handed over half the produce to the jotedars after the harvest.…” |