The answer is Option 1 : Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation.
Here's why:
Assertion (A):The zamindars were primarily interested in collecting rent. This is true. The zamindars functioned as intermediaries between the government and the cultivators. Their income depended on the rent they collected from the cultivators.
Reason (R): The revenue settlement terms influenced this. This is also true. The Permanent Settlement, introduced by the British, fixed the land revenue that zamindars had to pay the government. This revenue amount remained fixed regardless of fluctuations in crop yields or famines. To ensure they could pay the fixed revenue, zamindars often put pressure on cultivators to extract maximum rent, even if it meant the cultivators struggled financially.
Therefore, both Assertion (A) and Reason (R) are true, and Reason (R) explains why the zamindars behaved that way.
Text from NCERT Book: The stagnation in the agricultural sector in India during colonial rule 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. To a very great extent, the terms of the revenue settlement were also responsible for the zamindars adopting such an attitude; dates for depositing specified sums of revenue were fixed, failing which the zamindars were to lose their rights. Besides this, low levels of technology, lack of irrigation facilities and negligible use of fertilisers, all added up to aggravate the plight of the farmers and contributed to the dismal level of agricultural productivity.
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