A revenue official in a seventeenth-century village of the Mughal empire makes a list of the people who work its fields. He finds that they are far from alike. Some families cultivate their own plots with their own ploughs and bullocks. Others own almost nothing and work on the fields of others for a small share of grain or a daily wage. A student reading his notes years later wants to place these different people within what historians know about rural society in this period.
Which term was used for those people in the passage who tilled the land as menials or agricultural labourers?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Majur
Option (1) Raiyat — Incorrect. Raiyat was a general word for peasants. It covered cultivators as a whole.
Option (2) Khud-kashta — Incorrect. Khud-kashta were peasants who lived in the village and cultivated their own land. They fit the families with their own ploughs and bullocks.
Option (3) Pahi-kashta — Incorrect. Pahi-kashta were non-resident cultivators who tilled land in another village. They were cultivators in their own right.
Option (4) Majur — Correct. A sizeable number of those who tilled the land worked as menials or agricultural labourers, called majur. The people who work others' fields for grain or a wage are these labourers.
NCERT (2026-27): “2.1 Caste and the rural milieu |