Which of the following terms describes the rich peasant in the passag…

A research scholar studying a village in northern Bengal around 1800 finds that one rich peasant controls large stretches of land. Poorer cultivators of the village borrow money from him in hard seasons. When the harvest comes in, they hand their crop to him, and he takes it to the market and sells it. In the same area lives the old landholder of the estate. His estate faces a heavy revenue demand from the Company and the threat of an auction if he fails to pay on time.

Which of the following terms describes the rich peasant in the passage?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 3

The correct answer is Option (3) → Jotedar

Option (1) Munsif — Incorrect. A munsif was a judicial officer at the lower court. He heard cases; he was not a cultivator or a lender in the village.

Option (2) Lathyal — Incorrect. A lathyal was a strongman of the zamindar who wielded the lathi. He used force for the zamindar; he did not lend money or sell crops.

Option (3) Jotedar — Correct. A jotedar was a rich peasant who controlled local trade and moneylending. He gave loans to poorer ryots and sold their produce, as the peasant in the passage does.

Option (4) Proja — Incorrect. Proja means subjects. Ryots used the word for themselves as loyal subjects of their zamindar, so it names the ordinary tenants who saw the zamindar as their master.

NCERT (2026-27): “1.4 The rise of the jotedars
While many zamindars were facing a crisis at the end of the eighteenth century, a group of rich peasants were consolidating their position in the villages. 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.”