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Zamindars of Madras Presidency In British India 1929 – Old Photo
This is an old photo that shows a Zamindar with male family members of his large family and attendants. The photograph is from the colonial era of 1929. The term Zamindar in Persian means landowner. They hereditarily held vast stretches of provincial land and had the right to collect taxes under a sovereign ruler. The East India Company as the de facto rulers until 1857 conferred aristocratic titles of either- Raja, Rai, Nawabs, and so on to the Zamindars. This was mainly to gain their trust in collecting taxes on the East India Company’s behalf.
This system applied mainly to the British Presidency regions of Bengal and Madras. The Madras Presidency’s zamindari system ceased to function after 1852 for some reason. Nonetheless few of them survived until 1947 whence the zamindari system was abolished altogether. One of them that did survive is as shown in this photo a Zamindar of the Madras Presidency of 1929. Read about- Step inside this 800-year-old palace in Coimbatore for a date with royalty.
Did you know- before colonial rule famines in the country were almost unheard of, it was only after the arrival of the British there were countless numbers of famine in the country.
From the collection- Old Postcard – Railway Station & Steam Locomotive, Belgaum., Antique Photo Calcutta’s Old Howrah Bridge 1900., 1964 M. Suriyamoorthy Charcoal Art Abstract (#15)., Antique Print Bombay The Monsoon Floods., Antique Plan – Taking of The City of Cochin 1744
