The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c22.65

v4.c22.65

The system of annual village assessments which has been described above persisted up to the end of the Muslim period, and was adopted just at first by the British administration in northern India. Nothing further need be said therefore regarding the assessment of the revenue: the historical interest of the remainder of the period lies in the changes which took place among the intermediaries, and the transformation of a heterogeneous mass of chiefs, farmers, and grantees into a class which in the British period was to become a homogeneous body of landholders. The main factors in this change were the decline in the practice of assignment, the extension of farming, and the strengthening of the position of the chiefs.