The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s7.9

c4.s7.9

The position in the Madras Presidency was not very different, even after all the disorganisation, dispossession and demolition of the period 1750-1800, during which the British made themselves masters of the whole area. As late as 1801, over 35% of the total cultivated land in the Ceded Districts (the present Rayalseema area and the Kannada District of Bellary) came under the category of revenue free assignments, and it was the task of Thomas Munro to somehow reduce this quantity to a mere 5% of the total cultivated land. The reduction intended in the Ceded Districts was also carried out in all other districts, earlier in some, and later in others, and in some, the dispossession of such vast numbers of assignees of revenue took a long time.