ryotwar

Definitions

noun The stipulated arrangement in regard to land-revenue or -rent made annually in parts of India, especially in the Madras presidency, by the government officials with the ryots or actual cultivators of the soil, and not with the village communities, or any landlord or middleman.

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The term 'ryotwar' (raiyatwâr) is commonly used to designate the system under which the cultivators hold their lands direct from the State.

Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official William Sleeman 1822
Further south, in the Madras government, where the ryotwar settlement is in full operation, the land "would be sold" for balances of rent, but "generally it is not," as we are told, "and for a very good reason, viz. that nobody will buy it."

The slave trade, domestic and foreign Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished 1836
There are, however, some tax-free lands that may he set off against those held under the ryotwar settlement; and it is therefore possible that the whole are worth four years 'purchase, which would give 288 millions of dollars, or 60 millions of pounds sterling, as the value of all the rights in land acquired by the people of India by all the labour of their predecessors and themselves in the many thousands of years it has been cultivated.

The slave trade, domestic and foreign Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished 1836