Jotedar

Jotedars, also known as Hawladars, Ganitdars, Jwaddars, or Mandals, were landlords or, they can be well-to-do ryots, wealthy peasants who exercised control and influence comparable to that of a Zamindar but they were perceived as significantly below them in social strata in agrarian Bengal during Company rule in India. Jotedars owned relatively extensive tracts of land; their land tenure status stood in contrast to those of poor ryots and bargadars (sharecroppers), who were landless or land-poors. Many Hindu Jotedars in West Bengal were from the Bhadralok community, members of Hindu upper-castes of Bengal such as Kayastha, Brahmin, etc. Many Muslim Jotedars were from an Ashraf or Khandani family background, belonging the elite nobility of Bengali Muslims who descended from settled foreigners such as the Afghans, Mughals, Arabs, Persians, Turks and North Indian Immigrants. These socially high-standing Hindu and Muslim Jotedars who were not actually peasants had adopted the de jure status of ryot (peasant) solely for the financial benefit that the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 afforded to ryots, in addition due to consideration of the claim that Jotedars were got more freedoms and powers then Zamindars. Others belonged to the intermediate landowning peasant castes such as Sadgops, Aguris, Mahishyas, Rajbongshis, Shershahabadia and the rural, less educated Brahmins.^[1] By the 1920s a gentrified fraction of Jotedars emerged from the more prosperous peasants among the tribes such as Santhals and the Scheduled Castes such as the Bagdi and the Namasudras^[1] Jotedars were in actual control of village land and economy for a long period of time in history.^[2]

Jotedars were pitted against in the Naxalite movement.^[3][4]

References

1. Iqbal, I. (2010). The Bengal Delta: Ecology, State and Social Change, 1840-1943. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-230-23183-2.
2. Guha, Ayan (2022-09-26). The Curious Trajectory of Caste in West Bengal Politics: Chronicling Continuity and Change. BRILL. pp. 141–142. ISBN 978-90-04-51456-0.
3. "The Naxalite Movement that was Not in Naxalbari". Mainstream. Retrieved 2016-04-30.
4. "Naxalbari revisited". The Times of India. Retrieved 2016-04-30.