Land control and social structure in Indian History/edited by Robert Eric Frykenberg

The complex socio-political and economic structure of life on the Indian subcontinent has been confused by centuries of accretion in overlapping terminology. It has been further distorted by persistent Western attempts to reduce it to Western frames of reference. Above all, the Western concept of land ‘ownership’ as a permanent and legally recorded holding of specified pieces of ‘real estate’ as property has been quite alien to India. In Indian, ability to ‘hold’, ‘possess’ or ‘rule’ a piece of land or territory, including its inhabitants, or at least a ‘share’ of its produce, was traditionally determined by one’s family or caste status, and by holding actual political power, without which no one could expect to retain possession for long. Security in the ‘holding’ or tenure of land in India, therefore, has been more immediately political than in the West and has depended largely upon status and power.