Land control and social structure in indian history / edited by Robert Eric Frykenberg

In this volume whose first edition won wide scholarly acclaim in India, nine distinguished historians of India re-examine what is paps the central problem in Ind history. The complex social and economic structure of life on the subcontinent has been confused by centuries of accretion in overlapping terminology. It has been further distorted by the persistent Western attempts to reduce it to a Western frame of preference. Above all the Western concept of land "ownership" as a permanent and legally guaranteed holding of property by an individual has been quite alien in India. An Indian has traditionally had reason to expect a "share", determined by his family and caste, of what he produced but he did not expect to retain possession of the same produce or of the land season after season. For him security in land tenure has been more immediately political than it has been for the Westerner, and has depended upon his status.