Role of zamindars during the Mughal period
i. Landed proprietors enjoyed social and economic privileges
ii. Elevated status as they performed khidmat for the state.
iii. Held extensive personal lands as milkiyat. They could sell, mortgage that land.
iv. Collect revenue on behalf of the state.
v. They controlled military resources also.
vi. Had fortresses and armed contingent.
vii. Were upper caste brahamans and had full control over village society.
viii. The dispossession of weaker people was a way of expanding zamindari.
ix. Few lower caste also entered into zamindari
x. Rajputs and jats adopted various strategies to consolidate power in north India.
xi. Zamindars spearheaded the colonization of agricultural lands and helped in settling cultivators.
xii. The buying and selling of zamindari accelerated the process of monetization in the countryside
xiii. In few cases zamindars came to be a exploitative class on peasantry section To be assessed as a whole.
