page_title: Zamindar
hierarchical_section_title: Zamindar
caption_attribution_description: English: Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur GCSI
context_page_description: A zamindar, zomindar, zomidar, or jomidar, in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a state who accepted the suzerainty of the Emperor of Hindustan. The term means land owner in Persian. Typically hereditary, zamindars held enormous tracts of land and control over their peasants, from whom they reserved the right to collect tax on behalf of imperial courts or for military purposes.
  In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the advent of British imperialism, many wealthy and influential zamindars were bestowed with princely and royal titles such as Maharaja, Raja/ Rai and Nawab.
  During the Mughal Empire, zamindars belonged to the nobility and formed the ruling class. Emperor Akbar granted them mansabs and their ancestral domains were treated as jagirs. Under British colonial rule in India, the permanent settlement consolidated what became known as the zamindari system. The British rewarded supportive zamindars by recognising them as princes. Many of the region's princely states were pre-colonial zamindar holdings elevated to a greater protocol.
context_section_description: A zamindar, zomindar, zomidar, or jomidar,  in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a state who accepted the suzerainty of the Emperor of Hindustan. The term means land owner in Persian. Typically hereditary, zamindars held enormous tracts of land and control over their peasants, from whom they reserved the right to collect tax on behalf of imperial courts or for military purposes.
  In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the advent of British imperialism, many wealthy and influential zamindars were bestowed with princely and royal titles such as Maharaja (Great King), Raja/ Rai (King) and Nawab.
  During the Mughal Empire, zamindars belonged to the nobility and formed the ruling class. Emperor Akbar granted them mansabs and their ancestral domains were treated as jagirs. Under British colonial rule in India, the permanent settlement consolidated what became known as the zamindari system. The British rewarded supportive zamindars by recognising them as princes. Many of the region's princely states were pre-colonial zamindar holdings elevated to a greater protocol. However, the British also reduced the land holdings of many pre-colonial princely states and chieftaincy, demoting their status to a zamindar from previously higher ranks of nobility.
  The system was abolished during land reforms in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1950, India in 1951 and West Pakistan in 1959.
  The zamindars often played an important role in the regional histories of the subcontinent. One of the most notable examples is the 16th century confederation formed by twelve zamindars in the Bhati region (Baro-Bhuyans), which, according to the Jesuits and Ralph Fitch, earned a reputation for successively repelling Mughal invasions through naval battles. The confederation was led by a zamindar-king, Isa Khan, and included both Muslims and Hindus, such as Pratapaditya. The zamindars were also patrons of the arts. The Tagore family produced India's first Nobel laureate in literature in 1913, Rabindranath Tagore, who was often based at his estate. The zamindars also promoted neoclassical and Indo-Saracenic architecture.
caption: Sir Nawab Khwaja Salimullah was a zamindar with the title of Nawab.  His family's landholdings in Bengal were one of the largest and richest in British India.
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