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• Ryotwari settlement was introduced in Bombay Deccan as a new revenue system.
In this system, revenue was directly settled with cultivator or ryot. Average income
from soil, revenue paying capacity of ryot was assessed and proportion of it was
fixed as share of the state. In this system, there was provision for resurvey of land
every 30 years.

Revenue Demand and Peasant Debt:

• Revenue demand was very high and when harvest were poor, it was impossible to
pay When peasant failed to pay revenue his crops were seized and fine was
imposed on the whole village. In 1830’s, prices fell sharply, famine struck and due
to this l/3rd of cat tle in deccan were killed and half of human population died. So
the problem became very severe, but the unpaid revenue mounted. In these
conditions many peasants deserted their village and migrated to new places.
• To get over a troubled period, to purchase things for arrange marriages and to
start agriculture, peasant needed money. So they borrowed money from
moneylender. But once loan was taken, they were unable to pay it back. As debt
mounted and loan remained unpaid, peasant dependence on moneylender
increased.
• By 1840’s, officials found that peasants were in alarming level of indebtness, so
they moderated the revenue demand slightly. By 1845, agricultural price
recovered steadily and peasants started expanding cultivation. But for the purpose
of expansion they needed money to buy seeds etc, so they again turned to
moneylender for money.

The Experience of Injustice of the Peasants:

• Peasants got deeper and deeper into debt and now they were utterly dependent
on moneylender for survival but now moneylenders were refusing their loan. Along
with this, there was customary rule that interest charged cannot be more than
principal amount of loan. But in colonial rule this law was broken and now ryots
started to see money lenders as devious and deceitful. They complained of
moneylenders manipulating laws and forging accounts.
• To tackle this problem, British in 1859 passed Limitation Law that stated that loan
bond would have validity for 3 years only.
• It was meant to check accumulation of interest. But moneylenders now forced ryot
to sign a new bound every 3 years in which total unpaid balance of last loan was
entered as principal amount and interest was charged on it.
• In petitions to Deccan Riots commission, ryots
• stated how moneylenders were suppressing and oppressing them by refusing to
give receipts when loan were paid back, entered fictitious figures in bond and
forced them to sign and put thumb impression on bonds or document about which
they had no idea and they were not able to read. Money lenders also acquired the
harvest at low price and ultimately took over property of peasant. They have no
choice because to survive they needed
• loan but inoneylenders were not willing to give it without bonds.