ABSTRACT
In the years before the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1858, the influence of the English Utilitarian philosophers on Indian revenue systems reached its height. After 1852, in keeping with the government’s declared policy of protecting the interests of the smallholder, the ryotwari system was introduced into Lower Burma. Although Thomas Munro had not been the first to apply the ryotwari system, he became its chief proponent in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Lower Burma seemed to provide ideal conditions for the successful functioning of a tenure system based on the peasant proprietor. In India high caste groups, like the mirasidars of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, had gained considerable advantage from the ryotwari arrangement through collusion with indigenous revenue officials and by exercising their traditional control over lower caste cultivators and laborers. Buddhist inheritance laws were initially the only element in the indigenous society which posed a serious threat to the success of the ryotwari system in Lower Burma.
