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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

State the structure of medieval village society in Northern India. What were the passive forms of resistance of the peasants in the medieval period?

  • UPSC 2012
  • Economy and Society in the 16th and 17th Centuries

The medieval village in Northern India was never an undifferentiated mass of subsistence cultivators — it was a finely graded hierarchy of residence, caste and office, and when its members chose to resist oppressive demands, they mostly did so not through open revolt but through everyday, low-visibility acts.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Privileged Resident Cultivators: Khud-kasht and Riyayati
  • The Ordinary Cultivators: Raiyati and Their Tenancies
  • Migrant Cultivators: The Pahis
  • Intermediary Zamindars and the Village Service Communities
  • Passive Forms of Peasant Resistance
  • Flight and Migration (Palayan)
  • …and 3 more sections, with a conclusion

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