Consider the following statements about agrarian relations during the Mughal times:

1. Muzarian refers to the peasants.

2. Pahi-Kashta was the residents of the village in which they held their lands.

3. Peasant lands could not be bought and sold.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• The term, which the Indo-Persian sources of the Mughal period most frequently used to denote a peasant, was Raiyat (plural, Riaya) or Muzarian. In addition, we also encounter the terms Kisan or Asami.

• Sources of the seventeenth century refer to two kinds of peasants – Khud-Kashta and Pahi-Kashta. The former were the residents of the village in which they held their lands. The latter were non-resident cultivators, who belonged to some other village, but cultivated lands elsewhere on a contractual basis. People became Pahi-Kashta either out of choice – for example, when terms of revenue in a distant village were more favourable – or out of compulsion – for example, forced by economic distress after a famine.

• Cultivation was based on the principle of individual ownership. Peasant lands were bought and sold in the same way as the lands of other property owners.