The Summary Settlement of 1856 was based on which one of the following assumptions?

The Summary Settlement of 1856 was the first British land revenue settlement introduced in Awadh immediately following its annexation. This policy was driven by the 'School of Utilitarianism' and a desire to establish direct relations with the actual cultivators. The British administration operated under the specific assumption that the Talukdars were interlopers with no permanent stakes in the land [1]. The British believed that Talukdars had acquired their vast estates through force, fraud, and the exploitation of the declining Mughal authority rather than through legitimate hereditary ownership [2]. Consequently, the settlement aimed to remove these intermediaries wherever possible, leading to a significant dispossession of Talukdari lands. Before the annexation, Talukdars held approximately 67% of the villages in Awadh, but this figure dropped significantly to about 38% following the implementation of the 1856 settlement [2].

Sources

1. [2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/44158846
2. [1] THEMES IN INDIAN HISTORY PART III, History CLASS XII (NCERT 2025 ed.) > Chapter 10: REBELS AND THE RAJ > The Nawab has left > p. 268