Terminology
Use of the term feudalism to describe India applies a concept of medieval European origin, according to which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection. The term Indian feudalism is an attempt to classify Indian history according to a European model.
Historians have become very reluctant to classify other societies into European models and today it is rare for Indian history to be described as feudal by academics; it still done in popular usage, however, but only for pejorative reasons to express disfavour, typically by critics. These include zamindar, jagir, deshmukh, chaudhary and samanta. Most of these "systems" were abolished after the independence of India and the rest of the Subcontinent, but most still exist, officially or in its remnants. D. D. Kosambi and R. S. Sharma, together with Daniel Thorner, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time.
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