AJMER - MERWARA DISTRICT in RAJPUTANA 1875 / 1949

The Istimrari or Istimrardari estates were small feudal states (originally jagirs) in the 17th and 18th century Rajputana. The Istimrari chieftains paid tribute to their masters but were not compelled to participate in wars unless called upon by their respective chiefs. In the Indian feudal system of 17th and 18th century, there were 66 Istimraris in Rajputana. The Istimrari estates were originally only Jagirs, held under obligation of military service. The Marathas, however, who found it impolitic to encourage the warlike tendencies of their Rajput vassals, commuted this obligation for a fixed tribute.

Source: Imperial gazetteer of India: provincial series, Volume 23, page 474.

These 66 estates, comprise 240 villages, with an area of 819,523 acres. The istimrari revenue is Rs. 1,14,734-9-11, and the estimated rent-roll of the istimrardars is Rs. 5,60,000. In 60 estates, all held by Rajputs, the custom of primogeniture now prevails. Of these, however, only 11 are original fiefs, the remainder having been formed by sub-division in accordance with the rules of inheritance. The situation now is that younger sons are granted a well and a few bighas only for the term of their life, and in smaller estates, even that is not available to younger sons. In the remaining six estates, each of a single village, five of these are held by coparcenary bodies and succession is regulated by ancestral shares, and both land and revenue are minutely divided. These five estates were stated by kanungos in the time of Mr. Cavendish to be khalsa villages, and they should not have been included in the list. One belongs to Charans or Bhats, and was originally separated from the istimrari estate of Bhinai.

The other estates are the bhum holdings, 109 in number, and in spite of there being various kinds of bhum, they all had the following in common, viz. that a hereditary, non-resumable, and inalienable property in the soil was inseparably bound up with a revenue-free title. Bhum was given as 'mundkati' or compensation for bloodshed, in order to quell a feud, for distinguished services on the battlefield, for protection of a border, or for watch and ward of a village. The property is inherited by all children equally. Most of the Bhumias are Rathores with only a small number belonging to Rajput clans who ruled Ajmer in former days, the Chauhan, Parmar and Gaurs Rajputs. The duties of the Bhumias were threefold, firstly, to protect the village in which the bhum is, and the village cattle from theft by dacoits, secondly, to protect the property of travellers within their village from theft and robbery, and thirdly, to indemnify financially, victims of a crime which the Bhumia should have prevented.