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North India: Encyclopedia BETAFree Encyclopedia |
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North India shows a fuller range of Caste (varna, literally"colour") variation than does South India – there are proportionately more kshatriya and vaishya castes than is generally the case in most areas of South India. In terms of religion, North India is generally speaking a stronghold of Vaishnava sects of Hinduism; Shaktism and Shaivism have a strong minority following in North India. Having been ruled for nearly eight centuries by Muslim invaders from Central Asia, North India is the main centre of Islam in India. North India also forms the heartland of the so-called "Cow Belt" of India, which stretches from Indo-Gangetic Plain towards other conservative states like Gujarat, where BJP is particularly efficient in politics and has its traditional support base. Traditional economy
North India largely retains a feudal agricultural setup, with a preponderence of tenant farmers as against South India or East India, where extensive land reforms and land redistribution policies over the second half of the 20th century put in place an equally bad system of small, fragmented land holdings being farmed by their owners, who are actually almost as impoverished as the tenant farmers of north India. Some of these differences stem from the later Mughal emperors' practice of relying on zamindars, or 'hereditary tax farmers', who collected taxes from rural communities in return for a percentage of the proceeds, and were granted certain administrative powers. The Zamindari system was never as prevalent in the south, as Mughal rule did not extend to much of the South. The British administrators of the Bengal Presidency (Eastern India) inherited and expanded upon the Zamindari system, while the Madras Presidency which governed much of south India, relied on panchayats, or village councils, for rural administration and tax collection. Although the zamindari system was formally abolished after India's independence, a rural economy dominated by landlords is still prevalent across much of northern India. Tensions between landlords and their tenant farmers are widespread in northern India, notably in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh; these tensions have given rise to landlord-tenant strife in several northern states, and has fueled Naxalite movements. See also* South India* North-East India * West India * East India * Hindi belt
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