Ryotwari system ● The factors varied from farm to farm and region to region in both parts of India. ● Moreover, they are not a convincing argument for decentralization of the land revenue system in the South. ● Ryotwari was tried first on a small scale by Captain Alexander Rea d in some of the areas that were taken over by the Company after the wars with TipuSultan. ● Subsequently developed by Thomas Munro, this system was gradually extended all over south India. ● Read and Munro felt that in the south there were no traditional zamindars. ● The settlement, they argued, had to be made directly with the cultivators (ryots) who had tilled the land for generations. ● Their fields had to be carefully and separately surveyed before the revenue assessment was made. ● Munro thought that the British should act as paternal father figures protecting the ryots under their charge.