Read the passage and answer the question that follows by choosing the most appropriate option -
A self-sufficient village, based on agriculture carried on with primitive plough and bullock-power and handicrafts created by means of simple instruments, was a basic feature of pre-British Indian society. The self-sufficient village as the basic economic unit had existed for centuries in India and, except for some minor modifications, had survived till the advent of the British rule, in spite of all political convulsions, religious upheavals and devastating wars. It stood impregnable in the face of all foreign invasions, dynastic changes, all violent territorial shifting in inter-state struggles. Kingdoms rose and collapsed but the self-sufficient village survived. The village communities are little republics having nearly everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last within themselves where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds revolution. Hindu, Pathan, Moghul, Maratha, Sikh, English are all masters in turn; but the village communities remain the same. The village population was mainly composed of peasants. The village committee, representing the village community which was the de facto owner of the village land, distributed this land among the peasant families in the form of holdings. Each holding was cultivated by the peasant family by means of the collective labour of its members and with the aid of the primitive plough and bullocks. The peasant family enjoyed a traditional hereditary right to possess and cultivate its holding from generation to generation.