CNI ASSIGNMENT
IMPACT OF BRITISH RULE ON AGRICULTURE
STATE OF INDIAN AGRICULTURE IN PRE-COLONIAL
ERA
Agricultural operations were carried on in India by subsistence
farmers who were organized in small village communities.
Village was more or less a self-sufficient economic unit.
Villagers’ contacts with the outside world were restricted to
just revenue payments. Farmers used to grow only those crops
which they needed and used to share the same with the
artisans who supplied them with basic items that were needed
for basic consumption. Storage of food grains was a common
practice among the pre-colonial agriculturalists and constituted
under these conditions the only remedy against famines.
AGRICULTURE UNDER THE COLONIAL RULE
Agriculture was the main source of income for the Indian rulers
as well as the Britishers. However,
the colonial rule in India did not see much advancements in the
agricultural sector rather the British agrarian policies pursued in
India destroyed the prosperous agricultural economy and
brought unparalleled human misery on the people living in the
countryside. Even the plantation development policy of the
British in the field of tea, tobacco, jute and indigo could not
benefit the Indians. Let us now discuss about the several
agriculture related reforms carried out in India during the
Colonial rule.
DIWANI RIGHTS
Diwani rights over Bengal, Orissa and Bihar gave the East India
Company the most significant opportunity to replace British
bullion for trade in [Link] the grant of the diwani rights the
major concern of the East India Company was to collect as
much revenue as possible. Agriculture was the main source to
extract revenue from the Indians. However, the Company
officials paid no attention towards changing the agriculture
production methods. Farmers in villages were still dependent
on primitive methods of production with the most basic tools
available to them. The Britishers were not at all interested in
penetrating deep into the villages, their sole aim was just to
collect revenue from villages.
Although the native officials were in charge of revenue
collection, European officers of the company were given
supervisory authority over them, and their corruption and lack
of understanding of the local scenario led to complete
disorganization of the agrarian economy and the society within
a few years. The Bengal famine of 1769-70 proved to be
devastating as it killed almost one-third of the Bengal’s total
population. In 1772, a new farming system was introduced by
the newly appointed Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings. In
the next few years of the settlements, numerous experiments
were carried out but the farming system ultimately failed to
improve the situation. The revenue demands from the peasants
became so high that after a point it could not be collected at
[Link] whole period of experimentation led to the ruination of
the agricultural population.
PERMANENT LAND SETTLEMENT
In 1784, Lord Cornwallis was sent to India with the specific
mandate to streamline the revenue [Link]
realised that the existing system was impoverishing the country
and ruining agriculture and was not able to meet the
company’s demand of both revenue and raw materials.
So in the year 1793, Lord Cornwallis introduced the Permanent
Land Settlement in Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and was later
extended to parts of North Madras. The practical reason
behind introducing this system was the fact that it was easier to
collect revenue from a small number of zamindars rather than
collecting it from innumerable number of peasants , which
would require a large administrative
machinery and also it would ensure loyalty of a powerful class
of the local population.
Under the Permanent Land Settlement every bit of of land in
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa came under a ‘zamindari’ or estate.
The zamindar had to pay the tax fixed upon his estate. If did so,
then he was the owner of his zamindari, which gave him the
right to sell, mortgage and transfer his estate. But failure
to pay the revenue would lead to confiscation of the estate by
the government and its sale in the auction; the new purchaser
would then have the ownership right on it. Though this system
was ‘pro-zamindar’, they too had to face a number of
difficulties. The zamindars had to pay a fixed amount of
revenue by a particular date under the Sunset Law, failure to
which their estate was auction. They often found difficulties in
collecting revenue due to the natural uncertainties. Since the
amount of revenue was fixed the zamindars were expected to
invest in agriculture as they would have access to them after
the payment of [Link] entire burden of revenue ultimately
fell on the peasants. Permanent settlement could not be
extended to other parts of the country.
RYOTWARI SYSTEM
Besides the Permanent Settlement, the Ryotwari system was
introduced in Madras Presidency, it was later extended to
Assam, Sind and Coorg. This system was also known as the
‘Munro System’ as it was introduced by Sir Thomas
[Link] the ryotwari system, instead of collecting
revenue from the zamindars they started collecting revenue
directly from the villages. The amount to be paid by each
village was also fixed. After this they proceeded to assess each
ryot(cultivator) separately and thus evolved the Ryotwari
[Link] system created proprietary right in land, but it was
vested in the peasants, rather than the zamindars, for Munro
preferred it to be “in the hands of forty to fifty thousand small
proprietors, than four or five hundred great ones”. But this
system also made a significant distinction between public and
private ownership.
The Ryotwari system in order to be attractive and equitable,
required a detailed land survey: quality of soil, the area of the
field and the average produce of every piece of land had to be
assessed and on the basis of that the amount of review was to
be fixed. But in reality the situation was completely different as
the estimates were often a guesswork and the revenue
demands were often so high that they could only be collected
with great difficulty or the revenue could not be collected at all.
The peasants were forced to agree to these unjust
[Link] Colin Munro departed for London around 1807
and soon after that the Ryotwari system was abandoned. But
around 1820 when Munro returned to India as the governor of
Madras. He argued that the ryotwari was the ancient Indian
land tenure system and therefore best suited for the Indian
system. He believed that the British empire needed a unified
concept of sovereignty and Ryotwari system could provide a
foundation for that.
MAHALWARI SYSTEM
When the two land settlements i.e. Permanent Settlement and
the Ryotwari system were being worked out, vast stretches of
territory in North and north-western India were overrun
between 1801 and 1806. This region, which was once
considered as the heartland of the Mughal Empire stretching
from the Himalayan foothills to the Central Indian plateau,
including the Ganga- jamuna doab, formed the North Western
Province. In the agrarian structure of this region, there was on
the one hand, a small group of magnates known as taluqdars.
On the other hand, large group of “ primary zamindars” who
were the “holders of proprietary rights over agricultural and
habitational lands”. The village pradhans became contact
points for revenue collection, this resulted in inaccurate
surveys and over assessment of revenue. High land revenues,
mounting debt and dispossession became a common part of
the lives of common villagers. This led to forced sale of land
which changed the composition of village communities. Due to
which the number of landless peasants also increased.
COMMERCIALISATION OF AGRICULTURE
The new land settlements discussed above, brought about a
revolution in the property relations. Along with this, a
commercial revolution known as commercialization of
agriculture, began to take shape in Indian agricultural sector
around the 1860s. This meant that the agricultural produce was
oriented towards a market i.e. agriculture became a marketed
commodity. There were several factors which contributed
towards the commercialization of agriculture in British India.
These factors include the following :
1. Rapid development of railways occurred in this period.
2. After the opening of Suez Canal in 1869, the sea route
between India and England was shortened by 3000 miles
and brought the two countries closer for the purpose of
trade.
3. Due to the Civil war in North America, the British demand
for raw cotton was shifted from North America to India,
which consequently led to an increase in the export of raw
cotton from India after 1862.
As a result of all these factors there was a phenomenal increase
in export of agricultural goods from India. The total value of
export went up more than five hundred per cent from 1859-60
to 1906-07.
However the impact of commercialization of agriculture was far
reaching, it led to scarcity of [Link] was because of the
increasing demand of cash crops such as jute, cotton, indigo,
etc. Which was met by substitution of commercial crops for
traditional food [Link] shifted quickly to commercial
crops as these crops increased their profits. Commercialization
of agriculture also led to differentiation among the farmers.
Only a small proportion of farmers who had the resources
successfully shifted to commercial crops. However, one of the
positive impact was that regional specialization grew and
villages were no longer isolated rather they were now
connected with the global market. But on the whole Indian
agriculture could not benefit completely from the
commercialization process.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, agrarian system and policies pursued by the British
made the agricultural sector stagnant, peasants were indebted,
people at large scale died due to starvation. The revenue
collections went up, prices of food-grain declined, indebtedness
in the rural area increased and the rural economy was
depressed. Agricultural surplus was the sole aim of the
Britishers as its direct consequences were impoverishment of
the peasantry and stagnation of rural economy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bandhopadhyay, S.(2015 revised edition From
Plassey to Partition and After: A History of
Modern India. New Delhi: Orient Longman,
pp. 54- 70
Sarkar, S. (1983) Modern India(1885-1947).
New Delhi: Macmillan
Chandra, B(1999) Essays on Colonialism,
Hyderabad: Orient Longman
NAME: PRIYA BERRY
COURSE: BA(HONS) POLITICAL SCIENCE
SECTION: SEMESTER 1B
FORM NO: 233510267800
SUBJECT: COLONIALISM AND
NATIONALISM IN INDIA
SUBMITTED TO: [Link] KONWAR
